We’ve just updated our Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator to reflect many of the most recent changes and renovations currently being made to the next expansion of World of Warcraft.

We’d like to discuss these and other changes to talents and specializations in this thread. Here are a couple of thoughts to start with:

• For shaman and hunters, we still have a ways to go with the revamp of talents, and this latest calculator doesn’t have some of the changes that we’re currently working on.
• If you don’t see a favorite spell in the talent list, there is a good chance it is something you get automatically for choosing a particular spec. For example, all Fury warriors learn Raging Blow without having to choose it as a talent. All Discipline priests know Divine Aegis. Chances were almost certain that you were going to choose those anyway so we just gave them to you.
• If you don’t see a favorite spell or mechanic as a class ability, spec ability or talent, then there is a good chance it is becoming a glyph. Examples include Atonement (priest), Gag Order (Warrior), Rude Interruption (Warrior), and the Acts of Sacrifice Cleanse component (Paladin).

Feel free to have a look at the updated calculator, and then discuss it here!

Question: Why did attacks using % weapon damage drop so much?

Answer: We are in the process of recalculating the way damage is dealt. Individual weapon damage is going up by the same proportion in order to keep DPS at level 85 about the same. This should ensure that, at lower levels, these abilities aren’t overpowered.

Question: Why doesn’t every spec get a passive ability at level 10?

Answer: Some specs no longer need them. For example, Fire mages don’t get bonus damage with Fire spells – they just have mostly Fire spells to cast. Some hybrids still need passives to differentiate their DPS, healing, and tanking trees. Furthermore, we can always add more if the need arises.

02/15/2012 01:55 PMPosted by Valshintrix

Kaivax. I have to say, I had to sit down after looking at the Death Knight Talents and spells. I honestly didn't think you people could make me any more excited for this next expansion, but you have again left me flabbergasted. i just have one last question. WHEN?

Soon.

Got a question regarding Protection Paladin and Crusader Strike/Hammer of the Righteous

In cataclysm, both abilities are linked and thus share their cooldown, what's more, they have an invisible haste buff baked into them when you choose the Protection spec that reduces their CD from 4.5 sec (which is what normally is for Retribution paladins) to 3.0 secs.

My questions are as follow, is this invisible haste buff still present for Protection Paladins going forward to 5.0, as the new talent tree update currently shows both CS and HoTR having 4.5 sec CDs and thus, actually in game they have a 3.0 sec cooldown -- or do they actually have a 4.5 sec cooldown? And if they have a 4.5 sec CD now, are they still linked or are they now unlinked?

Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous still share a cooldown, with a base of 4.5 seconds for both specs. Sanctity of Battle can lower this cooldown for Retribution.

Edited to add: Protection has a lower cooldown on Avenger’s Shield and Consecration, which will also be used rotationally. Retribution paladins can again use Exorcism at all times (not just when Art of War procs). Holy Power should be more regular for both specs. Our intent is that both Retribution and Protection reach their finishing moves more frequently. Both specs may have the occasional unused GCD, but should have fewer occurrences of such than they do today.

Warlock stuff looks mostly good, new soul fire seems incredibly powerful. Only thing that looks not so useful is the new Mannoroth's fury, KJ's cunning and Archimonde's Vengeance are both pretty compelling options but Mannoroth's fury seems too niche atm. I think expanding upon the auto-cleave mechanic that it used to be would make it comparable to cunning or vengeance.

But I know everything is subject to change and may very well already be outdated.

Also please consider reducing the cd on guardian demons, 5-6 minutes would be perfect.

Some warlock clarifications for you:

Archimonde’s Vengeance has a 1 minute cooldown.

Grimoire of Sacrifice grants a 30% boost for 15 sec, which drops to 15% for the remaining duration.

Blood Fear replaces Fear.

Soul Link replaces Health Funnel.

Harvest Life does not hit polymorphed targets.

Demon Soul is not listed at this time, but this is just an error in the calculator.

Question: Why didn’t the priest tree change?
Answer: We are still in development. It is a challenge, when giving players a sneak peak at work in progress, to decide when to release what we have versus waiting to accumulate even more changes.

Q: Do Discipline priests have Prayer of Healing or not?
A: Our current design direction is this: Holy does AE healing with Prayer of Healing, and Discipline heals with (a much more powerful than today) Holy Nova. Divine Aegis would work with Holy Nova under this model. However, please see the question above. The priest tree is still in heavy development.

I have some concern not over the talent trees themselves but of some changes being made to certain class/specs...specifically prot warriors. The way I'm reading the trained skills, revenge's cooldown is being raised to 9 seconds, shield slam is still 6, and devastate is still 4.5 That leaves a lot of gaps in a normal tanking "rotation." One of the reasons I like to tank on my warrior is that there is, provided proper rage management, always an attack to perform. I do not like, for example, prot pallies because they're cooldown-based and not resource management based.

I don't deny that prot warriors don't have to manage their resource nearly as much as say, dps warriors, but I feel like this is a very large change in the playstyle of the protection warrior and makes them a bit more similar to paladins than I'm comfortable with.

Note that all this assumes HS/Cleave still work the same way they do now in that they are off gcd. If they are being reworked to be an actual gcd-triggering attack, I suppose that alleviates this issue. But as I'm reading it, I'm far from thrilled.

We are iterating a lot on tank rotations right now. We want rage (and all tank resources) to be something players actually use for mitigation, because we think that will be more fun than having a resource that gets ignored. Under this model, Protection warriors can’t have many DPS abilities that cost rage, because rage will be too valuable for Shield Block and Shield Barrier on fights where survival is a challenge. An ability with no resource cost needs some kind of cooldown or it will just be macro’ed and / or spammed, which isn’t a lot of fun.

Prot warriors have a lot of abilities to manage: Shield Slam, Revenge, Devastate, Thunder Clap, Shield Block and so on, as well as several emergency buttons to handle situations such as streaming adds. We’re okay with melee specs having an occasional free GCD, as long as it doesn’t happen with frustrating regularity.

POSSIBLE BUG -

DK - LvL 60 - Death Siphon - Has no cost, no recast timer, and is instant cast...

The death knight abilities Death Siphon, Soul Reaper, and Necrotic Strike cost 1 Death Rune. They are not free.

The calculator is not currently displaying that cost type (properly).

Some clarification on rogues:

Shiv applies concentrated effects of the active utility poison. Those effects are not included in the poison tooltips currently available in the calculator. They are as follows:

Crippling Poison reduces the target’s speed by 70% for 12 seconds.

Mind-Numbing Poison increases the casting time of an enemy's next spellcast within 8 seconds by 100%.

Wound Poison reduces the target’s healing received by 50% for 6 seconds.

Leeching Poison instantly restores 5% of the Rogue’s health.

Paralytic Poison roots the target in place for 4 seconds.

02/15/2012 02:43 PMPosted by Alona

I think it was the great feedback provided by paladins that got them to step up their game with the paladin trees. It's a shame the same wasn't applied to the priest trees.

Please note: the current iteration of the talent trees just shouldn't be viewed as the result of success or failure of player lobbying efforts or feedback.

I cannot overstate how much we appreciate all of the feedback we get. We spend a lot of time reading it all, and compiling it, and sharing it between teams here. Nonetheless, if the measurement of successful feedback is that the developers implement a suggested idea, then expectations are too high.

We are going to continue to work on all of the talent trees until Mists is released.

Mostly taken from http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/4063167982 --

Question: What is "base mana regeneration"? How does mana regen work for casters (or mages)?
Answer: Healers get a significant amount of mana regeneration from Spirit, even during combat. Additionally, all mana users have a small amount of mana regeneration -- currently about 1% of maximum mana per second. With Invocation, that 1%/sec is removed. Things like Innervate will still allow you to regenerate mana, but you won’t passively regenerate any with Invocation.

Question: What is the range for Alter time concerning the "moves too far away" part?
Answer: 100 yards. It’s mostly just to indicate that it won’t reverse taking a portal to Dalaran or something.

Question: Is AM a proc?
Answer: Yes, Arcane Missiles is still activated via a proc from your other direct damage spells.

Question: Does Arcane Bomb have a target limit?
Answer: Currently, no. We’re hoping it won’t be needed.

A couple of Tanking concerns I have off the top of my head.

1. AE tanking, with all of our rage being poured into mitigation, this limits the usage of dps rage cost moves (as mentioned).
Cleave has too high of a rage cost and revenge/shockwave have 9/20 second cooldowns respectively. Thunder clap is therefore the go-to move for AE, yet it costs 20 rage (which will heavily impact our survivability if we use it more than maintaining its 30 second debuff). This may very well be by design, but its a concern, traditionally threat is hardest to maintain for warriors, how will this carry forward in MOP?

Thunder Clap is free for Protection warriors, and it applies a dot.

Shield Slam and auto attack to generate rage for Shield Block.

Most other offensive attacks are free (for Protection), except for Heroic Strike and Cleave, which are intended to be used only in times of excess rage (which should be less common than today, but still occur with reasonable frequency).

Improving tanking rotations is always challenging. If tanks have too many abilities to manage, then they are overwhelmed in fights that require a lot of boss positioning or add management. If tanks have too few abilities or a very simplified resource, then they get bored on single-target boss fights with limited movement.

Part of our design intent is to have tank resources tie into survivability instead of threat, since we (and tanks) place more emphasis on the former.

-Spirit shell: How long will it last? No tooltip. this one will be the replacement for PW:S?

The intent of Spirit Shell is to provide a frequent-use absorb that recreates some of the gameplay where Disc priests put absorbs on lots of their teammates. This was a style many Disc priests told us they enjoyed, but was difficult to balance with Power Word: Shield (since PW:S is instant).

At this point, think of Spirit Shell as Heal and Power Word: Shield as Flash Heal.

Does that mean holy priests will be glyphing for evangelism so they can make use of the archangel talent? Current that talent has no purpose for holy priests, and I was under the impression that talents were no longer spec dependent.

Evangelism is a spec spell for both Holy and Disc (at least for the moment – things could still change). The talent calculator appears to be incorrect on this.

Shadow has Dark Evangelism.

Question-that's-actually-an-exclamation: But we loved Corpse Explosion!

Answer: Yes. You do. So do we. Unfortunately, requiring a corpse felt like too steep a requirement for a competitive talent. We would like to still add Corpse Explosion in some form as a glyph. In the meantime, hey presto! - Unholy Blight is back.

Question: Does Holy Insight mean Intellect plate is going away?

Answer: No. That passive (and appropriate classes should have an equivalent) gives casters larger mana pools than non-casters of the same class. Mana no longer increases with Intellect, but we still want to make sure that, for example, a Holy paladin can cast more heals than a Retribution paladin.

I have a question about the Druid level 87 ability, Symbiosis.

The tooltip says that i am granted an ability of my current targets class based on my spec, and that my target will be granted a druid ability based on their spec and role.

This sounds like a very fun an interesting ability and i can't wait to try it out, however, how will this work in the spell book and action bar? is there a specific extra action button that i need to have set aside for the granted ability? does the ability i am granted take the spot on the action bar replacing symbiosis, and if so, how can i recast it it to change the ability i am granted by using symbiosis on a new target?

along the same lines, how will my target be granted the ability as well?

i'm sure you have many potential ways to have this work out, i'm just curious as to what some of them are.


Also... i'm even more excited for this expansion. Druid talents are phenomenal, as well as the abilities that are trained from the trainer. looking through that makes me really happy too. :) can't wait!

If it works like Dark Simulcrum - the new ability will overwrite Symbiosis on your action bar

Here's the process:

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.

I just want to say that I'm really really excited about the talent/spec stuff for warlocks. I feel we have gotten such a cool set of updates. My favorite stuff (which I actually wouldn't mind seeing more of) are the talents and spec stuff that requires us to sacrifice health. In a lot of games this type of class or character can be called a "blood mage", taking health from ones self or allies do do serious damage to enemies. Making great sacrifices such as sometimes sacrificing family members (in some very lore heavy games) to wield immense power. I'm not really suggesting that we should be able to walk around org and sacrifice petty citizens for damage upgrades (all though it would make for an interesting game :-p), but I just really like that model of play/class.

So things like the talents that take health to achieve certain things, or like the destro mastery, these are REALLY REALLY cool and are imo the exact thing for warlocks. Life tap is a no brainer. Please do keep these around, and I'm always welcoming of more of these ability flavors.

The only thing I was slightly bummed about was losing the "wild imps" spell as demo. I thought this was going to be a great upgrade to the feel of the demo lock. Even is malady happens to do the same amount of damage, the wild imps just has the right feeling of being able to summon armies of minions to do your bidding. Yes there are still the wild imps from BoD, but like the ebon imp and the t12 2p, they are just nothing conscious, so it doesn't feel as cool. It's just too passive for my taste. If there is any way to bring back this type of summoning pets, I would be greatly happy.

Otherwise though, I'm really really liking everything about the warlock stuff, from 4 dots (5 if you include malfic grasp) in aff, the awesome demo changes, and the stuff happening in destro, I'm more than excited.

Wild Imps has not been cut. The code for it simply wasn't ready in time for this talent calculator update. Here, I'll show it to you!

http://twitter.com/KaivaxBlizzard/status/170195844048498690/photo/1

More warlock stuff for you:

Ember Tap will be received at a later level and will cost Embers.

Conflagrate has a 2.0 spell power coefficient (still working on this; subject to change).

Malady is a level 3 spell that is replaced by Immolate (Destruction) or Corruption (Demonology/Affliction).

Dark Soul is a replacement for Demon Soul based on spec. We’re experimenting with the exact mechanics.
Here is what Dark Soul looks like today:

Affliction: http://twitter.com/KaivaxBlizzard/status/170197610542546944/photo/1
Demonology: http://twitter.com/KaivaxBlizzard/status/170197739458666498/photo/1
Destruction: http://twitter.com/KaivaxBlizzard/status/170197869423378433/photo/1

I don't see Teleport and Portal spells anywhere for mages. Should I be concerned or is this an oversight and we actually DO have it but it's not listed?

Fear not! Mages will still have all their Teleports and Portals. At this point, we decided to hide them from the talent calculator to reduce clutter.

02/16/2012 09:59 AMPosted by Klaudandus

Can we get more info regarding Mana Regen for protection paladins? From what I read, it seems the only mana regen source comes from GbtL with a passive 5% mana regen every 2 secs -- and that's it.

There are some incorrect mana costs displayed in the talent calculator for some Protection and Retribution Paladins spells right now. For example, Consecration actually costs 7% of base mana, not 22%.*

They currently are designed such that they are mana positive while doing their damage and going through their tanking rotations, and stay near full mana the whole time. Mana should not be a consideration to their rotation, rather, it will act as a limit on how much off-healing and other utility spells they can cast.

*At the moment; subject to change.

Can you answer this for us: What is being done with spell crit for DPS specs?

I notice that Boomkins and SPriests no longer get the 100% crit damage boost. Ele Shaman get only 50% boost from Elemental Fury.

Is this being done to "tone down" spell damage, or are crits going to be 2x baseline for everybody?

Basically, I want to know if this means that Enhancement Shaman and Rogues are finally getting 2x spell crits.

Our baseline assertion is that all spells and abilities will crit for double damage. There are a few exceptions to this, such as Elemental shaman getting a 2.5x crit multiplier, but the default is 2x for everyone now.

Yes, this means that Enhancement shaman spells and rogue Poisons will crit for double damage.

I don't see Teleport and Portal spells anywhere for mages. Should I be concerned or is this an oversight and we actually DO have it but it's not listed?

I am (very VERY strongly) hoping for the latter.

Don't worry -- mages will still have all their current Teleports and Portals in Mists of Pandaria. I believe we just hid them from the MoP talent calculator to reduce clutter (there's something like 30+ teleport/portal spells at present).

Question: Invisibility and Greater Invisibility say that you’re “untargettable”. Does that mean that we’re not actually invisible anymore?

Answer: No, you still turn invisible, just it has been. It still breaks on damage. You still are completely cleared of threat when you turn invisible (either after 3sec for Invisibility, or instantly for Greater Invisibility).

BTW, Any word on the currently missing Righteous Defense? Are all tanks across the board losing a taunt?

We’re currently trying a design where no tanks have AE taunts, other than Mocking Banner (which we intend to be used more as a tool to redirect streams of adds to you).

02/16/2012 02:16 PMPosted by Rayo

For Rune of Power if the mage has two already out will we be able to cast another one or do we have to wait till the first one is gone

Casting a third will replace the first. This is similar to how Wild Mushrooms works for druids right now.

By the way, two Runes of Power will not stack.

02/16/2012 04:14 PMPosted by Troelsen

Yes, this means that Enhancement shaman spells and rogue Poisons will crit for double damage.

So does this mean that Poisons will still be on the Spell Crit table? In other words, Agility will still not affect their chance to crit?

No. Poisons crit chance will be based on your melee crit chance.

Qustion: What are the developments for the Cat and Bear versions of Mangle/Swipe/Thrash/etc.?

Answer: Several abilities for Cats and Bears are slightly different depending on Cat or Bear Form. The abilities you’re seeing in the talent calculator are the base versions that show up in your spellbook. Here are some additional details about their different effects in each form:

Mangle: In Cat Form, has no cooldown, costs energy, and generates a combo point. In Bear Form, generates 5 rage, and has a 6 second cooldown, which can also be reset by a proc from Lacerate and now Thrash ticks.

Swipe: In Cat Form, has no cooldown, and costs energy. In Bear Form, has a 3 second cooldown, and is free.

Thrash: In Cat Form, has no cooldown, and costs energy. In Bear Form, has a 6 second cooldown, and costs 15 rage.

Skull Bash: Costs 15 energy or 10 rage, depending on form, and has a 15 second cooldown. The current talent calculator says that it has a 10 second cooldown, but that is a mistake. It is 15 seconds like most other interrupts are now.

Stampeding Roar: Costs 30 energy or 15 rage, depending on form.

Faerie Fire: Has a 6 second cooldown when used in Cat or Bear Form.

Question: How does Destruction’s Ember system work?

Answer: Basically, you build embers with some spells, and then spend those embers with Soul Fire, Ember Tap, or Fire and Brimstone.

Internally, this is how it works:

Immolate – DD + DoT on the target
Incinerate – generates 1/10th ember, or 2/10ths if it crits an immolated target.
Fel Flame – generates 1/10th ember, or 2/10ths if it crits an immolated target.
Conflagrate – triggers Backdraft and has a 12 second cooldown.

Soul Fire – consumes one ember instead of mana.
Fire and Brimstone – costs 1 ember and has no cooldown.
Ember Tap – costs 1 embers.

Each full ember costs 0.33% of your maximum health per second. If you stay below 1 ember, you take no damage.

Question: How does chaotic energy work?
Answer: We are experimenting with a resource-driven, rather than time-limited, caster model on the Destruction warlock.

In a nutshell, Destruction warlocks are not GCD locked. In fact, chain-casting spells as a Destruction warlock is less important than spending all of your resources.

Keep in mind this is all subject to change, but here is how Destruction flows at the moment:

• Start of Fight: Full mana bar, Empty Ember bar

1. Immolate the target
2. Conflagrate to trigger emberstorm
3. Incinerate to generate embers
4. Continue until you are low on mana

• Middle of Fight: Empty mana bar, ~2 Embers

1. Soul Fire
2. Soul Fire
3. Mana bar is mostly full (Soul Fire costs embers, so your mana refills during the Soul Fires)

In addition to increasing your base mana regen, Chaotic Energy increases mana regen even more with Haste. This means the ability to cast spells scales smoothly with gear.

As long as the warlock never lets her mana bar fill up and burn her embers, she's maximizing damage. This is very different from the standard caster model where priority is placed on casting at all times and ordering spells based on cooldown.

Our hope is that the Destruction Warlock will attract players who are interested in a playstyle that rewards spending resources at the right time, rather than constantly casting.

Question: How does Destruction’s Mastery work?

Answer: Emberstorm increases the effectiveness of all Ember consuming spells. Soul Fire deals more damage. Fire & Brimstone deals a higher % of the base spell’s damage. Ember Tap heals for more.