Cataclysm Class & Mastery Systems Update

[evan_s]

If you believe that there won't be cookie cutter DPS (or tank, or healing) specs for every class then you are being a bit naieve. If you play a DPS class a talent is only interesting if it translates into increased DPS. A reduced cooldown on Death Grip for example, while no doubt fitting Blizzards definition of an interesting talent is utterly useless in a raid DPS build. So Blizzard are faced with a fail fail situation. If someone ends up with so few DPS boosting talents in the tree that they end up taking utility or "fun" talents instead they will feel like they are wasting those talent points. Do you really think people will be cheering when they realise there is so little useful stuff to take that they have to spend some of their (now much fewer) talents on things that provide no benefit whatsoever to what they are doing? On the other hand if all the talents somehow translate into extra DPS there will, in very little time, emerge cookie cutter specs just like we have now.

How "interesting" is defined from a talent perspective varies based on the goal. If you want to do more DPS any talent that doesn't provide that fails to be interesting by definition and if you are forced to take it because of a lack of interesting options it will feel like you have been forced to waste talent points. The problem is while one person sees having 10 talent points left over after getting the interesting options as an opportunity to pick something useful to something else (bgs, 5 mans, arenas, etc) another will see having 10 talent points left over as being forced to waste 10 talent points on useless crap.

I am sure many specs now have a point where you need to spend 2 or 3 talents to get to the next level down without anything worth spending them on. When you spend those few points on something that provides no real benefit to you just so you can reach the talents that do provide a benefit does that feel like an interesting choice to you? Putting people in the situation where they have to do that a lot seems to be the goal of this talent overhaul.

I think there is room for "interesting" talent choices that don't have to impact your dps/tanking/healing.

I have a warlock as one of my alts and I could see choosing between Shadowfury, and Nether Protection as an interesting choice. Neither is going to directly increase my dps but both provide useful utility in both PvP and raids. I could also see things like IMP soul leach having their personal benefit separated from the raid buff by either just removing it or moving it into a separate talent. Do I take this useful but possibly redundant raid buff talent for 1 point or pick up one of the previously mentioned talents. These are interesting and meaningful choices that won't have a cookie cutter, this is the best dps option.

With out having seen the talent tree's it's hard to condemn them as being either pointless or cookie cutter.

[Predikari]

Sounds like it could be the best thing blizzard has done in a long time, i'm all for this.

[Fichek]

I think there is room for "interesting" talent choices that don't have to impact your dps/tanking/healing.

I have a warlock as one of my alts and I could see choosing between Shadowfury, and Nether Protection as an interesting choice. Neither is going to directly increase my dps but both provide useful utility in both PvP and raids. I could also see things like IMP soul leach having their personal benefit separated from the raid buff by either just removing it or moving it into a separate talent. Do I take this useful but possibly redundant raid buff talent for 1 point or pick up one of the previously mentioned talents. These are interesting and meaningful choices that won't have a cookie cutter, this is the best dps option.

With out having seen the talent tree's it's hard to condemn them as being either pointless or cookie cutter.

Well, let's take your example. You say Shadowfury and Nether Protection.. You have that choice to make right now. Both of those are available. And what happens? Every destro pvp lock will have both. And neither destro pve lock will have Nether Protection and most of them will have Shadowfury because it's only 1 point so you are not losing much even if it's useful only in certain encounters. Do you understand now?

[sabrelime]

First of all, there seem to be many ppl saying that it will make leveling more fun and enjoyable, but I couldn't care less. I'd rather have one class that I'm playing for a long time I know that class and its mechanics well and I can actually play it both in pvp and pve at decent level. I don't want to reroll every patch, like many ppl do.

Secondly I liked having a choice when specing my character. I've spent thousands of gold on respecs and tested carefully every single talent my character has just to be able to use them efficiently. I hate the idea of dumbing down WoW just to please some new customers.

Omfg this is great. You expect us to believe you went out and respeced hundreds of times to figure out what talents were best?? I mean EJ does exist for a reason. Hell testing like this would be so impractical there isn't even a shadow of a doubt that you got any useful results from it, even though I doubt you ever did to begin with.

[evan_s]

Well, let's take your example. You say Shadowfury and Nether Protection.. You have that choice to make right now. Both of those are available. And what happens? Every destro pvp lock will have both. And neither destro pve lock will have Nether Protection and most of them will have Shadowfury because it's only 1 point so you are not losing much even if it's useful only in certain encounters. Do you understand now?

Actually the 2 top cookie cutter Destruction specs don't have Shadowfury because they take too much of a loss taking a point from either IMP Soul Leach or Uhholy power. Generally, the only time you do see Shadowfury in PvE is when Destruction locks need to take Suppression for the hit and are left with a couple spare talents there. Anyway it was just an example of the types of choices that could be "interesting", in my opinion, but aren't going to be something that aren't going to affect your dps to lead to a cookie cutter "best" dps spec.

[Cubcake]

I can't vouch for rogues since mine is only a level 35 but my lock has never relied on Soul Link unless I either went with my 29/42/0 build so I could solo instances for rep/mount farming or if I used it for some pvp builds. I assume that comment was geared towards arena and pvp because the only time I see people pick up Soul Link are instances like those or if they are demo.

*EDIT* Oh, and as far as the talents go, I am very interested in seeing how this works. I either seeing this being total win or complete fail. Personally, I am hoping this ends up being amazing and living up to Blizz's expectations. I do like that they are actually giving players core abilities to their trees at lover levels. About time! (Now just fix lock aggro for real this time and I will be happy)

[Orbital]

I'm wondering if we will have all our talent points refunded or I'll need to pay 5g in order to respec...

[Deleted]

I think this is a huge mistake and takes alot from the the game. Forcing ppl to spec into just one tree is potential game killer. How many healers? You are litterally forcing ppl that want to play healers to spec something else for long portion of the game. Instead of allowing them to spec healing and pick some decent dmg hybrid combos.

From my perspective... it makes WOW even more of a themepark... Its not like devs needed to control the first 40 levels ? The control is needed in the latter 40....

The potential of damgaging the balance of healer - tank - dps balance is huge IMO. Blizzard is forcing ppl to play DPS for the start. Its not like dps ppl were needed in this game?

Did you even read the posts?

[Cubcake]

Well, let's take your example. You say Shadowfury and Nether Protection.. You have that choice to make right now. Both of those are available. And what happens? Every destro pvp lock will have both. And neither destro pve lock will have Nether Protection and most of them will have Shadowfury because it's only 1 point so you are not losing much even if it's useful only in certain encounters. Do you understand now?

With Imp Gun spec and ISL Spec (the top 2 go-to pve specs for destro locks) you don't pick up either Shadowfury or NP. People only really pick up Shadowflame for pve in 3 cases.

1) Your group lacks stuns/cc and the RL asked you grab it.
2) You're grinding/farming and want a CC for whatever reason.
3) Or the most likely scenerio, you went with the suppression spec because you don't have the gear to be hit capped without it yet and you need something for filler for those extra points in that spec (which you said).

In hindsight, outside of pvp you are rarely using that talent so imho it's a wasted talent. I would rather put the 1 point into Soul Leech for a little heals here and there. Also with the rate people get gear now, there really isn't much point to grabbing the hit spec for a prolonged period of time. Personally, that's what gems, chants, spriests, and boomies are for! lol

[Kuja]

666 comments :O

i hope retris don't have to go into holy or prot tree to pick up talents which do not increase dps after this

[Alraml]

All I see is, if the talent for +15% crit chance with pennance and smite stays. Leveling my disc priest is gonna be a walk in the park with Pennance at 10

[Arandmoor]

31 point trees. And we will be force do spend all 31 talent points to be able to put them in another one. So for me it seems that now there will be no "builds" because you will have to complete one tree in 100%. So where are the differences between PvP and PvE builds? In my equipment?

When they say "31-point trees" they don't mean that there's exactly 31 points worth of talents in the entire tree. They mean it will take 31 points to get to the bottom of the tree. Also, you completely ignored/skipped/raged-past the part where GC states that each talent now ranges from 1-3 points each, and each tree has 20-30 talents each. That means that unless every talent (barring a single 2-point talent) is a one point talent, you can't max a tree with only 31 points.

[Manaspawn]

seems like they are makin this game into somekinda movie you just walk along in... As a mage you either specc frost, fire or arcane, and you are either going to pick the talents for PvE or PvP... like today there wont be a choise but more a "perfect" specc... the talents should all be equally good and you should pick those you like ann not those you need... every1 will be running around with exactly the same gear and the same specc... how personal -.- *sigh*

[delage35]

I don't see anything wrog with cherry picking. Nothing blizzard does will ever remove players from doing that. Anything competitive requires it.

Silly rabbit, blizz can certainly remove the cherries any time they want to. I don't think they've gone quite that far yet, but they've moved most of sweet ones out of reach.

[Orinoco]

Brilliant idea I reckon, so long as it can be pulled off the way Blizzard are hoping. I did like the idea of having a spec that was roughly 50/50 between two trees but loosing that is worth it if we get rid of most mandatory talents and gain plenty of way to personalise our own specs.

[Sycobob]

This sounds awesome. I'm stoked.

[GrandpaYassy]

Silly rabbit, blizz can certainly remove the cherries any time they want to. I don't think they've gone quite that far yet, but they've moved most of sweet ones out of reach.

When i say cherry picking i mean picking the best. This change will do absolutely NOTHING to limit cherry picking in a competitive environment. With rated BG's coming into play it only promotes cherry picking more. So no, blizzard cant remove the cherries. There will ALWAYS be a best spec. And players will discover it, and copy eachother over it.

[Sonoka]

I'm predicting the following specialization abilities

Druid:
Balance - Typhoon
Feral - Mangle
Resto - Tree of Life

Hunter:
Beast Mastery - Bestial Wrath
Marksmanship - Chimera Shot (aimed shot baseline)
Survival - Wyvern Sting

Mage:
Arcane - Slow
Fire - Living Bomb
Frost - Water Elemental

Paladin:
Holy - Holy Shock
Prot - Holy Shield
Ret - Divine Storm

Priest:
Disc - Penance
Holy - Guardian Spirit
Shadow - Mind Flay

Rgoue:
Assassination - Mutilate
Combat - Blade Flurry
Sub - Hemorrhage

Shaman:
Elemental - Thunderstorm
Enhancement - Duel Wield
Resto - Earth Shield

Warlock:
Affliction - Unstable Affliction
Demonology - Felguard
Destruction - Chaosbolt

Warrior:
Arms - Mortal Strike
Fury - Bloodthirst
Prot - Shield Slam

Rogue Sub = Shadow Step
Paladin Holy =/= Holy Shock, that will be a baseline spell.
Warlock Demo, NOT felguard, maybe soul link.
Blizz said they don't want locks running around with Felguards in level 10 if they havn't even learned voidwalker yet.
Else, pretty good speculations.

[Sulika]

I think there is room for "interesting" talent choices that don't have to impact your dps/tanking/healing.

I have a warlock as one of my alts and I could see choosing between Shadowfury, and Nether Protection as an interesting choice. Neither is going to directly increase my dps but both provide useful utility in both PvP and raids. I could also see things like IMP soul leach having their personal benefit separated from the raid buff by either just removing it or moving it into a separate talent. Do I take this useful but possibly redundant raid buff talent for 1 point or pick up one of the previously mentioned talents. These are interesting and meaningful choices that won't have a cookie cutter, this is the best dps option.

With out having seen the talent tree's it's hard to condemn them as being either pointless or cookie cutter.

Thats fine, but it is a subjective definition of interesting (which is the entire problem with this whole endeavour from the start). Blizzard seem to have gotten it into their heads that talents are only interesting if they change how an ability works. There is a whole seperate school of thought that it is interesting if it makes you more effective at what you want to do. The proliferation of cookie cutter specs would tend to suggest that the majority of WoWs player base are of the latter opinion.

To use a simple analogy, Blizzard would think paddle gears on a car are interesting because they change how you shift gears. To a race driver they are only interesting if they allow you to drive faster, that they change the mechanism is irrelevent.

[Bynde]

For those of you who fail at literacy, some copy-pasta

How big are the new trees?
They have 38-42 or so points in them. You could spend all 41 points in one tree, though often you'll want a 5/5/31 or a 0/7/34 build instead. Every talent is 1, 2 or 3 talent points. Earlier levels have about 8 points on them (typically a 2, 2, 3) and deeper levels have about 5 points on them (typically a 1, 2, 3).

How anyone could have read that as "The new trees are only going to have 31 points in them so everyone will be the same" is beyond me.

Also; I love this change, but that's only because I have at least a rudimentary level of reading comprehension (A clear advantage to the average internet hate machine)