Medium glyphs and DPS?

Minor glyphs are fine in our opinion. They weren't intended to offer power and they are certainly much more flexible than major glyphs. Some classes need some better minor glyphs though (e.g. warlock).

Medium glyphs are the kind of glyph you'd take if you had more choices. For example, a Fury warrior these days in PvE probably takes Execution, Whirlwind and Heroic Strike. Why wouldn't you? You hit all of those buttons a lot. The glyph of Cleave isn't bad, but you just don't find yourself in situations where you would use it as much as Heroic Strike, so it just never competes. If it wasn't competing with Heroic Strike though, say it was in a different category, then it might be worth considering. Bloodthirst would be an excellent medium glyph, because it is useful but doesn't contribute to dps. Medium glyphs are good for situational abilities, cooldowns, defense and utility.

Now having said that, we are also taking a hard look at the major glyphs. Glyph of Sprint (movement speed) is a pretty interesting one. It is probably a dps increase given that it helps your time on target, but it's hard to put a number on that. It's very easy to put a number on Glyph of Eviscerate (crit chance). It's a math problem. That glyph is either going to be demonstrably better or worse than the other majors, leading to the cookie-cutter mentality. We already have plenty parts of the game where there really isn't a wrong choice to be made -- with enchants and meta-gems for example, there is typically a right or wrong answer given that we don't make several per spec. We do make several glyphs per spec, so we think they can be cooler. Customization was our original design for glyphs, and frankly we just didn't deliver on it. They feel like talents, and pretty simple talents at that.

The challenge for us is that ALL glyphs have to follow this model. If they don't for some classes, as happened in LK, then eventually the whole thing unravels. We have a much better feel for what makes an interesting gylph now. I'm not going to promise we're going to deliver on it this time around, because we weren't able to the first time. But it is a goal and we're going to spend a lot of time on it.

EDIT: My mention of glyph of Execution seemed to confuse or offend some Fury warriors who don't use Execute often. Ignore that reference for the moment and focus on the Glyph of Cleaving. That's a really situational glyph. On some fights it's awesome and on others it's useless. Your choice is to take a situational glyph or bring a stack with you and constantly apply and remove it. As a medium glyph it might work better.

Q u o t e:
Will the medium glyphs be similar to things like Fortification and Breakthrough from the path of the titans preview, then?

The design we are using right now is that they are more class-specific than that. Glyphs still modify abilities or talents. If we're not happy with that content, then it's possible we will use more of the paths ideas.

Q u o t e:
GC do you honestly believe Execute falls under the realm of a button a fury warrior presses, ever? I understand you're trying to make a example with this, but its quotes like these that make people think you're out of touch with what players are actually doing. I would take glyph of cleaving over glyph of execute every time, because while cleaving is only situational, execute is situational as well, and I get a lot more benefit out of the situational cleave glyph than I do out of the situational execute glyph.

Glyph of Execution was used by more warriors than Cleave last I looked, so if you know something they don't, you might want to share. :)

Q u o t e:
Read the post, it's not about the glyph. It's about GC being of the understanding that Fury warriors "Hit Execute all the time." This is the not the case and it is rarely, if ever used.

So you're using Cleave on single-target boss fights? That would surprise me. I have no doubt the hardcore might swap glyphs from trash to boss or from single-target bosses to bosses with adds. Maybe you're right and all those warriors are bad, but Execution wins the popularity contest for third slot.

Q u o t e:
The relevant part of the quote has been posted at least 4 times now. The part where he said "why not? It's a button that you hit a lot"

Relative to Cleave (on a fight like BQL or Festergut) or to Hamstring (in PvE) or Rend (as Fury), you're pushing it a lot. That was the point. Maybe it speaks more to the fact that there isn't a great third glyph for Fury, but the fact remains that more use Execution than Cleave. With additional glyph slots, they could use both.

Q u o t e:
Execute for Fury is a DPS LOSS over just following our normal rotation, even Rend is worth using over Execute in Fury's GCD holes and Glyph of Rend is probobly better on single targets too.

I don't see a lot of Fury warriors glyping Rend, and Execute still accounts for more damage on a typical fight than Rend (though not as much as WW, BT, Slam or HS) in the parses I've seen.

I also don't think this is the salient part of the discussion. Next time I'll use the examples A, B and C.

Q u o t e:
I just wonder how they'd make inscription a "viable" professionin cataclysm. According to new revealed info. everyone could just buy their glyphs ONCE and be done with it.

inscription doesn't "upgrade" everytime new content arrives (unlike BS/Tailor/LW),

Making glyphs more interesting to every player is more important than making consumable glyphs a reliable money-maker for Inscription, given that there are plenty of other ways to handle the latter.

Q u o t e:
We could, but there's been an absence there as of late.

A bad reason to hijack another thread, IMO.

Q u o t e:
I want to be making more decisions that can not be mathematically solved. While I do love and appreciate all that mathematics has done for us as a civilisation, it does unfortunately leave little room for opinion.

Yeah, there are plenty of other parts of the game that can be mathematically solved. Glyphs don't have to be one of them.

I edited my original post with the following:

My mention of glyph of Execution seemed to confuse or offend some Fury warriors who don't use Execute often. Ignore that reference for the moment and focus on the Glyph of Cleaving. That's a really situational glyph. On some fights it's awesome and on others it's useless. Your choice is to take a situational glyph or bring a stack with you and constantly apply and remove it. As a medium glyph it might work better.

Q u o t e:
I'm not sure how strictly necessary these "medium" glyphs are. If you're trying to solve the issue of cookie-cutter only glyphs by making more glyphs like say, glyph of sprint, glyph of icy veins etc then is it going to be a big issue? When it's a straight damage boost like say, glyph of fireball or whatever, then how often you use that ability is obviously relevant. When it's something that, like you said, is difficult to measure, then surely it just comes down to preference as to the effects of the glyphs.

The problem is there are far more major glyphs than you are allowed to take, even adjusting for abilities with no overlap from talent tree to talent tree.

As a Frost mage, a glyph of Frost Bolt is almost certainly a no-brainer unless it has a massive drawback. But what about a glyph for Blizzard? It's clearly not as valuable as Frost Bolt, but how much less valuable? What about Frost Nova? For PvP the spell is huge. For PvE... not so much. But a glyph of Frost Nova as a medium glyph might be useful to even a PvE mage, depending on what it competed against.

Q u o t e:
Many of us have held hope that it is being fixed in cataclysm, and the statement that it is a good ability right now and is pressed often implies a lack of acknowledgement that there is a problem with the ability to be fixed.

I acknowledge is it a problem, and it will be fixed. Left untouched it would likely fare even worse in Cataclysm given that Heroic Strike now works so much like Execute.