Welcome back to Illumination. Today I’d like to hit the topic of Paladin Minor Glyphs, or lack thereof. It’s been a good while since Inscription was introduced, as well as the concept of glyphs. However, I feel that Paladin’s got the short end of the stick on the “Minor Glyph” side. Unlike some others who recieved a reduction in the reagent cost for spells, we instead get spell duration changes on spells we don’t often cast, at least not constantly. Let’s see what we have:
Glyph of Blessing of Kings: Reduces the mana cost of your Blessing of Kings and Greater Blessing of Kings spells by 50%.
- – Ok, interesting enough, as we do cast Blessing of Kings often… however, only at the very beginning of a run, or maybe near the end (hopefully not on the run after a battle res, where this may come in handy). After we’ve cast our Blessings out, we’d have time to sit down for a drink before the run started.
Glyph of Blessing of Might: Increases the duration of your Blessing of Might spell by 20 min when cast on yourself.
- – Great for soloing, I will give it that, and could be handy if you have to microbuff yourself while the rest of the pallies have another Blessing. However, not very interesting.
Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom: Increases the duration of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 20 min when cast on yourself.
- – Same as Glyph of Blessing of Might, great for soloing and single buffing YOURSELF, but could have been more creative with these.
Glyph of Lay on Hands: Increases the mana restored by your Lay on Hands spell by 20%.
- – I do agree this is good… if you’re using it on a caster; however, more often then not you’ll be using it as an Oh Shnizzle button on a tank, and unless it’s a Paladin tank, you won’t be getting much use out of it. Now, coupled with Glyph of Divinity, this can help you out, but with the limited choices of Major Glyphs, it’s not always the best choice.
Glyph of Sense Undead: Damage against Undead increased by 1% while your Sense Undead ability is active.
- – Great for Tanking and Ret… not so much for healing. Though handy when soloing…… in Icecrown. You see, It only works against Undead targets, and unless you’re running Naxx or ICC, there aren’t many undead targets to choose from.
Glyph of the Wise: Reduces the mana cost of your Seal of Wisdom spell by 50%.
- – WTF? Now that seals hang on for 30 minutes, this glyph is a waste. I don’t see how it can be a benefit at all. You may be refreshing it once, maybe twice every raid/heroic, but the fact that it is often applied only near the beginning or during a break in between, and the very small mana cost in the first place, I see that this glyph is absolutely wasted parchment and ink.
Now, to make it more interesting, let’s see if we can figure out some replacements. Personally, the Glyph of Blessing of Kings, Glyph of Blessing of Might, and Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom can probably stay as is, just as flavor glyphs. I can’t see any way of replacing Glyph of Sense Undead, as it is situational, like most minor glyphs are; same with Glyph of Divinity, though it is terrible unless used on a caster or coupled with a less than optimal Major Glyph. Anyway, here’s a few that I’ve come up with to either replace or add to our selection.
Glyph of Kings: Removes the reagent cost of “Greater” Blessings. [Symbol of Kings no longer required]
Glyph of the Wise (rework): Increases the duration of your Seal of Wisdom by 15 min. [Not a big change, but enough to make it sorta useful]
Glyph of the Martyr: Removes the reagent cost of Divine Intervention [Symbol of Divinity no longer required]
What do you all think? Do you feel that our Paladins have been given the small portion when it comes to minor glyphs? Would the suggestions be to overpowered? Your comments are very welcome, I’d like to hear your ideas.
