Expansion Talents and Spells Released

[lamaros]

Prayer of mending looks interesting. If the jumps are completely random it's not as useful as it could be, but still. Shadow word: Death looks nice. Some instacast pirest attacks. Shades of darness - who knows!

Shadow Talents are VERY uninspired. So wow! now we can be a support healing with some DPS in shadowform. Which is kind of like what we were already... just with more DPS and more healing. Inspired!

Holy is also insipid.

Discipline is better, but stilll...

Very let down overall.

Spec: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?50023201305251205100000000000000000000000050252510001120000000

[Simond]

BTW, Blizzard amended the description of the AoE Dispel - it's actually a super-dispel as well as being AoE. It can remove paladin bubbles, ice block, and other such 'undispellable' effects.

[Calantus]

Holy shit.

[Merusk]

Motherfuck that's huge.

They have got to change holy tree.  The 41 pointer is probably one of the worst talents you could spec into.  The effort it would take to drag it onto your action bar literally outweighs any benefit it may theoretically provide..

I just wish they'd fix the holy talents to get rid of lightwell and Spirit of Redemption.   I cry inside every time we wipe (learning BWL) and 3/5 priests pop into that god damned angel form.  But you can't explain to them that it's a shitty talent.. oh no.. "Stop telling me how to play!"  Argh    Despite being lackluster (at best) you know that there's going to be tons of people picking it up, just like lightwell because "It's 41 points, it's the best I can get, rite?!"

[Dren]

I'm glad you said that Merusk.  I keep looking at those talents thinking, "Who in their right mind would waste points on that?"  Sanity check - OK.  I can't think of anytime Lightwell would help.  SoR might make you a hero in about .05% of the times that you are so on the edge of winning a battle, your 12 seconds of healing before you die makes the difference.  Oh, but you still die and 1/2 the time you might be the only resser there (small groups.)

Shadow got some nasty crit bonuses and a heal-other spell.  Holy is basically healer+.  Discipline got some love, but that's it.  You could make a really nasty PvP type priest now.  Melt faces and heal decently in small contained groups.  Raid priests got nothing from this.

[Ironwood]

Lightwell does help during razorgore.

[bhodi]

Lightwell is so fucking worthless. I'm sorry. It requires the people getting healed to channel it. In fights where there is rarely time to do anything, much less stand there to grab your crotch for 5 seconds. To top it off, it heals less than a heavy runecloth bandage.

[Ironwood]

Er, channel it ?  What are you on about ?

[bhodi]

Did they change lightwell? Last time I knew, it was a channeled ability to heal. You slap it down, and they have to stand there, doing nothing, channeling (which means it cancels when you move / get hit) while healing. This makes it nigh worthless.

[Zane0]

You can move.  You can't take any damage.

If you're creative and remember to put it down, you can almost call it useful.  Razergore, Broodlord, Nefarian, Sartura, Huhu.. even Patchwerk.  If you take damage at predictable intervals, you can use it as a personal ultra-efficient self renew station.

I don't have it any longer because my guild will spam click the fucking thing for "kicks".  Haha guys, that was funny- I'm speccing out of lightwell now.

[ajax34i]

For holy/disc, the only thing I was expecting the expansion to let me do was the ability to take the +healing talent AND the +manapool talent at the same time, and not be forced to choose between them like I have to now.  So that takes up 5 levels, and then the couple other perks we get in disc pretty much use up my available points.

[Dren]

Just to be clear on the lightwell thing:  Can you not only move, but cast other spells too?  Meaning, drop it so that the OT and other team members can go get heals when they catch too much agro when they need, while I continue to direct heal the MT?  That would be the only way I'd see this as beneficial.  Actually, that might be really useful if people don't abuse it.

Otherwise, it would only be useful for a few fights out the thousands it really wouldn't work in.

[Merusk]

Just to be clear on the lightwell thing:  Can you not only move, but cast other spells too?  Meaning, drop it so that the OT and other team members can go get heals when they catch too much agro when they need, while I continue to direct heal the MT?  That would be the only way I'd see this as beneficial.  Actually, that might be really useful if people don't abuse it.

Otherwise, it would only be useful for a few fights out the thousands it really wouldn't work in.

It's a personal renew station, yes.  You click on it and you get a Heal over time buff.  However, as was pointed out it does less +healing than a bandage AND if you take any kind of damage it goes away.

 It's on a 8min cooldown, only has 5 charges and some folks just can't resist clicking anything with the "click me" gear wether they need it or not. All told you're better off with folks using bandages &, Crystal Restores or those plants form Felwood to suppliment offhealing and potions.  Not to mention the whole need to drop a point in the "HEY I DIED" form.

Perhaps it can be put to good use in some very specific fights, but for the most part it's really worthless.

[Ironwood]

Did they change lightwell? Last time I knew, it was a channeled ability to heal. You slap it down, and they have to stand there, doing nothing, channeling (which means it cancels when you move / get hit) while healing. This makes it nigh worthless.

Yeah, that would make it worthless.  It's not like that.

Also, I've never noticed my lightwell healing going once I take damage either.  Honestly, we found it invaluable for the Razorgore fight, kiting the dragons.

Ah well.  I'm no HARD CORE Raider, so I'll shut up.

[Morfiend]

Which is kind of like what we were already... just with more DPS and more healing. Inspired!

Umm, where you expencting a class revamp? This is what most people got. IMO priests got better stuff than a lot of classes. At least there is talk of speccing in to some of the 41 point talents.

Holy Shit

Agree, thats insane. Dispelling bubbles and stuff is going to make a MAJOR change in PVP.

[Merusk]

Did they change lightwell? Last time I knew, it was a channeled ability to heal. You slap it down, and they have to stand there, doing nothing, channeling (which means it cancels when you move / get hit) while healing. This makes it nigh worthless.

Yeah, that would make it worthless.  It's not like that.

Also, I've never noticed my lightwell healing going once I take damage either.  Honestly, we found it invaluable for the Razorgore fight, kiting the dragons.

Ah well.  I'm no HARD CORE Raider, so I'll shut up.

Don't be like that. None of us are calling you a noob or pulling the "omg u sux" bullshit.  It works for your guild, great, continue on! Everyone does things a little differently based on their particular guild.  (i.e. the Panther bosss in ZG.. Conventional wisdom says don't aoe the panthers and keep them penned on the sides.  We couldn't pull it off that way, so we nuke the fuck out of them and take her down every time now.)  I know Lightwell wouldn't and doesn't work for my group.

Also - if I remember corrctly it initially WAS a channeled deal, but got changed on test before it went live.  If it doesn't drop on damage that's also a change, because I recall that was the #2 bitch everyone had about it.  (#1 being it's less than a runecloth bandage)  Now if it lasted more than 5 clicks, or got benefit from +healing gear I wouldn't have such a low opinion of the talent.  As it stands, though, I've stated my opinion and think I'm much better off with that point in the +spirit buff and the one for 'angel' in Holy Nova.

[lamaros]

"Raid priests got nothing from this."

Be a +damage buff priest:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/bc-priest/talents.html?50023031305001205055000000000000000000000050050410050001000000

But like I already said.

Completely uninspired blizzard.

Easy to choose my 'Lock as my main now.

[Calantus]

Yep, in my guild you put the lightwell down and everyone clicks it right away. Or nobody ever clicks it. Either way it ends up being useless to my guild, and from the sounds of it many other guilds. If it was a huge boost we'd get all draconian and make it work but it's too much of a hassle to make sure the one lightwell priest gets all 5 charges from his well. They need to change it so it adds a "recently lightwelled" debuff and give it unlimited charges. I know they didn't do that now because it would make stacking lightwells inefficient. But with 25 player raids and them seeming to want many varied specs more viable I don't see why they can't for BC. And hell, if you have a 2nd lightwell priest he would still come in use for spread out battles or for battles long enough for the first to run out.

[lamaros]

Which is kind of like what we were already... just with more DPS and more healing. Inspired!

Umm, where you expencting a class revamp? This is what most people got. IMO priests got better stuff than a lot of classes. At least there is talk of speccing in to some of the 41 point talents.

Not a class revamp, no.

But I play a lock too. And if you have seen their exp Talents and spells you know that they can do a fuckload better that what the priests got served up.

Talents should make as many different builds viable as possible, but this is not the case with Priests. Especially not the case if you spec Holy.

[Merusk]

Before Blizzard goes whining that "we made these awesome talent trees and everyone specs the same!! It's not like it was in Diablo!" they should fix their itemization.   Until then various cookie-cutter specs will ALWAYS fit expected class roles better.

Thus, why Priests are healbots.  The equip they get access too for +dam is inferior to Lock/ Mage DPS so other than a token shadow priest for the shadow-weaving debuff, it's a waste to have anything other than Holy priests for raids.

  If itemization doesn't get a big boost in BC "Spec this way or die" will get evfen more adherants, not less, due to the smaller raid size.  It's easy to let one or two out of 5 do less-efficient specs.  It's not possible when it's 2/3 or 2/2.


And speaking of itemization.  Nerf Aimed Shot... that way I can get a bow more like the insane melee weapons and Blizzard doesn't have to worry about me one-shotting T3 protection warriors while wearing their shields.  Grr.

[lamaros]

WoW itemization is crap, but it's hard to say how much of that is there simply because of the pitfalls of a level and equipment based system. I think they've done a reasonable job, or had before all this raid only tiered shite.

[Phred]

And speaking of itemization.  Nerf Aimed Shot... that way I can get a bow more like the insane melee weapons and Blizzard doesn't have to worry about me one-shotting T3 protection warriors while wearing their shields.  Grr.

There's some rumors floating around that they are doing exactly this. Or nerfing hunter atk power anyway. Rumor has it hunters will be getting 1 atk per agi instead of the current 2. Also they are upping damage on all ranged weapons to compensate by 10%. As well, they are changing crits to 23 or so like rogues rather than the current 52 agi needed per crit.

Also they are supposedly changing how crit items work, so they degrade at highet levels. Blackhand's breadth will only give 1.2 crit at 70 compared to the 2% it gives at 60.

I've always felt the current system of hunter damage sucked ass and appearantly Blizzard has realized it too. However, counting on them to not fuck this up scares the shit out of me. If they fuck it up to be too good then we'll be in for another round of constant hunter nerfs and if they fuck it up too badly it's not gonna be fun to be a hunter in the expansion, with your damage dropping every time you level.

Based on the numbers floating around, most of the hunters in my guild have calculated they will lose somewhere in the range of 400 attack power come expansion.

There is some question as to the validity of the information leaking out as other people claim hunters in the alpha don't have any talents at all.

Link to the supposed changes to the top two current hunter weapons.

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2779/upgradedrangedsz0.jpg

[El Gallo]

Hopefully the new socketed item system will help out the less common specs.

[Ironwood]

Don't be like that. None of us are calling you a noob or pulling the "omg u sux" bullshit.  It works for your guild, great, continue on!

Relax, I wasn't sulking, I was just saying that I'm not using lightwell (or even raiding) as much as I used to, so my opinion actually isn't worth as much as someone who, er, doesn't use it all the time.

My ego is not involved when it comes to playing games.

:)

[SurfD]

In regards to Crit, supposeldy they are completely revamping their Crit and Hit systems, so that they no longer function on a +% basis, but rather as a "rateing" basis.

Crit and Hit rateing is supposed to work something similar to the current Defense / Weapon skill ratings in the game.

300/300 wep skill vs a level 60 mob (your level) grants say 30% crit.

You ding!

You're now level 61 with 300/305 weapon skill.  Your mouse over crit rate actually goes down vs mobs your level (now 61) untill you get your wep skill back up.

What does this mean?

You will need to continue to upgrade you gear as you level to have the same effective crit rate.

(Some Theorycrafting over at Elitest Jerks forums}

[bhodi]

I hate the new crit rating system, I think it sucks nuts and is a crappy, crappy excuse to force people to upgrade more items.

They really need to take a good hard look at some of the classes, all of them have problems:

Warrior: Probably nerfing rage, some talent nerfs, still inferior DPS
Shaman: Great burst DPS, totems still inferior, steady DPS still lackluster, get dumped into healing role anyway so it doesn't matter.
Paladin: Bubble is no more, but hey, you can be a tank now! Just kidding, you'll still be on healing duty like the shaman.
Hunter:  Shot rotation means many 'high level' bows are actually inferior, no matter what the stats are.
Rogue: No reason to take higher level talents, daggers become inferior to swords with new talents due to sword getting seal fate+combat.
Priest: Lackluster talents, relegated to healbot, shadow spec MAY be viable now, itemization still poor.
Warlock: STILL no way to dump aggro.
Mage: decent stuff, but nothing spectacular, later talents inferior to previous talents, much like the rogue, better to use the 10 pts and spec 2 trees.
Druid: More raid buffs are good, moonkin may be worth taking now, you'll want one feral one balance one resto in each raid.. itemization still sucks for non-resto.

[Zetor]

Warlock: STILL no way to dump aggro.

Ehhh... soulshatter is as good as it gets, and as a 'lock, I really don't want anything more than that. Sure, it halves aggro instead of a 100% dump, but I can't think of any situation where that wouldn't be enough, especially when combined with the aggro reduction talents available in all 3 trees (equal to the mage aggro reduc talents).

In fact, I'd say warlocks will be quite well off in the expansion. It might just be me being giddy about affliction not sucking monkey balls anymore, but there ya go! :P

Edit: It's probably been mentioned in this thread, but I like how they reward off-specs by benefitting the entire raid. Misery and imp shadow-weaving for priests, sanctified crusader for pallies, that deep wounds damage talent for warriors, malediction/-5% damage debuff for affliction locks, and if the druid leaks are true (probably not, but eh), both feral and balance 41-pointers will be crazy uber and definitely worth it in a raid setting.


-- Z.

[Morat20]

And speaking of itemization.  Nerf Aimed Shot... that way I can get a bow more like the insane melee weapons and Blizzard doesn't have to worry about me one-shotting T3 protection warriors while wearing their shields.  Grr.

It depends on how they do it.  I'd like to see the raw numbers before thinking anything is a good idea -- or at least the new talents. I don't trust them to actually balance the aimed shot changes with better itemization. Still, if they were going to do it -- simply do better post-60 hunter weapons, but don't add much to the post-60 aimed shot. That way pre-60 itemization and aimed shot still work.

[lamaros]

I hate the new crit rating system, I think it sucks nuts and is a crappy, crappy excuse to force people to upgrade more items.

They really need to take a good hard look at some of the classes, all of them have problems:

Warrior: Probably nerfing rage, some talent nerfs, still inferior DPS
Shaman: Great burst DPS, totems still inferior, steady DPS still lackluster, get dumped into healing role anyway so it doesn't matter.
Paladin: Bubble is no more, but hey, you can be a tank now! Just kidding, you'll still be on healing duty like the shaman.
Hunter:  Shot rotation means many 'high level' bows are actually inferior, no matter what the stats are.
Rogue: No reason to take higher level talents, daggers become inferior to swords with new talents due to sword getting seal fate+combat.
Priest: Lackluster talents, relegated to healbot, shadow spec MAY be viable now, itemization still poor.
Warlock: STILL no way to dump aggro.
Mage: decent stuff, but nothing spectacular, later talents inferior to previous talents, much like the rogue, better to use the 10 pts and spec 2 trees.
Druid: More raid buffs are good, moonkin may be worth taking now, you'll want one feral one balance one resto in each raid.. itemization still sucks for non-resto.

Just because you happen to be in a boring raid guild with no imagination doesn't mean all the classes play like you force your members to play them.

Holy shit MOST people who play this game don't give a flying FUCK about your stupid 40 man raids where you all copy someone else's strategy and implement it poorly over and over again until you manage to scrape a win because you have an idiot "raid leader" who can't think for himself and a bunch of members who are drones or busy people who know better but are forced to follow their inferiors because they happen to have obligations outside the world of warcraft and cant wank endless hours a week doing nothing at all but think about a computer game.

[Teleku]

That was a spactacular run on sentence!

Anyways, I play a priest, and I`m pretty damn thrilled with the talents.  I always spec +Dmg, but I also am one of the main healers in our raids (stupid guild just took down C`Thune a week after I left for Japan).  Thats the joy of a Priest, you can not put a single point into the holy tree and still be an uber healer.  Of course, my current equipment grants me close to +800 healing (with enchants), so that helps.  Healing talents just make you even more uber.

Anyways, new talents. 

Shadow got some nice buffs with this.  The reduction in casting cost plus the 15% crit chance will be great on top of the 25% damage boost you get from going full shadow.  The addition of an insta attack is awsome, as thats the one damn thing that always gets me in pvp.  This will be great for finishing people off.  So crit plus insta attack means I can do burst damage with shadow now, instead of damage over time like you usually get.  The Shadow heal is awsome, imo.  I switched over to Holy DPS for the express reason that you need to have shadow form up to be an effective shadow priest, and that means you cant heal.  Which just makes you a gimped warlock.  I`m very effective with Disc/Holy DPS, being able to simultaneously nuke things (when I blow my PI and Hero Charm, I can smite crit for about 2200 with current equipment) and heal myself as needed also.  If the shadow heal works out ok, then I may go back to Shadow in large part due to that talent.

Disc got alot of luvin.  Reflective shield, a mini spiritual guidence buff, our own shield wall, and some random buffs to spell damage.  Very happy with it all, but then again, Im a disc dps priest.  Dont see anything really bad here.  Though the 5 points for 5% spell damage increase on top of my shadow word pain seems pretty steep.  Are we going to get a new DOT or something?  Why the hell does it say all my DOT spells get the effect?

Holy, I will agree, got kind of shafted again.  Blessed resilience is nice, but for a pve priest, its kind of the same problem as blessed recovery.  If something is beating on you and criting you, your already fucked (at least in most raids).  Which makes it more of a pvp talent.  Surge of light is pretty useless being as high up the tree as it is.  Its only use is for pvp, and to get it, you need to give up force of will and PI in disc (as well as spirit buffs), which if your going for dps priest, are going to be much better for you imo.  Empowered healing is nice, especially considering all the damn healing buffs high end priest have.  Circle of renewal looks interesting to me.  The talent doesnt put a cap on the number of people who can be healed like PoH does.  Which might be a typo.  But if not, it could actually turn into a very mana efficient way of keeping large amounts of the raid up, depending on the fight and positioning.

So, thats my take on it.  Again, Im a dps/pvp priest who raids (or did till I moved) a bunch, so ymmv.  I like them alot though.

[Merusk]

And speaking of itemization.  Nerf Aimed Shot... that way I can get a bow more like the insane melee weapons and Blizzard doesn't have to worry about me one-shotting T3 protection warriors while wearing their shields.  Grr.

It depends on how they do it.  I'd like to see the raw numbers before thinking anything is a good idea -- or at least the new talents. I don't trust them to actually balance the aimed shot changes with better itemization. Still, if they were going to do it -- simply do better post-60 hunter weapons, but don't add much to the post-60 aimed shot. That way pre-60 itemization and aimed shot still work.

Well, my idea is you'd change it across the board, and alter weapons in the same swipe.  (Of course changing AS means changing Multi-shot at the same time.)   AS is nice, but it seems like they're limiting the damage on ranged weapons based on potential, because even with Rhok and 5/8 GS I can hit a 2.5k AS crit and a 1500ms crit. 

Newest rumor out of Alpha is they're nerfing Hunter Attack power in general. Instead of 2ap you'll get 1ap per agi.  Supposedly they also boosted the stats of all ranged weapons, and will be adding to the ranged DPS and adding AP to "hunter loot".   Considering there was also a listing of hunter talents with this revalation, and several folks have said "no, hunter talents aren't even in Alpha yet" I'm not quite sure I believe them.

Are we going to get a new DOT or something?  Why the hell does it say all my DOT spells get the effect?

All I can come up with is it'll affect the Holy Fire dot component, too. Woo?  I don't think it's going to consider the 8s pets a 'dot.'

[bhodi]

Just because you happen to be in a boring raid guild with no imagination doesn't mean all the classes play like you force your members to play them.

Holy shit MOST people who play this game don't give a flying FUCK about your stupid 40 man raids where you all copy someone else's strategy and implement it poorly over and over again until you manage to scrape a win because you have an idiot "raid leader" who can't think for himself and a bunch of members who are drones or busy people who know better but are forced to follow their inferiors because they happen to have obligations outside the world of warcraft and cant wank endless hours a week doing nothing at all but think about a computer game.

Woah, who pissed in your wheaties? Why don't you take blizzard's dick out of your mouth and learn some punctuation? Instead of resorting to rambling personal attacks on me, my guild, and my guild leader, about which you know precisely nothing, how about you participate by refuting my assertions instead of spewing your inane verbal diarrhea? Is that too much for feeble-brained flaming trolls like yourself?

We're talking about the expansion here, and if you had been paying attention you'd notice that there are no 40 man instances. One of the challenges that is coming in the expansion is the high overlap of abilities which will require people to fulfill more than one role. Now there will still be mouthbreathers like you trying to PUG it up, and you'll fail miserably because of your "unique snowflake" talent builds, your unwillingness to work together and your failure at basic math, but people like myself are trying to analyze each of the new character classes and figure out where and how they fit together in this new, smaller, faster paced raid dynamic. That is what's fun for me. Half the game for me is the metagame, planning characters, analyzing abilities, developing strategies.

It's fine that your way of playing is (apparently) going in there with a 17/17/17 "I am uber!" build with your 9 other guildies (that you probably had to pay to sign the charter), head up to UBRS, clear it first time through (because 40 mans are for pussies), log off, fuck your supermodel girlfriend, then fly your private jet to your private volcano island where you spend the rest of the day paying chuck norris to roundhouse kick people who play a game different than you in the face.

[Ironwood]

Ouch.

[caladein]

Are we going to get a new DOT or something?  Why the hell does it say all my DOT spells get the effect?

All I can come up with is it'll affect the Holy Fire dot component, too. Woo?  I don't think it's going to consider the 8s pets a 'dot.'

Yeah, I'm guessing it's SW: Pain and Holy Fire's DoT. Still they are adding a ton of debuff slots, so maybe they'd like to encourage use of Holy Fire since now it won't get knocked off before the first tick :P.

[lamaros]

One of the challenges that is coming in the expansion is the high overlap of abilities which will require people to fulfill more than one role.

Where are my cookies gone? Oh dear, I've given them out to all the other children already. Perhaps you will be satisfied with a little golden star? You can show your parents just how hard you're trying - I'm sure they'll be proud!

Now there will still be mouthbreathers like you trying to PUG it up, and you'll fail miserably because of your "unique snowflake" talent builds, your unwillingness to work together and your failure at basic math

13 is a prime number! OMG ROLLED! CAN I HAVE A STAR TOO?

but people like myself are trying to analyze each of the new character classes and figure out where and how they fit together in this new, smaller, faster paced raid dynamic. That is what's fun for me. Half the game for me is the metagame, planning characters, analyzing abilities, developing strategies.

Do tell me about some of the unique builds and strategies you have used, I was under the impression, from your complaints above, that you only ever played one build for any given class as it was 'obviously' the best/only way to play that class.

It's fine that your way of playing is (apparently) going in there with a 17/17/17 "I am uber!" build with your 9 other guildies (that you probably had to pay to sign the charter), head up to UBRS, clear it first time through (because 40 mans are for pussies), log off, fuck your supermodel girlfriend, then fly your private jet to your private volcano island where you spend the rest of the day paying chuck norris to roundhouse kick people who play a game different than you in the face.

In summary: Chiche ad hominum attack > run on sentance?

Wow I got owned.

(Oh and there are 61 talent points in the expansion, not 51! Another gold star for me!)