Untill patch 3.1 bears really didn’t have a lot to choose from in the terms of glyphs. I personally ran around with two bear glyphs and a cat glyph because I would DPS heroics to make money in my spare time (this was the time before dual specs). Even without giving my full attention to getting all bear glyphs, I main tanked every boss encounter, and still have up into Ulduar (Although we have no finished yet.) Now with dual specing however, you CAN give your full attention to one aspect or the other, and with the new glyphs that are out, it is very helpful to be able to focus on a particular job.
Please Note: I am including every glyph that effects an ability you would use at a bear, even if it’s not useful, so that you don’t waste your money and time on a worthless glyph.
MAJORS
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration: This glyph increases healing done to you while having Frezied Regeneration up by 30%. As a tank, extra healing power equals you living longer most of the time, and usually if you have popped this ability, you’re in trouble, so anything that will extend the duration of you living is always a plus. This is even more powerful if you actually have healers that do what they are supposed to and have HoTs ticking on you at all times, as this will increase their effects as well, but none the less, if you have a disc Priest or a holy Paladin just booming their cast heals into you, it is still pretty effective.
Glyph of Mangle: Now that this glyph increases mangle damage by 10%, it’s not a terrible glyph. It’ll help your soloing, and also, help you with threat.
Glyph of Barkskin: This glyph reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 25% while barkskin is active. Again this glyph is pretty awful for bears As any feral druid, you should spec into Survival of the Fittest; not only does it increase all of your stats, and increases armor, but it also makes you over defense cap, and being defense cap, YOU WILL NEVER BE CRIT WITHOUT A DEBUFF ON YOU. Now, if you do happen to have a debuff on you that reduces your defense you should always have an off tank ready to taunt off you. The only time this would be of any use for a bear is if your offtank goes down and you have a decrease defense buff, you could probably sit through it, but there are so few mobs that have that ability that you can use better glyphs no doubt.
Glyph of Berserk: This glyph increases the duration on Berserk by 5 seconds. Berserk as you all should know, for bears, eliminates the cooldown of mangle completely for the duration of Berserk, and also allows you to Mangle three adjacent mobs (You can also increase the damage done while in Berserk if you spec into King of the Jungle.) For bear, as for cat, I cant see this being very viable for PvE. Berserk is a nice to burst your threat, or nuke mobs, but an extra 5 seconds is only going to buy you about 3 Global cooldowns of Mangle, which by my standards, just isn’t cutting it. Just the uptime that you’d be using this should be a turn off, if you pop this ability every time it is up in an hour that would be an extra minute and a half-ish of Berserk.
Glyph of Survival Instincts: This glyph increases the amount of health you get when you use Survival Instincts by 15% of your maximum health, making you Survival Instincts grant you 45% instead of just 30% of your max health. This glyph is HUGE. Survival Instincts and Barkskin have saved me so many times in encounters that we have to have a cooldown rotation between myself and my healers (examples: 3D Sarth, Mimiron). Being able to increase the cusion that your healers have to keep you up is amazing. Just to give you some numbers, back in Ulduar, with Kings, Imp Mark of the Wild, and Fort, I had around 41k health. Popping Survival instincts unglyphed: 53,300hp Glyphed: 59,450hp, so for me it’s a gain of 7,150hp during that time.
Glyph of Growl: This glyph increases the chance of your Growl to hit by 8%. This glyph is pretty useful since taunting can save your group. A lot of tank gear does not have hit, so you have quite a bit of hit to make up to be capped (17% / 16% with a Draenei). Good thing to note, a lot of the trash / bosses in Ulduar, ICC have tank switching mechanics, so being able to have your Growl hit every time, it makes things go a lot more smooth.
Glyph of Maul: This glyph allows you to hit an extra mob with Maul. This glyph is A MUST HAVE. This will help you a ton keeping aggro on trash and multiple boss mobs. The only thing you have to really worry about is keeping away from CCed mobs, as it will break it if it hits it.
MINORS
Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth: This glyph allows you to use Rebirth without a reagent. This is extremely useful so that you never have to exuse “I forgot my nuts!”, and you have a few places free in your bags because you no longer have to carry the reagent around.
Glyph of the Wild: This glyph lowers the mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 50%. Not a super strong glyph, but it makes things move faster after a wipe or if someone dies and you rebirth them and need to apply the buff to them without the hastle of drinking, or waiting for mana to regen.
Glyph of Thorns: This glyph increase the duration of Thorns by an extra 50 minutes when applied to yourself, (increasting the duration to an hour.) The extra damage helps a ton to keep aggro, so this is always nice to put on yourself, and with the extra time, you wont have to keep applying it to yourself.
Glyph of Challenging Roar: This Glyph reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar by 30 seconds. Challenging Roar is a 3 minute ability, so this glyph reduces it to a 2.5 minute cooldown. I personally do not use Challenging Roar often, but if you seem to use this ability often, I would pick this up.
My Personal Picks:
Majors:
- Glyph of Maul
- Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
- Glyph of Growl
Glyph that almost made the cut:
Glyph of Growl: Only use this if you find yourself missing quite a bit, I have a bit of hit, so this isn’t as useful as it once was.
Minor:
- Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
- Glyph of Thorns
- Glyph of the Wild
If you do find yourself wanting the Challenging Roar glyph, I’d replace Glyph of the Wild with Glyph of Challenging Roar.
