Cataclysm Masteries, Tol'vir, Blue Posts

Death Knight (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Blood - Each time you heal yourself via Death Strike, you gain 50% of the amount healed as a damage absorption shield. Absorb increased further by mastery rating.
• Frost - Increases all frost damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Unholy - Increases the damage done by your diseases by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

Druid (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Restoration - Increases the potency of your heal over time spells by up to 20% based on the current health level of your target (lower health targets are healed for more). Healing increased further by mastery rating.
• Feral - Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32% and increases the damage done by your Cat Form bleed abilities by 20%. Absorb and damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Balance - Increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Beast Mastery - Increases the damage done by your pets by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Marksmanship - Grants a 16% chance for your ranged attacks to also instantly fire an additional ranged shot for 80% normal damage. Chance increased further by mastery rating.
• Survival - Increases all elemental damage you deal by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

Mage (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Arcane - Increases all spell damage done by up to 12% based on the amount of mana the Mage has unspent. Damage increased further with mastery rating.
• Fire - Causes your non-periodic fire spells to deal 10% additional damage over 4 sec. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Frost - Your Frostbolt spell causes its victim to take a 12% increased damage from all other spells you attack the victim with. Damage increased further with mastery rating.

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Protection - Increases your chance to block melee attacks by 16%. Block chance increased further by mastery rating.
• Retribution - Increases all holy damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Holy - Your healing spells also place an absorb shield on your target for 8% of the amount healed lasting 6 sec. Absorb increased further by mastery rating.

Priest (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Shadow - You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to gran you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. The Shadow Orb Increases the damage done by your Mind Blast and Mind Spike spells by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Holy - Your direct healing spells heal for an additional 10% over 6 sec. Healing increased further by mastery rating.
• Discipline - Increases the potency of all your damage absorption spells by 20%. Absorption increased further by mastery rating.

Rogue (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Assassination - Increases the damage done by your poisons by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Combat - Your main hand attacks have a 10% chance to grant you an extra off hand attack. Chance increased further by mastery rating.
• Subtlety - Increases the damage done by all your finishing moves by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Elemental - Grants a 20% chance for Elemental Overload to occur. Elemental Overload causes a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Lava Burst spell you cast to trigger a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes 60% of normal damage and no threat. Chance to trigger increased further by mastery rating.
• Enhancement - Increases all elemental damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Restoration - Increases the potency of your direct healing spells by up to 20%, based on the current health level of your target (lower health targets are healed for more). Healing increased further by mastery rating.

Warlock (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Demonology - Increases the damage done by your demon servants and damage you deal while transformed into a demon by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Destruction - Increases all fire damage you deal by 10%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
• Affliction - Increases all periodic shadow damage you deal by 13%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.

Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)

• Fury - Increases the benefit of abilities that cause you to be enraged or consume an enrage effect by 80%. Enrage abilities improved further by mastery rating.
• Protection - Increases your chance to block by 10% and your chance to critically block by 10%. Chances increased further by mastery rating.
• Arms - Grants a 16% chance for your melee attack to instantly trigger an additional melee attack for 50% normal damage. Chance increased further by mastery rating.

Maybe I missed the memo on levels of "epicosity" or something, but I'm pretty sure the Maelstrom is a CLASS 10 epic zone. Though I guess it is missing sharks with laser beams patrolling the waters and Arthur Fonzarelli jumping across it with water skis. And dinosaurs.

[...] After reading this post I called for a meeting with TOP TOP MEN (that's two tops) in order to figure out a solution to the problem at hand. Frankly, I think we hit a home run. The next 4.0 build (or the one after) should have a Maelstrom that's between 10 - 50x more epic than what currently exists.

I'm on a shark.

Quick preview of upcoming fire changes (talents are from left to right, *denotes a change to the talent):

Tier 1:

• Master of Elements: now 2 ranks at 15/30%
• Burning Soul
• Incineration: removed
• Improved Fire Blast: moved from tier 2

Tier 2:

• Ignite
• Fire Power: Increases the damage of your Fire spells by 1/2/3% and gives your Flame Orb a 33/66/100% chance to explode at the end of its duration.
• Blazing Speed
• Impact (no useful raid utility yet... awesome ideas welcome)

Tier 3:

• Cauterize (new, 2 ranks): You have a 50/100%% chance that an attack which would otherwise kill you will instead bring you to 40% of your maximum health. However, you will burn for 12% of your maximum health every second for the next 4 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.
• Blast Wave: A wave of flame radiates outward from the target location, damaging all enemies caught within the blast for X Fire damage and are slowed by 75% for 3 sec.
• Molten Shields (new 1 rank, Blazing Speed is a prereq): Reduces the global cooldown of your Mage Ward spell by 1.5 sec and your Mage Ward triggers the Blazing Speed effect when it dissipates from absorbing damage.
• Improved Scorch: Reduces the mana cost of your Scorch spell by 50/100%

Tier 4:

• Pyromaniac
• Combustion
• Hot Streak (the instant Pyroblast no longer costs mana)
• Firestarter (new, 1 rank): Your Molten Armor allows you to cast the Scorch spell while moving instead of reducing the chance you are critically hit.

Tier 5:

• Improved Flamestrike
• Dragon's Breath
• Molten Fury

Tier 6:

• Critical Mass: Your Pyroblast and Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 5% and lasts 30 sec.

Tier 7:

• Living Bomb

End of Arena Season
The only information that we have to share with you right now is that we will announce the end of the arena season when it is almost over, just like in every previous season. We don't provide date estimates on anything and this is no exception. Several other people understood what I was saying and the end result is that you will have to wait. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Survival "Melee Attack Speed" buff in Raid Buffs List
The "20% melee attack speed" is in fact melee and ranged attack speed. That was just developer shorthand on my part.

The effect for Survival will probably get tied into Hunting Party since Replenishment alone doesn't do anything for hunters and longer. (Source)

Mage (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Water Elemental Cooldown
The post-death cooldown will definitely be lowered to around 2 min, the intent is definitely that after it dies you're waiting a somewhat similar amount of time before it's up again as you would have under the old scheme. (Source)

Shattered Barrier proc while silenced, stunned, etc
...worth noting that the same is true of Reactive Barrier. (Source)

Reactive Barrier
There's a reasonable chance a talent like this ends up being better in practical use than in theorycraft. It could end up needing a little something extra, or a redesign, but I'm willing to let it ride for a while to see how it actually plays out. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Spell hit
We'd like to give Prot paladins (Ret too) passive spell hit somewhere. (Source)

Protection
We'd also like to find a way to bring Shield of Righteousness back, but only if we can find an actual niche for it -- not just "here's another attack." Something like it consuming Holy Power but refreshing Holy Shield. (Source)

Priest (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Shadow
We haven't worked on the Shadow tree much after out initial pass (that brought Shadowy Apparition et al.). We're working on it now. Please don't expect a total overhaul where every talent is redesigned, but we are taking a hard look at all of the damage talents and trying to make the talent choices more compelling (which often means harder). (Source)

Rogue (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Elusiveness / Dirty Tricks
Elusiveness being too deep was considered a grave injustice. So we moved it up and switched it with Dirty Tricks, causing a new injustice. We'll try and find room in tier 2 for both. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Totems
We're fine with totem health given how easy totems are to replace. We also think it's fine to have to (sometimes) choose between a buff totem and a non-buff totem given how many different things a shaman can do.

However, we are going to increase buff totem range (and possibly other totem range) and we have figured out a way to make Searing Totem attack your target, instead of a random and probably inappropriate target. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / 3.3.5 Talent Calculator / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Slam usable while moving
It is. (Source)

Protection changes in Build 12664
We buffed Thunder Clap to make up for the loss of the Imp TClap talent. We buffed Shockwave just because it got caught up in the big AE nerf, but it's really not an AE on the level of Hurricane / Blizzard. We buffed Devastate because we realized we had forgotten to compensate it for reducing the number of Sunder stacks.

All of those changes should bring Prot warrior abilities back to something that feels more normal to a current warrior.

Currently we are looking really hard at AE damage abilities by all tanks. We tried Thunder Clap with no cooldown and didn't like it. We also tried Thunder Clap with a Consecrate-like talent, but I'm not sure we like that either. At the moment we are thinking of nerfing any of the really passive AEs, including Swipe, Death and Decay, Damage Shield and Consecrate. All of those abilities (well, maybe not Damage Shield) would still be usable, but they would be more situational.

The bottom line is that we think all tanks need to be able to trivially handle the massive adds or straggling adds situations easily, or none of them should be able to. (Source)