Pre-Cata 4.0 Bear Thoughts

So my guild went in to ICC 25 this week a day late due to the patch, to try to relearn on the go how the game is played, so I got a good look at how to do things bear-wise until Dec. 7th.  I was actually pleasantly surprised with a few things, but I thought I'd roll that in to how to Bear in patch 4.0!

I'll cover all of the abilities in more complete detail in a later set of posts...

But first off, here is the spec I went with for my first go around...


Bear Build for 4.0!

Without the points to get to Perseverance (which I'll want at 85), I actually had one more point to use in the Feral tree than I will when I get that far.  We'll have 5 more points then, 2 of which will be in Natural Shapeshifter to get to Tier 2 resto, 3 in Perseverance, and I will find 1 point from somewhere (current odds are to take one out of Stampede) at that point for Master Shapeshifter... but we'll see.

For now... that looks like a solid build.  I have all the points in everything I want in the Feral tree, plus Heart of the Wild.  I personally don't think it would be bad, while using 4p t10 armor, to put 3 points in King of the Jungle to enhance Enrage even further for in-combat use, but excepting the tier bonus there's no reason to put points there at all.

On a side note, the tooltip for the four piece bonus to t10 armor still reads that "Enrage no longer reduces your armor and instead..."  I'm hoping they actually updated the mechanic so that it doesn't make you take extra damage, because Enrage no longer reduces armor anyway.  Even if they didn't, the bonus makes you take less damage, and more than overcomes the extra damage you take from Enrage anyway, so... I guess it all works out.  Anyway, back to the task at hand.

Tanking seemed... a little clunky to me.  Times were, the only rotationally used abilities Bears had on cooldowns were FFF and Mangle.  Now we've added Swipe and Maul to the mix, and given us an ability that wants us to build up Lacerate stacks, then remove them, AND an ability that wants us to have Lacerate ticking all the time.

So, in short, there's more buttons for us to press, and more limitations in how and when to press them.  To make matters worse, Maul and Swipe both now cost 30 rage (although Swipe's rage cost is supposed to be coming down, and word is they're reducing the threat generation to match, but keeping the cooldown.)  I can't say that I'm entirely pleased with that change - the 6 second cooldown on Swipe is a royal pain - but at least we'll be able to use Swipe at the beginning of a pull for initial aggro now.

I found myself doing things distinctively different for single-target and AOE pulls, which was... not entirely true previously.  For single-target, Mangle and FFF followed by Maul.  Maul and Mangle when off cooldown, fill in the space with Lacerates until 3 stacks, then Pulverize.  If you have the Pulverize buff up, 3 stacks of Lacerate, and Maul and Mangle are on cooldown... FFF again.  If that's also on cooldown... then Swipe, or consider Pulverizing to refresh the buff duration.  Doing this, I've been putting out comparatively massive threat - typically outpacing our DK and Warrior tanks.  Of course, maybe they just don't have their rotations down yet, or maybe I had rogue/hunter threat help, I don't know for sure.

For AOE pulls, I tended to start out with Lacerate, Pulverize immediately to have some buff up, then Swipe.  From there, I was tab-target Maul, Mangle, and Lacerate wherever I needed threat.  Swipe when off cooldown, and Pulverize whenever I could a) eat more stacks of Lacerate than the current buff had, or b) the buff was about to fall off.  I found myself sometimes having no issues with rage at all, and sometimes being rage-starved it seemed no matter what I did.  Either way, I was getting compliments from several folks on our run with doing awesome threat.  One player who has regularly had issues with generating just a little too much threat said he was going all-out and couldn't catch me.  Again, maybe I had help, but that certainly gave me some confidence.

All in all I didn't have many problems with threat generation, and when I did they seemed to be tied to rage starvation.

On the downside, the first night we got to Saurfang and had to stop because the door was bugged and wouldn't open after he died.  The second night, we killed Rotface before giving up because several of our players were having bug issues with the raid instances - getting dropped out of the instance, not being able to come back in, WoW crashing when they came in, WoW crashing when they were summoned - just generally annoying bugs.  I hope they get it all fixed soon.

I haven't had a lot of chances to cat yet, but I have a few thoughts I'll share when I get the time to.  As for my last post about it, I realized later I did my dummy testing after they buffed us a little bit.  Anyway, happy hunting!

Thoughts on the First Beta Rebuild of Talent Trees

Of course, the first day after I finally post some thoughts about the changes to Cataclysm talent trees, MMO Champion gets ahold of the first pass at redoing the talent trees.

I went over and took a gander at it.  I'm still cautiously optimistic, but the hope that my optimism isn't misplaced has taken a hit.

EEEEEEwwwww....

I understand that this is a first pass, and it's a bit harder for Druids, and feral Druids especially, but oh lord did they rip our trees to shreds.

Blizzard stated one of their goals to be making each choice count while still allowing some flexibility - as I see it, there is very, VERY little flexibility in the Druid trees that are currently in Beta - in fact there are only, give or take, two to three points that can even be in the discussion to move as a Bear tank, and we are forced to take kitty talents to even get to that point... and a big part of the issue is requiring 5 points to get to the next tier each tier... if the requirement were slightly lower (say, 3 points?) it would actually allow us to select the talents we really want as opposed to those we HAVE to take to get to the next tier.  Heck with the way the trees were shown there, you could have the second tier require 3, the third require 7, the fourth require 12, the fifth require 18, and so on, or maybe even just 3/10/15/etc....

Plus... Mangle at Level 10??? Interesting choice... should take a lot of the pain of low-level levelling away...

Blah.  I suck at writing today.  What do you think?

Cataclysm Talent Changes

Likely by now you've already seen the blue post, but just in case you haven't, here it is, along with a link to the source:

When we first announced our design goals for class talent trees back at BlizzCon 2009, one of our major stated focuses was to remove some of the boring and "mandatory" passive talents. We mentioned that we wanted talent choices to feel more flavorful and fun, yet more meaningful at the same time. Recently, we had our fansites release information on work-in-progress talent tree previews for druids, priests, shaman, and rogues. From those previews and via alpha test feedback, a primary response we heard was that these trees didn’t incorporate the original design goals discussed at BlizzCon. This response echoes something we have been feeling internally for some time, namely that the talent tree system has not aged well since we first increased the level cap beyond level 60. In an upcoming beta build, we will unveil bold overhauls of all 30 talent trees.

Talent Tree Vision

One of the basic tenets of Blizzard game design is that of “concentrated coolness.” We’d rather have a simpler design with a lot of depth, than a complicated but shallow design. The goal for Cataclysm remains to remove a lot of the passive (or lame) talents, but we don’t think that’s possible with the current tree size. To resolve this, we're reducing each tree to 31-point talents. With this reduction in tree size we need to make sure they're being purchased along a similar leveling curve, and therefore will also be reducing the number of total talent points and the speed at which they're awarded during the leveling process.

As a result, we can keep the unique talents in each tree, particularly those which provide new spells, abilities or mechanics. We’ll still have room for extra flavorful talents and room for player customization, but we can trim a great deal of fat from each tree. The idea isn’t to give players fewer choices, but to make those choices feel more meaningful. Your rotations won’t change and you won’t lose any cool talents. What will change are all of the filler talents you had to pick up to get to the next fun talent, as well as most talents that required 5 of your hard-earned points.

We are also taking a hard look at many of the mandatory PvP talents, such as spell pushback or mechanic duration reductions. While there will always be PvP vs. PvE builds, we’d like for the difference to be less extreme, so that players don’t feel like they necessarily need to spend their second talent specialization on a PvP build.

The Rise of Specialization

We want to focus the talent trees towards your chosen style of gameplay right away. That first point you spend in a tree should be very meaningful. If you choose Enhancement, we want you to feel like an Enhancement shaman right away, not thirty talent points later. When talent trees are unlocked at level 10, you will be asked to choose your specialization (e.g. whether you want to be an Arms, Fury or Protection warrior) before spending that first point. Making this choice comes with certain benefits, including whatever passive bonuses you need to be effective in that role, and a signature ability that used to be buried deeper in the talent trees. These abilities and bonuses are only available by specializing in a specific tree. Each tree awards its own unique active ability and passives when chosen. The passive bonuses range from flat percentage increases, like a 20% increase to Fire damage for Fire mages or spell range increases for casters, to more interesting passives such as the passive rage regeneration of the former Anger Management talent for Arms warriors, Dual-Wield Specialization for Fury warriors and Combat rogues, or the ability to dual-wield itself for Enhancement shaman.

The initial talent tree selection unlocks active abilities that are core to the chosen role. Our goal is to choose abilities that let the specializations come into their own much earlier than was possible when a specialization-defining talent had to be buried deep enough that other talent trees couldn’t access them. For example, having Lava Lash and Dual-Wield right away lets an Enhancement shaman feel like an Enhancement shaman. Other role-defining examples of abilities players can now get for free at level 10 include Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, Mutilate, Shadow Step, Thunderstorm, Earth Shield, Water Elemental, and Penance.

Getting Down to the Grit

Talent trees will have around 20 unique talents instead of today's (roughly) 30 talents, and aesthetically will look a bit more like the original World of Warcraft talent trees. The 31-point talents will generally be the same as the 51-point talents we already had planned for Cataclysm. A lot of the boring or extremely specialized talents have been removed, but we don't want to remove anything that’s going to affect spell/ability rotations. We want to keep overall damage, healing, and survivability roughly the same while providing a lot of the passive bonuses for free based on your specialization choice.

While leveling, you will get 1 talent point about every 2 levels (41 points total at level 85). Our goal is to alternate between gaining a new class spell or ability and gaining a talent point with each level. As another significant change, you will not be able to put points into a different talent tree until you have dedicated 31 talent points to your primary specialization. While leveling, this will be possible at 70. Picking a talent specialization should feel important. To that end, we want to make sure new players understand the significance of reaching the bottom of their specialization tree before gaining the option of spending points in the other trees. We intend to make sure dual-specialization and re-talenting function exactly as they do today so players do not feel locked into their specialization choice.

A True Mastery

The original passive Mastery bonuses players were to receive according to how they spent points in each tree are being replaced by the automatic passive bonuses earned when a tree specialization is chosen. These passives are flat percentages and we no longer intend for them to scale with the number of talent points spent. The Mastery bonus that was unique to each tree will now be derived from the Mastery stat, found on high-level items, and Mastery will be a passive skill learned from class trainers around level 75. In most cases, the Mastery stats will be the same as the tree-unique bonuses we announced earlier this year. These stats can be improved by stacking Mastery Rating found on high-level items.

To Recap

When players reach level 10, they are presented with basic information on the three specializations within their class and are asked to choose one. Then they spend their talent point. The other trees darken and are unavailable until 31 points are spent in the chosen tree. The character is awarded an active ability, and one or more passive bonuses unique to the tree they've chosen. As they gain levels, they'll alternate between receiving a talent point and gaining new skills. They'll have a 31-point tree to work down, with each talent being more integral and exciting than they have been in the past. Once they spend their 31'st point in the final talent (at level 70), the other trees open up and become available to allocate points into from then on. As characters move into the level 78+ areas in Cataclysm, they'll begin seeing items with a new stat, Mastery. Once they learn the Mastery skill from their class trainer they'll receive bonuses from the stat based on the tree they've specialized in.

We understand that these are significant changes and we still have details to solidify. We feel, however, that these changes better fulfill our original class design goals for Cataclysm, and we're confident that they will make for a better gameplay experience. Your constructive feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

I'll go into a little more detail, but while my initial reaction was to the negative, I'm shifting to the cautiously optimistic camp.  Let me explain a little of both...

First, here's my take on the downsides.  Any time you cut something, make it smaller, you remove some element of choice from the equation, and in general that's a bad thing.  They mitigated this to a certain extent, but I'll cover that in the positives.  It seems rather drastic to cut from 51-point trees to 31.  Include the fact that we're gaining 5 levels on the level cap and you're talking about cutting the trees nearly in half.  Then you think about how many talents are generally considered "required" nowadays, and wonder where they are going to replace all that.  It's scary, to say the least, but that's not what worries me the most.  With what they've laid out as their vision and what they want to do with it, I'm confident that it will be ok.  Even locking you in to a tree until you've spent 31 points isn't all bad, while it is slightly annoying.  Finally, they just restructured a lot of the secondary stats and then they're adding Mastery...?  Oh well...

The positive side of these changes is that I think the talent trees will feel less bloated and more streamlined.  As well, yes, it will be easier for new players to understand, and will allow you to be what you want to be right away.  It remains to be seen if you'll get your iconic druid forms right away or if that will come later, but, for example, to have access to Leader of the Pack (or Berserk, or Mangle) at low level will go a long way to helping a feral druid feel... well, FERAL. Rather than having a lot of points that EVERY feral druid takes, whether tank or DPS, we should see many of those abilities built into specializations or mastery, and the remaining points worked down to a manageable level.

To be perfectly honest, the biggest thing that actually does worry me about this change is that it's coming so late in the development of Cataclysm.  I guess this is the reason for Beta tests - to catch these types of issues in addition to code breakage - but I would think this big of a change would be prohibitive this late in the game.  I hope that this doesn't make them rush things, because while I've been salivating over Thrash for a month or two now, I would far rather Cataclysm get pushed out a little bit and have them get things like this RIGHT and balanced rather than rushed, half-done, and broken.

With all that said, I'm looking forward to this.  I never got to play the end-game of Vanilla (or BC either, really, for that matter) and if this does feel a little more like Vanilla, well, it'll be fun to experience it.