WoW: New Ex. Pack Talents/Spells Revealed (partially)

[LesJarvis]

Only six (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/talents-and-spells.html) of the nine classes are listed so far. Based on a cursory browse they look pretty good.

Favorite so far: Mages get summon water elemental as a 41 point frost talent.

[Tom McNamara]

At a glance, I'm impressed by the changes to the existing warlock talents, in addition to the new tiers. Threat reduction and a greatly improved Dark Pact -- and that's just the Affliction tree. In Demonology, you can summon a Fel Guard, but they still kept those not-so-useful spellstone and firestone abilities. In Destruction, there's more threat reduction -- and it's in an ability that most people get anyway. I also noticed that the Destruction and Afflicition trees got talents or talent enhancements that specifically address +spell damage gear. This automatically goes toward mana efficiency, another common Warlock concern.

But I have to say, the other classes are probably going to have some complaints about Shadowfury. Instant cast stun to *all* enemies within eight yards, plus a hefty AoE nuke? Tactically, it's almost as good as Death Coil. It also sounds like a lag bomb. And when used in combination with DC, Nightfall, Soul Leech, and Bane, well... you're one tough SOB.

[Charles]

Some of these seem poorly thought out.

[Charlatan]

I'm surprised Mages get the summon. I thought for sure that was bunk. The spell description doesn't say anything about the duration of the elemental (if indeed it's on a timer) or anything else - if it's a perma pet I'd be ticked off if'n I was playing my Warlock.

And Shaman get dual wield? When I played I was Elemental specced, but that Enhancement tree looks pretty interesting.

[Supertanker]

Unstable Affliction looks like a great PvP talent, specifically aimed at people spamming Decursive. However, I imagine I'd prefer the group stun, since it will be the only escape talent that is not fear-based.

With warlocks getting an alternate escape and a number of threat reductions, I hope priests get a non-fear escape and some mana regeneration ability.

[DeepT]

The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.

:(

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[Ranulf]

Unstable Affliction looks like a great PvP talent, specifically aimed at people spamming Decursive. However, I imagine I'd prefer the group stun, since it will be the only escape talent that is not fear-based.

With warlocks getting an alternate escape and a number of threat reductions, I hope priests get a non-fear escape and some mana regeneration ability.

Hope springs eternal for priests but I'm not optimistic. Of course the three classes they don't release info on are the 3 I play the most. :(

[olaf]

I am sure a lot will change. I havent taken a close look at any of them beyond Warrior.

I like the Protection changes. That HP talent in Protection is long overdue. Spell mitigation talent is nice too, especially coupled with the reflect spell ability all Warriors are getting. That is a big boost to vs magic. I dont expect the reflect to work with NPCs though.

[MarchHare]

Rogue talents suck unless you're a PvP ganker.

Everything is in the wrong place...all the talents that would be good for raiding are too deep into the Subtlety (+10% agility) or Assassination (+10% damage for 10 seconds after a finishing move) trees to fit into a viable PvE build. The talents that are deep in Combat would be decent for PvP (chance to resist fear, chance to daze your target etc.), whereas they should be in Subtlety.

None of the 41-point talents are particularly exciting. The best new PvE spec will probably be 30/31/0 Swords/Maces/Fists for Seal Fate and Adreneline Rush, not taking advantage of any of the new talents.

I seriously hope they make some changes prior to the release, because I'm extremely underwhelmed at this point and am very seriously considering re-rolling a different class, likely either a fury warrior or a mage or possibly even a shaman.

[Michael Fortson]

:(

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Mage, Druid, Shaman and Paladins Talents and Skills are found here. (http://forums.curse-gaming.com/showthread.php?p=39171)

[Mark Asher]

Dig this for warlocks - a new spell, Incinerate.

"Deals 429 to 497 Fire damage to your target and an additional 107 to 125 Fire damage if the target is affected by an Immolate spell."
First you immolate them, then incinerate them, and then conflagrate them! If they are still stubbornly clinging to life, that's what shadowburn is for! Sign me up!

[Charles]

Subtlety rogues are great for PvP and PvE. It's nice to see that tree get a bit of a boost. Combat/subtlety is what my rogue already does, and it works great. Good damage, lots of combo point generation, and improved sap FTW. Surprise attacks makes taking combat to the end, and Blade Twisting coupled with the new warrior abilities doing more damaged against dazed targets is going to be helpful as well.

[TheRock]

Love the dual wield/specialization for Shaman....and the heroism, earth elemental and fire elemental.


oh no...starting a new alt....again.

[Charles]

Dig this for warlocks - a new spell, Incinerate.

"Deals 429 to 497 Fire damage to your target and an additional 107 to 125 Fire damage if the target is affected by an Immolate spell."
First you immolate them, then incinerate them, and then conflagrate them! If they are still stubbornly clinging to life, that's what shadowburn is for! Sign me up!


My favorite is the DOT that does half of a mage's health in damage, and even more if they dispel it! Wooo! Couple that with warlocks being able to turn enemies in to The Bomb a la MC, and they've become even more uber at pvp.

[LesJarvis]

Subtlety rogues are great for PvP and PvE. It's nice to see that tree get a bit of a boost. Combat/subtlety is what my rogue already does, and it works great. Good damage, lots of combo point generation, and improved sap FTW. Surprise attacks makes taking combat to the end, and Blade Twisting coupled with the new warrior abilities doing more damaged against dazed targets is going to be helpful as well.

Subtlety is great for pre-raid PVE, but for raid PVE it's pretty lacking since Combat is where the really good DPS stuff is and pretty much every serious rogue wants malice, lethality and relentless strikes (though since the talent revamp a lot of pve dagger rogues are only getting 4/5 lethality since they want relentless, AR, and 5/5 opportunity.)

[Tom McNamara]

Also, I just noticed that Curse of Exhaustion has been consolidated into a single, one-point investment.

[LesJarvis]

Oh shit, I just realized that tactical mastery is now tier 1 protection. That means that instead of being filler points in Arms, warriors who want it will have to dip into protection. That's going to piss a lot of people off, unless they change it so that by default warriors retain 25 rage when switching stances (which, imo, is how it should be.)

[Charles]

I can't wait to see how they screw over feral druids.

[MarchHare]

Subtlety rogues are great for PvP and PvE. It's nice to see that tree get a bit of a boost. Combat/subtlety is what my rogue already does, and it works great. Good damage, lots of combo point generation, and improved sap FTW. Surprise attacks makes taking combat to the end, and Blade Twisting coupled with the new warrior abilities doing more damaged against dazed targets is going to be helpful as well.

Subtlety is worthess for PvE dps. Any rogue that does a fair bit of raiding is going to have, at an absolute minimum, 11 in Assassination (for Relentless Strikes) and 28 in Combat (for Weapon Expertise and Blade Flurry). Dagger rogues require an additional 5 points in Subtlety (for Opportunity). So with those limitations, there's absolutely no way any of the new talents that would be good for PvE, such as Sinister Calling (+10% Agility, requires 35 in Subtlety) or Find Weakness (+10% damage to all attacks for 10s after a finishing move, requires 35 in Assassination) can fit into any halfway decent raiding spec.

Just as apalling is that the new talents in the Combat tree are good for PvP but useless in raids, so nobody will bother taking them either. PvP rogues will spec deep into Subtlety or Assassination, so stuff like Nerves of Steel (increases chance to resist fear and stuns by 10%, requires 30 in Combat) and Blade Twisting (25% chance to daze your target) will also go unused by just about everybody.

All I see so far are some really great buffs to Subtlety/Ganker spec rogues, but not one thing to help PvE raiders. That being said, if they switched the positions of Find Weakness (moving it to tier 8 of Combat) and Blade Twisting (moving it to tier 8 of Assassination), I'd be much happier.

[Kunikos]

Holy shit, Invisibility, Spell Steal, and Water Elemental for my mage!?

[Lum]

Oh shit, I just realized that tactical mastery is now tier 1 protection. That means that instead of being filler points in Arms, warriors who want it will have to dip into protection. That's going to piss a lot of people off, unless they change it so that by default warriors retain 25 rage when switching stances (which, imo, is how it should be.)

Uh... they moved it from tier 2 arms to tier 1 protection. Contrary to popular belief, you are not physically required to spec straight to Mortal Strike as you level your warrior. There are other options. And the replacement for it in arms (Iron Will) is something that I doubt most people will sneer at.

I agree that forcing people to burn 5 spec points on what everyone agrees is a required talent is bad design, but at least it's somewhat mitigated now. Most cookie-cutter arms/fury builds have 5 points they can spare for prot.

[Jaysun]

Invisibility seems pretty useless -- can only see other invisible people or those that can see invisibility.

Also, shaman dual-wielding with the talent which (I think) adds up to +10% to hit while dual-wielding is a gross injustice to warriors that pay 5 points for only a 5% increase.

[Gordon Cameron]

Oh shit, I just realized that tactical mastery is now tier 1 protection. That means that instead of being filler points in Arms, warriors who want it will have to dip into protection. That's going to piss a lot of people off, unless they change it so that by default warriors retain 25 rage when switching stances (which, imo, is how it should be.)

I don't have a problem with this -- as Lum said you can still finagle it with an MS build without too much difficulty, and on the other hand if I want to spec full prot for tanking I can keep the benefit of TM without having to put so many points into another tree.

Victory Rush looks like a lot of fun for solo grinding. That would put me up to about 34% crit in zerk stance with the farming gear I have... But will Commanding Shout stack with Battle Shout?

[LesJarvis]

Uh... they moved it from tier 2 arms to tier 1 protection. Contrary to popular belief, you are not physically required to spec straight to Mortal Strike as you level your warrior. There are other options. And the replacement for it in arms (Iron Will) is something that I doubt most people will sneer at.

I agree that forcing people to burn 5 spec points on what everyone agrees is a required talent is bad design, but at least it's somewhat mitigated now. Most cookie-cutter arms/fury builds have 5 points they can spare for prot.

Oh, I'm not saying it's a bad thing per se, though as I said before I think it should be either trainable or built in to the warrior class. I was saying that it's going to piss a lot of people off. And I was right (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=10022).

Edit: Also, I think it's a bigger deal than you think, at least for fury warriors, since they can't get impale, rampage (new 41 point fury talent,) and TM now. Same for Arms warriors with endless rage (new 41 point arms,) enrage and 5/5 TM.

[Tom McNamara]

Some of the talent descriptions are, in my opinion, poorly worded. The new Improved Drain Soul says, "In addition, your Afflicition spells generate 10% less threat." Does this mean 10% for investing the points in that talent? 10% less while I'm channelling the spell? Or 10% for an indeterminate length of time?

Then Nether Protection: "After being hit with a Shadow or Fire spell, you have a 20% chance to become immune to the Shadow and Fire spell for 4 sec."

Immune to shadow and fire spells for 4 seconds? Or immune to the spell class you were just hit with? Or just immune against that specific spell?

[Erik Andersson]

First I wondered why you thought TM got moved to protection, but I see now that the talent trees are different in wow-eu! I wouldn't be surprised if 17/3/41 will be very competetive compared to arms and fury builds for dps, devastate looks pretty good. It's 12 rage for 50% weapon damage + 30, and with 10% extra damage from 1h-spec it will probably do quite a lot of damage. The protection tree seems to have gotten a lot of attention, arms and fury haven't really been improved that much, I doubt it's worth it to go for 41 in either tree.

[bigdruid]

Wow, the Warlock affliction spell/talent that does 1K damage *to the dispeller* is sweet, sweet candy. Almost makes the affliction tree viable again.

[DeepT]

Holy shit, Invisibility, Spell Steal, and Water Elemental for my mage!?

Invis: Fades out over 8 seconds. Will dots and what-not dispel it? Purge, etc??? I suppose it might be fine for PvE though.

Steal spell is nice, it will make casting detect magic useful now.

Water elementals... could be nice. How long will they last? Will they they taunt? Can they tank? Are the controllable?

I like the end pet on the Warlock Demonology tree, however, I can ask the same questions. It had better be a perma-pet and not some enslaved pet that breaks free.

[Mark Asher]

This is the friends and family beta. A lot of this will change, as Olaf said. I think Blizzard released this information before they wanted to, also. Someone in the beta leaked some screenshots of talents that were making the rounds.

[slantz]

My guess is that Blizzard had this stuff ready to go, because it's not like they could put together those pages in an hour or even a day. Those pages took planning and graphical design work and coding work and QA, and that pipeline takes a while.

My guess is that they've finally caught on enough to recognize that leaks are inevitable, so they planned on releasing this stuff soon after they started the friends&family beta -- i.e. now.

[Mark Asher]

One of the things that’s nice about deeper talent trees is that we will have more distinguishable subclasses now, effectively. I bet that jewelcrafting will fit right in and let us further distinguish our builds.

The challenge that Blizzard will have is to make all trees viable. They didn’t really do that with the three classes I play, rogue, hunter, and warlock. Rogue is decent – all three trees are good and you do get different kinds of rogues if you go heavy into a given tree.

Hunters aren’t bad, but they have one tree no one goes deep in, Survival. And, most hunters end up going deep into Markmanship anyway, although you see a few who like the red pet and go deep in Beast Mastery.

Warlocks I don’t know as well yet, but it doesn’t seem like Afflicition is a good tree for going deep.

They also need to rethink that cost of respeccing. It sucks to have to respec for a raid at 50 gold a pop.

[olaf]

RE: Warrior talents

Moving TM to the least utilized tree is a nerf. TM should be a class ability, not a 5 point talent.

Anticipation is horrible still, why are some talents flat bonuses and some of them % boosts? 5 talent points for 10 defense is dogshit. There are items with more than that.

[Charles]

They also need to rethink that cost of respeccing. It sucks to have to respec for a raid at 50 gold a pop.

It's only 1g a pop, per month, if you'd never respecced before the patch that added the 5g/month decay. I find it weird that they didn't reset other people's counts to match.

[Charles]

RE: Warrior talents

Moving TM to the least utilized tree is a nerf. TM should be a class ability, not a 5 point talent.

Prot is the least utilized tree? Maybe if you are a solo warrior, or someone who doesn't give a shit how bad he is at tanking.

Although, how that I think about it, there are way less people who want to be good at their role than people who'd rather just be better on the damage charts. So I guess you are right.

[Ragnar Oppedal]

Warlocks I don’t know as well yet, but it doesn’t seem like Afflicition is a good tree for going deep.
Actually 30/0/21 is probably the most popular raiding build for Warlocks. There are some crap talents but Shadow Mastery is very good.

It's only 1g a pop, per month, if you'd never respecced before the patch that added the 5g/month decay. I find it weird that they didn't reset other people's counts to match.I believe it only goes down to 10g.

[sluggo]

Prot is definitely the least utilized tree out of my guild's warriors, and we're doing AQ40 and Naxx now.

A lot of our warriors simply think the prot tree doesn't give a good return on the talent points. We have a few guys who are full prot, but most of our crew feel they get more all-around mileage out of 31/0/20 or 31/5/15 builds while not sacrificing much in the way of tanking.

[Tom McNamara]

First I wondered why you thought TM got moved to protection, but I see now that the talent trees are different in wow-eu! I wouldn't be surprised if 17/3/41 will be very competetive compared to arms and fury builds for dps, devastate looks pretty good. It's 12 rage for 50% weapon damage + 30, and with 10% extra damage from 1h-spec it will probably do quite a lot of damage. The protection tree seems to have gotten a lot of attention, arms and fury haven't really been improved that much, I doubt it's worth it to go for 41 in either tree.

It also has no cooldown, unlike Mortal Strike, and it costs half as much rage. I also noticed you can have Devastate, Dual Wield Spec, and 1h spec at level 70.

[mouselock]

One of the things that’s nice about deeper talent trees is that we will have more distinguishable subclasses now, effectively. I bet that jewelcrafting will fit right in and let us further distinguish our builds.

That's a pretty horrible thing if you're a hybrid though. I'm currently a druid specced hybrid (30 feral/21 resto). I can put the next 10 talent points into feral and be so far behind on resto that it's probably not worth bothering, or I can put 10 into resto and no longer have any viability as a tank, or I can put 5 in each and be pretty useless in either.

They'd need to make some huge itemization changes to actually make hybrids viable for the raids they're talking about shrinking folks down to at this point. Maybe those will come. I'm skeptical, though.

[Gordon Cameron]

Prot is definitely the least utilized tree out of my guild's warriors, and we're doing AQ40 and Naxx now.

A lot of our warriors simply think the prot tree doesn't give a good return on the talent points. We have a few guys who are full prot, but most of our crew feel they get more all-around mileage out of 31/0/20 or 31/5/15 builds while not sacrificing much in the way of tanking.

Interesting; I kind of assumed that if I ever got into the raidgame I would have to go 31 points into prot even as an offtank. In the endgame 5mans I tank ok with a 31/5/15 build, and farming is a lot more fun with the boosted crit % and mortal strike/sweeping strikes.

[Erik Andersson]

It also has no cooldown, unlike Mortal Strike, and it costs half as much rage. I also noticed you can have Devastate, Dual Wield Spec, and 1h spec at level 70.

Yes, the absence of a cooldown is the really nice part. In theory you could do four attacks in the time an MS/BT-warrior could do one attack. All these attacks together would be 200% weapon damage + 120 for 48 rage which is pretty good even with 1h-weapons. 17/3/41 or 0/20/41 will be good for both damage and tanking unlike todays -/-/31 builds.

For some reason we've generally had lots of protection specced warriors in the guild, maybe even too many. It seems like the raiding game is getting pretty demanding now, so maybe that's good since the warriors have tier 2+ tanking gear at least. We've done Maexxna/C'Thun, but I'm not sure I'm entirely looking forward to the rest. There's going to be a lot of farming, especially since we're a horde guild, and I hope it will be worth it. Naxxramas is clearly a lot better than MC though, so I'm hopeful for raids in BC even though there will be lots of problems initially.

[Shadari]

Holy shit, the mage and paladin changes look really sweet. Of course, it's all relative and I haven't looked too closely at the other classes. I just can't believe mages finally get a summon and invisibility, while paladins get a motherfucking snare... muhahahaha!

[LesJarvis]

Prot is the least utilized tree? Maybe if you are a solo warrior, or someone who doesn't give a shit how bad he is at tanking.

Dude, warriors can tank perfectly well with zero points in protection. You'll see high end guilds that are really pushing content with main tanks that have heavy prot builds, but for your average warrior it's completely unnecessary.

[mouselock]

Dude, warriors can tank perfectly well with zero points in protection. You'll see high end guilds that are really pushing content with main tanks that have heavy prot builds, but for your average warrior it's completely unnecessary.

Which will pretty much continue into the expansion, because if it doesn't there's no friggin' way to shrink the raid size. You can't make things that only prot warriors can tank with full prot specs and expect paladins, druids, or non-prot warriors to pinch hit, unless the difference in tanking between full prot and the others is relatively small.

[LesJarvis]

Which will pretty much continue into the expansion, because if it doesn't there's no friggin' way to shrink the raid size. You can't make things that only prot warriors can tank with full prot specs and expect paladins, druids, or non-prot warriors to pinch hit, unless the difference in tanking between full prot and the others is relatively small.

I can see your point, but it's not necessarily true. The idea, insofar as I understand it, is that there may be encounters where the 3-4 budgeted warrior slots for the raid aren't enough, so you use paladins or druids in the remaining slots. That doesn't preclude encounters where you only need 1-2 tanks, and those encounters could be structured such that having a protection tank is advantageous.

[NI]

Dude, warriors can tank perfectly well with zero points in protection. You'll see high end guilds that are really pushing content with main tanks that have heavy prot builds, but for your average warrior it's completely unnecessary.
As a healer in a guild doing Naxxramas I'm sure glad we have 3-4 full prot tanks.
Noticable difference between healing them and healing the other warriors who only have a few prot talents.

Also, I can recommend reading http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=7923

[JM]

The Arms 41pt talent seems to completely outclass the Fury one.

I have to admit I laughed at the Shaman changes - summon elemental totems? Dual-wield that's better than warrior? Yeesh. Plus the HORDE ONLY and ALLIANCE ONLY stuff that's er identical aside from the name.

[Charlatan]

The Arms 41pt talent seems to completely outclass the Fury one.

I have to admit I laughed at the Shaman changes - summon elemental totems? Dual-wield that's better than warrior? Yeesh. Plus the HORDE ONLY and ALLIANCE ONLY stuff that's er identical aside from the name.

The Shaman stuff sounded really cool to me (my first character was a Shaman). Of course, how useful in practice do you think the Elemental totems are gonna be? After all, they're fixed, so you get what, a 2 minute pet to fight for you who's stationary. Not so useful in PvP where you're moving around (though maybe good for protecting a flag in AB), only situationally useful in a raid, IMHO, but pretty useful when soloing (or when you're jumped in PvP when you're alone). And of course if you have the earth/fire elemental no other earth/fire totems. So they don't really seem overpowered to me from first read.

The dual wield talent does look really good, though.

[gnmarsh]

the protection spec only matters if your actually expected to tank in boss encounters. Warriors who are there just for dps or to tank the occasional add are better off being dps specced.

[Charles]

Dude, warriors can tank perfectly well with zero points in protection. You'll see high end guilds that are really pushing content with main tanks that have heavy prot builds, but for your average warrior it's completely unnecessary.

If by "perfectly well" you mean "well enough to finish an instance". There's a noticeable between a prot spec warrior and not. You have a prot-spec warrior things go smoother and quicker. He loses aggro less often, other people in the group can go way further with DPS without worries.

I'm not saying warriors can't tank without prot, I just wish they *would*. I've appreciated every single prot spec warrior I've ever grouped with. Which is far more than I can say for all the fury retards who try and tank with DW or the arms specs who 'tank' with a 2H. And even if these people do use a shield, there's still a difference.

edit: Often I'll go bear form and do the main tanking in 5-10 mans unless we have a prot spec warrior. Things go quicker.

[LesJarvis]

I donno what to tell you man. It sounds like you just play with a lot of terrible warriors (and there are definitely tons of those.)

[Charles]

I donno what to tell you man. It sounds like you just play with a lot of terrible warriors (and there are definitely tons of those.)

It has nothing to do with terrible. You might be used to holding back if you are DPS, or you might be used to other people holding back, if you are a tank. You also have probably never healed the difference between prot spec and non-prot warriors.

[DeepT]

Holy shit, the mage and paladin changes look really sweet. Of course, it's all relative and I haven't looked too closely at the other classes. I just can't believe mages finally get a summon and invisibility, while paladins get a motherfucking snare... muhahahaha!


I do not share your enthusiasm for the paladin changes. I think they will help, but are hardly earth shattering. On the upside, playing a defense based pally might be viable with Seal of Vengeance, which looks like a slightly enhanced version of Seal of Righteousness. However, for a heal-a-din or a ret-a-din, that new seal-spell offers nothing.

It is also interesting to see that Blizzard has backed down from their "Absolutely no way in hell Paladins will ever get a snap-taunt" stance with the introduction of Righteous Defense.

Finally the changed to Judgment of Justice is LONG OVERDUE. It was the PvE keep people from running power, now it actually can be used against players (snare). Why did they have to wait for the expansion for this?

I had thought they should give paladins a lot more special powers vs undead, demons, and elementals, although they weakly did that in the ret tree with the talent to give you +3% damage vs those things (who cares about +3% damage for 3 pts).

What I was thinking and hoping for was something that would make pallys very, desired vs certain kinds of mobs...

My reasoning is this: Warriors can get +20% damage or +20% damage reduction by switching stances. With that in mind, blizzard should allow paladins to buy a talent (offense in ret tree, defense in defense tree) that gives them +40% damage / damage absorption vs undead, demons, and elementals. The disadvantages would be that you need to buy it with talent points, and it is only vs those three things (note, not against players). The advantage is that it is always ON and quite powerful.

All they gave pallys were +3% damage at a cost of 3 talent points. That is such an absolute waste its not even funny. Id only buy that if I needed filler points.

The final talent in the ret tree is lame. +2% crit chance when JoC is on the target. It is all attacks, but still, that is kind of weak. In all my builds, I can always find a better use for that last point.

On the good side though, with decent gear, a Defense pally might work out, especially with that seal of Vengeance instead of Seal of Righteousness.

All in all though, there is nothing there that would make a pally anything then a cleric in plate for end game raids. Its a good think I am only interested in PvP for my pally.


On the final talent in the demonology tree, the summon Fel Guard. I am fairly sure this is a perma-pet. It requires a soul shard and is listed under demon mastery as having an effect similar to succubi. If this guy is a heavy hitter and a tank, it could also finally make that useless filler talent that increases pet melee damage useful.

Also the final talent in the Affliction line might actually make an affliction build for PvP work. If you dot someone up and then put that unstable affliction on last, you can keep them from dispelling themselves without some serious hurt. If its spammable (instant cooldown), it will be like god mode against any class that is use to being able to remove those curses. However, I still think you would have to give up too much in other trees to get here.

[LesJarvis]

Stuff
That's laughable. Here's some fun stuff I've done with no warriors with points in prot (my main for better than a year was a priest):

5 man UBRS
3 man DM west
45 minute baron run with 4 (and I died from a bug on baroness)
2 man BRD

I also personally know people in guilds with no warriors with more than 15 in prot that have killed C'thun (though a lot of those have respecced for Naxx.)

Edit: And, just to be clear, I'm not arguing that there are no benefits to speccing protection. There are, they're just overwhelmingly meaningful, and I'd argue they're borderline meaningless for the existing small group content in the game.

[Charlatan]

Also the final talent in the Affliction line might actually make an affliction build for PvP work. If you dot someone up and then put that unstable affliction on last, you can keep them from dispelling themselves without some serious hurt. If its spammable (instant cooldown), it will be like god mode against any class that is use to being able to remove those curses. However, I still think you would have to give up too much in other trees to get here.

I agree with you. At first, I thought, "wow, that's really cool" but after some consideration, I figure when people see it they'll just outheal it or throw on a HoT and not dispel it, which means it's just another DoT - not that that's a bad thing to have, but IMHO certainly not a spectacular 41 point talent.

[Charles]

Edit: And, just to be clear, I'm not arguing that there are no benefits to speccing protection. There are, they're just overwhelmingly meaningful, and I'd argue they're borderline meaningless for the existing small group content in the game.


And I'm not arguing that warriors must -- simply that it makes a noticeable difference.

Curious though, how'd you get through the torch room in BRD with only a warrior and a priest?

[NI]

And, just to be clear, I'm not arguing that there are no benefits to speccing protection. There are, they're just overwhelmingly meaningful, and I'd argue they're borderline meaningless for the existing small group content in the game.
That's just because the existing 5 man content is easy. For the bleeding edge, full prot makes a noticable difference. For reference, my guild is working on C'Thun and has killed 3 in Naxx (not that C'Thun requires any real tanking). With the purple gear that is available now, it doesn't take much to do the old instances. For example, my holy paladin in purples can tank better now than he ever could when he was prot spec and still wearing blues.

Btw, full prot tanks with AQ40/Naxx gear have in fact a hard time tanking 5 man now. They take so little damage that they don't have much rage to play with. But that's a different story.

[Walter Yarbrough]

Subtlety is worthess for PvE dps. Any rogue that does a fair bit of raiding is going to have, at an absolute minimum, 11 in Assassination (for Relentless Strikes) and 28 in Combat (for Weapon Expertise and Blade Flurry). Dagger rogues require an additional 5 points in Subtlety (for Opportunity). So with those limitations, there's absolutely no way any of the new talents that would be good for PvE, such as Sinister Calling (+10% Agility, requires 35 in Subtlety) or Find Weakness (+10% damage to all attacks for 10s after a finishing move, requires 35 in Assassination) can fit into any halfway decent raiding spec.

Just as apalling is that the new talents in the Combat tree are good for PvP but useless in raids, so nobody will bother taking them either. PvP rogues will spec deep into Subtlety or Assassination, so stuff like Nerves of Steel (increases chance to resist fear and stuns by 10%, requires 30 in Combat) and Blade Twisting (25% chance to daze your target) will also go unused by just about everybody.

Heh, I'm fairly casual and I like (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-rogue/talents.html?3053001000000000000003253550100550100 20010510500000000000000000000) the changes.

25% chance to daze isn't going to hit most of the bosses, but there's plenty of yard trash I'd like drop 8 second dazes on.

-Walt

[Saxman_72]

Prot-specced warriors are the absolute shizznit, hands down. We've got 9 bosses down in Naxxramas now, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that we wouldn't be this far into it if we didn't have our prot-specced warriors. They take a good load off of healers, plus the dps can push it a hell of a lot more.

Charles - I had no idea you were on Elune as well!

[Charles]

Also, Les, it sounds like there could be a big difference between your guild and mine. Our guild has very little tier 1 gear, and that is mostly on two or three people. Everyone else is in 5/10 man blues. I'm sure prot spec means far less when everyone is in tier 2 / AQ40 gear.

[LesJarvis]

DW Fury warrior AOE, with Thunderfury, Crul'shorukh and BWL level plate DPS gear. It took some doing but we made it through. There's actually a great vid of a warrior with Thunderfury and Force Reactive Disk with a bunch of +spell damage gear two-manning BRD with a Paladin. They've nerfed Force Reactive since then so it doesn't benefit from spell damage, but if you want to see it done in an unorthodox way it's pretty neat.

Edit: Gah, you people and your posting! We were way overgeared for BRD, no doubt about it, but the 3 man DM West and 5 man UBRS runs were done about a year ago with mixed blue/MC purple gear.

[DeepT]

Doesn't daze just affect run speed? IE: If you are meleeing a mob, and you daze it, it does not change anything about the fight, right?

[Charles]

Charles - I had no idea you were on Elune as well!

Yep, alliance. Which guild/side are you on? You better not be one of those RipCo fuckers, or I'll... uh... kick your dog or something.

[LesJarvis]

For the bleeding edge, full prot makes a noticable difference.

I said that in my original post on the subject.

[Charles]

Doesn't daze just affect run speed? IE: If you are meleeing a mob, and you daze it, it does not change anything about the fight, right?

That changes in the expansion. Warriors above 60 will do more damage to dazed targets.

[Saxman_72]

Yep, alliance. Which guild/side are you on? You better not be one of those RipCo fuckers, or I'll... uh... kick your dog or something.
I'm in Just Crusade. I know - it's almost as bad.

[olaf]

Prot spec is definitely the least utilized Warrior tree. Its not even close.

Protection does make you a better tank, but the increased efficiency you get in tanking by sinking points into the tree pale relative to the increased efficiency you get in DPS by putting points into the other trees. And DPS is something that helps all the time. Tanking, offtanking, grinding, 5 man, PvP, etc. Most of the protection talents really only help you when you are tanking.

Protection is currently very front loaded and that has always been an issue with it. In addition to being a weak tree relative to the other two, a lot of the 'best' protection talents are available with little or no investment into the tree. I see the expansion changing that some, the deeper talents are really good, better than the deeper Arms/Fury talents IMO.

Its funny to see healers talk about a difference healing protection tanks. Because while there IS a difference, its pretty small. There are exactly 4 talents which contribute to this in the entire tree and they are all on tier 0-2.

Anticipation 5 ranks, 2 points of defense per rank. This talent sucks nuts. Like I said, there are items with more than 10 defense. WTF? No idea why this hasnt changed.

Toughness 5 ranks, 2% boost to armor per rank. This is a good talent overall.

Shield Specialization 5 ranks, 1% to block and 20% chance to gain 1 rage after a block per rank. This is a good talent if you are tanking as block is great.

Improved Shield Block 3 ranks. The first point in this talent is gold as it adds a block to your shield block ability. The next to ranks...dont. They just add time to the duration of the shield block ability.

Thats it. There are no other talents in the tree that make a tank easier to heal. BTW, Deflection is a great investment for any tank, 5 ranks 1% parry per rank and its tier 0 arms. You get a LOT more mileage out of a set of tanking gear than you do Protection talents.

Of course there are some talents in the tree that help your aggro. Defiance, 1h wep spec and Shield Slam. But whether or not you need these? If you are Alliance you dont, Blessing of Salvation does all the work for you. Horde, personally I say yes you do want your tanks having max aggro when you are learning content, at least the tanks actually tanking. I know that some guilds dont though.

[Lum]

That's laughable. Here's some fun stuff I've done with no warriors with points in prot (my main for better than a year was a priest):

5 man UBRS
3 man DM west
45 minute baron run with 4 (and I died from a bug on baroness)
2 man BRD

I also personally know people in guilds with no warriors with more than 15 in prot that have killed C'thun (though a lot of those have respecced for Naxx.)

Edit: And, just to be clear, I'm not arguing that there are no benefits to speccing protection. There are, they're just overwhelmingly meaningful, and I'd argue they're borderline meaningless for the existing small group content in the game.

Not surprising... as you said, at the UBRS/Strat/Scholo level you can tank with pretty much anything. Once you get to MC/BWL you should have 1 prot tank if you want your healers to not have aneurysms (with good enough healers you can probably get away with a feral druid tanking).

I respec'd to full prot when I moved servers to play with a group that is still doing tier 1.5 stuff. It's really easy to tell the difference between a prot tank and a dps tank; the healers have to work at keeping the dps tank alive when they catch aggro, whereas I'll almost never drop below 2k hp and the priest will break out a wand to keep from getting bored.

That being said, I will probably respec out of full prot to a prot/arms hybrid. As has been mentioned there's not that much bang for the buck past Defiance (although I'd like to keep 1h wep spec, truth be told my DPS as a sword and board guy is pretty laughable anyway). Defiance is freakin' huge for holding aggro even as Alliance though. Not every group is going to have a paladin slapping Salvation on everyone.

[Tom McNamara]

My reasoning is this: Warriors can get +20% damage or +20% damage reduction by switching stances.

Woah, did I miss a meeting? Last I checked, I get 3% more crit in Zerk (while taking 10% more damage), 10% damage reduction in Defensive, and no bonuses or drawbacks in Battle stance.

[Kareem]

Woah, did I miss a meeting? Last I checked, I get 3% more crit in Zerk (while taking 10% more damage), 10% damage reduction in Defensive, and no bonuses or drawbacks in Battle stance.

You didn't, DeepT is wrong.

Improved Shield Block 3 ranks. The first point in this talent is gold as it adds a block to your shield block ability. The next to ranks...dont. They just add time to the duration of the shield block ability.

I only have 1 point invested in shield block too, but the way it works is changing in the expansion. Mouse over the talents again from the link in the OP. Each talent point added to shield block increases the number of blocked attacks as well as the duration.

I love shield block. With the current 1/3 investment, when I use it I get over 99% block chance for 2 attacks for a set amount of time (I have just over 24% unbuffed block chance). This helps a lot in new encounters, like when my guild was first trying Chromaggus, especially when he enrages in the last 20% this becomes invaluable. The fight takes such a long time since the dps isn't there half the time.

[Saxman_72]

Woah, did I miss a meeting? Last I checked, I get 3% more crit in Zerk (while taking 10% more damage), 10% damage reduction in Defensive, and no bonuses or drawbacks in Battle stance.
He might be thinking of the 20% innate threat reduction that warriors get in Battle and Berzerker stance. In Defensive stance, there is a 30% increase, but I do believe that there is some sort of damage reduction there as well.

Rogues have always had a base 20% threat reduction.

Druids have had the 30% increase in bear form, and have just recently gotten the 20% reduction in cat form with the 1.12 update.

[Kareem]

Defensive stance is only a 30% increase in threat if you actually invest talent points in protection (I think it's the defiance talent). I'm not sure if defensive stance generates more threat innately than battle stance, but berserker stance does generate less threat than battle stance, so I assume defensive stance generates extra threat innately too, just not as much as 30% extra.

[LesJarvis]

http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=21156

http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=7381

Both 'zerker and battle stance have a -20 threat aura.

http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=7376

Defensive stance has a +30 threat aura. Defiance increases that to 45.

[Kareem]

Ahh I was confused then.

[DeepT]

Woah, did I miss a meeting? Last I checked, I get 3% more crit in Zerk (while taking 10% more damage), 10% damage reduction in Defensive, and no bonuses or drawbacks in Battle stance.

Hmm.. Maybe I got that wrong, it has been like a year since I even looked at warrior stuff. I guess my memory is flaky.

[DeepT]

Anyway... +3% damage vs Humanoids, Elementals, Demons, and Undead for a cost of 3 talent points is gimp.

[olaf]

I only have 1 point invested in shield block too, but the way it works is changing in the expansion. Mouse over the talents again from the link in the OP. Each talent point added to shield block increases the number of blocked attacks as well as the duration.

I love shield block. With the current 1/3 investment, when I use it I get over 99% block chance for 2 attacks for a set amount of time (I have just over 24% unbuffed block chance). This helps a lot in new encounters, like when my guild was first trying Chromaggus, especially when he enrages in the last 20% this becomes invaluable. The fight takes such a long time since the dps isn't there half the time.
The site seems down/hammered right now so I cant check.

But if they really are changing it so that Shield Block gives you 4 blocks for 3 talent points, thats huge and yes I agree that talent becomes must have for tanks. But again it would be another example of one of the current problems with the tree, its front loaded. The middle of the tree stuff is just dogshit.

It seems that, according to others, they have already made some changes there. Vitality is 1% HP per rank now, still 5 ranks deep. That is a big reduction in its utility and a little disappointing.

[mouselock]

Not surprising... as you said, at the UBRS/Strat/Scholo level you can tank with pretty much anything. Once you get to MC/BWL you should have 1 prot tank if you want your healers to not have aneurysms (with good enough healers you can probably get away with a feral druid tanking).

I respec'd to full prot when I moved servers to play with a group that is still doing tier 1.5 stuff. It's really easy to tell the difference between a prot tank and a dps tank; the healers have to work at keeping the dps tank alive when they catch aggro, whereas I'll almost never drop below 2k hp and the priest will break out a wand to keep from getting bored.

I'd like to just point out for posterity how Lum's gone from kvetching about the randomness of being forced to come along on raids, to discussing what spec choices matter for warriors doing raid content.

Welcome to the dark side!

[dannimal]

It seems like praising or bitching about this stuff is like planning your wedding date around the weather predicitions in the Farmer's Almanac.

Stuff is going to change. They haven't even gotten to full beta yet.

[gnmarsh]

its not so much that protection specced tanks have the talents that make them useful for healing as the mindset. The gear that a protection specced tank is going to wear is going to be about damage mitigation and increased hit points. A fury or arms warrior is going to want things that increase their dps. Most gear is one or the other. When you have to carry a full set of damage mitigation tanking gear, nature resist gear, and fire resist gear you rarely have space to also carry increased damage gear. So a good protection specced tank is going to have the gear with him that allows him to do his job, which means he is easier to keep alive then a dps warrior.

[Kunikos]

Welcome to the dark side!

I thought I smelled vaseline!

[olaf]

I was finally able to hit the site again and while I saw that Vitality is now 1% per point, Improved Shield Block looks unchanged from the current live version of the talent. The text is a little misleading.

[DeepT]

Does anyone have a ballpark release date for this yet? Is the EB release date accurate?

[Charlatan]

Does anyone have a ballpark release date for this yet? Is the EB release date accurate?

Their date of November? I thought I read somewhere that the expansion had slipped to next year - didn't Blizzard announce that at the same time they said "we're going to put out one expansion a year for WoW"?

(so I don't think the ebgames date is accurate).

[DeepT]

Then they are already 1 year late. This christmass will be the third christmass you could have been playing the retail version of WoW.

I wonder if QT3 will get flooded with WoW threads once the expansion comes out.

[Lum]

I'd like to just point out for posterity how Lum's gone from kvetching about the randomness of being forced to come along on raids, to discussing what spec choices matter for warriors doing raid content.

Welcome to the dark side!

Thanks, is there a hat? I like hats.

[Charles]

Thanks, is there a hat? I like hats.

You'll have to wear a hat, to cover your greasy unwashed hair.

[Chris Woods]

Wow, the 41 point Protection talent seems absolutely too good to be true. When tanking you get stupid amounts of rage, so a spammable instant damage attack that generates higher then normal threat for 12 rage is just amazing. You'd have to be an idiot to lose hate with that.

Am I missing something here?

Chris Woods

[Tom McNamara]

Hmm.. Maybe I got that wrong, it has been like a year since I even looked at warrior stuff. I guess my memory is flaky.

Don't sweat it -- WoW has a ton of information to keep track of. You'd be surprised how many priests and warlocks think warriors are also immune to fear :)

[Mark Asher]

Their date of November? I thought I read somewhere that the expansion had slipped to next year - didn't Blizzard announce that at the same time they said "we're going to put out one expansion a year for WoW"?

(so I don't think the ebgames date is accurate).

They haven't announced that the game has slipped to next year. Anything's possible, but I'd bet the pressure is on from Vivendi to ship it this year.

[Charles]

Wow, the 41 point Protection talent seems absolutely too good to be true. When tanking you get stupid amounts of rage, so a spammable instant damage attack that generates higher then normal threat for 12 rage is just amazing. You'd have to be an idiot to lose hate with that.

Am I missing something here?

Chris Woods

Probably not. All the 41 point talents seem ridiculously powerful. And if they are dead set on providing this newfound power to people, then it seems unlikely that they'll change it much.

IMO, I wouldn't be surprised to see the top tiers locked out until you hit 61 to balance it though. Just so that you don't have people running the 41 point talents at level 50.

[Ranulf]

Probably not. All the 41 point talents seem ridiculously powerful. And if they are dead set on providing this newfound power to people, then it seems unlikely that they'll change it much.

IMO, I wouldn't be surprised to see the top tiers locked out until you hit 61 to balance it though. Just so that you don't have people running the 41 point talents at level 50.

Indeed, it would also mean folks have to spend more gold to respec when they hit 61-70.

[Gordon Cameron]

You'd be surprised how many priests and warlocks think warriors are also immune to fear :)

Well-timed popping of zerk rage?

[Erik Andersson]

Probably not. All the 41 point talents seem ridiculously powerful. And if they are dead set on providing this newfound power to people, then it seems unlikely that they'll change it much.

IMO, I wouldn't be surprised to see the top tiers locked out until you hit 61 to balance it though. Just so that you don't have people running the 41 point talents at level 50.

Ridiculously powerful? In the case of warriors I don't think many will use 41p in either arms of fury, but tanks will probably go for 41p+ in protection. In the rogue case the 41p combat talent will result in less dps for backstabs in pve...

[Charles]

Ridiculously powerful? In the case of warriors I don't think many will use 41p in either arms of fury, but tanks will probably go for 41p+ in protection. In the rogue case the 41p combat talent will result in less dps for backstabs in pve...


I guess we have different definitions of powerful then, as I see a hell of a lot of kickass 41 point talents.

[Erik Andersson]

I guess we have different definitions of powerful then, as I see a hell of a lot of kickass 41 point talents.

I suppose so. In the case of warriors I'd say one is good and the others are pointless. For rogues it's harder to say, the combat talent is one of few talents that can actually reduce dps, the others are fine. The only one I'd expect people to use the subtlety one though, so it's 1/3 there as well. It's the same with paladins, the holy talent is fine, but it would have been better if paladins hade any real problems with mana. The others don't seem great, so 1/3. Warlocks and mages depend a little on the strenght of summoned creatures, but warlocks seem good overall. In the Shaman case the elemental totem looks fine, the enhancement one will probably be skipped, and the resto can probably be skipped as well. 1/3.

I'd say that some of them are powerful, certainly not all.

[mouselock]

Thanks, is there a hat? I like hats.

There are, but we took our design cues from Blizzard. So you probably wouldn't want to wear them in public. Or private. Or anywhere you could conceivably fall head first. Or that had ceiling fans.

[Erik Andersson]

Only wear the hat if you have the matching shoulder pads. It's ok to use off-set bracers, belt and maybe boots too, but hat and shoulder pads must be from the same set.

[Tom McNamara]

Well-timed popping of zerk rage?

That's what I'm thinking, and there's also Death Wish and Recklessness. All three of these are on separate timers. An experienced PvP warrior almost always switches to Beserker stance as soon as he's triggered a Charge. If he's sneaking up on you -- which he almost always has to do, since a caster has up to a 16 yard advantage -- the target usually doesn't notice the stance switch until after the warrior starts swinging. If it's a priest or warlock, many warriors hit Beserker Rage or Death Wish before the Fear hits them. If it's a warlock with a succubus, the warrior has to hit Bezerk Rage right away. BR makes you immune to Seduce -- but it doesn't purge Seduce.

However, even those warrior abilities have no effect against Death Coil. Combine that with Curse of Exaustion, and the warlock just has to dot you and stay in your dead zone until you die.

[Ragnar Oppedal]

Berserker rage doesn't make you immune to charm. I seduce warriors in berserker rage all the time.

[Erik Andersson]

Berserker rage does allow you to break sap/gouge though, which is something not everyone knows. The seduce breaker is probably an undead warrior.

[Gordon Cameron]

Berserker rage does allow you to break sap/gouge though, which is something not everyone knows. The seduce breaker is probably an undead warrior.

You mean, if you are sapped or gouged, you can *then* pop zerk rage to get out of it? But you have to already be in zerk stance to do this?

[Erik Andersson]

Exactly, it's pretty annoying to be sapped in defensive stance.

[Kareem]

Doesn't the pvp trinket break sap?

[Tom McNamara]

Doesn't the pvp trinket break sap?

Not the warrior's trinket, even though the item description indicates that it should. But in PvP, Sap is rarely used. You can't Sap in combat, so it has to be an opener. And there's rarely a reason to open with Sap, unless the rogue is waiting for some abilities to cool down. In group PvP, it's near useless, because an immobile and vulnerable target glows like neon to players looking for a cheap kill.

Sounds like I was wrong about BR and Seduce. I've tested it in duels as a warlock -- the warrior must have been doing something else.

[Charles]

Not the warrior's trinket, even though the item description indicates that it should. But in PvP, Sap is rarely used. You can't Sap in combat, so it has to be an opener. And there's rarely a reason to open with Sap, unless the rogue is waiting for some abilities to cool down. In group PvP, it's near useless, because an immobile and vulnerable target glows like neon to players looking for a cheap kill.

Sounds like I was wrong about BR and Seduce. I've tested it in duels as a warlock -- the warrior must have been doing something else.


Sap isn't a stun, it's a sleep effect. And I've seen it used to great success in WSG by a flag running team to immobilize part of the defense.

[DeepT]

This might be a bit premature, but here is what I am looking at for a pally PvP build:

My Pally PvP Build (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-paladin/talents.html?0000000000000000000050325100013001520 0000052340510200300521000)

I didn't take any level 41 talents, and in fact didn't go beyond the 30 point requirement in any pool choice.

The only thing I am unsure about is blessing of sanctuary. Its holy damage is only done if you block. Can you block without a shield? Also does it scale beyond 7 damage returned? Mostly I am getting it for the reduction in damage taken. Certainly rank 2 raid sanctuary is very sweet absorption, however, I do not know how attainable such a rank of the spell is since I will not be raiding.

I do not think the last Ret talent is worth getting for anything but raids. Fanaticism, is nice, but I think the points I saved by stopping at repentance are better spent on Sanctuary, full reckoning, and improved divine shield.

[MonkeyPunky]

The only thing I am unsure about is blessing of sanctuary. Its holy damage is only done if you block. Can you block without a shield? Also does it scale beyond 7 damage returned? Mostly I am getting it for the reduction in damage taken. Certainly rank 2 raid sanctuary is very sweet absorption, however, I do not know how attainable such a rank of the spell is since I will not be raiding.

I've got blessing of sanctuary right now on my pally and if its the same in the xpac as it is now, the single 5 min blessing reflects either 24 or 28, holy damage. I was thinking 24 but thottbot shows 28.

You cannot block without a shield so it won't do its damage unless you've got a shield equipped.

[Prfbrain]

Just an addition to the sap discussion. I've used it in ab before to ninja a flag. Sap the poor lonely soul guarding the farm, take the flag, vanish and then kill the sapped target.

[Rywill]

Why not kill the unsuspecting target, and save your vanish? It makes sense if you sap-grab-run, but if you're just going to fight the guy anyway I don't see why it helps to sap him, grab the flag, and vanish before you start (although I haven't played much WSG).

[Charles]

Why not kill the unsuspecting target, and save your vanish? It makes sense if you sap-grab-run, but if you're just going to fight the guy anyway I don't see why it helps to sap him, grab the flag, and vanish before you start (although I haven't played much WSG).


Apparently, you haven't played much AB either.

[Mark Asher]

You sap to take one guy out of the fight for a bit. You don't normally run into just one player in a battleground. And even if you do, sapping and grabbing/capturing a node is faster than fighting.

In WSG I've seen a rogue sap someone, stay stealthed, hit sprint, grab the flag, run up and daze a second player with blind or gouge, and run out with the flag. A good rogue can do all of this in just a few seconds and players bored with guarding sometimes don't react quickly.

[TheTrunkDr]

I guess we have different definitions of powerful then, as I see a hell of a lot of kickass 41 point talents.
Have you looked at the rogue ones?

[DeepT]

I've got blessing of sanctuary right now on my pally and if its the same in the xpac as it is now, the single 5 min blessing reflects either 24 or 28, holy damage. I was thinking 24 but thottbot shows 28.

You cannot block without a shield so it won't do its damage unless you've got a shield equipped.


How does the reduced damage taken seem to work out? IE: Barely noticable or very noticable.

I saw the raid version 2 of it has 80 damage reduced which I am sure would be totally sweet. Isn't this some book that is dropped from high-end dungeons and isn't BoP?

Also, IIRC, Armor reduces 18 pts of damage per 1000 points, right?

[Erik Andersson]

Armor scaling is linear in a way, but it doesn't reduce a specific amount of damage per point. The cap is 75% reduction which requires 16500AC against a lvl 60. The linear part is that 5500AC=2x, 11000=3x and 16500=4x if you consider the amount of damage/health you can take.

[LesJarvis]

New Priest spells and talents (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/talents-and-spells.html) have been added to the page.

[slantz]

New Priest spells and talents (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/talents-and-spells.html) have been added to the page.
Yeah, the priest stuff looks pretty good to me. My priest buddy is psyched.

[DeepT]

So does anyone have a comment on the Blessing of Sanctuary at 80 damage absorbed for rank 5 (in BC)?

I am looking over all these PvP builds and none of them take it, even though they are all taking other higher talents in the defense tree.

It seems that 80 DR is pretty good even if it is pre-armor. Since no one seems to be taking it in thier post-bc PvP builds, there must be something I do not know about this talent.

[LesJarvis]

Yeah, the priest stuff looks pretty good to me. My priest buddy is psyched.

For sure. Being able to go shadowform in PvP and heal at the same time is balls-out awesome.

[Tom McNamara]

So does anyone have a comment on the Blessing of Sanctuary at 80 damage absorbed for rank 5 (in BC)?

I am looking over all these PvP builds and none of them take it, even though they are all taking other higher talents in the defense tree.

It seems that 80 DR is pretty good even if it is pre-armor. Since no one seems to be taking it in thier post-bc PvP builds, there must be something I do not know about this talent.

Well, since BoSan starts at 30 and gets ranked up every ten levels, that means Rank 5 comes at level 70. At that level, in PvP, 80 points of damage reduction won't be that much, nor should it be any better against elites in PvE.

Personally, I would like to have seen a percentage-based damage reduction, like 3/6/9/12/15%. I think 15% damage reduction is a reasonable reward for level 70, especially if you remove the spell's already negligible melee damage reflection.

[DeepT]

So, what do you think the average 'hit' will be for a level 70 PvP player? I mean average hit, not 'crits'. If you want to do the math, however, you can factor in crits to your overall average hit.

I know at 60, with blue gear (sorry, I could never catass those end game raids to get purples), 400pts on a hit was a lot. 80 DR again that would not suck. If you doubled that, combining good gear and level 70 stuff, 800pts vs 80 reduction still would not suck.

To me it seems like a really good buff, but only if I actually understand it. If I don't, then I would like to know what I got wrong about it.

[MonkeyPunky]

How does the reduced damage taken seem to work out? IE: Barely noticable or very noticable.

I saw the raid version 2 of it has 80 damage reduced which I am sure would be totally sweet. Isn't this some book that is dropped from high-end dungeons and isn't BoP?

Also, IIRC, Armor reduces 18 pts of damage per 1000 points, right?

Its much more noticeable against things that hit fast and continuously, like rogues or packs of monsters.

[jpinard]

Are there any graphic updates to the core engine coming with the exp pack too?

[Mike Cathcart]

My warrior will probably try out a few versions of arms/fury and possibly settle on fury/prot for an endgame tanking build. Maybe. Looks like a lot of cool combinations are possible in the warrior trees. Hell not just possible but necessary since two of the 41 point talents don't seem to be worth taking.

My priest, though. Holy shit. An instant cast nuke combined with Shadow Weaving and Shadow Power and Vampiric Embrace to counter some of the potential damage to myself? Plus healing in shadow form? Sign me the hell up.

[Kunikos]

Are there any graphic updates to the core engine coming with the exp pack too?

Probably not...

[DeepT]

Maybe then getting Sanctuary will work out well for my pally in BC. Still though I am puzzeled by the fact that no one seems to be getting this in all the builds poster over and over on the WoW site.

I would post there and ask, but I am not a subscriber, so I can only look right now.

[Tom McNamara]

My warrior will probably try out a few versions of arms/fury and possibly settle on fury/prot for an endgame tanking build. Maybe. Looks like a lot of cool combinations are possible in the warrior trees. Hell not just possible but necessary since two of the 41 point talents don't seem to be worth taking.

Yeah, Devastate sounds like an amazing aggro sponge. Instant, no cooldown, relatively inexpensive, and it scales with applications of Sunder Armor, which someone with 41 in Prot will be spamming anyway.

Improved Defensive Stance, though... 6% spell damage reduction for three talent points. My 48 warlock is throwing around 500-point shadowbolts, so someone with Imp. Def will get a grand total of 30 points absorbed. Sounds pretty weak for Tier 7. And of course it requires defensive stance, when a warrior usually needs to be in Beserk against the classes that would be most affected by the spell, so it's not one of the warrior's more useful PvP tools. I guess it will stack decently with resist gear, against boss mobs. But it's pretty niche, considering how high up it is in the tree.

[Erik Andersson]

Maybe then getting Sanctuary will work out well for my pally in BC. Still though I am puzzeled by the fact that no one seems to be getting this in all the builds poster over and over on the WoW site.

I would post there and ask, but I am not a subscriber, so I can only look right now.

I don't know about sanctuary really, as it is now it works pre-mitigation as far as I can tell. When the average boss hits for 6000 and Patchwerk's Hateful Strike hits for up to 29900 sanctuary won't help that much in raids. As far as I can tell it's mostly useful against attacks that don't hit very hard, but those don't need much additional mitigation either.

[Kareem]

This dispel is potent enough to remove Magic effects that are normally undispellable.

From the addendum to the new priest Mass Dispel spell.

Sounds like priests will be able to dispel banish.

[LesJarvis]

Divine Shield too according to a post by Kalgan, one of the lead game designers, in the Priest forum.

I wonder if it will dispel stuff like the Onyxia head turn-in buff as well. IIRC it's not labeled as a "Magic" effect, but it's unclear right now.

[olaf]

I think Devastate will get a cooldown, its way too good if it doesnt...unless even more of the fights change to gimmicky shit where you dont have a tank in the classic sense.

The Improved Defense is definitely weak for being that deep in the tree. That spell reflect thing sounds a lot better and that is a new ability not a talent.

Vitality watered down to 1% per point is also weak for being that deep in the tree.

[jpinard]

Probably not...

darn :(

[NI]

I don't know about sanctuary really, as it is now it works pre-mitigation as far as I can tell. When the average boss hits for 6000 and Patchwerk's Hateful Strike hits for up to 29900 sanctuary won't help that much in raids. As far as I can tell it's mostly useful against attacks that don't hit very hard, but those don't need much additional mitigation either.
It's great for when the warrior tanks lots of mobs. For example the spawning Vekniss Hatchlings in the Fankriss encounter. (We just have 3 warriors tank them until Fankriss is killed). It both improves mitigation and adds damage on shield block which makes it easier to keep aggro. Not much use on Patchwerk, though.

[DeepT]

I these pally builds without sanctuary were PvP builds. I do realize its futility for PvE, but for PvP it sounds like a good buy, yet again, all these PvP builds being posted on the WoW forums conspicuously miss it.

As for dispel / purge removing divine shield, that is total BS (not as in they wont do it, but that it is just wrong to do).

In fact, I do not even think seals should be dispellable. Why not go ahead and allow them to dispel hamstring and sap? WTF?!

Pallys are not exactly the best PvP class, this only weakens them further.

If anything you might want to consider everything they do "divine power" and ask why any of it at all can be dispelled. It would give them a *slight* boost in PvP, but not much.

As for PvE, I do not recall any monsters dispelling / purging, so its kind of moot.

[Kareem]

As for PvE, I do not recall any monsters dispelling / purging, so its kind of moot.

Garr dispels most of the raid buffs in MC. Don't know if other bosses do it.

[Jason Cross]

My 60 priest is drooling over some of those new abilities, but I don't know how to spec. I used to be really comfortable with Shadow, but now that I'm basically doing strat and scholo and whatnot in groups, I specced to Holy with some Disc.

The healing in shadowform doesn't excite me overmuch, because at level 70 that amount of healing isn't going to be squat. But mass dispel? Hells yes. Looks like it's true AOE and not just a radius around the priest, too.

Pain Suppression? Awesome. Reduce ALL damage taken by 60% for 8 seconds. In fact, several of the things further down the discipline tree are making me think about being mostly a Disc priest.

[mouselock]

Garr dispels most of the raid buffs in MC. Don't know if other bosses do it.

Don't know about bosses, but the priests in LBRS get their jollies off dispelling my buffs all the damn time. I don't see why we should suspect that raid targets wouldn't be able to do this.

[DeepT]

BTW no one has answered my question about the low level gems needed for Jewlcrafting, unless no body knows. Are the common gems you find while mining going to be used?

[LesJarvis]

Druids have been added (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/talents-and-spells.html).

Edit: and promptly pwn3d by "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable."

[Supertanker]

There was a lot of complaining from priests that we didn't get holy form or some uber healing spell for the 41-point holy talent. Some pointed out that if we did, then it would become a mandatory spec for many raiding guilds. That said, Druids, I'm sorry about Tree of Restoration, as if people didn't whine for Resto spec enough.

Now, get into tree form & stay in range, kthx. Don't forget your Will of Arlokk, and make sure you get +spirit on that thing.

[Charles]

Wow, those druid talents are nothing like the previous supposed info that was linked. More "hey druid, what you are really supposed to do is heal".

[LesJarvis]

Treeform just seems silly. Cheaper, better heals, but no healing touch? Meh. Though with HOTs from multiple people now stacking with each other maybe I'm underestimating it.

Still, silly.

[Stroker Ace]

I never used HT much anyway - just cycle through targets for Rejuv and the occasional swiftmend. Maybe it's finally time to leave emergency heals to the priests and shamans.

[TheTrunkDr]

Wow, those druid talents are nothing like the previous supposed info that was linked. More "hey druid, what you are really supposed to do is heal".
Druids are and will forever be healbots. If anyone playing a druid has delusions of tanking or going kitty form dps just stop and re-roll.

[Charles]

Druids are and will forever be healbots. If anyone playing a druid has delusions of tanking or going kitty form dps just stop and re-roll.

That's only true once you hit raids. In 5-mans you can easily tank and DPS.

[Tom McNamara]

I hope that, as a level 70 spell, Cyclone will put the brakes on a rampaging hunter pet.

[mouselock]

I hope that, as a level 70 spell, Cyclone will put the brakes on a rampaging hunter pet.

Why wouldn't you hibernate it?

[LesJarvis]

What I find funny about Druids is how many of them won't take the opportunity to DPS when it is presented to them. If I ended up in a group with one while playing my disc/holy priest I'd always ask them to DPS since I had healing under control. The vast majority of the time they'd proceed to stand around doing nothing, which was fine I guess, since it let me break out my l33t smite dps.

[Charles]

Why wouldn't you hibernate it?

Because any PVP hunter has the annoying pet ability that allows them to break hibernate immediately.

[mouselock]

Because any PVP hunter has the annoying pet ability that allows them to break hibernate immediately.

No cooldown? That is annoying. :(

[Stroker Ace]

Because any PVP hunter has the annoying pet ability that allows them to break hibernate immediately.
No they don't. You're either talking BW (31 points) or Imp. Mend (22 points). Most PvP hunters go high in marks/surv, not BM.

[Tom McNamara]

Why wouldn't you hibernate it?

Does that stop Bestial Wrath? I haven't done any PvP as a druid.

[Charles]

No they don't. You're either talking BW (31 points) or Imp. Mend (22 points). Most PvP hunters go high in marks/surv, not BM.


I don't know what you just said, all I know is that any hunter pet I've hibernated in PVP immediately breaks out of it. My highest hunter is level 14.

[Athryn]

No they don't. You're either talking BW (31 points) or Imp. Mend (22 points). Most PvP hunters go high in marks/surv, not BM.

Does that stop Bestial Wrath? I haven't done any PvP as a druid.

Nothing stops a bestial wrath hunter pet except for running away. And there are quite a few hunters, actually that spec high for BW. It's a very good spec to have if you have a lot of crit/ap gear already.

I don't know what you just said, all I know is that any hunter pet I've hibernated in PVP immediately breaks out of it.

My pet gets hibernated a lot in PvP, so it is probably BW pets (the big red ones) that you might be trying to hibernate.

[TheTrunkDr]

Most PvP hunters go high in marks/surv, not BM.
Uhh... there are tons and tons of BM spec'd Hunters in PvP.

[LesJarvis]

How they live without scatter shot I'll never know.

[Mark Asher]

I see quite a few hunters in AV with 31 in BM now. That red pet almost always gets a kill.

I wouldn't do it with my hunter, but those beefed up pets are annoying as hell.

[Supertanker]

I would like to thank Blizzard in advance for all the new jokes that will be appearing in chat:

"Ready to pull, druids pop wood."
"LF Resto druid for ZG, must sport wood."

[Mark Asher]

How they live without scatter shot I'll never know.

Yeah, that was what I found. If I get a rogue or warrior on me and I can't get distance, I lose. SS is the only way to get distance besides the FD + trap cheese.

The other thing is if you go down the MM tree and get trueshot aura, the attack power buff your pet gets brings it close to a BM spec'd pets damage when in normal mode (not in bestial wrath mode, which is pretty deadly). So really going 31 into MM gives you a tough pet as well, plus you get enhanced damage and skills for your hunter.

[Erik Andersson]

If you are serious about PvP you should probably have a dedicated PvP-pet with maxed resists. Together with the bonuses from the hunter sets it can make it very hard to cc the pet in any way, frost novas, hibernates, and fears will be resisted most of the time and the pet can continue to interrupt casters. This doesn't require any particular talents either.

[Athryn]

How they live without scatter shot I'll never know.

Good trapping ability. A feign+frost trap is just as effective as scatter shot, if not more so.

[LesJarvis]

Not when a mage frost novas you and stands in your dead zone.

[TheTrunkDr]

Good trapping ability. A feign+frost trap is just as effective as scatter shot, if not more so.
Definitely more so.

Not when a mage frost novas you and stands in your dead zone.
Are you saying as a BM spec'd hunter your pet doesn't tear a mage appart?

[LesJarvis]

No, what I'm saying is it's the only spell interrupt a hunter has, other than hoping casters decide to stroll into your traps. I agree that scatter shot isn't necessary to stop melee, FD/trap is fine for that (unless they put a mechanical dragonling on your pet or something equally annoying.)

It also has a shorter cooldown, can stop travel form druids and mounted players, gives you time to get an aimed shot off, etc. BW is ok, but I'll take scatter shot over it 7 days a week.

[Athryn]

Not when a mage frost novas you and stands in your dead zone.

That's when you start beating on them with your melee weapons, including wing clipping them and getting range back.

I am a marks hunter myself (although I've been full BM in the past) but BW and intimidation is very nasty against cloth wearers, and does make up for the loss of scatter shot. If you do your traps right, you can drop them exactly under who you want trapped also.

[Stroker Ace]

Is it just me or is the new tree form for druids going to get them DESTROYED in PvP? It's a group healing buff that perma-snares the druid and doesn't allow any direct heals other than swiftmend. on top of that, it costs 1000 mana and has ZERO armor bonus. Who's not gonna die the instant they pop that?

[LesJarvis]

I will be shocked out of my seat if I ever see a druid use tree form in pvp.

After that I will laugh uncontrollably while I kill them.

[LesJarvis]

That's when you start beating on them with your melee weapons, including wing clipping them and getting range back.

I am a marks hunter myself (although I've been full BM in the past) but BW and intimidation is very nasty against cloth wearers, and does make up for the loss of scatter shot. If you do your traps right, you can drop them exactly under who you want trapped also.

Huh, I just never found it that effective in group pvp. Intimidation is pretty awesome though, I was failing to take that into account. Still, for me the fine level of tactical control provided by scatter shot is hard to beat.

[Ranulf]

There was a lot of complaining from priests that we didn't get holy form or some uber healing spell for the 41-point holy talent. Some pointed out that if we did, then it would become a mandatory spec for many raiding guilds. That said, Druids, I'm sorry about Tree of Restoration, as if people didn't whine for Resto spec enough.

Now, get into tree form & stay in range, kthx. Don't forget your Will of Arlokk, and make sure you get +spirit on that thing.

Thats the kicker for me, the whole deal with spirit. Are druids going to get gear now that has that much more spirit? Are they going to improve our regen rate to that of priests? Oh, tree form and a talent help that. So now I have to get spirit gear when its all been int and mp5/healing? Hell, I gave up on getting will of arlokk ages ago as that panther bitch never dropped the damn thing and then I'd have often had to fight with priests over it.

Though I see far more whining about feral/balance than resto (and rightly so IMHO). That said, most restos didnt want "holy" form, they wanted either better crowd control (I dont see cyclone as much of an option in pve, pvp it will have its uses Im betting), an OOC rez ability of some sort for 5 mans (which are supposed to be a big deal in BC) and a slightly better organization of the resto talents.

Now, we got a decent fix to the tree (you can skip HT improvement easily now and go straight for HoT buffs only) but instead of the others, we get a friggin Tree holy form. A form that cuts movement (speed is life is the new mantra on boss fights instead of tank n spank these days by blizzard) and add in no armor buff means that its totally worthless as a pvp combat medic ability. Moonkin can cast all balance spells.. but tree of lol can't cast all healing spells?

I'll spec into tree for a few days to see what its like, that and to go into AV/WSG and run around as a dancing tree. I however see me going the route of the dancing oomkin/resto druid or a feral/resto build.

[Damien Neil]

No, what I'm saying is it's the only spell interrupt a hunter has, other than hoping casters decide to stroll into your traps. I agree that scatter shot isn't necessary to stop melee, FD/trap is fine for that (unless they put a mechanical dragonling on your pet or something equally annoying.)

Beast Masters also have Intimidation--3 second stun, 60 second cooldown.

[Mark Asher]

Can you get intimidation and have trueshot? I can't remember.

About wingclip, yeah, that helps, but a smart rogue will have crippling poison on you and warriors will hamstring. You can't always count on wingclip.

[TheTrunkDr]

Is it just me or is the new tree form for druids going to get them DESTROYED in PvP? It's a group healing buff that perma-snares the druid and doesn't allow any direct heals other than swiftmend. on top of that, it costs 1000 mana and has ZERO armor bonus. Who's not gonna die the instant they pop that?
It's a raiding talent, not a PvP one.

[Ranulf]

It's a raiding talent, not a PvP one.

Indeed, but resto druids never ever desire to pvp heal...

[Damien Neil]

Can you get intimidation and have trueshot? I can't remember.

No, you can't. If you've got trueshot, however, you've presumably also got scattershot. Intimidation is the beast mastery hunter's replacement for scattershot. (I don't know how well this works out in practice in PvP, since I stopped playing WoW shortly after the hunter talent revamp, but it seemed nice enough for the short time I had it.)

[Tom McNamara]

Thats the kicker for me, the whole deal with spirit. Are druids going to get gear now that has that much more spirit? Are they going to improve our regen rate to that of priests? Oh, tree form and a talent help that. So now I have to get spirit gear when its all been int and mp5/healing? Hell, I gave up on getting will of arlokk ages ago as that panther bitch never dropped the damn thing and then I'd have often had to fight with priests over it.

There are rumors on the internets that Spirit will affect your ability to avoid critical hits.

[Ranulf]

There are rumors on the internets that Spirit will affect your ability to avoid critical hits.

Meh, as opposed to the new talent that reduces crit hits in the resto tree (30 pt level iirc).

[TheTrunkDr]

There are rumors on the internets that Spirit will affect your ability to avoid critical hits.
There's a new attribute called Resillience which is suppose to reduce critical hits against you and other such things. I'm not sure how it's going to compare to defense gear or if that mechanic will be changing much.

[Mark Asher]

I think SS is a bit better than Intimidation since it’s a faster cooldown and that dazed, walking around, gotta reorient SS effect buys more time than a simple stun. I guess the question is of trading trueshot for intimidation, and then having two interrupts. That would be interesting, but you give up a lot of white damage when you go without trueshot.

What finally convinced me to go with MM in regards to the pet was that my trueshot aura’d pet’s white damage was close to a BM spec’d pet’s white damage. I was surprised when I tested that.

[DeepT]

I heard something about stamina being computed differently in BC, something like it will cause people to have double the HP in BC. Has anyone else heard of this?

[LesJarvis]

From an itemization budget standpoint stamina in BC will cost 66% of what it does currently, so stamina values will go up by about 50%.

[DeepT]

So 1 stam will still = 10 hp, but post BC items will have 50% more stam?

Is this what you mean?

Because if you do, Blizzard is going to piss off a shit-ton of people when they said all that effort in BWL / Nax will not be wasted due to your loot being made obsolete by BC loot.

[LesJarvis]

So 1 stam will still = 10 hp, but post BC items will have 50% more stam?

Is this what you mean?

Precisely.

Because if you do, Blizzard is going to piss off a shit-ton of people when they said all that effort in BWL / Nax will not be wasted due to your loot being made obsolete by BC loot.

They've been pretty clear that existing loot, wherever it comes from, will not be competitive at level 70, for example:

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=27946

[DeepT]

Yeah but here is the kicker, which I guess could be obvious if you think about it (Why didn't blizzard?).

Why should you bother spending 4 months trying to get through BWL when in 1 month you can be level 70 and get superior loot from easier instances?

In fact, why get *any* loot at all now? AQ, Nax, BWL, any "faction" loot, etc.

After BC comes out, why would you *ever* go to these 'uber' dungeons? Have they learned nothing from EQ? In 2 years, all these pre-BC end-game dungeons will be ghost towns. In fact, it may be in a single month after BC comes out when this happens.

What a waste of development resources. They could have better spent their time making 5 new BG instead of Nax or AQ.

You can always up the BG reward quality, because it is PvP and will "self-scale" in difficulty. You can't simply up the rewards in MC because then a bunch of level 70s will 'farm' a level 60 dungeon.

[Michael Fortson]

I'm thrilled that all of the catass (and/or day-1-server) guilds decked out in tier three will no longer be given a free pass through mixed-server BG PvP. If they'd earned that gear through PvP I might be more sympathetic, but giving people such an incredibly potent insta-win for doing something unrelated to PvP was a bad idea to begin with, and I am happy to see that advantage go away. At 70, our guild will be making sure not to let that bullshit imbalance happen again, and with the smaller raid sizes, it's actually something we can do.

[DeepT]

Thats is what got me re-interested in WoW, was the viability of PvP getting you good gear without having to play 24/7. The PvP grind was so bad, the epic loot should have been 4x as good as anything you got from BWL.

The new system should fix that, however, blizzard *might* have shot themselves in the foot again.

They mentioned "jewels" such as the "rares" you got in D2. These would be uber powerful artifact gems that only dropped from end-game raid bosses.

If you end up with good PvP loot that is equal to end game PvP gear, *except* that the PvE gear is all slotted with "rare" jewels, that could throw the end-game PvP balance out of whack again.

Either these jewels should only be "slightly" more powerful or there should be a PvP method of buying / winning them. If not, PvPers will be in the same boat they are in now with respect to PvE players walking in with all their cat-ass PvE loot on PvP battlegrounds.

[LesJarvis]

And finally Hunters have been added (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/talents-and-spells.html).

[Mark Asher]

That Beast Within talent will be a handful in 1v1 combat. Not only is the pet supercharged, the hunter can’t be stopped and gets a 30% damage boost – should pair nicely with rapid fire. Yowza.

[Ranulf]

That Beast Within talent will be a handful in 1v1 combat. Not only is the pet supercharged, the hunter can’t be stopped and gets a 30% damage boost – should pair nicely with rapid fire. Yowza.

Yeah it looks nice. The only talent issues I have is that the range increase for ranged weps is now in the survival tree tier 2 and not really in a good spot such that I can keep the same points in entrapment that I already have.

On spells, I'm not sure the benefit of "steady shot". "Snakes in a trap" is amusing and misdirection looks like it could be very handy.

[LesJarvis]

I'm having a similar reaction to steady shot. I keep looking at it waiting for its use to dawn on me, but so far I've got nothing.

The Hawk Eye move is a bit odd as well. I don't think it's *that* bad, but the reasoning for it is unclear to me. The only thing that really stands out is that they don't want Hunters with Hawk Eye + Beast Within + Mortal Shots. Even that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, though.

The Aimed Shot nerf (3.0 second cast time to 3.5 second cast time) seems to be intended to disrupt the hallowed 10 second shot rotation to some extent, but that's silly too as far as I'm concerned. It's not like hunters are tearing up the DPS meters as is.

[dannimal]

This is the kind of stuff I'd like to think I care about and have the brain power + motivation to work through, but every time I start I just give up about 5 minutes in.

*sigh*

[mouselock]

I'm having a similar reaction to steady shot. I keep looking at it waiting for its use to dawn on me, but so far I've got nothing.

The Hawk Eye move is a bit odd as well. I don't think it's *that* bad, but the reasoning for it is unclear to me. The only thing that really stands out is that they don't want Hunters with Hawk Eye + Beast Within + Mortal Shots. Even that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, though.

The Aimed Shot nerf (3.0 second cast time to 3.5 second cast time) seems to be intended to disrupt the hallowed 10 second shot rotation to some extent, but that's silly too as far as I'm concerned. It's not like hunters are tearing up the DPS meters as is.

There's a post about Steady shot and Aimed shot.. basically the Aimed Shot nerf wasn't a DPS nerf so much as a "We're tired of non-slow weapons being inferior" nerf. (It will also reset your auto-shot timer now when you cast it.)

Therefore, Steady Shot is the "weave into autoshot spam" replacement, and Aimed shot is effectively an opening salvo in design.

[Stroker Ace]

I'm having a similar reaction to steady shot. I keep looking at it waiting for its use to dawn on me, but so far I've got nothing.There is a new MM talent that gives a small chance to daze and there's the obvious combo with Scattershot. I think this skill is supposed to give the hunter a little extra oomph for head to head firefights - it was always difficult to get an Aimed Shot off against someone rushing at you, and it won't be any easier now that AS is a 3.5s cast.

Right now when someone rushes you you've got traps, conc shot, stings, multi-shot... not much direct damage other than multi/auto shots.

[Stroker Ace]

The snake trap says they're "venomous snakes". If that means each snake applies a short-duration poison debuff to a target, that could give the hunter nice cover to keep a high-value sting (serpent, viper) from being dispelled immediately like they so often are nowadays.

[zabuni]

Whoa, they changed the priest talents. No more healing for shadow priests. It's now a mana regen spell.

[LesJarvis]

There's a post about Steady shot and Aimed shot.. basically the Aimed Shot nerf wasn't a DPS nerf so much as a "We're tired of non-slow weapons being inferior" nerf. (It will also reset your auto-shot timer now when you cast it.)

Therefore, Steady Shot is the "weave into autoshot spam" replacement, and Aimed shot is effectively an opening salvo in design.

Wow, even beyond this stuff, they're really revamping hunters. Traps in combat, only 1 RAP per Agi, etc. Here's the post that (I think) you were referreing to if anyone else wants more details:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=32156379&postId=320838616#82

Edit: Also, more info about Snakes in a Trap here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=32156379&postId=320839212#170

[Stroker Ace]

A blue has posted!

Do you...

A) Wail?

B) Gnash teeth?

[Mark Asher]

Those really are sweeping changes to the hunter class. Hunters are going to be much more reliant on itemization than before. It sounds like they are making them more like rogues in the way that rogues rely on items with + attack power more than + agility items.

With my rogue, not being a raider, I ended up loading up with + attack power stuff and got better damage that way. I get my crits from talents for backstab and ambush. I don't need agility for crits. I could see hunters doing the same thing, going for items with + attack power over items with + agility.

Interesting stuff, though. Lots of talent build possibilities.