World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

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

• Death Pact now heals the Death Knight for 25% of his/her maximum health, down from 40%.

Glyphs

• Rune Tap now heals your party for 5% of their maximum health, down from 10%.

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

• Leader of the Pack now causes you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 4% of your maximum mana. Down from 8%.
• (Mangle) Mangle base damage increased by 55%, from 667 to 1044.

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

• Scorch base damage reduced by 5%, from [ 704-835 ] to [ 669-794 ].
• Pyroblast now costs 17% of base mana, down from 22% of base mana.

Glyphs

• Evocation now allows you to regain 40% of your health over its duration, down from 60%.

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

• Guarded by the Light (Rank 1) no longer creates a protective shield equal to the amount of overhealing. Rank 2 remains unchanged.

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

• Windfury Weapon now deals 125% weapon damage when Unleash Elements is used, up from 40%.

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

• Second Wind now regenerates 2/5% of your total health over 10 sec, down from 5/10%.

Fury

• Blood Craze now regenerates 1/2/3% of your total health over 5 sec, down from 2.5/5/7.5%.

Pre-made characters with level 359 epic gear are now available and ALL should have functional tradeskills. We've also reset everyone's available character copies back to 5.

Bastion of Twilight is now open for testing, including Heroic difficulty!

We're going to open Blackwing Descent for testing today, and Heroic difficulty will now be available. The zone will stay open for at least a day to allow different regions to test the content.

Throne of the Four Winds and Bastion of Twilight will be closed for now. They'll open up later.

I am happy to announce that rated battlegrounds are now available in the beta. The bracket is set to 10v10 for this period of testing. We will rotate the brackets to get testing in all areas as we see fit. Please queue up and leave us any feedback that you find on the system.

We will be setting up a "play with the devs" focused test for Rated BG's sometime next week. Be on the lookout for a post with more info soon.

Yeah, I have loads of questions about rated BGs. It sounds like it's "Guild BGs With Ratings", rather than Rated BGs; if I'm not misinformed, all members of a BG "team" have to be in the same guild, no?
Your guild membership has no impact on rated BG teams. You can form a raid to join up no matter what guild you are in. However, if you join a rated BG with the minimum number of required guild members, you will earn guild xp for a win. You will be notified in the top right of your screen via a guild banner that you are in a guild group.

It actually sounds like there is a lot of confusion going on with players about rated battlegrounds in general. I will get a basic FAQ together and get it posted ASAP.

Judging from the posts on the forum, it looked like most players were confused about what rated battlegrounds really are and how to interact with them. Hopefully this FAQ can help clear up some of those questions. Feel free to respond with any other questions you might have and we will do our best to post up the answers in this thread.

• Rated Battlegrounds are broken down into three brackets. 10v10, 15v15 and 25v25. These brackets rotate weekly and can be viewed in-game via the calendar by activating the battleground holiday filter.
  
  
• Players must create a raid with the full number of players required for the current bracket before entering the queue. Any level 85 player of your faction may participate in the battle (regardless of guild association).
  
  
• When players win a battle, they are rewarded conquest points, up to their weekly cap. Weekly caps are individual for each player and are based on your highest single pvp rating from the previous week (the cap resets on Tuesdays). This rating can be derived from your 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 arena, or your rated battleground rating.
  
  
• Players start at zero rated battleground rating and progress upward from there. Rating is only reduced after a lost battle when the player is above their internal matchmaking rating. For the most part, a rating only goes up.
  
  
• Epic ground mounts will be rewarded at the end of each season to the top 0.5% of players. Titles are also available as you gain rating in the system. The titles are rewarded directly from achievements earned from gaining the required rating.
  
  
• Winning a rated battleground with a team composed of 80% guild members will result in the additional benefit of guild experience gain for your guild. The UI will display a guild banner near the minimap that lets you know if you are eligible for guild achievements and experience.
  

As we previously announced, we’re in the process of rolling out region-wide battleground matchmaking. Once completed, all realms for our North American players will be matching together for battlegrounds, and four larger groups for dungeon finder use. This is a large technical undertaking, and while we’re extremely excited to see this huge advancement in connecting players within World of Warcraft, the complexity means we’ll be rolling it out slowly in a staggered approach.

Battlegroup listings and which realms are within each can be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/b.../battlegroups/

Phase 1 - Complete

Battlegrounds
The below battlegroups are now linked for battleground matchmaking.

• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm

Dungeon Finder
The below battlegroups are now linked within their group for dungeon finder matchmaking.

• Group A
• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm

Phase 2 – Implemented 11/3/10

Battlegrounds
Two additional battlegroups are added and all four are linked for battleground matchmaking.

• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm
• Vengeance
• Bloodlust

Dungeon Finder
The below realms are linked within their groups for dungeon finder matchmaking. In the final phase, all realms are expected to be grouped in this manner based on their physical locations.

• Group A
• Whirlwind
• Emberstorm
• Group B
• Stormstrike
• Nightfall
• Retaliation

Final Phase – TBD based on performance of previous phases

We’ll be updating this thread as these phases progress.

Leveling speed on beta
Just to follow-up on the question about the 80 to 85 leveling experience in the beta, we feel it's where it needs to be right now. We feel the current pacing is correct, based on what each zone supports via quests while allowing you to mix and match dungeon runs along the way. Keep in mind though that there are always those that are likely to power level their way to 85 fairly quickly.

Also keep in mind that the leveling experience now (1-60) will be changing. I guess we will see if the perception of whether it's too fast or not will change based on that. At the very least the flow of how you level should be improved. (Source)

Magmaw Testing (Blackwing Descent)
Magmaw was not available for testing previously simply due to some bugs that needed to be fixed. Magmaw will be available for testing sooner than you think. (Source)

New official forums
These new forums will be available "soonerino" and I'm glad you asked. While we obviously can't mind control everyone or force anyone to make certain sorts of posts, we CAN encourage you all to report those that violate the forum Code of Conduct AND we can also encourage you all to uprate or downrate posts you like or don't like. By doing so, you can bring to light the posts you see as better quality or help hide the ones you feel just don't cut it. Keep in mind though, it's just a tool to be used, and it's up to you all to use it. (Source)

Classes
AE Healing nerf
The beta still does not have all of our AE nerfs, so e.g. Holy Radiance and Efflorescence are still healing by too much. Once those numbers kick in, then we can lower AE damage accordingly. Priest and shaman AE healing are closer to our targets. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Buffs effects on pets
We believe all of these buffs are affecting pet stats correctly (meaning that the pet does not get buffed directly but inherits the master's stats). Sometimes you may need to reequip a piece of gear or zone to get the tooltip to update correctly, if for example you have just spec'ed into Trueshot Aura. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Cataclysm Talent Calculator / Beta Skills/Talents)
Backstab isn't nerfed, and tooltips are lying to you
Backstab is also 200% at level 80. If you are on beta, you may have a tooltip that says 150%, but it is lying to you. If you are on live, it has always been 200% and will stay that way for Cataclysm.

Below level 80, Backstab (and other attacks) will do less weapon damage, which is really all this change was trying to accomplish. (Source)

World Events

• What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been now also rewards Master Riding.

Raids & Dungeons

• Herald of the Titans is now a Feat of Strength!
• The Traitor King (10 player) now requires you to kill 25 scarabs, down from 45.
• The Traitor King (25 player) now requires you to kill 25 scarabs, down from 100.

Player vs. Player

• Three's Company: 1100 has been removed.
• Three's Company: 1350 has been removed.
• Gladiator now rewards a "Custom Gladiator mount and Master Riding".

Companion Pets

• Lil' Alexstrasza has been removed, QQ.

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

• Rune Strike now scales from 15% of Attack Power, down from 20%.
• Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage taken by 20%, down from 30%. Cooldown increased from 2 min to 3 min.

Unholy

• Mastery: Blightcaller now increases damage done by your diseases by 40%, up from 32%. Each point of Mastery increases disease damage by an additional 5%, up from 4%.

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

• Mangle (Bear Form) now deals 360% normal damage, up from 230%.
• Bear Form now increases Stamina by 10%, down from 25%.
• Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 50%, down from 60%. Cooldown changed to 3 min, down from 5 min.
• Savage Defense now reduces damage from the next physical attack that strikes you by 35% of your attack power, down from 65%.

Restoration

• Rejuvenation now costs 26% of base mana, up from 20% of base mana.
• Revitalize is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks. Now has a 20% chance to proc at all ranks, now regenerates 1/2% of your total mana (down from 3%) and cannot occur more than once every 12 sec (up from 6 sec).
• Heart of the Wild now increases your Stamina in bear form by 2/4/6%, down from 3/7/10%.

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

• Chimera Shot now scales from 48.8% of Ranged Attack Power, up from 28.8%.

Survival

• Black Arrow base damage increased by 20%, from 3077 to 3685.
• Explosive Shot now scales from 42% of Ranged Attack Power, up from 22%. Base damage increased by 25%, from 558 to 697.

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

• Arcane Blast now increases damage by 10% (down from 20%) and mana cost by 150% (down from 175%) with each cast of Arcane Blast. Now also reduces the casting time by 0.1 sec with each cast. Base cast time reduced from 2.5 sec to 2.35 sec.
• Arcane Missiles base damage has been increased by 5%, from 341 to 358.
• Focus Magic tooltip clarified to add the 30 min duration and 1 target limit.
• Arcane Barrage base damage has been increased by 5%, from [ 1004 - 1228 ] to [ 1054 - 1288 ].

Fire

• Combustion now combines all your damaging periodic Fire effects on the enemy target, but does not consume them.
• Fire Power damage has been added to the tooltip - [ 1134 to 1336 ].

Frost

• Shattered Barrier now freezes enemies within 10 yards for 2/4 sec, down from 3/6 sec.
• Fingers of Frost now has a 7/14/20% chance to proc from your Chill effects, down from 10/20/30%.
• Early Frost now reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 0.3/0.6 sec, down from 0.35/0.7 sec.

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

• Holy Radiance 20 yards range added to the tooltip.
• Light of Dawn now uses Holy Power instead of Mana. Now heals up to 5 targets. No longer has a cooldown - Consumes all Holy Power to send a wave of healing energy before you, healing up to 5 of the most injured targets in your party or raid within a 30 yard frontal cone for 1008.96 to 1124.15 per charge of Holy Power.
• Blessed Life now cannot occur more than 8 seconds (up from 2 seconds).
• Protector of the Innocent now affects heals on any target except yourself.

Retribution

• Sanctity of Battle now also affects Divine Storm.
• Divine Storm no longer uses Holy Power. Now deals 60% weapon damage, costs 5% of base mana, and has a 4.5 sec cooldown.

Protection

• Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases your chance to block melee attacks by 18%, down from 24%. Each point of Mastery increases block chance by an additional 2.25%, down from 3%.
• Shield of the Templar now reduces the cooldown of Guardian of Ancient Kings by 45/80/120 sec, down from 1/2/3 min.
• Holy Shield now increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 10% for 20 sec instead of increasing your block chance by 15%.

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

• Rapture now cannot occur more than once every 12 sec, down from 6 sec.
• Atonement (Rank 1) now heals for 50% of the damage dealt, down from 100%. Rank 2 remains unchanged.
• Inner Focus no longer affects Heal. Now affects Binding Heal.

Holy

• Rapid Renewal has been removed as a talent and is now a passive skill.
• Tome of Light is now a Tier 4 talent, up from Tier 3.

Shadow

• Mastery: Shadow Orb has been renamed to Mastery: Shadow Orb Power - Increases the damage done by your Shadow Orbs. Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 1.25%
• Shadow Orbs *New* - You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. Casting your Mind Blast or Mind Spike spell consumes all Shadow Orbs, increasing damage of that spell by 0% per Shadow Orb, and granting 0% increased damage on your periodic Shadow spells for until cancelled. You can have up to a maximum of 3 orbs.
• Mind Spike now stacks up to 3 times (Tooltip fix)

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

• Venomous Wounds damage increased by 66%, from 403 to 675.

Combat

• Backstab now deals 150% weapon damage, down from 200%.
• Bandit's Guile now increases damage to the target by up to 30%. (Up from 15%)
• Aggression now increases damage of Sinister Strike, Backstab, and Eviscerate by 7/14/20%, up from 5/10/15%.

Subtlety

• Redirect now also redirects any insight gained from Bandit's Guile.
• Mastery: Executioner now increases damage done by all your finishing moves, and the effectiveness of your Slice and Dice and Recuperate abilities, by 16%, down from 20%.

Glyph

• Slice and Dice now increases the duration of Slice and Dice by 6 sec, up from 3 sec.

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

• Elemental Reach now also increases the range of Searing Totem by 7/15 yards.

Enhancement

• Windfury Weapon now deals 40% of weapon damage when Unleash Elements is used, up from 20%.

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

• Bane of Doom base damage has been reduced by 12%, from 2213 to 1948.
• Bane of Agony base damage has been reduced by 12%, from 1743 to 1535.
• Drain Soul base damage has been reduced by 12%, from 437 to 384.
• Drain Life base damage has been reduced by 12%, from 125 to 109.
• Corruption base damage has been reduced by 12%, from 1004 to 883.
• Jinx now affects up to 15 nearby targets.

Demonology

• Hand of Gul'dan base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 1597 - 1886 ] to [ 1405 - 1660 ]

Destruction

• Chaos Bolt base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 1490 - 1893 ] to [ 1311 - 1665 ]
• Shadowburn base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 737 - 823 ] to [ 649 - 724 ]
• Fel Flame base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 251 - 291 ] to [ 220 - 256 ]
• Shadowflame cooldown has been changed to 12 sec, down from 25 sec.
• Incinerate base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 579 - 673 ] to [ 510 - 592 ]
• Soul Fire base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 2468 - 3094 ] to [ 2171 - 2722 ].
• Searing Pain base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 322 - 382 ] to [ 283 - 336 ].
• Immolate base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 756 + 2401 over 15 sec ] to [ 665 + 2112 over 15 sec ].
• Shadow Bolt base damage has been reduced by 12%, from [ 640 to 714 ] to [ 563 to 629 ].

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

• Mastery: Strikes of Opportunity's additional attack now deals 100% normal damage, down from 115%.
• Overpower now deals 125% weapon damage, up from 100%.
• Heroic Strike now scales from 75% of Attack Power, up from 60%.
• Rend base damage has been reduced by 17%, from 635 to 528. Additional bleed damage increased by 25%, from [ 8.57% of MWS * AP + 60% of MWB + 60% of mwb ] over 15 sec to [ 10.71% of MWS * AP + 75% of MWB + 75% of mwb ].
• Mortal Strike now deals 150% weapon damage, down from 185%.

Fury

• Mastery: Unshackled Fury now increases the benefit of abilities that cause or require you to be enraged by 37.6%, up from 25%. Each point of Mastery increases enrage effects by an additional 4.7%, up from 3.13%.
• Bloodthirst now scales from 62% of Attack Power, down from 75%.
• Raging Blow now deals 110% weapon damage, down from 150%.
• Slam now deals 125% weapon damage, down from 150%. Additional damage increased by 55%, from 277 to 430.
• Whirlwind now deals 65% weapon damage, down from 75%.
• Cleave now scales from 56.2% of Attack Power, up from 45%.
• Victory Rush now scales from 56% of Attack Power, up from 45%.

Protection

• Shield Block (Passive) now increases your chance to block by 25%, down from 100%. In addition, if your total chance to block or avoid an attack exceeds 100%, your chance to critically block is increased by the excess.
• Vigilance no longer reduces damage taken by the target by 3%.
• Mastery: Critical Block now increases your chances to block by 12%, up from 10%. Increases your chance to critically block by 12%, down from 20%. Each point of mastery now increases your chance to block by an additional 1.5%, and your chance to critically block by an additional 1.5% (Down from 2.5%).

With patch 4.0.1 now live and the official World of Warcraft: Cataclysm cinematic trailer released at http://YouTube.com/Warcraft, it's time for you to find out just what's in store in the weeks leading up to Cataclysm's launch on December 7.

Elemental Unrest

As earthquakes rumble and the very foundation of Azeroth becomes increasingly unstable, key members of the Horde and Alliance have begun to assemble in Orgrimmar and Stormwind to investigate the cause of these disturbances. Unconstrained elementals are terrorizing Azeroth's inhabitants, and it's become clear that a malevolent presence is threatening to tear apart the land. Suspicious strangers have taken to the Horde and Alliance capitals to offer the frightened citizens an explanation for the recent phenomena. Pro-tip: it's all doom and gloom.

The events leading up to Cataclysm are underway, and the disturbances will only become more severe as the weeks pass. Pay close attention to your faction leaders, Thrall and Varian, and be on the lookout for unfamiliar faces gathering on the city streets. This one-time-only series of events features all-new quests and multiple stages of dire happenings, so stay vigilant!

Patch 4.0.3

This patch will contain the final preparations for the Cataclysm launch, including the new login screen and official cinematic. The Shattering of Azeroth will take place sometime after patch 4.0.3.

The Shattering

Shortly before December 7, Azeroth will change forever. Deathwing will emerge from the Elemental Plane, bringing about the Shattering of the world and burning anyone and anything in his path. The events leading up to the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will reach their culmination, and Azeroth’s citizens will face the devastation they feared all along.

Entering Tol barad
Portals exist in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that take players directly to Tol Barad (requires level 85). In addition, Mages learn both a teleport and a portal spell to Tol Barad at level 85. If either of these options still don't cover you, you can purchase the faction themed tabards in Tol Barad as they have a 4hr teleport to the island as an on use effect. (Source)

In-game Cinematics
It took a bit of time for me to get back to this thread, but I wanted to make sure I conferred with our Cinematics team before making the quantum leap.

We acknowledged as a company the positive reaction of the fans to the game's cinematics very early on, and since then we've always made sure to foster a world-class cinematic division to help bring more epic storytelling to our games.

With the advent of in-game cinematics, in the case of Starcraft II, we were able to over triple the amount of cinematic storytelling compared to any previous Blizzard release. As mentioned by another poster, these moments, without in-game assets, would have been character portraits plus voice-over. Instead, they were able to be brought to life with a much more vivid realization by using in-game cinematics to help tell the story.

During the Cataclysm Cinematics panel at BlizzCon, we discussed how each pre-rendered cinematic can take a year or more, with the involvement of dozens of animators, modelers, concept artists, FX artists, programmers and more working to make the picture's vision a reality.

These pre-rendered movies take time and a lot of planning, but with game development being a very dynamic process, the opportunity may arise for a story that deserves to be told cinematically. Logistically though, there may be only a small window of time to make it happen. That is when in-game assets come into play. The unfortunate alternative would be to pass on the moment altogether.

With that said, we are definitely mindful of the desires of the community for cutting edge content, and are putting a lot of effort into pushing the limits of World of Warcraft in-game cinematics to new horizons. If you've had the opportunity to play the Cataclysm beta, the new goblin cut scene should demonstrate some of our new in-game capabilities in action, and we will continue to strive to create the best in-game cinematic content that World of Warcraft has to offer.

It all comes down to pushing the story forward. The real strength of using in-game cinematics is to harness the opportunities for additional cinematic storytelling that, without the in-game option, may never be told. Our belief here is that we'd all prefer to see more stories, regardless of the medium that is chosen. (Source)

Beta Testing
Rated Battleground Queuing
We are looking for feedback from players using the Rated Battleground queuing system. We have seen numerous reports of different behavior so if you guys could summarize your experience in this thread, that would be great.

We are working as hard as we can to get rated BG's into a playable state on the beta so any input you have would be extremely helpful. (Source)

Guild XP and Reputation
We will be returning the guild xp and reputation to normal levels in the next beta update. Just wanted to give everyone the heads up. (Source)

Guild Leveling/Rewards
Guild rewards after a gquit
You keep all rewards that you earn via the new guild system. Some require a specific amount of guild rep to use, but we never take them away. (Source)

We’d like to take a moment to clarify how we’ll be delivering World of Warcraft: Cataclysm cinematics to players who purchase the expansion digitally through Battle.net or download the installer from the web in the future.

Prior to the December 7 launch of Cataclysm, all current World of Warcraft players will receive the Cataclysm intro cinematic as part of an upcoming patch. In addition, all other in-game cinematics (including previous ones such as the Wrathgate movie) will be available for download to players who have not previously installed them. These cinematics will be automatically downloaded in the background while you play the game, after other critical game data has been received.

Wondering exactly what time you’ll be able to begin playing your goblin or worgen or making your way to level 85? On all North American realms, World of Warcraft players who upgrade to Cataclysm will be able to begin experiencing the new content at 12 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) on December 7, whether they purchase the digital download through Battle.net or buy a physical retail boxed version in stores. Players will not be able to access Cataclysm expansion content prior to 12 a.m. PST, regardless of how they upgrade or what time zone they’re located in.

All raids are currently available for testing, except for Magmaw in Blackwing Descent.

Note that to reach some of the final bosses you must currently kill the previous bosses in the zone. So be careful what you skip for now.

Elemental Invasions
There are four stages of the event. We're on the first. This is only the beginning. (Source)

Hunting for Elementals to get the achievement
I know. And I'm saying the elementals are merely leaking out at this point. It's but a small sign of a larger, more malevolent presence threatening to tear apart the land.

If you don't want to camp elementals for one achievement, wait until they're camping you. (Source)

"Low" DPS specs in WotLK
When there are multiple specs that fill the same role, as is the case for Fire vs. Frost mage or Arms vs. Fury warrior, we have found that some players will play their favored spec because they like the theme or mechanics, as long as the damage difference isn't too significant. Sadly, those players also seem to be in the minority. Many others will respec, regem, etc. for even a slight *theoretical* (very important word there) gain in dps.

If you recall earlier in the LK patch cycle, we attempted to bring Marks and Survival hunters up to the Beastmaster level. We didn't get the numbers quite right though, so what happened is that many hunters felt like they had to switch out of BM and into Survival. (Let's please not turn the rest of this thread into a lecture about how if we had only listened to *your* idea for tweaking hunter damage, everything would have turned out fine.) We heard from many players how frustrating that was -- to wake up one day and have to learn to replay their class because the anointed highest dps spec was now a different tree completely. Players are much more tolerant of huge, sweeping changes between expansions than they are in between patches.

If you look at the patch history of the rest of LK, there were many tweaks to Subtlety, Arms, Frost and BM. We were cautious though, because we were trying to avoid driving everyone who played those classes to have to switch class to class. We were trying to get the dps elevated without going over, and that's just a very small target to hit.

We learned from this mistake though, and part of the overhaul of the talent trees was specifically to make tweaking a lot easier for us. The passive talent tree bonuses are just one example, but we also did things like break our old rules for how spell coefficients relate to things like cast times, and the budget of a talent point in general. We wanted to develop a system that gave us more knobs to adjust and more fine-tuning we could deploy in between expansions to adjust specs that are low without going over.

Here's hoping it works. (Source)