Are Glyphs Better?

Nearly a year ago I wrote about Glyphs and how I thought they were a failed game element because they existed to offer choice but didn't offer any real choice and because they interacted very strangely with the skill that made them. Glyphs have been changed substantially since then, so I thought I'd take a look back and compare the state of glyphs then and now.

One complaint on my part was that inscription skill has nothing to do with glyph power. This has only gotten worse since there are no new glyphs at higher skill level in Cataclysm. Inscription is the profession that lets you make glyphs, but you cap out on your ability to do that at 450 skill. The glyphs still come in a seemingly random order and can still be learned well before or after they become useful.

The introduction of major glyphs, however, solved many of the other problems that I had. We no longer have a slew of useless glyphs sitting around that no one will ever use. There are meaningful choices to make between major glyphs that will be made on personal preference as well as on fight mechanics.

But while the major glyphs work well, the prime glyphs and minor glyphs are in the same sorry state they were. Prime glyphs basically offer no choice at all - they are determined entirely by your spec. Their purpose, apparently, is just that players would find it weird that they didn't have glyphs for their most important abilities. I could grudgingly suggest that if this were true there would be a glyph for Greater Heal. But why do I even want them to make a prime glyph for Greater Heal? It's because if it is better than what I'm using I'll use it, and if it's not then it's no skin of my back. Prime glyphs don't add anything to the game. Major glyphs that affected these abilities that didn't get them a percentage boost would be way more interesting.

There is also still remarkable homogeneity in the choice of minor glyphs, when these should be the place where there is the most flexibility. Some choices are just much more attractive than the others, and this should be fixed.

I don't understand the system of getting to choose three minor glyphs of out of five or six - it doesn't seem like much of a choice at all. I truly don't understand the system of having players choose three prime glyphs out of the three that affect their spec - this is definitely not a choice.

Was I right about Glyph of Feint? I don't know, I could actually imagine a rogue taking that for certain fights. Since you aren't GCD locked you could use that on cooldown to lower AoE damage. 50% less AoE damage 60% of the time is actually a very good glyph.