Update – The first part of Patch 3.3.3 is now available on the background downloader. As a reminder, the patch will NOT be deployed on live servers this week, this is just the background downloader.
Mastery System Preview
Heres how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, youll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree — meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear.
One of our primary goals with Mastery is to give players more flexibility to choose fun or utility-oriented talents rather than make them feel obligated to pick up mandatory but uninteresting talents, such as passive damage or healing. (For examples of the kinds of powerful but boring talents were talking about, take a look at the talent tier Cheap Jerseys just above the 51-point talent in many of the existing trees.) In a sense, Mastery makes it so every talent in (just for example) a wholesale nfl jerseys rogue tree essentially has an invisible additional bullet point that says ???and increases your damage by X%. This way, if you choose a talent like Elusiveness (which reduces your chance to be detected while stealthed) or Fleet Footed (which affects movement), you wont feel like youre giving up damage in exchange for utility.
There will still be talents that boost damage, of course, but those talents will also affect the way you play. For example, you can still expect to see talents like Improved Frostbolt, which reduces the cast time of the Frostbolt spell; it increases DPS, but it also affects the mages rotation. Piercing Ice, however, is just 6% more damage and is the kind of talent were trying to eliminate by implementing the Mastery system.
As we get closer to Cataclysms release, well go into more detail about the changes coming for each class, including individual talent-tree adjustments and how Mastery will affect them. In the meantime, here are a few examples to demonstrate the three kinds of passive bonuses we described above. Please keep in mind that we're still working on this system, and the handful of examples we're providing here are, of course, subject to change.
Holy Priest
For each talent point spent in the Holy tree, the priest also gets:
- Healing Improves your healing by X%.
- Meditation Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would likely replace the existing Meditation talent from the Discipline tree, which many Holy priests consider to be a must-have. Regeneration will also probably be determined by whether you are in or out of combat, and not the five-second rule.
- Radiance Adds a heal-over-time effect to direct heals, such as Flash Heal. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
cheap jordans online Discipline Priest
For each talent point spent in the Discipline tree, the priest also gets:
- Healing Improves your healing by X%.
- Meditation Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would likely replace the existing Meditation talent.
- Absorption Improves the amount of damage absorbed by spells such as Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
Frost Death Knight
For each talent point spent in the Frost tree, the death knight also gets:
- Damage Improves your melee and spell damage by X%.
- Haste Improves your melee Haste by Y%. This might allow us to remove some of the Haste in the Icy Talons line of talents.
- Runic Power Improves the rate of runic power generated by abilities. While all death knights want runic power, Frost death knights would generally have more runic power than Blood or Unholy death knights (who would receive a different benefit from their respective trees). An Unholy death knight who sub-specs into Frost would still be able to benefit from this bonus, though because theyre investing fewer talent points, theyd benefit to a smaller degree. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
A couple other things to note: Currently, were not planning to retrofit the Mastery stat onto current level-80 gear when we roll out the stat-system changes prior to Cataclysms release. However, Mastery will begin appearing on select quest and dungeon items. You will also gain a small amount of Mastery by wearing gear of your intended armor type (such as plate for paladins). For players with dual specs, when you change between your two chosen specs, the Mastery bonuses and the benefit you receive from the Mastery stat on gear will adjust automatically based on your new spec.
Well have more details to share about these and other changes were making in Cataclysm in the future, and well do our best to answer your questions about the Mastery system here on the forums. For information on many of the stat changes being made in Cataclysm, please check out our earlier update at –
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23425636414&sid=1