What I would have loved Inscription to beFollow

This kinda goes off a post I just made in another thread. Inscription right now is neat; the scrolls fill a class hole, the darkmoon cards are awesome, and the books can be ok for some classes. But glyphs fall short for me. I like the idea behind them, but some are strong while others are weak; and out of all the ones there are for each class, only a couple will be used for each class/spec (maybe 2/3 or 3/4, depending on the class). I would also like multiple options for each spell. For example, take a mage's spell, Fireball. Instead of just Glyph of Fireball (+5% crit, -DoT), have these:

1. Glyph of Scorching Fireball: Your fireball places a stack of Scorch on the target.
2. Glyph of Burning Fireball: Your fireball's DoT proportion gains x% of your bonus spell damage.
3. Glyph of Blasting Fireball: Your fireball's critical hit chance is increased by 5%, but it no longer causes the DoT.

Or for Druids, we have the Glyph of Dash, a minor glyph that reduces cooldown by 20%. Instead, have:

1. Glyph of Extended Dash: Increases Dash duration by 10 seconds.
2. Glyph of Frequent Dash: Decreases Dash's cooldown by 20%.
3. Glyph of Frenzied Dash: While Dash is active, increases your crit rate in cat form by 2%.

How about Thorns (Minor) for Druids?

1. Glyph of Pointed Thorns: Increases the damage caused by Thorns by 5%.
2. Glyph of Perpetual Thorns: Increases the duration of Thorns by 50 minutes when cast on self.
3. Glyph of Sticky Thorns: When an enemy attacks someone with your thorns spell upon them, they have a 5% chance to have their movement speed slowed by 20% for 4 seconds.


Basically I want options. Instead of going, "Oh, a feral druid DPS will take Mangle, Rip, and Shred." You would have to choose which glyph of those to take. Do you want Mangle to last 6 more seconds, to increase infected wounds by an additional 5%, or do 10% more threat in bear form and 10% less threat in cat form? Rip to last 4 more seconds, get another 2% of your bonus AP as damage, or have a chance to stun the enemy for 2 seconds?

I think this would make the profession more interesting. I also think that scribes should get a portable Lexicon of Power, so that in an instance party members could change their glyphs and glyph types as the situation requires. Do I want Lifebloom to have an additional tick, or replenish .2% mana every tick? Should I have Mage armor provide an additional 15 resistance or 20% more mana regen while casting?

And as an added profession bonus, make scribes have not only one more major slot, but let them modify the same spell twice. That would be an awesome reason to take the profession up, and put it more on par with others, IMO.

So, what's the general feeling on inscription? Would it benefit from these changes, overcomplicate the glyph system, or make the profession too intimidating? Or is it fine as is, in line with other professions, and the glyph system, while limited, is fine as well?

I think the idea for the glyph system evolved before they gave a lot of thought to what it would entail from a coding perspective. When it was first announced, it was made to sound like you could have several different glyphs to do different things to the same spell, similar to how the OP described. One example I remembered seeing was something like being able to expand the range of Frost Nova, reduce the range but increase the duration of the immobilization effect, keep the normal range but add an effect, etc.

What we've ended up with is a system that's in its infancy. I'd like to think that Inscription on the whole is not the least bit filled out right now. (FFS Blizz...where is my minor glyph of Blessing of Sanctuary?)

As with anything MMO related, what starts out as an interesting idea to allow for more diversity and "individuality" gets picked apart by min-maxers for PvE performance and everyone winds up emulating the top ranked players of a particular class/spec in PvP, so the whole notion of individuality gets set aside by all but the most casual of players who will happily pay their monthly fee to farm/solo/do dailies/run the occasional dungeon/work on achievements/etc.

As it currently stands, Inscription is an extension of the talent system for the most part. If you're X class with Y spec, A, B, and C glyphs are what you want to be using...that sort of thing.

What concerns me is that if Blizzard maintains the current system for learning new glyphs (random research results), they'll never be able to properly flesh out the system to what it could be if it had been handled differently from the start.