nailbat.us

Posted: **Wed Feb 15, 2012 4:30 pm**

Are up. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists- ... calculator

Honestly, looking at those talent trees is not as interesting as looking at the class/spec abilities chart. There's some subtle but far reaching changes there.

Some examples from a straight prot warrior perspective: I think they're taking out the melee speed debuff out right! Thunderclap is still here, but it now has a demo shout effect, and demo shout itself is gone. Quick glance at other tank classes seems to confirm.

Old rotation/play styles are going out with window as the majority of abilities now have cooldowns. Lots of similar type abilities are consolidated: rend is gone, deep wounds is baseline (but redesigned... now triggers off of specific abilities, not crits). These changes are actually capturing my interest. It feels like the 5.0 patch will have a more impact on how I play than 4.0, which for prot warriors were pretty meh (mastery only affected gearing, not play style. only play style change was the addition of an initial rend for blood-and-thunder).

Posted: **Wed Feb 15, 2012 6:53 pm**

I like these changes. I'm really looking forward to MoP now.

Now, if I can just get two Souldrinkers... >.>

Posted: **Thu Feb 16, 2012 2:32 pm**

One of the things they said at Blizzcon last year was they were removing debuffs like demoralizing shout/roar and making them static. People were confused because one of the druid talents is called Demo Roar but does something else. They kept having to repeat themselves.

I looked through the druid talents. I'm needing to read through them several times to really understand the usefulness of some of the utility levels. A lot of the druid talents are really 4 talents in one wrapped theme dependent on spec. So one utility level is all about crowd control type abilities. At first glance, I was thinking the utility was only for PvP. I'm starting to see some situational PvE utility from them. So we have AoE roots on a 2m cooldown. PvE usefulness? eh, maybe. There's a AoE suck enemies to the center. That could nicely be used as an interrupt. A 5s melee stun is nice for a tank. 15s 50% slow added to faerie fire? Situational. How often do hunters use concussive shot? So more highly useful in PvP, situational use in PvE. I suspect this is what they were going for.

Do the other talent trees have this sort of situational PvE utility? Ours are the level 45 and 75 talents

Posted: **Thu Feb 16, 2012 4:25 pm**

tethealla wrote:One of the things they said at Blizzcon last year was they were removing debuffs like demoralizing shout/roar and making them static. People were confused because one of the druid talents is called Demo Roar but does something else. They kept having to repeat themselves.

I looked through the druid talents. I'm needing to read through them several times to really understand the usefulness of some of the utility levels. A lot of the druid talents are really 4 talents in one wrapped theme dependent on spec. So one utility level is all about crowd control type abilities. At first glance, I was thinking the utility was only for PvP. I'm starting to see some situational PvE utility from them. So we have AoE roots on a 2m cooldown. PvE usefulness? eh, maybe. There's a AoE suck enemies to the center. That could nicely be used as an interrupt. A 5s melee stun is nice for a tank. 15s 50% slow added to faerie fire? Situational. How often do hunters use concussive shot? So more highly useful in PvP, situational use in PvE. I suspect this is what they were going for.

Do the other talent trees have this sort of situational PvE utility? Ours are the level 45 and 75 talents

Warbringer is more PvP oriented now, with the knockdown and stun, though that could be useful for a loose mob after a healer.

Disrupting Shout is more PvP, though using it to glue a group of casters to oneself could be nice. >.>

Posted: **Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:51 pm**

As a tank, I actually really like all the snares/stuns/silences functionality. I can see how its not exciting when looking at it from a dps-centric perspective, but they have stated their design intent is to move away from talents that increase dmg.

I suppose it becomes an encounter design issue: if they can make mob positioning a group concern, rather than strictly tank territory, then those abilities will become very important. Then again, considering how Cataclysm tried (and failed rather miserably) to bring CC back...

Looks like they tried to keep the really juicy new abilities for the last talent tier, so you get a new toy to play with at lvl 90. I for one will probably be re-spec'ing on a weekly basis, to try out all the different abilities. They said they were going to remove the 'cookie-cutter' builds. I'd say they're on the right track.

Posted: **Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:04 pm**

Along with the new MoP talent trees came info about the new class skills. We finally got more information about the Druid's Symbiosis. Before all we knew is that the druid and another class would give each other skills. Now we know more about this skill of ultimate awesomeness (OK maybe I exaggerate)

The Druid will select a raid or party member and cast Symbiosis on them.
The target cannot be another Druid.
The target gains a buff that tells them what spell they have temporarily learned, and that spell temporarily appears in their spellbook, and they can drag it to an action bar.
The Druid’s Symbiosis button will become the ability they gained from the target class.
The Symbiosis link is cancelled if: the Druid clicks off the Symbiosis buff, or the Druid or the target changes continents or enters or exits an instance, or the Druid or the target changes talent specializations.
Symbiosis fails to cast if Symbiosis is already active on that target.
Symbiosis cannot be cast in combat.
For the non-Druid target, the icon will revert to a placeholder (uncastable) Symbiosis icon when Symbiosis ends, but will become the Symbiosis-granted ability again the next time Symbiosis is cast on that target.
The ability gained from Symbiosis is always something chosen to match the Druid’s specialization and the target’s combat role.
The target always gets the same spell unless they change combat roles. A Druid of a given specialization always gets the same spell from each different class. If there is a change of specs, there is a change of spell.

Here are some examples of spells gained through Symbiosis. The spells shared focus on utility, cooldowns, and survival. (Adding Fireball to a Moonkin’s rotation sounds cool on paper, but wouldn’t actually be fun in the long run.)

Balance: Chains of Ice, Mirror Image, Mass Dispel
Feral: Feign Death (Play Dead!), Frost Nova, Soul Swap
Guardian: Ice Trap, Fear Ward, Consecration
Restoration: Ice Block, Hand of Sacrifice, Leap of Faith
Hunter: Dash
Warlock: Rejuvenation
Holy Paladin: Rebirth
Arms/Fury Warrior: Enrage
Enhancement/Elemental Shaman: Solar Beam

There are a lot more coming, but we'll keep some surprises for now, and many are still subject to change after testing. Including all of those just listed.

So before bringing the pack o druids we occasionally brought to the raid would be less beneficial. Some buffs would stack, other wouldn't etc. Now each druid brings something. No matter of spec, we give a special benefit to someone. Of course the druids might fight amongst themselves for who they get to cast on.

"My Priest! I found him first!"

I really can only speak about the abilities the druids get.. but they really fill in some sore spots. Feral's are heavily dot based, so being able to soul swap them to other people would heavily help. Resto lacks some, "ack! I got aggro save me abilities" other than shadowmeld. Ice block will be welcome. Two classes with leap of faith is always good.. As for guardian, I can't tell you how many times I'd have killed for a consecration and it's ability to help with AoE LoS pulls.

The one thing I don't understand is that the article said they didn't want to give dps increasing abilities. Isn't Mirror Image a dps increasing cd? I thought all your images did extra damage.

I haven't played my warlock in a long time, but isn't health = mana = dps? Well that's if you ever go oom.

The one thing I had kinda hoped for was the ability to use symbiosis when soloing. Find someone in SW or IF of the class you want, ninja-cast and away you go. While you CAN still do that, but the link would likely disappear at an inopportune time.

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