New Glyphs

The gylph artwork might benefit from a lil more variety too.

In the most recent beta build, the new glyph system came online.

Most of the details about this are pretty well documented and haven't varied much from what was advertised.

• There are three levels of glyphs: major, minor, and prime
• If you go down to the AH and buy a glyph, you read it once and then you know it for all time. You will never need to buy another.
• The Glyph UI system lists every glyph you could possibly use, but lights up the glyphs you have learned. So, it is possible to be very specific about what you can use and what you need to complete your glyph collection.
• You can change any of your glyphs at any time, in any place, so long as you are not in combat.

Some of the details are becoming more apparent, however, as we look at the system:

• Minor glyphs are just what they always were, fun, cosmetic, mosly inconsequential.
• Major glyphs seem to be existing for talent abilities (not trained abilities) and a variety of utility abilities. All of these are along the lines of reducing cooldowns, making a range a bit further, things like that.
• The Prime glyphs are where the dps is at (or bigger heals, or whatever). All of these glyphs are crit increases, an extra percent of damage, or a longer DoT effect.

All things considered, the new UI design is pretty nice. The concept of adjusting your glyphs to match specific needs in a situation are really cool. And basically learning a glyph once is pretty neat too. But there is one big glaring problem:

Need moar glyphs! 

My first try with glyphs has been on Eridar. There are exactly nine prime glyphs for mages... three for each tree. I can switch out glyphs as I need them except... I have three glyphs to choose from, and three slots to use. No choice! Boo! Unless I want my fire mage to use Glyph of Icebolt for some reason.

Among the major glyphs, there are only two glyphs for a fire mage: Glyph of Blast Wave and Glyph of Dragon's Breath.  After that, you're looking for utility possibilities.

Over on Merinna, things are slightly better for Shamans.  Among prime glyphs, I have four fairly viable options, and maybe five decent choices among the majors. Even though some of these glyphs turn into some pretty convoluted math to figure out what they do.

There are a number of missing glyphs in here, though we can probably figure out why. On today's live server, Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave has turned into beta's resto Shaman talent Nature's Blessing (it was even nerfed for your pleasure). I guess they are still thinking about what a new glyph for LHW is going to do. Maybe it'll give me back that last 5%.