Cataclysm Class & Mastery Systems Update

[Ashoto]

Well, they are replacing the passive talents with passive benefits. You will get all the same stats, you just don't have to specc into it.. >_<

Yeah. Balance won't be lost. I think that's what people are afraid of - that their characters will change too much.

[Dalehan]

"but we also want something that's actually useful at level 10. Lightwell, Circle of Healing and even Spirit of Redemption are very signature Holy abilities, but none are very useful when soloing gnolls in Elwynn."

Errr.... Do they expect us do heal the gnolls to death / till they explode? Do they really think players are so extraordinary stupid that they stand there "omg my Spirit of Redemption won't kill the gnoll...!"

I like the way it is now, new players bombarded with lots of spells in their low lvls, when they're supposed to learn how ther class works will just result in more retards unable to play their class.

Way to rewrite the point of the blue post. It clearly stated none of those healing talents are valuable at a low level when you're still questing, mostly soloing even.
Also, I disagree, the new system will even explain the purpose of each spec available to you at level 10. Talent trees are incredibly bloated right now, cutting out several of the talents which could just as well be given through Masteries is a plus.

[Felnoodle]

Looks really good, I'm tired of seeing lowbies in instances with 10/10/10 speccs... Atleast now they realize they got to put talents in one tree, rather than all three.

Also, do want new build to see the trees in action and lol at people who are already criticizing (sp? such a hard word) the change

[Shroud]

If this is done right i can see this exceeding my expectations im actually excited about this but just to be safe im gonna remain weary.

[Cymorìl]

Finally we'll see only few talent points and we dont have to wait 3 or five levels to gain their full potencial, I think it will be more interesting and we wont have "garbage" points in trees...
I can't wait for these changes!

[ItachiZaku]

Every class gets there "This is what it is to be a XXX" abilities at 10 except a shadow priest that doesn't even get shadow form? I'm glad mine is 80, but out of principle I might have to 10^10 migrate.

[Protoluz]

ItachiZaku - Today
"Every class gets there "This is what it is to be a XXX" abilities at 10 except a shadow priest that doesn't even get shadow form? I'm glad mine is 80, but out of principle I might have to 10^10 migrate."


Another one that dont know how to read, they have already commented on why they wont give shadowform at level 10. You have swp at lvl 10 and thats it. So tell me the point of shadowform? They did say they will prolly give you Mind flay and shadowform at a later level.

"Mind Flay and Shadowform @LVL1x for Shadow
We really wanted to do this, but the more we thought about it, what does a level 10 Shadowform do? Spam Shadow Word: Pain? We'll probably give Shadow priests Mind Flay at level 10 and let them get Shadowform shortly after that."
So u can read it again.

[Bjarne]

Noone can say YAY or NAY on this change.. we don;t have a CLUE how it will play out.

But all I CAN say is... it will take a good long while to balance all 30 trees...

I am SOO glad I have 8 80's.. SURELY the only 2 OP classes won;t be the ones I only have 60's of.. LOL

If the 2 60's happens to be plate users, sure


And.. What exactly do they mean with the sub talent?
Is ShS going away?

[Slashley]

What exactly do they mean with the sub talent?
Is ShS going away?

Shs will the be active ability you get at lvl 10 if you choose sub.

[Nuronv]

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

[Bjarne]

ed
good thing they have all of beta to work on it...wouldn't be shocked to see cataclysm release delayed.

All of beta? By spending all of beta on this does not mean it won't fail.. Like how they for some reason didn't manage to balance DK until how long?

---------- Post added 2010-07-08 at 01:35 PM ----------

Shs will the be active ability you get at lvl 10 if you choose sub.

Wat? That's just lame.. At least give us hemo

[Slashley]

Nuronv, from reading the blues im pretty sure shadowstep will be the ability for sub rogues and they say that the felguard will probably not be the warlock demo ability.

[Butterbumps]

Ghostcrawler also ruled out Tree of Life and Bestial Wrath.

[Multigasm]

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

I highly doubt that they would make Arcane Mage the only DPS class to not get a DPS talent in the 31st point spot, if they did that would be the biggest slap in the face to everyone that plays arcane. With that being said I dont know if I should be exictied or scared that Mages are the only class they didnt make reference to in the Blue Post :-|

[loriel]

gj blizz now we are all druids, one tree builds bah

[Liminal]

Blizz has already stated that Holy Shock for Pallys will be baseline

you will probably be looking at something even more stupid like the Angel Summon skill

who knows

[Deleted]

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

Chaosbolt is likely, and Unstable Affliction is a possibility (though I doubt it).
Demonology not a Felguard. You are still collecting demons then so giving a demon lock the be-all end-all pet right at the start is asinine.
The Demon tree is centered around beefing or using your pet powers. So any of the talents that beefs pets is most likely to be added: Master Dem., Dem Emp. or Dem. Pact are much more likely candidates to start off with from the start.

They could also emphasize the link with the Demon and give the Fel Synergy, Manatap or Dem. Knowledge talents to give a more dynamic link with the demons.

Honestly I'd love Demonic Pact for early locks. It's currently a signature ability of Demon Locks, even more so then the Felguard or Meta.

[GrandpaYassy]

First good thing in Cataclysm (well, not really - flying over thunder bluff is pretty cool). They should have done this one expansion ago, now go make few but intresting talents and give us real choice in how to put our points! 20 different builds where only one is good enough is not a choice in any reasonable definition of the word.

EDIT: The point of making you put atleast 31pts in the tree of your choice is ofcourse to avoid stupidity like prot-warriors with mortal strike and elemental shamans with earth shield and so on. Cuz that would be a monster to try to balance.

You're probably right with that being the reason. However it wouldn't be an issue to balance necessarily because of dual wielding elemental shaman and anything akin to it. What I think is being overlooked is the fact that a shaman can select enhancement to receive the enhancemnt perks like dual wield. However they also receive useless melée abilities and they lose the elemental mastery perks. So would it really be hard to balance an elemental shaman who has melée mastery skills? I doubt it highly. Particularly when said elemental shaman doesn't have it's core class defining abilities.

Personally I disagree with the whole you should feel like your talent spec argument which blizzard also uses to justify their 31 point rule. The system should be you should feel like your CHARACTER. And if that's a dual wielding elemental shaman then they should support that playstyle. I don't see anything wrog with cherry picking. Nothing blizzard does will ever remove players from doing that. Anything competitive requires it.

[Fortuitous]

I think I am going to stop reading forums now, I can't believe how blindly ignorant and passionately retarded some people are.

These changes are 100% for the better, they make each talent point significantly more important and feel paramount to your characters development. Choosing how you will play your character at level 10, rather than getting that experience around 60+ is a massive improvement that will not only bring in a lot of new blood to the game, but let people play characters they might not have thought to before.

Already, I can imagine leveling a warrior as protection will be a lot more fun with sword and board with shield slam, which might put more tanks potentially being in the dungeon tool. Everyone wins from this. Why are people honestly complaining? Why am I even surprised people are complaining?

[Mem]

The reason they are locking players into a tree is so that they can give access to some of the powerful, formerly high-level spec specific abilities earlier. They can not make the latter cool change without doing the former. It's a trade-off.

They're basically saying at level 10 "we'll let you have, right now, one of the iconic abilities (plus various passive benefits) associated with your chosen spec, that you previously wouldn't have gotten until you were 30 or 40 talent points deep, as long as you commit to spending your first 31 points in that tree". It seems like a fair deal to me.

^ This.

9-something pages later...just this is new.