#18 - April 3, 2012, 9:01 p.m.
As with talents, we want glyphs to be a choice. Stepping back a moment, we do think there is room in the game for very easy decision -- the kind that don't stress you out for fear of making the wrong one. We don't think glyphs need to be in that category though. We want you to think about them a little bit and not just look up the accepted glyphs for your character.
The old prime glyphs were not choices for anyone who cared much about their performance. We designed them to be no-nonsense throughput increasers, because we feared players would find the glyph system confusing if say a Ret paladin couldn't find a glyph that unequivocally increased DPS. But we didn't like how the glyphs actually felt. They were just a hoop to jump through -- something you might choose once for your character and never interact with again. We shoot for simple to learn and complex to master, and prime glyphs were the poster child for simple to learn, simple to master. The current glyph of Templar's Verdict increases damage by 15%. What Retribution paladin wouldn't want that glyph? (The answer is almost none of them.)
Now that primes are gone, we want all of the majors to be a choice. Some of these are decisions because they have a bonus and a penalty. In these cases, we thought that the glyph without a penalty would be a no-brainer. The glyph of Riptide removes the cooldown of Riptide, but also removes the initial heal. If it just removed the cooldown of Riptide, then every decent Resto shaman would want the glyph. Without the upfront heal though you have to treat Riptide more like Renew -- trading its initial heal for more healing over time. Some shaman will want that and some won't. Some may want it for some situations only. It is, in game designer parlance, an interesting decision.
Another category of major glyphs don't need this downside, because the glyph itself taking one of your precious three slots is sufficient downside. Consider the glyph of Spellsteal, which heals you when you Spellsteal. If you succeed in Spellsteal a lot, then it's a good glyph. But is it better than the glyph of Frost Nova (which lowers its cooldown)? Neither glyph may be exciting to a raiding mage, but both may feel pretty attractive to someone focused on PvP.
Minor glyphs have almost no affect on performance. They are there for convenience or increasingly just fun. They should help customize your character with almost no downside (except that again you can only have 3).
If we are successful with the glyph revamp, you'll see players with lots of different glyphs out there. Some players will love a certain glyph, while others won't care for it. If you still enjoy playing your character but feel you are stuck in a rut, you can try swapping out a glyph for a little variety in how you play. You won't see someone create a forum thread asking "What glyphs should I use for a Fire mage?" or at least if someone does create that thread, the response will be "Try them out and pick the ones you like."
As we continue with beta, letting us know of specific glyphs that you feel are mandatory for a particular type of player would be very useful feedback (not all in this thread, of course).
