style="padding: 5px; float: right; width: 250px; text-align: center;"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/231039"
width="250">
The new Glyph screen, showing only 6 slots.

Glyphs are changing quite a bit when Mists of Pandaria is released.  At that time the  three different classes of Glyphs will be reduced to just two, Major and Minor.  As before you will only be allowed three of each type of glyph, however now major glyphs are the only glyphs that really boost or change abilities significantly. Minor glyphs provide very minor changes or more often cosmetic changes only.

To deal with this massive change to glyphs many of the glyphs themselves have been changed, some have been removed from the game, and several new glyphs have been created.

Since there are so many glyphs available I am just going to focus on some of the best of the new or changed Warlock glyphs.

Which of these should be used and why?  Which should be ignored and why?

NOTE: It is of course also very important to remember that this is beta and things are constantly changing.  Therefore some of these glyphs may change or disappear before release.

Mists of Pandaria – Warlock Major Glyphs

Glyph of Burning Embers / Glyph of Soul Shards

style="padding: 5px; float: right; width: 250px; text-align: center;"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/231311"
width="250">

Increases your max Burning Embers / Soul Shards by 1

Burning Embers are the alternate resource for Destruction Warlocks, and Soul Shards are the same for Affliction Warlocks.  These glyphs allow you to hold one extra of the corresponding resource.  This grants you some extra options on when you can use abilities. 

Currently in beta both of these are fast to consume and slow to generate or cost DSP time to generate, therefore having that extra one allows a bit more bust DPS time before having to generate more. Hopefully by the time the game ships, Blizzard will have improved the generation rate and the extra will be of even more use.

Glyph of Conflagrate

The movement speed reduction caused by Conflagrate is reduced by 30% but the duration of the slow is increased by 100% to 8 seconds.

This is a nice change as the 4 second slow doesn’t last all that long, not long enough to truly get away from something.  With 8 seconds you have more options and more time to escape, even though the enemy will be moving a bit faster you still have more time.

Curse of Exhaustion

Now reduces targets movement speed by 70% but only lasts ½ the time so down to 15 seconds and gives it a 20 second cooldown.

This is a great change to Exhaustion for Affliction Warlocks. Think of the speed advantage that this gives you over a pursuing enemy.  Your enemy will move at 30% speed for 15 out of every 20 seconds (shorter with diminishing returns in PVP) allowing you the ability to keep away almost indefinitely.  While not useful all the time I can see making some great use of this in both PVP and PVE.

Demon Hunting

style="padding: 5px; float: right; width: 250px; text-align: center;"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/231310"
width="250">

You learn the ability Dark Apotheosis.  This grants you a 10% reduction to damage taken while in demon form.  Also while in demon form, soul shatter becomes a taunt, twilight ward reduces all magic damage taken, and demonic slash generates fury.

This is an amazing new glyph for Demonology Warlocks, so much so I am giving it it’s own whole big section.  This glyph essentially allows a demonology warlock to tank to some degree.  While the degree to which you will be able to tank is not yet determined the whole concept of it is really cool.

Threat should not be a problem to get and hold while in demon form since Warlocks tend to have threat issues anyway, all you will have to do is taunt and go nuts on damage.  Other than a real tank with their threat boosts you shouldn’t have too hard a time holding on to a target.

Reducing incoming damage by 10% is what may limit your ability to tank the most, since there is no listing of gaining any dodge, parry, or block.  This means that you will still take 90% of all physical hits minus whatever small amount you have for real armour.  This means suffering some really big and frequent hits from most bosses. 

This is where the twilight ward becoming a magic damage reduction comes into play.  Since magic damage will be reduced, that is likely were you will be of the most use, range tanking caster based creatures or bosses.  There have been fights in the past that required ranged tanking or ranged kiting and this is probably where Warlock tanking will fit it.
I am really hoping that this plays into the game in some fun and unique ways rather than just a random throw in glyph to cause some conversation.  While I don’t want to see warlocks become a 5th all out tanking class, it would be very cool to have fights where a Warlock could range tank some bosses, or where if a tank dies the Warlock could switch forms taunt and hold the boss for a few seconds while the tank is battle rezed.

Glyph of Healthstone

This glyph makes healthstones heal for 100% more, however it is not healed immediately, but instead is done over 10 seconds.

This is another very interesting change to a core ability.  Restoring double the health sure is a huge improvement, the issue however is the fact that it heals as a heal over time instead of instantly. Since healthstones are generally used as an “Oh crap I’m gonna die” button, the heal over 10 seconds instead of instantly is a huge detriment.  However with a little planning and using the healthstone a little earlier than you were previously used to means that you get twice the benefit from it.

This glyph will really depend on your play-style and planning, but I for one really like it.

Glyph of Unstable Affliction

This glyph changes the effect Unstable Affliction has when dispelled from a target.  It will now deal critical damage to both the affected player and the dispelling player, but it will no longer silence the dispeller.

This one is a real mixed bag for me.  While the silence is very short at only 4 seconds, it does prevent at least one spell that would be cast right afterwards.  The critical damage can be a big hit to both players though, which may equal out to less damage than could be healed in that time, but is split between both targets.  Since this is for PVP situations, I think the choice between a 4 second silence or extra damage really comes down to team composition and play-style to determine which is better for you.

Glyph of Demon Training

style="padding: 5px; float: right; width: 250px; text-align: center;"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/231309"
width="250">

This glyph grants a whole lot of abilities, in fact one to each of your different demons as follows:

• Reduces your Imp's Firebolt cast time by 50%.
• Increases your Voidwalker's total health by 20%.
• Your Succubus's Seduction ability also removes all damage over time effects from the target.
• When your Felhunter uses Devour Magic, you will also be healed for that amount.
• Increases the number of targets hit by your Felguard's Legion Strike by 1.

Those are all pretty big bonuses especially for those of you that rely heavily on your pet.  The reduced cast time on the imp’s firebolt adds up to a lot of extra damage as does the extra target hit by your felguard.  While levelling the extra health on your voidwalker could save you countless times, and when in need of CC in a group the ability to remove DOTS from your succubus’s target. 
All of these bonuses are very significant and make this a must have glyph for most Warlocks.

Minor Glyphs

There are several cool minor glyphs that change some minor things that make for either some fun appearance differences or some minor perks.

The ones that I like the most are Felguard and Carrion Swarm, although there are a few others that are useful as well.

Glyph of Felguard allows your Felguard to equip a random two-handed weapon from your bags.  This means you can go out and hand pick the weapon that you want your Felgaurd to use and keep it with you so that he looks unique.  While only cosmetic, this opens up some nice customization options for Warlocks and their pets that they never had before. 

Carrion Swarm is a nice change and a pretty good one considering it is a minor glyph.  The glyph removes the knock back effect of your Carrion Swarm spell.  For PVE players the knock back is a constant source of annoyance to tanks in groups and getting rid of it will be a welcome change. 

There are some other ones that are neat as well such as Glyph of Nightmares which allows your Warlock mount to run on water, and Glyph of Falling Meteor that allows you to use demonic leap while falling to slam to the ground but take no fall damage, and Glyph of Shadow Bolt that splits your Shadow Bolt into three smaller bolts.

Mists of Pandaria - Warlock Glyphs

As you can see, many of the Warlock Glyphs have changed substantially since Cataclysm. Also there are many new glyphs to choose from.

Blizzard realy appears to be offering some more options with Glyphs and so far look to be giving us some very good ones. Who would have even thought Warlock tanking was an option a year ago, and yet here we are, getting the ability to do just that. I can not wait to see how all these turn out in raid situations.