Inscription overview and a concern.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Aloha!
Below is an edited transcript of my latest video.
TL;DR - Video link here.
TL;DW -
There's a big disparity in the number of glyphs available between classes.
Some glyphs do not make it to Legion, and so far I've been unable to find out if they've been turned into tomes or toys.

I’ve been watching each build on the alpha, beta and PTR, hoping against hope that something cool will happen with glyphs that’ll give me a sense of hope that may never come. Now that the pre-expansion patch is coming out tomorrow, that hope is going away fast and now I’m ready to talk about my second favorite profession. This is not a super in depth analysis, but I’ll be going over the major changes and additions coming to Inscription, and then I’m going to bitch about stuff.

Some things haven’t changed. There are still glyphs, which I’ll get into later, and Darkmoon Faire cards to create and collect to make fancy schmancy trinkets.
There are a few new items to make like toys, and relics, which increase the item level of your artifact.
You may already know that scribes will be the source of items that let you change your talents outside of “safe” areas, meaning a place that provides rest experience.
Another featured item is called a Vantus Rune. This is a special item that increases your Versatility by 1000 when fighting a specific raid boss, and the buff lasts for the entire raid lockout. It’s basically a powerup for your character or raid when fighting a boss that you’re struggling with. What I’m not too sure of though is if the rune basically stays active when fighting say, LFR Xavius, then jump around and fight normal Xavius, heroic Xavius and so on. There’re two catches to the runes though: you can only use one rune per week, so depending on your team’s performance, you may want to be careful when to use your rune. High performing teams may use as few runes as possible to to get that last bit of dps or those extra seconds of survivability. Maybe have the healers use the rune for one boss, the tanks for the other, half the dps for another, and so on. It’ll be a neat bit of strategy to see how progressive guilds use these runes to offset gear checks.
The other catch is that there are individual runes for each boss, and the recipes for these runes drop from the very bosses you’re trying to kill. This will mean that early on, the top progression teams on each realm will have dominion over the supply of these runes, at least for a time.

Glyphs were the bread and butter of a scribe’s arsenal. By the time you see this video, you’ll be saying goodbye to the ability to learn a glyph and know it permanently on your character. No longer will you equip major glyphs for gains, but you will apply glyphs to abilities to make a cosmetic change. The system will be pretty simple. Right click on the glyph from your inventory, select the highlighted spell you want to alter, and tah dah. This means glyphs are once again a non-permanent enchant and, if you overwrite or destroy an applied glyph, it’s gone. Want that glyph back? Make one or pay up.
Major glyphs will be removed entirely, limiting the glyph system to be a purely optional, purely cosmetic endeavor. I think this is a cool thing. The fact that glyphs have been able to alter abilities has always put it a weird place in the World of Warcraft, because we have talents, which were nearly the same thing. This separation will give the talent tree a renewed identity, and put glyphs in a less confusing place.

So now we’re getting into what’s making me pretty upset about the glyph changes. Like I said, I don’t mind that there are no more major glyphs. They were quite useful, but as a longtime glyph vendor, I found that minor glyphs still sold quite well. From my data, I’ve observed that players do like being able to make their water elemental a bit bigger or smaller, for example.

But let me reiterate the changes to the glyph system. Major glyphs are gone. Minor glyphs will remain, and glyphs overall will have a cosmetic use only.
Here’s the kicker, not all minor glyphs are cosmetic. Take Glyph of Ghostly Speed, for instance. And not all of the spells and abilities that we have now will be in Legion. So no more Glyph of Seal of Blood.

According to Wowhead, including Demon Hunters, Warlords of Draenor’s 155 minor glyphs will be brought down to 93 after the patch. It’s a pretty small number compared to the hundreds of glyphs that used to be in a scribe's arsenal, but when you think about the Vantus runes and talent change items that will be created in its place, it’s a reasonable tradeoff. But the viability and profitability of glyphs or inscription in general isn’t what I’m putting into question here.

I’m talking about the inconsistency of what little there is left for classes to customize. These 93 glyphs are not being spread out evenly at all. Classes can have as many as 12 glyphs or as few as four. Four glyphs to customize their character is pretty disappointing, especially when others have 12. At the initial preview, it did feel sort of exciting that the limit of 3 or 6 active glyphs would be lifted. It gave the impression that nearly every ability could be at least slightly changed to suit our preference or, dare I say, class fantasy. Four glyphs is definitely not exciting. Sucks to be a rogue.
It’s a big oversight that the purely cosmetic glyphs between classes have a pretty wide disparity. It’s unfair that classes who also had some of their abilities replaced or removed also resulted in some loss in customization.

Here are a couple more highlights:
Glyph of Seal of Blood, one of the last hints of a Blood Elf Paladin’s sordid past, is gone, since seal abilities are removed in Legion.
The Shaman glyph, Glyph of Ascendance, was introduced late in Warlords of Draenor and was the one glyph that required Felblight to make. In Legion, it’s gone.
The mage glyph that made the Water Elemental bigger, Glyph of Condensation? That’s gone, too.

Here’s something odd though. Ascendance is still in the game, so don’t worry, shaman. Same with Water Elementals. Why are those glyphs gone?
Curious, I went in and looked at every minor glyph before Legion so I could understand why so many of them were removed. I used two criteria: if the minor glyph changed the performance of an ability, and then if the ability still exists in Legion.
The analysis might not be 100% accurate, but it revealed that indeed, there are a lot of glyphs to justifiably remove, because the glyph provided a utility, or the glyph affected an ability that would no longer be used. But I also identified 12 glyphs that are removed in Legion that didn’t really have to be. They might make it in a future build which would be a relief, or it could come in a future patch, which is sort of lame because tomorrow it’s going to be patched out when it didn’t have to be.

What’s also aggravating is that even if all of these glyphs were added, the disparity in the number of glyphs classes have access to remains, with Paladins and Rogues having about half as many glyph options as Hunters and Warlocks.

This disparity is pretty unfair and, depending on what class you enjoy playing the most, kind of a slap to the face. Compromises could have been made to help preserve some of these lost glyphs. A Judgement of Blood sort of glyph could have changed Judgement’s ability from gold to red. It could be as simple as that. Mages could have their polymorph randomly change targets into one of the many polymorph options that were turned into tomes instead. Priests’ Glyph of Borrowed Time could just randomly proc the visual, even if the buff itself no longer exists.

Overall, the delivery of the glyph’s customization system falls short of the initial impressions. Some classes have more than others, some glyphs were removed that shouldn’t have been, and overall it leaves the Inscription profession itself to lean too heavily on supporting raid content. I get that there’s still a lot of work that’s been put into Legion. Making a new glyph isn’t as simple as making a new potion but more like creating a piece of gear. It involves art and animation, and if you’ve seen any of my other videos you know I understand how much work could go into something like this. But old glyphs could have been preserved somehow.
I’m still overall very positive about what Legion will deliver in the next weeks and months. Right now though, glyphs sort of suck and I hope it gets some attention in future patches. For now though, I’m going to take the 40 or so glyphs that will be available during the pre-patch and see if I can gold cap.

[nazrakin]

Yeah, this is something I've been disappointed by because there are a few omissions and also because there is very little that is new/exciting. To be fair there is some stuff that is available by other means such toys, buffs, and tomes. For instance, looking at my Shaman minors...

18 Minor glyphs:

- Deluge, Spirit Raptors, Spectral Wolf, and Lingering ancestors are the only ones that are still glyphs.
- Rain of Frogs,Flaming Serpent, and Elemental Familiars are shaman toys.
- Compy is now a tome just like the polymorph variants.
- Far Sight, Astral Recall, and Spirit Wolf are baked in.
- Ghostly Speed is now attached to Reghar as a bodyguard ability.


So they did cover most of the existing stuff and others like the LL glyph dont make sense in Legion. However, Totemic Encirclement and Ascendance are missing which is strange since Ive always figured they were two of the more popular ones. They added like 3 new ones; Ghost Raptor is neat but the ones that shrink the elementals are just the most boring type of glyph imo. Although. you say others enjoy those so maybe thats a big deal to someone else.

[PragmaticGamer]

I was just grumbling about my shaman losing the Flaming Serpent and Compy glyphs.

Can you tell me, how did you find these out? For instance, how do I find the toys and tomes?

[Deleted]

The glyphs that exist at the moment in the beta may very well not be all the glyphs we will get throughout the lifespan of Legion. I'm convinced that more cosmetic glyphs will be added later on.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Yeah, this is something I've been disappointed by because there are a few omissions and also because there is very little that is new/exciting. To be fair there is some stuff that is available by other means such toys, buffs, and tomes. For instance, looking at my Shaman minors...

18 Minor glyphs:

- Deluge, Spirit Raptors, Spectral Wolf, and Lingering ancestors are the only ones that are still glyphs.
- Rain of Frogs,Flaming Serpent, and Elemental Familiars are shaman toys.
- Compy is now a tome just like the polymorph variants.
- Far Sight, Astral Recall, and Spirit Wolf are baked in.
- Ghostly Speed is now attached to Reghar as a bodyguard ability.


So they did cover most of the existing stuff and others like the LL glyph dont make sense in Legion. However, Totemic Encirclement and Ascendance are missing which is strange since Ive always figured they were two of the more popular ones. They added like 3 new ones; Ghost Raptor is neat but the ones that shrink the elementals are just the most boring type of glyph imo. Although. you say others enjoy those so maybe thats a big deal to someone else.

I'm pretty convinced that they'll show up at some point. I'm just weirded out that while some were shifted to toys, tomes, etc, others just aren't there (ascendance?!).
Knowing my luck though, a build will deploy tomorrow with everything we want and I'll look like a goof =(.

[nazrakin]

I'm pretty convinced that they'll show up at some point. I'm just weirded out that while some were shifted to toys, tomes, etc, others just aren't there (ascendance?!).
Knowing my luck though, a build will deploy tomorrow with everything we want and I'll look like a goof =(.

Heh yea, I do hope they continue to expand on it since Ive always thought cosmetic minor glyphs are such a great idea. Its also something that they could do a lot with, without investing too much work either. How hard would it be to add a few more ghost and spirit animals so that Tauren, Dwarves, and Draenei? The models already exist, theyd just need to give them a blue/transparent tint.

I was just grumbling about my shaman losing the Flaming Serpent and Compy glyphs.

Can you tell me, how did you find these out? For instance, how do I find the toys and tomes?

The toys and the Compy tome are sold by the quartermaster in the class Hall. They also sell a water shield toy (just gives you the orbiting water shield effect). There are also Hex tomes for Roach, Spider, and snake. Roach is sold in the Underbelly, no idea where the others are from.

[PragmaticGamer]

The toys and the Compy tome are sold by the quartermaster in the class Hall. They also sell a water shield toy (just gives you the orbiting water shield effect). There are also Hex tomes for Roach, Spider, and snake. Roach is sold in the Underbelly, no idea where the others are from.

I just checked out the toy ("Vol'jin's Flaming Serpent").

So for a minute, I can have my flame totem attack critters. Sigh...

Wait... Do I even HAVE a flame totem any more??? Are all totems now talents? Gah!

This makes me miss the "you'll learn a new totem element every 10 levels when you do the quest" from the old days...