Priest Masteries... Blizz got it right?!

[thetaurenrogue]

I don't think theyre going to have Radiance roll from renews? that would get stupid if HoTs were proccing more HoTs.

You mean like druids already do?

[Tarantism]

0/0/76 incoming.
Since shadow currently is on 67 points, we'll get many, many new talents, or we'll have to get some hopefully good low tier talents

If anything I think they will be reducing the number of talents in each tree, not adding to it. Will be interesting to see how that plays out for hybrid dps classes.

It seems to me that speccing into disc and holy will still be pretty much mandatory. This is on the assumption that the healing and meditation mastery from the disc and holy trees stack.

[jstar80]

Edit: I had kind of hoped a Disc mastery would be related to Haste however. In a way seems more appropriate to the tree, and also serves better as offspec

Discipline... the spec known for it's bubbles... A Power Word: Shield spamming class... about as core an ability as you could possibly get... the thing that differentiates it from every other healer in the game...

And you want their mastery to be about... Haste.

Are you completely mental?

[tatienne]

It seems to me that speccing into disc and holy will still be pretty much mandatory. This is on the assumption that the healing and meditation mastery from the disc and holy trees stack.

they probably stack, but I believe for this particular case (priest healers) they will be the same. so adding a 63rd point in disc will grant the same bonus to meditation as putting that point in the holy tree.

I believe it's a bonus that scales linearly point for point and that both trees has the same bonus/point (except for the mastery bonus ofcourse)
however, it's just what I believe, it's not like I have facts about it.

[Danner]

I LOVE it.

I love the fact that we were chosen as the example.
I love the mastery bonuses.

+overall healing is a damned necessity to healers in both specs. The holy tree is all about bigger heals. Currenlty, the disc tree is not. This is a primary source of trouble for a lot of discpriests, and I'm very glad to see this change. The fact that both disc and holy trees share helaing and regen masteries means it's suddenly a lot of flexibility on how to spent points! It probably also means the differences between the trees will be smaller. Perhaps we will go back to talking about four healer speccs instead of five?

+meditation is a bit of a clutch though. I doubt we'll get more regen than we have today. With 76 talent points in the healing trees, we'd likely still only see 50% regen while in combat, meaning we basically throw away a third of our mastery bonus for three talent points we've always taken anyway. Removal of the FSR is high overdue though, so that's a good change. We'll have to see how spirit plays out. I really hope they make it... easier to understand.

Absorption is a great final mastery for discipline. It's ultimately what the discpriest is all about, and enhance the strengths of that tree. I really approve of this.

Radiance can go both ways, but the current information has me excited. If it works like a predictable T10-2set bonus for instance, then this may redeem holy's inability to tank heal by a large factor. If it's a 10% chance to add a rank 3 renew to any direct heal, then it's hard to be excited. The details really is in the numbers here. But from a design point of view, I think this is a necessary change - holy have been neglecting their direct heals for a very long time now. I really dislike being the renew bot; but fheal, gheal and poh are just too weak these days to see steady action.

[Nuronv]

Given that healing is set to get more mana focused again it may actually be beneficial to the raid if a shadow priest had a +healing mastery for Vampiric Embrace. Same for Ret paladins dipping in to holy

That said if you look at the blue posts following their announcement today they are saying they might limit you to only getting one trees worth of mastery bonuses and/or cap off the benefit after 51 points. All subject to change of course

[Nirual]

Edit: I had kind of hoped a Disc mastery would be related to Haste however. In a way seems more appropriate to the tree, and also serves better as offspec (I mean, given these masteries what Shadow Priest would ever want to put points into either Disc or Holy?).

Keep in mind that the mastery essencially replaces all the boring talents in those trees that you would've had to take to get to the talents you actually wanted (like Inner Focus), so the new talent trees should have plenty of interesting choices in the lower tiers. Maybe it'll even be worth going into holy as shadow with the new trees, time will tell.

[Ajaxthegreat]

It's possible you will only get the benefit of the tree in which you've spent the most points, or will only get the benefit from say 50 points maximum with the bonus chosen from the tree with the most points in it. We'll have to see when the talent trees are more finalized and we start to figure out build strategies

I have no doubt that this will be the case. Otherwise, any class without multiple trees of the same role (healing/dps/tank) will provide useless masteries from the secondary tree or have to provide ridiculous gains from mastery in the primary tree. Shadow priests, all druids, all paladins, most shamans, and prot warriors would be a headache to design and balance if they allow multiple tree masteries to accrue.

As to Disc PvP, wouldn't speccing down for Silence be insanely better than picking up Spirit of Redemption for 15 seconds of free healing? Mind Flay, Silence, reduced cooldown on scream, reduced cooldown on shadowfiend, reduced mana cost of shadow spells, and increased shadow damage seem better and are currently accessible.

[Nuronv]

I expect it that is how it will end up, you just get the mastery from the tree that has the most points in it.. does seem the easiest solution to any problems from a design point of view

[crayven]

Expect discrepances among masteries favoring certain classes ( it's blizz we r talking about ).
Also expect people to heavily ABUSE certain specs that benefit from more masteries - probably those from arena..they usually are the ones starting the mess.

Overall sounds good - but so did all things before that were fucked up.
Also expect an humongous insane amount of resources fighting as EVERYONE and his grandmother will want to get their hand on this archeology "resource" - which is i think..mineable, prospectable or w/e-able.
This will result in crazy discrepances between people who have it and those that do NOT.
This will result in more QQ and mastery being tuned down. Also resources that are 'free for all' are subjected to the term ( uknown to wow until now as ) 'embargo camping' where a group takes some nodes for themselves and farms them endlessly for profit or w/e.
Add the bots to this and u get a very bleak picture.


Imo another unwelcome change to WoW, but that again i hate everything about cataclysm so if you love cataclysm dun take my word for it.

[Samin]

Expect discrepances among masteries favoring certain classes ( it's blizz we r talking about ).
Also expect people to heavily ABUSE certain specs that benefit from more masteries - probably those from arena..they usually are the ones starting the mess.

Overall sounds good - but so did all things before that were fucked up.
Also expect an humongous insane amount of resources fighting as EVERYONE and his grandmother will want to get their hand on this archeology "resource" - which is i think..mineable, prospectable or w/e-able.
This will result in crazy discrepances between people who have it and those that do NOT.
This will result in more QQ and mastery being tuned down. Also resources that are 'free for all' are subjected to the term ( uknown to wow until now as ) 'embargo camping' where a group takes some nodes for themselves and farms them endlessly for profit or w/e.
Add the bots to this and u get a very bleak picture.


Imo another unwelcome change to WoW, but that again i hate everything about cataclysm so if you love cataclysm dun take my word for it.

Like it's happening with titan ore nodes..oh wait..? Why do you just bring up archeology now? Oh I get it, you just wanted to flame a bit how bad wow is and still will be with cataclysm. We get it, now go home. Archeology has nothing to do with mastery, but with path of the titans. Things you describe will not happen...actually they never happend again since blizzard made the game more accesible and less hardcore-focused since vanilla (oh how dare I). I feel sad for you.

[Lezarin]

I raid on my shadow priest tbh always wanted to get silence in her spec etc or the disarm talet juts for tis handyness.

it looks promising with disc and holy and hopefully they give shadow preists something along the lines of hit or spell power bonus,s etc even mroe mana regen from their spells.

but as people have said its open to change so i,ll wait till blizz release it entirely and stamp it with their seal of approval.......then wait 2 more weeks till they nerf it to the ground and another year till they finally get it something close to right lol.

still we live in interesting times as that old saying goes.

[Nuronv]

One thing i do like about the mastery system is that it allows Blizzard a knob to twiddle for each tree if they have scaling problems or are generally over or under tuned. It isn't an end to all balance problems but it seems like a step in the right direction.

[Cyrila]

Also expect an humongous insane amount of resources fighting as EVERYONE and his grandmother will want to get their hand on this archeology "resource" - which is i think..mineable, prospectable or w/e-able.
<snip>
Imo another unwelcome change to WoW, but that again i hate everything about cataclysm so if you love cataclysm dun take my word for it.

Translation: I don't know anything about cataclysm at all and I don't feel like reading up on it, but because I am prejudicial and ignorant, I am still able to hate it.

[Nirual]

Also expect an humongous insane amount of resources fighting as EVERYONE and his grandmother will want to get their hand on this archeology "resource" - which is i think..mineable, prospectable or w/e-able.

This has nothing to do with archeology.

[Keosen]

Im so excited about Shadow tree masteries!!!11! Oh wait...

[Gadix]

It seems to me that if they keep the two trees stacking, they'll adjust it so that they're meant to be stacked. If they're assuming that all disc priests take some holy talents, and all holy priests take some disc talents, then the first tier mastery bonuses of those two specs would equal the mastery bonus of a class that only has one healing tree.

With other classes, I think Blizz can pretty much tell which secondary spec someone will put points into and adjust the mastery bonus to accommodate, and for classes such as pallys with multiple options, they might redo the lower tier talents to influence what secondary talents are chosen. Or perhaps they'll leave it open for further customization (do you want your pally tank to do extra threat, or be able to do more self healing?)

[Hegar]

I find the irony to be that, unless they REALLY explain this "mastery rating" or whatever they're going to call it on gear, it's going to be more ambiguous and nebulous than armor penetration currently is.

Don't get me wrong it sounds really interesting, nothing like ARP, but at the same time how the hell are we going to figure out how much this mastery rating weighs in making gearing decisions without using simcraft?

Mastery Rating will convert out into a solid, numbered amount of +shielding% or +hot% or whatever else, so it'll be comparable, but still a juggling act. This is a great example of that depth without complexity they keep going on about.

[Nuronv]

What would people like to see as the Shadow Ones? Given that they want to do away mandatory talents such as mana regen and flat spell power increases. They also appear to want to make the final one unique to each spec.

- Darkness : +#% Shadow Damage
- Spirit Tap: Increases your mana regenerate by #% after every kill for # seconds and allow #% regen while casting
- Consuming Void: Whenever you damage at target with mind flay you gain consuming void. increasing the damage done by your DoTs, this stacks # times. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.

[Baabinator]

I don't think theyre going to have Radiance roll from renews? that would get stupid if HoTs were proccing more HoTs.

I heard you liked HoTs, so we put HoTs on your HoTs so you can HoT while you HoT

Sup.