cataclysm-talent-preview
Latest
Cataclysm Talent Previews: Our thoughts on the changes
Blizzard dropped a bomb on us last night as they revealed a Cataclysm talent tree preview for four classes. Druids, rogues, shamans and priests were the first to receive such treatment, while all of the other classes currently remain under NDA. Our class columnists have been hard at work analyzing the preview first brought to us by World of Raids. If you want to know what our columnists have to say, just check out the links below. Rogue analysis from Chase Christian Holy priest analysis from Dawn Moore Discipline priest analysis from Dawn Moore Shadow priest analysis from Fox Van Allen Balance druid analysis from Tyler Caraway Elemental shaman analysis from Matt Low Enhancement shaman analysis from Rich Maloy Published earlier today: Restoration shaman analysis from Joe Perez Feral and restoration druids will need to wait just a little longer. We'll publish them as soon as they're ready. If this is your first time hearing about these changes, you might want to scope out the talent trees before digging into any sort of analysis. Enjoy!
Cataclysm Talent Preview: Enhancement shaman
With the release of the Shaman talent tree came some big news for enhancement, some new spells, and a request from Blizzard for feedback. What are we enhancers looking at with the talent changes in Cataclysm? Other than some rearranging of the clothes in the closet there are some notable new talents: Focused Strikes Ancestral Swiftness Searing Flames Totemic Vigor Improved Lava Lash What did Ghostcrawler have to say? How do the new talents play out?
Cataclysm Talent Preview: Rogue
I can't say that our talent preview arrived in good company. Blizzard released a first look at our new talent trees alongside the new trees for three of the four healer classes in WoW. I would have liked to have seen a few of our DPS brethren's trees alongside ours, but at least rogues were in the first batch of previews released. I remember being the very last class to receive its talent review in vanilla WoW, so being first in line is definitely a cause for celebration. Each of the three talent trees received some pretty significant changes, including a few potential rotation changers. Blizzard stated that their goal was to consolidate some of the mandatory DPS talents to allow for more flexibility and utility, and to reduce the number of simple damage increasing talents. In addition, each tree needed to be fleshed out a bit, to give us somewhere to sink the five additional points we'll receive at level 85. Finally, they also had to add in some flavor to each tree, making any given spec a bit more unique from the other two.
Cataclysm Talent Preview: Shadow priests
On Thursday, Blizzard released brand new information regarding talent builds in Cataclysm. Surely, all of us World of Warcraft addicts are grateful for the slow tease of information. Of course, a lot of the "new" information was already data mined and leaked from the alpha over a month ago. I covered a lot of the changes to the shadow tree in a previous column, Ghostly aspects of our shadowy hatepower. Shadowy Apparitions, Shadow Orbs, getting rid of Shadow Focus, spirit contributing to our hit rating -- it's all in there. I won't bore you with all the details I covered already. But it's not all old news, of course. There's some new stuff in there, and there is stuff to be excited about. I'm getting more optimistic about shadow priesting in Cataclysm with each drop of new information, and it feels like Blizzard might actually be listening to us. Seriously. Listen, the standard caveats apply here -- it's really early to talk about this stuff and this could all change. But it'd be really quiet and boring around here today if we didn't.
Cataclysm Talent Preview: Discipline priests
Last night, Blizzard unexpectedly released an extensive talent preview from Cataclysm for select classes. Priests were among those classes, and as the resident healing priest, I will be walking you through the preview for discipline (as well as holy) talent by talent. The preview confirms the full details on the long-awaited discipline ability, Power Word: Barrier. A new talent called Archangel was also unveiled. Hit the jump to check it out.
Cataclysm druid, rogue, priest and shaman talent previews
Blizzard has provided a number of fansites with a talent preview for four classes: druids, rogues, priests and shaman. While the talent trees are not complete yet, these four talent trees are the closest to complete of all classes. Some highlights from the new talents include: Rogues: Vendetta (1 point) Marks an enemy for death, increasing all damage you deal to the target by 20% and granting you unerring vision of your target, regardless of concealments such as Stealth and Invisibility. Lasts 30 seconds. Druids: Nom Nom Nom [Name Not Final] (2 points) When you Ferocious Bite a target at or below 25% health, you have a 50/100% chance to instantly refresh the duration of your Rip on the target. Shamans: Wrathful Totems [Name Not Final] (1 point) Causes your Fire totems to increase the spell power of party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%. For the full talent preview for these classes, check behind the cut below.
