WoW Happenings: Priest Inscriptions just in on Wrath beta

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Priest Inscriptions

via A Dwarf Priest by dwarfpriest on 8/8/08

Some of the priest spell inscriptions went live with the latest patch on the WotLK beta.

What are inscriptions?

Inscriptions are items crafted with the new profession in WotLK called …. Inscription. Every player will have six open Inscription "sockets" in their spell book (2 for major inscriptions, 2 for minor inscriptions, and 2 for lesser inscriptions). You will be able to purchase inscriptions scrolls (called "glyphs") on the auction house and put them in your spellbook sockets. Similar to gems, they last until they are replaced.

Priest Glyphs

More to come soon. Most of the listed glyphs below are major and minor glyphs.

The Good

Glyph of Renew - Increases the duration of your Renew by 3 sec.
Fantastic for raid healing.

Glyph of Circle of Healing - Your Circle of Healing spell heals 1 additional target.
Tremendous increase to priest healing ability in raids, provided CoH isn't given too long a cooldown.

Glyph of Dispel Magic - Your Dispel Magic also heals your target for 3% of maximum health if it removes a damaging effect.
There seems to be a good amount of dispelling being done in raids. Free heals! Awesome for PvP, too.

Glyph of Mass Dispel - Reduces the mana cost of Mass Dispel by 20%.
Awesome for PvP.

Glyph of Mind Flay - Increases the range of your Mind Flay spell by 5 yards but it no longer reduces the target's movement speed.
The range of Mind Flay is very limiting for raiding. The bonus 5 yards bring the range up to 29 yards. It's an improvement, but still leaves shadow priests below that 30 yard threshold.

Glyph of Fade - Attacks made against you while Fade is active have a 10% chance to refresh its duration back to full.
Go go shadow PvP!

Glyph of Smite - Increases the chance you'll resist spell interruption when casting your Smite spell by 50%.
Laugh if you must, but this is a godsend for priests who insist on leveling/soloing holy/disc.

Glyph of Psychic Scream - Increases the duration of your Psychic Scream by 3 sec.
Another bonus for shadow PvP. Thank goodness for horrify effects!

The Bad

Glyph of Shadow Word: Death - Targets below 35% health take an additional 5% damage from your Shadow Word: Death spell.
So, this is a DPS bonus of *drumroll* … less than 0.5%. This could be a lot better.

Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain - Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain by 3 sec.
You don't need this for raids. You shouldn't need this for soloing. SW:P gets dispelled in PvP. What is this glyph good for?

Glyph of Lightwell - Increases the amount healed by your Lightwell by 6%.
Lightwell is still underwhelming on the beta servers. An increase of 6% healing to an ability used zero times gives us a whopping increase of … zero healing! Brilliant!

Glyph of Fear Ward - Reduces cooldown and duration of Fear Ward by 30 sec.
There are better options for PvP glyphs, and this has little use in soloing/raids.

Glyph of Flash Heal - Your Flash Heal has a 50% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Greater Heal by 0.3 sec.
WotLK gives us more healing spells. Would we be using Flash Heal enough to get good use out of this glyph? Hell no! Especially not in PvP.

Glyph of Shackle Undead - Extends the range on Shackle Undead by 5 yards.
The range on Shackle Undead has never been much of a problem for me.

Glyph of Mind Control - Increases the duration of your Mind Control spell by 12 sec.
This doesn't appear to work in PvP (doh!) and CC with Mind Control in PvE is usually not much of a problem at its current length. This glyph will have situation use in certain WotLK dungeons, but not very frequently.

Glyph of Inner Fire - Your Inner Fire has 10 additional charges.
Fluffy soloing glyph! Because this is such a bitch to put up? Okay, okay, not terrible in PvP, but there are much better glyphs for it.

Glyph of Holy Nova - Your Holy Nova spell heals for an additional 30%, but deals 10% less damage.
Much better healing spells and healing glyphs out there.

Glyph of Prayer of Healing - Increases the radius of your Prayer of Healing spell by 5 yards.
Not really necessary. Most priests will already have the range-increasing talent if they are deep holy.

The Ugly

Glyph of Spirit of Redemption - Critical heals cast while Spirit of Redemption is active increase the remaining duration of Spirit of Redemption by 4 sec.
Okay, this is a chance of getting a bonus heal or two provided you are dead. I don't like things that depend on you dying to benefit from. There are better glyphs for PvP and PvE.

Glyph of Mind Soothe - Increases the duration of your Mind Soothe spell by 5 sec.
Mind Sooth lasts 15 seconds already! Yeah…. I think this one leaves me speechless.

Standard disclaimer: Priest inscriptions have been on the live beta servers less than 15 minutes when I wrote this post. Bug fixes, changes, and other additions are surely in the works.