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Breakfast Topic: Talented
With the release of the first set of patch 6.0 patch notes--I'm certain there will be many variants to come--talk is buzzing about all the major changes and adjustments we'll be seeing come Warlords of Draenor. In addition to reading about all this, I've been doing some perusal of the level 100 talents (as they currently stand). In particular, I think all three of the new feral druid talents sound great, though Lunar Inspiration is my favorite just for concept alone. The restoration druid options aren't quite as exciting, in my opinion, though they certainly aren't anything to sneer at. The other classes I play regularly are my frost mage and my retribution paladin, and a few of their talents strike my fancy as well--Comet Storm for the mage and Empowered Seals for the paladin in particular sound fun and useful, respectively. Have you looked over the talents in detail? Some haven't changed much since BlizzCon, but some haven't been documented publicly until now. What do you like? What don't you like? What do you wish were there?
Lichborne: Analyzing patch 5.0 death knight talents
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. As you probably know by now, Blizzard has drastically overhauled the talent system for patch 5.0, giving everyone a ton of automatic level-ups and then a choice between three talents every 15 levels. This week, we'll take a look at the talents they previewed for death knights at BlizzCon 2011: what they mean, how they work, what looks good, and what sort of sucks. As a reminder, these talents are all a work in progress that can and will change before patch 5.0 goes live, which could easily be over half a year from now. With that in mind, we'll focus more on mechanics and philosophy and less on math. Math can always be tweaked. %Gallery-137279%
Shifting Perspectives: A first look at Mists of Pandaria talents for feral druids
At BlizzCon 2011, druids received the groundbreaking news that we were changing to a four-specialization model. With this news, plus the new talents that were revealed, obviously large changes to the spec are planned. With today's column, I'd like to look at the talents that were revealed during Blizzcon, and make some first guesses as to what players will be looking for. Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: this is pre-alpha stuff, so I won't be commenting on numbers specifically, just the design choices. Feel free to follow along on the Wowhead MoP talent calculator. Onward! Tier 1: Movement Feline Swiftness: Increases your movement speed by 10% and by an additional 20% while in Cat Form. Displacer Beast (Instant, 3 min cooldown): Teleports the Druid up to 20 yards in a random direction, purging all periodic damage effects and providing stealth for 10 sec. Attacking or taking damage cancels this effect. Using this ability activates Cat Form. Tireless Pursuit (Instant, 3 min cooldown): Removes all roots and snares, and increases movement speed by 70% while in Cat Form for 15 sec. Does not break prowling. Using this ability activates Cat Form. I'm happy that movement choices come first. At level 15, you spend a LOT of time walking from place to place, so any movement talents are welcome. Feline Swiftness is likely your default choice, replacing Feral Swiftness. The vast majority of your playtime is spent moving your character from place to place, after all, so let's get there faster! Let's face it: the stationary tank-and-spank model is mostly dead, so being able to move faster is a key part of good DPS. Not to mention, it's always annoyed me when playing my resto off-spec that I didn't go faster in cat form, so I'm glad I'll be able to pick this up there as well. Now, I think this choice is a pretty good example of the "optimal, but..." design. The other choices are clearly more intended for PvP, but they could very well be useful for survival on encountersthat feature large periodic damage effects or roots/snares. Displacer Beast is interesting if the Charge->Ravage mechanic stays in (my guess is it does) but the random component will make it confusing to use, so it will likely be only useful as an escape in PvP. Finally, my guess would be that Tireless Pursuit heralds the removal of Stampeding Roar, or possibly Dash.
Cataclysm Beta: New talent trees for paladins
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge -- and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Last night, Blizzard released the new talent tree system onto the beta realms for people to take a gander at and test out. Each class is at various stages of done-ness, with some needing pruning, others needing tuning and still others just need another iteration or two before truly being ready. Paladins fall into that last category, along with three other classes. Here are a couple of excerpts from the beta patch notes, with bold added for emphasis: Cataclysm Beta Patch Notes - Build 12479 While this is a first pass on all of the talent trees, death knight, druid, paladin, warlock, Arcane mage, and Assassination rogue trees are not as far along as other specializations. ... Paladins * We are in the process of overhauling many paladin talents, spells and abilities. Expect updates in upcoming patches. source Things like more healing abilities for holy, Holy Shield moving from a maintained ability to a tanking cooldown, and three new planned but unimplemented attack abilities for retribution are all in the pipeline, as well as a shakeup of the talents we've already been provided. So, without further ado, I present a first draft of the paladin talent trees. [ Holy ] [ Protection ] [ Retribution ] The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with the dark times coming in Cataclysm. See the upcoming Paladin changes the expansion will bring. Wrath is coming to a close and the final showdown with the Lich King is here. With Cataclysm soon heating things up, will you be ready?
Preparing your Mage for patch 3.0.2, part 2
So...tomorrow's the big day, huh? When you log in tonight, be sure to open up your talent interface. Take a long look at your talents. Give them all a nice, long, figurative kiss goodbye. Do this because the next time you see your talents, you won't recognize them at all.Since we have 8 billion things to talk about and substantially less than 8 billion words with which to talk about them, we'd better get started.Patch 3.0.2--the pre-expansion patch that we're almost certainly getting tomorrow--changes a crapload of things. We went over the more general Mage-related changes in Arcane Brilliance on Saturday, so if you haven't seen that yet, take a look and then come on back.Today, we'll look at the vast, sweeping modifications our talent trees have undergone. Trust me when I say a lot has changed. Did I mention the changes were sizable? Well they are. Come back after the jump for a massive review of new and remodeled Mage toys.
Arcane Brilliance: Patch 3.0.2 and you
Each week, Arcane Brilliance journeys to the heart of Mageland, braves all the perils of Blinking backwards, premature sheep-breakage, and table-ninjas that infest that mystical place, and returns triumphant, bearing with it the spoils of its epic victory: one-to-two-thousand words, a center-aligned image of some type, and several dozen Wowhead links. It then distributes these treasures among the citizenry, spreading word of its conquests throughout the villages and townships, before kneeling before the King of Mageland and presenting him with the head of a Warlock.And there is much rejoicing. I don't know about you, but the idea of patch 3.0.2 scares the living crap out of me. I mean, I'm excited about a lot of it--changing my Mage's hairstyle and restoring his lower jaw, for instance (it still perplexes me how a barber can alter my entire facial structure)--but there are things about the impending patch that absolutely terrify me. Chief among these is that free respec.Choosing a spec on the beta, where respecs cost a whopping 1 copper, has been difficult enough. Almost every talent we have now will be changed (in most cases improved), moved, or flat-out abolished when the patch hits, and many new talents will appear. Believe me when I say that none of the currently accepted level 70 talent specs will remain intact. In many ways, Mages, like every other class, are getting what amounts to a complete class reset. Everything we know about talent builds will essentially have to be forgotten and relearned. Even raids your guild knows frontward and back will become a crazy new adventure, and PvP will become a giant crap-shoot. The good news is that for at least that first week, the Arena playing field will be leveled completely.But don't worry. Arcane Brilliance is here to help. Follow me after the break to see what kind of fun we can have with our 61 talent points after the patch hits.
Kisirani implies the return of the Scourge Invasion event
I think a lot of old school WoW players will agree with me that the Scourge Invasion event that kicked off the Naxxramas patch (and coincided with that year's Midsummer Fire Festival) was a whole lot of fun. There was something incredibly epic about fighting a massive hulking abomination on the steps of the Stormwind Cathedral that not even most boss fights have been able to capture for me. it was also nice to have all those extra bosses in the dungeons for a bit of variety, especially since some of them dropped some very nice loot. Beyond all that, it finally gave us a chance at getting the much coveted tabard of the greatest faction in the game. Still, despite Blizzard's hints that we'd get a chance to experience the Scourge Invasion again, it's been over a year and a half since the citadels ceased to hang over our capital cities with no sign of a return -- I've even saved a space in my bank for my spare Necrotic Runes, just in case! Of course, if the Scourge Invasion is ever to return, it's getting closer and closer to the most opportune moment for such a thing. WotLK is coming, in which we will invade Northrend ourselves to try to put a stop to the Scourge once and for all. Preparations are already underway in Stormwind for the journey, and rumor has it that Arthas himself is in eager to lure us to Northrend and trap us there. What better way to do that than with a preliminary invasion as bait? Apparently, Kisirani agrees.
