Mastery System Preview

[DrgnDancer]

And people keep ignoring all the further posts in that blue thread. . . Serious people just read the fucking blue thread before making ridiculous comments that assume Blizzard cannot predict things that would be obvious to anyone with half a brain:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23614...m-preview.html
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23614...m-preview.html
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23614...m-preview.html
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23614...m-preview.html
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23614...m-preview.html
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23614...m-preview.html

Told ya, I can't see the official forums at work. Again, I was never QQing, just expressing at interest in how they're going to fix it. Feel free to link relevant Blizzquotes.

[Unholyground]

I think when all is said and done it will work splendidly.

[Divineblood]

People bang on to much about QQ and theorycrafting.

Last time I checked this was a forum where people can say how they feel.

Some will disagree and add some additional information / quotes that will prove / disprove these points. That's the fun and interesting thing about forums.

Of course you will get the odd idiot or too but if hearing people discuss "potential changes" (hence it's all theory and this theorycrafting) log off lol and save us the I hate blizz crap.

Roll on the changes and roll on more posts to give us more teasers and speculation.

[Deleted]

I love it can't wait until Cataclysm

[Waterisbest]

I think when all is said and done it will work splendidly.

This.

Blizz has been very quick in fixing things this expac and I'm hoping this will continue with cata. If something doesn't work, they will fix it.

As for people saying classes won't be balanced after mastery comes out. Yes, they won't be balanced. They won't balanced no matter what you do. They will NEVER be balanced. There will always be some class that will stay slightly better at something then others. But it won't be so big that class will be broken. If some class is behind others, they can always change the mastery bonus.

[Jasyn]

This.

Blizz has been very quick in fixing things this expac and I'm hoping this will continue with cata. If something doesn't work, they will fix it.

As for people saying classes won't be balanced after mastery comes out. Yes, they won't be balanced. They won't balanced no matter what you do. They will NEVER be balanced. There will always be some class that will stay slightly better at something then others. But it won't be so big that class will be broken. If some class is behind others, they can always change the mastery bonus.

I think mastery would be the ultimate band-aid balance fix.

X class is doing Y% more damage than anyone else? Reduce their damage mastery by Y%.

X Tank is taking Y% more damage than other tanks? Increase damage reduction by Y%

It's overall a pretty lame way to do it, but effective.

[Arandmoor]

That is actually the plan. Doing blizzcon Blizz stated that there would be a cap or diminishing return on how many mastery points you would get from dropping all points in this. My guess is they will either cap or slow down the points at 51 points. Since for most 51 points is needed in 1 tree.

Now obvious the main problems atm is as others have said how they will make this work for hybrids and specs that do 2 things (Dks and Feral). But the hybrid bit could easly be solved simple by the fact Blizz want a hybrid dps to be slightly lower than a real dps, and if a hybrid then lose out on an dps increase from having to go into another tree that dont provide dps increases for them, well then they just get some of their lower dps right there.

I personally cant wait to see what happens with our talents, what we get of new fun tools to play with and what talents are seperated into 2 talents, as im sure there will be several of the talents that currently provide 3-4 effects in 1.

And while the possiblities for this system not being done currectly are huge due to the large amount of changes this effects, i for one have faith in Blizzard. Im sure it wont be perfect from the start but considering how long WoW have been around and how many of us are still playing it even now, i think we can all agree they must still know something about their game :P

This.

There's a problem right now with pure DPS classes being overshadowed a bit too much (IMO) by hybrid classes.

Look at it this way: When you roll a hybrid class, you should be doing it so that you have access to multiple types of abilities and can diversify your playstyle. This diversity (or flexibility if you prefer) is the primary draw of a hybrid. The ability to do multiple kinds of things without respeccing or rolling a different class.

When you roll a pure class, you give up this diversity and balance (hell, logic) dictates that there needs to be some sort of trade-off. In Wrath there hasn't been one. Hybrid DPSers have been putting out as much if not more DPS than many pures, while bringing the diversity of a non-pure class.

From the perspective of hybrid players, this isn't a problem.
From the perspective of pure players, it's the end of the world.
From the perspective of someone with a LOT of 80s who has raiding experience on all of them it's not the end of the world, but it is a problem.

I like the idea of the mastery system because it will put a bit tuning nob on the various classes that the devs can turn to balance classes against one another. I also like it because it will, by it's nature, give a slight DPS advantage to some of the pure DPS classes over some of the hybrids.

Ret paladins won't be able to stack pure DPS masteries and will be forced to pump their survivability or healing once they cap their ret talents. There will be QQ.

Elemental and Enhancement Shamans that sub resto will enhance their healing. Some will embrace this and pop off the occasional heal when it would be useful to their raid. Many will QQ.

Truth be told, when we see the release version of the mastery system we might have to agree on a new definition of the terms "pure" and "hybrid" to take talent point allocation into account because some classes will have the option to spec purely for DPS while others will be unable to do so.

We will see.

[Jasyn]

Truth be told, when we see the release version of the mastery system we might have to agree on a new definition of the terms "pure" and "hybrid" to take talent point allocation into account because some classes will have the option to spec purely for DPS while others will be unable to do so.

We will see.

I've always felt there should be (and is) a difference between the classes with two roles and those with three (or four).

For example - Warriors have three trees, but two specs. They are able to spec into a "pure" dps spec, by having two dps trees (there is no "pure" tanking spec, as there is only one tanking tree).

Death knights could be "pure" dps or "pure" tank, since they have three of each trees, technically.

Druids, Shaman (to a lesser extent) and Paladins are all kind of single-tree single-role classes (although druids have two specs in one tree with feral). Enhancement shaman, in their current form, could technically be "pure" dps, since enhancement uses spells that are enhanced by elemental talents.

Priests are a bit of an oddity, since they have two healing trees and one dps tree, and are in the same boat as druids. Having a healing sub-tree isn't useful, since they would have to break form to throw a heal, unlike shaman and paladin.

So what is there to do? Different names for difference classes of hybrids?

e.g.

"Pure DPS" - Hunter, Lock, Mage, Rogue
"Full Healer" - Holy/Disc Priest
"Full DPS" - Enhancement Shaman, Fury/Arms Warrior, any DK dps
"Hybrid" - All druid, Elemental/Resto Shaman, all Paladin, Shadow Priest

[gnoop]

At Blizzcon they said that they wanted to get rid of boring Hit talents. Think we'll get some +hit from Mastery depending on spec? as a DW DPS I really don't want to stack hit exclusively from gear.

Based on earlier blue posts, hit will be on gear. Further, more hit will be needed as you scale raid content such that.... hit will continue to be on lots of gear. To give you an idea, Boomkins and Ele Shaman will share gear with their Resto counterparts. Gear with Spirit on it. The Boom/Ele's will have talents to convert Spirit to Hit. That's a lot of Spirit

As for these fun tools people get excited about, I'm wondering how often they'll really be used. You can probably have fun with them solo at times. Some might come in handy for pvp. Perhaps there will be some minor benefit in raids as well. Yet I'm wondering how useful these utilities will be in raids overall. Raid specs may end up, "take these talents and drop another XX points into X tree. Specific talents don't really matter as nothing else will impact your raid performance." In the end, that doesn't really sound fun either. Anther possibility is that there's enough mandatory talents that we just continue to take all of those and still skip the utility talents.

Now, this is all speculation. We won't know until we start seeing more examples of the talent trees. If implemented well, it shouldn't be a problem. If not? We could end up with lots of fodder points or still end up with none to spare. A small handful to spread around would probably suffice. Say, the additional 5 they're giving us?

[Malthurius]

The mastery system isn't there to be "Cool", it's there to remove talents like "Increases chance to crit by 5%" or "Increases damage with ranged weapons by 10%" and replace those talents with "fun" talents to remove "bad specs" from the game. In other words, the phrase "Cookie Cutter Spec" will be less of a presence when specing.

[DrgnDancer]

I've always felt there should be (and is) a difference between the classes with two roles and those with three (or four).

For example - Warriors have three trees, but two specs. They are able to spec into a "pure" dps spec, by having two dps trees (there is no "pure" tanking spec, as there is only one tanking tree).

Death knights could be "pure" dps or "pure" tank, since they have three of each trees, technically.

Druids, Shaman (to a lesser extent) and Paladins are all kind of single-tree single-role classes (although druids have two specs in one tree with feral). Enhancement shaman, in their current form, could technically be "pure" dps, since enhancement uses spells that are enhanced by elemental talents.

Priests are a bit of an oddity, since they have two healing trees and one dps tree, and are in the same boat as druids. Having a healing sub-tree isn't useful, since they would have to break form to throw a heal, unlike shaman and paladin.

So what is there to do? Different names for difference classes of hybrids?

e.g.

"Pure DPS" - Hunter, Lock, Mage, Rogue
"Full Healer" - Holy/Disc Priest
"Full DPS" - Enhancement Shaman, Fury/Arms Warrior, any DK dps
"Hybrid" - All druid, Elemental/Resto Shaman, all Paladin, Shadow Priest

Druids have always been an oddball even as hybrids go. They are theoretically the most versatile single class, able to effectively perform all 4 roles (tank, healer, melee DPS, or ranged DPS). Conversely they are probably the most limited of the hybrids, because to perform any of these roles well, they have to be in the correct form. The penalty for being out of form is less serious for the healing spec, more so for the two DPS specs, and largely insurmountable for the tank spec. A tanking Druid that switches out of form to perform any sort of utility spell may as well just wipe the raid, unless they are not currently tanking in a tank switch fight. DPS isn't so bad, you basically just lose some DPS time to form switches, in addition to the casting time of the spell. Healers can actually heal pretty effectively out of form, though the 5% bonus healing is nice.

The form switching could give Blizz some extra tools to work with on Mastery Bonuses, but it could make the Druid Mastery stuff kind of confusing.

"So I get + healing from my resto tree points right?"
"Yeah, but only in tree form."
"What about elf form?"
"Uh, you get + melee damage?"
"I thought that was only in cat form?"
"Wait, what about bear form, that gets + melee damage too, right?"
"I thought that was expertise?"
....

It probably won't be that bad : but I can see it getting kinda messy if they go that route. Better than forcing us to spend all out points in one tree though. I guess we'll see.

[Isilbêth]

I find it funny how even though this is just a small preview of a system which is still in development (i.e. unfinished) and Blizzard have already stated that the talent trees will also be changing in Cataclysm, people are still totally ready to definitively say "This will gimp (Insert poster's class here)" or vice versa, without actually having any idea what the talents will be, what the stats on gear will be, how stat coefficients will change or how this system will work in conjunction with Path of the Titans (something which we still know very little about. People have said things along the lines of "X class doesn't have enough useful talents to use 72 points in 1 tree" even though they actually have no clue about what will be added to the trees and what will be removed.

At this stage, there is simply nowhere near enough information to draw any sort of useful conclusions as to what these changes will mean once Cataclysm hits, and even if there was, the pointless, poorly thought out conjecture that people are spouting would be entirely inadequate when it comes to actually working out the benefits/drawbacks to any class/spec combination.

I totally agree with this opinion. I believe that the new system might be much more sophisticated and interesting than we can actually imagine by the combination of mastery with Path of the Titans, as Blizzard tries to refresh the game. But I also guess that his system will benefit to large guilds, who will have the capacity to specialize their members.

[Augrelle]

I think mastery would be the ultimate band-aid balance fix.

X class is doing Y% more damage than anyone else? Reduce their damage mastery by Y%.

X Tank is taking Y% more damage than other tanks? Increase damage reduction by Y%

It's overall a pretty lame way to do it, but effective.

This is one of the best things they have gained by doing the mastery system. INstead of having to increase talents that might push them over there respective levels and into OPness, they can just increase/lower there mastery by a little bit.

Also they said there will be disminishing returns on the points at blizzcon. So no, 76 points into one tree will not be that helpfull, on top of that I don't even think you can fit all 76 points into one tree to start with. A Mage might only gain +50% spell damage from doing 51 points into one tree when a shadow priest might gain +70% spell damage from putting it all in the shadow tree. However when that mage adds the rest of the points into one of hte other two trees, there total damage bonus might be +75-80% more spell damage.

So yes, this might make 1 tree DPS classes like priests and paladins, or even some trees like elemental shamans more hybrid like. which will inturn piss off the pures.

Note: THe reason why I say elemental shamans is since elemental shamans do not gain from +Melee damage, unlike how enhancement shamans can gain from the +spell damage from the elemental tree. So blizzard can balance enhancement on going off both trees but would have to do elemental as a standalone.


Plus, it is really too early to really do anything. We only know two priest trees, one death knight tree, the paladin and rogue trees. The Paladin and Rogue trees are subject to change thought since it might have difference bonuses from the blizzcon picture.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

that looks good. i wonder what mages get 8)

"theory"

Mage, increases spelldamage by X, Haste by X and increases damage on frostbolt/firbolt/arcane blast by x%


Ret paladins. Increases attackpower by X, Haste by X, Your haste now reduces cooldown on Judgement, Divine Storm and Exorsism.


Prot Warrior. Decreases damage taken by X%, Increases HP by X%, Your charge reduces damage taken by X% for the next 5 incoming damage.

[Deleted]

Mastery is not with skills. Mastery won't empower only an ability, it's not a tier bonus.

As they said, Pala retri will have a passive reduction of ALL its cooldowns with mastery.

And that "bonus" from charge will be useless in PvE, as not in many fights tank warriors have the oportunity to stand far of the boss and charge every CD.

[Falasar]

TIME TO GO 21/21/21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sasguard]

Pretty concerned what kind of mastery will be given to feral druids because they either dps or tank.

[TerryBogard]

Enchancement:

Increases 2H damage done by xx% so they can actually be viable again...

[rumbling]

Like it alot. Lets just hope they will implement it in a non-boring way. They need to make sure that mastery is a stat and not an "itemlevelbonus" (the way spellpower is today, booooring).

[toringx]

I like this! Adds a little more complexity to your character. Combined with simplification of the stats on gear it balances out well for overall complexity in the game. So it balances two coins, one simplicity on stats of gear for newer/less experienced players but adds complexity for those that want to really min/max.