Priest Talent Changes in Cata - A little confused

[Direshadow]

So I was thinking a little bit about the soon-to-come changes to all classes talent trees and I'm a little bit confused. I know Blizzard is doing 2 things....

They will be moving all talents that directly affect damage or healing stats, and only leave us with "Interesting" talents such as things that affect mechanics or the way spells work. At least this is what I think they are doing.

I also know that they won't be adding any more talents either, and have said they just want to give us more talent points to play around with.


If this is the case, will that mean that say, a spec like Shadow, will become more viable in PVP, since we'll be able to spend more points in the Disc or Holy tree? With all of our damage or healing power talents being removed, it seems this would be logical to assume.... Heck, would this mean we could even be Shadow spec, but still reach talents like Reflective Shield or Soul Warding?

[Herecius]

They didn't necessarily say flat out they were in fact removing ALL of those talents, but rather that many of them were simply going to be changed in some way. You will not, for example, be left with such a surplus number of points that you'll be able to dump deep into disc or holy. They didn't have an exact explanation, but I think some of the things they discussed included adding talent to make up for ones taken out, or removing your max number of points. We'll just have to wait and see.

[harky]

Also keep in mind that when they said they wouldn't be 'adding new talents', what they really meant was that they're not expanding to 55 point trees. It's highly likely that any of the removed talents will be replace with new talents. You can already see a trend towards this starting with BC and especially Wrath talents. Also, you'll still need points to get down the trees. You will have 5 extra points to put into the trees though. So things like 25/0/51 will now be possible, which also means we can finally take multiple 31 point talents. Too bad Wrath has made such an effort to dissuade people from things like the old near-hybrid tree specs like the DS/Holy spec from BC/Vanilla, or 33/28 Warriors in BC.

Anyway, there will be new talents to take the place of 'boring' talents and those 'boring' perks are going to be baseline upon going certain amounts into a tree. That doesn't mean there won't be any new talents to replace the defunct ones.

[Direshadow]

Well this is Blizzard's chance to really buckle down and fix Shadow pvp. If they don't, then I'll be very dissapointed.

[Neichus]

To chime in with the other posters:

-They are not removing all talents that directly affect damage or healing. That would be nearly impossible. They are trying to trim down talents that buff everything you do.

The Death Knight trees are excellent examples of this new design in its infancy. For instance, there is a tier 1 Blood talent called Subversion that increases the crit chance of a few select strikes by 9% and reduces threat. Because the talent only focuses on a few attacks it can affect them more strongly while remaining balanced; that is, 9% crit on major strikes is a noticeable increase, versus if the talent were merely a passive 3% crit to all attacks (which can only really be appreciated statistically). This inherently makes the talent feel more meaningful to take. Furthermore it means that some builds skip it depending on what they're trying to accomplish; if it were just a flat 3% crit then probably all builds would invest in it (just like how nearly every Warrior build, even Prot, puts points into Cruelty).

-They aren't adding any new talent tiers, not no new talents. To explain in greater depth why this would be so: the talent situation in WoW has been one of a ordered retreat each expansion. Every time a new tier of talents comes out Blizzard has to justify why those deep talents are better than the 21-point talents in other trees. Since many trees have very solid mid-level talents they must either: nerf those talents, move them deeper, or make the new talents ever more powerful. We've seen a combination of all three strategies employed each expansion, but ultimately each time it's a patch. Blizzard is breaking this cycle in Cataclysm, and I'm very hopeful that it will lead to a better fundamental design of the trees.

[Danner]

Using the holy Tree as an example:

- Body and Soul is in. It's a talent that gives a notable playstyle difference; and offers something fun to the spec. It's given as an example of how talents should look in Cataclysm. Gamechanging, but not nescessarily making you stronger.

- Holy Reach is in. It too offers a notable playstyle difference; having the option to stand back and heal is awesome. I think this follows in the footsteps of Body and Soul easily.

- Spiritual Healing is out. It's one of the most boring talents in the game. It's an excellent talent powerwise, but it won't change how you play your game. And that's why its out. Still, it's the iconic talent of the holy tree - and will as such be replaced with the mastery system. Meaning every single talent you put in the holy tree will give you some minor benefit mimicing this talent. If you put, say, 60 pts into the holy tree, you get the effect of current-day Spiritual Healing for free through the mastery system.

- Holy Specialization is out. Not only is this talent a boring 5pt talent dump with no notable impact on your playstyle. It's also one offering very little to the holypriest build in terms of power or throughput. The reason all holypriests pick it is that you can't get to the second tier without at least putting some points into it, as Healing Focus plainly sucks. Holy Specialization is simply put a 5pt talent dump, and for that it will die. But - it won't take much change to make this talent in again. F.ex; changing it to: "Every holy spell you cast will increase the critchance of your next heal by 3%. Stacks [rank] times." - and you have a winner that will definitively change your game. I would still expect them to lower the amount of ranks to 3 or something, and add a fourth T1 talent.

- Inspiration is definitively in. It's a random proc, but it's often one that will change the outcome of a bad situation. It's good now, but I'm sort of waiting for blizzard to simply make it triggered by all heals someday.

- Improved Healing is as far out as it can go. And may it burn. Not only does it not change your game, it's ineffective at what it tries to do, and doesn't change the problem of GHeal. I expect blizzard to do something with GHeal in Cataclysm anyway, and this talent will likely change with it.

- Test of Faith is in. The litmus test is simply: If you at any time say "Boy am I glad I picked this talent, it really saved my ass now", then the talent is an awesome pick that will remain. And Test of Faith certainly qualifies! Most of the top-end holy talents do, and I believe Blizzard was thinking in this direction already when WoTLK came out.

--

- Meditation is not a holy talent, but I do expect the regen mechanic to change drastically - after all, all healers will be using spirit in the next expansion. And somehow I doubt blizzard will handle that by adding Meditation to all classes.

I'd somewhat expect both spirit(regen), hit and avoidance to be reworked in cataclysm though. Spirit already scales to the point where you can cast your biggest heal without ooming, but it's not spirit that enables you to do so. It's intellect. This will have to change, as it's just a silly mechanic. Hit caps out early, but I expect raidbosses to grow in hit requirements in Cataclysm as the tiers progress, making that excess hit less wasteful. Avoidance will likely follow the same style; making all late-tier bosses have a builtin sunwell radiance making them hit more precise. Time will tell how this is handled!

--

There are a lot of talents that's not clear cut. Divine Fury, for instance. It's definitively game-changing, but as a 5 pt talent dump, it's going to take you 5 levels before you get any form of game change from it. And that's bad. I do expect less 5pt talents in the next expansion, and that means Spiritual Guidance, Spiritual Healing, Divine Fury, Spell Warding, Empowered Healing and Divine Providence will be needing some heavy scrutiny before continuing as-is. Some of these will become masteries. Some of these will be lowered in cost, or split in two.

I do expect the talent trees to change rather radically, to be honest. Maybe they will become flatter and broader instead of the current depth. Maybe we will get more talent dependencies. They still haven't fleshed out the mastery system, so there is a lot of stuff that can be done with it. I would expect the tree to get some sanity checks while we're at it.

And that's why I look forward to Cataclysm.

[Peacemoon]

Well they said talents will be changed to remove the boring +10% healing stuff.

But they will have masteries. The more points in holy, the more you heal for, the more points in shadow, the more you nuke for. But this will be a side effect, you wont need to choose talents specificaly for +10% shadow, I imagine you will get +0.5% damage per talent or something.

So don't think you can spec disc and still do good shadow damage. You will still have to spec shadow.

I am just wondering how they will differentiate between disc and holy. We are the only class with 2 healing trees.

[Phailzôr]

The litmus test is simply: If you at any time say "Boy am I glad I picked this talent, it really saved my ass now", then the talent is an awesome pick that will remain.

well, on the bright side I will get loads and loads of new talents.
I mean that thing I have said with what... Nature's Swiftness, Swiftmend, Wild Growth to some extent, and Gift of the Earthmother.

-Resto druid out.

edit: and of course my beloved ToL form.

[arel00]

Regarding the "extra talent points": they won't add new talent tiers. Meaning, trees will still end at 51.
Having 5 more points from the extra levels simply allows you to spec 51-25 instead of 51-20, or whatever combination you can build with 76 points instead of 71.

Regarding the talent reworking, you priests have a very good example right in front of your eyes. The Discipline tree is, in fact, the best talente tree WoW has to offer with the "Cataclysm policy".
It has a LOT of "fun" talents, procs and playstyle options. Soul Warding, Reflective Shields, Focused Will, Renewed Hope, Rapture, Aspiration, Divine Aegis, Grace and Borrowed Time are all good examples.

Regarding the impact on PvP, it surely will mean a lot for all classes. Going down one tier in the "off" tree means opening up a lot of things. Discipline priests with Silence, feral druids with Nature's Swiftness, Arms warrior with Death Wish... everything could happen. It could also open up the path to more hybrid specs. Skipping a 51-points talent is a hard choice, but if you can reach the 30+ tiers on your second tree while staying in the deepest tiers of your main one could be something worth it. We will see.

It could be the best thing WoW has ever faced in terms of fun and personal playstyle.

[Danner]

well, on the bright side I will get loads and loads of new talents.
I mean that thing I have said with what... Nature's Swiftness, Swiftmend, Wild Growth to some extent, and Gift of the Earthmother.

-Resto druid out.

edit: and of course my beloved ToL form.

There are a few more. Revitalize is gamechanging for the target.Living seed is like a cheap Prayer of Mending, and I think you love it. Living Spirit is great, but boring. Natural Perfection could go either way, as could Improved Tranquility (I'd vote to scrap it). Omen of Clarity rocks.

But yes, the resto tree is full of flat boring +% boost talents too. The holy tree was drastically redesigned in WoTLK,and much for the better!

[Strykzor]

When i was watching blizzcon i heard of this mastery system, I came buckets, no more shadow weaving or stupid talents that increase dmg of BLAH if target is afflicted by BLAH.
At minimum shadow weaving will be gone

[Neichus]

At minimum shadow weaving will be gone

I actually wouldn't be sure of that. Shadow Weaving actually changes your playstyle and plays an important role for balance. In a game that contains both PvP and PvE there have to be mechanisms to differentiate them. The problem is that mob health vastly outscales player health (even with health inflation in Cataclysm we won't have as much as a raid mob), so Blizzard has added talents that increase initial ramp up time and lower burst. Shadow Weaving ensures that it takes a few seconds for you to reach full power against a target; it's not a huge difference, but it's just one of several mechanisms employed.

I'd say Darkness is a much more likely candidate for being nixed.

[Zeuq]

I actually wouldn't be sure of that. Shadow Weaving actually changes your playstyle and plays an important role for balance. In a game that contains both PvP and PvE there have to be mechanisms to differentiate them. The problem is that mob health vastly outscales player health (even with health inflation in Cataclysm we won't have as much as a raid mob), so Blizzard has added talents that increase initial ramp up time and lower burst. Shadow Weaving ensures that it takes a few seconds for you to reach full power against a target; it's not a huge difference, but it's just one of several mechanisms employed.

I agree with most of your points, but the biggest problem with Shadow Priests is a lack of burst and having a talent that makes it take even longer to get your damage going just works against that. I think it's an interesting talent in terms of working on bosses, but it's just silly for trash and PVP. I think it would be fine if they kept it, provided they made some concessions for PVP. What if they changed it so it affected DoT damage but not direct damage, so you still need to ramp up to reach maximum damage on a boss, but if you want some burst, your Mind Flay, Mind Blast, and whatever the new nuke is aren't affected by it. I think that would fit with the new philosophy and make some of the decisions even more interesting.

I'd say Darkness is a much more likely candidate for being nixed.

This one definitely gone. That will almost certainly be worked straight into mastery.

[openair]

So I was thinking a little bit about the soon-to-come changes to all classes talent trees and I'm a little bit confused. I know Blizzard is doing 2 things....

They will be moving all talents that directly affect damage or healing stats, and only leave us with "Interesting" talents such as things that affect mechanics or the way spells work. At least this is what I think they are doing.

I also know that they won't be adding any more talents either, and have said they just want to give us more talent points to play around with.

What blizz says at blizzcon about year before we see content is not to be taken so literally... They were speaking in general concepts, not specifics. lol... Some of the more bland +% talents will be removed and baked in. Many of these will probably be replaced with new talents. They are not adding new talents past the current 51 pointers as they in past expansions (31 @ 60, 41 @ 70, 51 @ 80, 51 @ 85).

[Ricey]

it sucks that shadow pvp is so under rated however running a 2v2 with a rogue works quite well these days

[Neichus]

I agree with most of your points, but the biggest problem with Shadow Priests is a lack of burst and having a talent that makes it take even longer to get your damage going just works against that.

Yea, I don't mean to sound like I'm arguing for or against it as a talent that is needed or not. I'm not really privy to Blizzard's understanding of the game, so I can only take general shots. Since Affliction warlocks also have a very similar talent I have to suspect that it's entirely intentional that DoT classes have multiple barriers to being fast on the DPS. They could be defending against an issue they've foreseen if we were able to DoT things too quickly, although again I'm not entirely clear on what that could be.

[Phailzôr]

There are a few more. Revitalize is gamechanging for the target.Living seed is like a cheap Prayer of Mending, and I think you love it. Living Spirit is great, but boring. Natural Perfection could go either way, as could Improved Tranquility (I'd vote to scrap it). Omen of Clarity rocks.

But yes, the resto tree is full of flat boring +% boost talents too. The holy tree was drastically redesigned in WoTLK,and much for the better!

Ah yes, revitalize, I have never thought "hmm I am glad I picked this talent" with that, it is okay but not really gamebreaking.

Living seed is good, but since it is only from critheals (i.e. direct heals) then you don't get too many of those.

OOC I flat-out forgot, and yeah that they changed that was sweet.

but I am looking forward to seeing what they can come up with.