Cataclysm Talent Tree (revised - 31pt)Follow

I'm... not sure. On one hand, they definitely 'delivered' as it seems to matter little what talents you pick - you can go wherever you want and you'll barely lose any damage or utility. On the other hand, due to the fact that 31 points in one tree prevents you from picking up the 11-pointers in other trees, a lot of specs are just REALLY straightforward and boring.

I dare you; try making a mage arcane PvP spec. You end up taking literally every talent in the arcane tree save two or three, which leaves you at most 8-10 points to grab stuff that's pretty damn useless to arcane, like Frostbite or Early frost. Or Ignite. There seems little variation possible there. Or at least; there is variation possible, but because none of it actually really impacts your play you'll end up being a homogenized mage anyway. If you go up one tree you can't get high enough up the other trees to actually make grab playstyle-changing talents.

At least, this is true for mages; I haven't checked the other trees yet.

Eh, I never said I would. But since you asked - perhaps, it depends mostly on the class. Not in the case of mages, anyway. I'm just saying that because you have to go so high up in a tree, you can only spare a few points in other trees, meaning you get a couple of tiny buffs you won't even notice (because once again; the effect of talent trees as a whole has been nerfed).

Also, in my last post I said 8-10 points in other trees "at most". If I actually make an Arcane PvP build that picks up all the stuff I want from Arcane, I'm not even left with that. Grabbing all talents good for PvP in the Arcane tree leaves me with this. Which means that even if I really wanted to skip all talents I can now easily grab in Arcane that are good all-round anyway, I'd only have 6 points left to put into Frost and Fire. In fire, this means as much as "an improved Fire Blast, a bit crit, and a small chance on stuns". In frost, this means as much as "-10% mana cost, Shatter and 1% crit".

If I'd just stick to arcane, I'd get 3% damage (for the entire raid) and a spellpower boost when using my mana gem. For less points. Which means that my preferred PvP arcane tree looks like this. Leaving me two points that do... basically nothing.

Interesting point. I don't know, really. Obviously Arcane Blast is the tree's bread & butter spell, but Arcane Barrage is pretty nifty as well. It's a lot more engaging than standing still and cooking up a nuke, anyway. And it encourages playing around with moving and using instants rather than just standing still and donning the old fireball-fireball-fireball hat.

You could argue that Pyroblast sucks for this reason, but the thing with Pyro is that it's actually thrilling to see such a huge spell going off because you know it's going to put an enourmous dent in the enemy's health bar.

Looks like arcane is pretty screwed as PvE - If you want to go past 17 points in it you have to pick up a lot of trash in the tree, but you can't spend the amount you're left over with in other trees without picking up even more.

Fire power has been castrated. Which reminds me, weren't talents supposed to be getting more interesting and less passive damage boosts and ****? Because that hasn't really happened. If anything, the opposite has; lots of the more interesting abilities, like barrage and the water elemental, have been put into the communal pot.



Eh.

The passive damage boost are supposed to be baked into your mastery. it should work out to be the same.Notice that flame throwing is also gone. Also baked in.

Plus it is not communal, those are specialization spells you get by selecting a specialization. Instead of spending points to get those, they are given when you select.

well I just kept half or a quarter of a eye on the game for the 5-6 mths of not playing the game and not buying pre-paid game time cards.

I know the masteries were going to replace most of the mandatory passive talents. Fire power's original stats and empowered fire have their stats baked into fire mastery. Flame throwing is now in mastery. What I did not expect was that talent trees were getting pruned.

And pruned trees also had something else to go with it. a new specialization system. Quite amazing cos for frost, at level 10 you will get the water elemental. Which I am quite certain will have its duration scale according to level.

Arcane needs a lot of work. and a blue post mentioned that as well which means something might be done to either allow arcane blast to be learnt earlier or to bake it in and let you talent barrage... which is going to be strange in any case...

Actually Mastery won't be unlocked until level 75, so it doesn't really make a difference on that perspective, that you don't get Arcane Blast until 36. I absolutely agree with you on every other point though, and I need to remember to make that suggestion in the beta. If they're going to make Arcane Missiles a proc spell, they should swap what levels they give mages Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blast.

That might be part of the reason why I've been focusing on my goblin. I know I said that I would play around with my mage some once I finished the goblin starting areas, but I just have no interest in touching her. She bores me at this point. I'm curious about the new leveling areas for sure, but I just don't care about my mage right now. It makes me really sad, considering how much time I've put into her over the last two years, but what can you do?

That's TERRIBLE logic. What you are basically saying is "It isn't viable now, so who cares if it is viable in Cata?" Might as well say the same thing about Frost in endgame.

Plus, Arcane isn't so bad right now. You never even come close to going OOM with Frost, especially with BoAs, so the higher cost of AM doesn't matter. It's actually not that much larger, anyway, since even though AM is expensive it does far more damage. I see plenty of people leveling with it now, especially if they do a lot of dungeons, and they go whole runs without drinking and doing fine DpS. Frost doesn't get way better until Deep Freeze is available, since it is balanced for level 80.

I thought Abarr was learned at level 10 specialization?

Moz, take a moment and think about the names of things.

ARCANE Barrage is an instant spell. MISSILE barrage is a talent that increases the cast speed of AM.

MBAM is the abbreviation for Missile Barrage, generally. Abarr is Arcane Barrage.

At level 10, mages get Abarr if they spec Arcane.

This means their abilities are:

Frostbolt
Fireball
Arcane Missiles
Arcane Barrage (instant that is buffed by AB but doesn't consume it anymore).

AM is no longer a basic nuke. You need to use spells to "proc" it, which will then let you use it. I imagine it's a % chance thing on each cast. And it doesn't cost any mana, from what I understand.

So, an Arcane Mage without Arcane Blast has to spam Frostbolts or Fireballs to try and get their AM spell to pop up for use. You'll likely use Frostbolt so that you can talent Torment the Weak. So your rotation will be identical to Frost's, except they also have a pet doing damage and get the utility of Frost Bite/Shatter/Permafrost and a buff to their frost damage. You only really get AM buffed, and that's dependent on the RNG to use.

Considering the purpose of specializing was to make you feel connected to your spec, the fact that you are playing like a gimped Frost Mage as Arcane until level 36, when you finally get your basic nuke is a huge problem. They should give you Arcane Blast at level 10 and make you either talent Abarr or get it at a higher level. Especially, since it is buffed by AB without consuming charges, it seems to me that it's going to be more like Ice Lance in that it has pitiful damage when used without. Doesn't sound useful, imo.

[EDIT]

Just to add:

You specialize as a Frost Mage and you get a Water Elemental. Right away you really feel like a Frost Mage--distinct.

As a Fire mage, you get Pyro. Personally, this means crap to me. I don't find it interesting at all. Pyro is now identical to Fball in cast time. So it's just a nuke that costs more for much more damage. I'm assuming you'll use it every 12 seconds for the DoT effect. I don't think this really makes you feel like a Fire Mage any more than a fireball does, since that's all it is, but bigger. I think Dragon's Breath or Living Bomb would have been better. But I see why the latter wasn't used at least. I imagine they did it just because they would have needed to give it to you before Hot Streak anyway.

But Arcane Barrage? You get a fairly wimpy instant spell and don't even get to use Arcane spells much, since most of your casts come from another tree. And your first talent points go to buffing your Frostbolts, primarily, from TtW. It would have been more interesting to give them Slow. And, frankly, probably more effective for leveling, so you'd have another tool to manage adds.

It would be like giving Unholy DKs Unholy Blight instead of Scourge Strike. You'd have to wait to get your main ability and deal with a crappy minor bonus until then.

[EDIT2]

AM is a 30% chance to proc on offensive spell casts. And it will apparently be useful for every spec until Frost/Fire replace it with Pyro/FFB or FB.

Edited, Jul 18th 2010 8:44pm by idiggory

I was just using WoWhead's information, which was saying it was a 3.5 second cast with a 12 second DoT.

Though it is now saying it's a 5 second cast (literally changed when I hit the backspace by accident, then went forward again).

Are you talking about Pyro with Haste or without? What are the default cast times? WoWhead says FB's cast at level 10 is 2.45 seconds and it is capped out at 3.5 by level 20.

[EDIT]

And I never said they should get an "ubernuke." I don't think it's a ridiculous claim to say that it should get a STANDARD nuke. You know, what Frostbolt and Fireball are to Frost/Fire.

Edited, Jul 18th 2010 9:06pm by idiggory

I gotta admit charging "casting" that big wrecking ball of fire and flinging it at a hapless mob/player gives me great pleasure.

Interestingly enough mobs in leveling zones still melt to that spell rather quickly. I guess that is effective.

As long as we're using proper names for clarity:



I've never heard a Mage say this. Mbarr, sure, since it implies you're actually going to use the proc; but MBAM is a new one to me.

Edited, Jul 19th 2010 3:17pm by Norellicus