Tuesday, February 10, 2015

My Favorite Raiding Glyph

Let's talk about glyphs. Frankly, let's talk about anything other than how the three specs sim and which talents we should take. For good reasons, that's about all the hunter community has been discussing since the launch of WoD. Now that we can play any spec we want, and have more talent options than any time I can remember, I feel ready to talk about something else.

I really like Glyph of Endless Wrath. I love Glyph of Deterrence. But hands down my favorite glyph for raiding is Glyph of Animal Bond. I've talked to many hunters who don't use it. The reasoning is always along the lines of, "It doesn't do anything for my abilities, so why bother?" And yes, it is more fun to enhance one's personal game play. But it's also pretty damn fun to down bosses, and Glyph of Animal Bond is amazing for downing bosses. A 10% increase to all your healing received is going to really add up over the course of a boss fight. At least for me it does. When I'm learning a new fight (or new role in it) I will end up in the bad stuff at some point. I don't think I've survived Tectus yet without a battle res. And even if you're way better at avoiding damage than I am, so many fights have unavoidable, raid-wide damage. At those times, when your healers are doing everything they can to just get the group through a high damage phase, the extra 10% healing could mean the difference between life or death. It will at least give your healers a little extra breathing room. And that's never a bad thing.

To me, this is the real cost of going with Lone Wolf for your level 100 talent. Now, my inherent bias toward the talent is well documented, but that's not what I'm talking about today. I have actually backed off a bit and have used LW in raids a few times. It turns out I'd rather not have a pet then have a long cast time Focusing Shot. I'm trying to like FS, but that's a topic for another time. But when a hunter chooses Lone Wolf they are not going to get the benefit from Glyph of Animal Bond. I really, really hate giving that up in a raid. Any time I consider going Lone Wolf for a fight I ask myself if I should give up that extra healing. If my group needs to squeeze out every drop of damage we can to beat a timer, it's probably worth it. On the other hand, if your healers are struggling to keep up and your group's damage is in a good spot, Lone Wolf might not be your best choice. It will depend on your specific situation, but for me, more often than not the healing benefits of Glyph of Animal Bond are more useful than the 1k dps increase I get from using Lone Wolf.

2 comments:

  1. What 1k dps increase? You tag the blog with Survival, but LW is a DPS loss for Survival. Either way, I also love GoAB. It is what convinced me to swap to FS originally. Your dislike for FS though, we have to help you get over that!

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  2. For me LW sims about 1k higher than Exotic Munitions. I really, really don't like Focusing Shot. But I'm trying to.

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