Breakfast Topic: New Wrath talents
by Zach Yonzon 
Jul 23rd 2008 at 8:00AM
Personally, I'm really excited about The Art of War, just because of the name (it's one of my favorite books, after all). It's also currently bugged in Beta, with crazy reports of over 20k damage on a Judgement. It'll be fixed pretty soon, of course, but I can't help but geek out over that. The Death Knight talent Infested Corpse looks particularly gruesome! And then I want to spec for Haunt to complement SL/SL. If you haven't looked at the new talents yet, you can check them out over at Wowhead's talent calculators or Blizzard's official one. Did anything catch your eye?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Witty Jul 23rd 2008 8:10AM
Feral Spirits! Puppies! :D
Fideros Jul 23rd 2008 8:11AM
Oh wow didnt see that talent... maybe cause ive played a pally for 3 years now and never understood ret. But that Art of War, Tsun Su ftw, looks great. But even thought ive never played a warrior titans grip sounds cool would like to see how that works out.
PsychoChris Jul 23rd 2008 8:21AM
I am very interested in some of the new hunter talents, particularily "Cobra Strike" in the BM tree and "Hunting Party" in the Survival tree.
Cobra Strike - With most end game raiding hunters ~30%+ crit, your pet will be on an almost endless crit string. Compound that with ferocious inspiration and the new reduced ability cooldowns, you have yourself one scary pet!
Hunting Party - Step aside shadow priest, the new improved mana battery has arrived! Increasing not only party mana but also rage and energy.
Foussa Jul 23rd 2008 8:42AM
Hunting Party is a big favorite of mine too. Effective in raid as well as in arena, it will big a major addition to the Hunter class.
And, since my main is a Holy Priest : Guardian Spirit. Prevent someone's death for 10 secondes every 3 minutes, while at the same time increasing healing done by 40% ? The boss better be tough !
Izbay Jul 23rd 2008 9:57AM
I'm forcing a hunter to go surv and join the melee group, as a rogue and a raid leader. GIMME ENERGY!
SpynusGypo Jul 23rd 2008 8:28AM
Sword and board looks like a winner to me, I'm much more excited about that than shockwave which is the higher skill for prot tree on warriors.
It's very early to tell but the change of shield slam to a trainable skill and alterations to the use of shield block will hopefully make playing as a prot warrior a very different experience.
Vigilance looks interesting for none level cap situations. Would like to see how it would work out in a two tank situation with the extra taunts as opposed to threat generation if you are overgeared and having trouble keeping rage up.
On other classes penance, the 51 point Discipline talent for priests, looks pretty handy. Might move a few builds in that direction.
Hoggersbud Jul 23rd 2008 8:29AM
The Improved Spirit Tap is quite the pleaser to me, and the non-interruptibility talents in the tree. Plus some other Shadow-PVP improvements.
And hey, Twin Disciplines makes Wand spec going away a blessing.
makishima Jul 23rd 2008 10:11AM
I can't wait to respec and pick up Twin Disciplines. Lots of improvements to shadow priests in PVP, but I am a bit concerned about losing our raid spot to hunters who have Hunting party now. Not saying I don't want hunters to get some love, you guys deserve every bit you can muster, but I am keeping a close eye on that one. Improved Spirit Tap is also sweet looking, especially with our increases to crit. Also happy about SP's getting much more use out of spirit on gear thanks to Twisted Faith(freaking great talent name too btw).
Gessilea Jul 23rd 2008 8:40AM
I got my invite yesterday and (like a noob) immediately copied my druid, warrior and priest, not thinking it might be a good idea to stock up on reagents and stuff first. Ah well! I'm really excited to try out shockwave, as well as wait until someone says "LF1 DPS CC" and say "I can bring my doomkin!" 91% downloaded... too bad I have to go to work!
Necromancist Jul 23rd 2008 8:41AM
Titan's grip could be nerfed a bit IMO... not very much, though. I mean, we're already dealing with 2.5-3.5 swing time for the twohanders, and even such a miniscule amount as 20% added to that is a lot.
Archex Jul 23rd 2008 11:27AM
Shhhhhh!! You stop that talk right now!!
darian Jul 23rd 2008 11:29AM
When you say nerfed, do you mean buffed?
The way you phrased that is confusing.
Woad Jul 23rd 2008 8:45AM
The revised description for 'Spirit Link' (Resto Shamen) has pushed it from probably useless, to probably invaluable.
Gavere Jul 23rd 2008 8:52AM
Paladins did get some love, but I’m still skeptical about the holy spec. Beacon of Light is already being referred to as “bacon” of light. I guess that it’s a new pork talent that no raid will want because of its uber 10 yard AoE range.
My biggest concern about pallies has always been arena viability. I’m still hoping that Bliz has something up its sleeve in that regard. The talent changes to holy shock are definitely nice, but we’re still the most CC’able healing class. Our primary counter, the previously nerfed BoS, is getting nerfed again. The talent to reduce CC’d time will be helpful, but you only have to interrupt a paladin for a split second to stop a heal and affect the outcome of a match. The new arena areas are going to introduce major LoS issues, also, which is another big problem for pallies since we are mostly casting healers. The already useful druid class will benefit here with all of their HoT spells. Their natural CC counters and the ability to CC others will again make them one of the top arena healers.
Dinnerbone Jul 23rd 2008 8:50AM
Thunderstorm for me. A free instant cast that gives back 5% of my mana and knockbacks (and as a result interupts) every enemy within 20 yards every 45 seconds.
I might just respec for it.
Ikarus Jul 23rd 2008 4:07PM
Yeah, I'm all over this one. The PvP implication are tasty. But for farming/leveling it will also be nice. Chain lightening 3 mobs, when they get on you cast Thunderstorm. lay a fire nova totem that will go off by the time they get back to you. Chain lightening again. win!
mikejl Jul 23rd 2008 8:55AM
Metamorphosis!!! Demon form for my lock.
tchernobyl Jul 23rd 2008 8:58AM
the warriopr protection tree is indeed very nice and has recieved a lot of love.. though as a 51 pointer, shockwave is kindof lackluster, as it is more of a 5 man talent than it is a raid talent, or anything else really. Not something I'd spend 51 points to get as a MT for a raid.
Fury has recieved some attention, though heroic leap is more of a gimmick than a worthy 51 pointer (again). Titan's grip seems to be hurting white damage quite a bit, and the 20% slow pushes the swings to the 4+ second marks.. which for a class based entirely on dealing damage to get rage, hurts a lot. Miss a swing or two? You'll be waiting a long time to get ANY rage.
The arms tree is frankly pathetic. The biggest issue is that Mortal strike is such a prominent and *nescessary* talent... yet it's quite far into the tree (31 points). Other classes have had 21 pointers or other such talents moved into earlier tiers... MS could use the same (or be trained). In its current state... there's little to no reason to ever go past MS in the arms tree.
Imp mortal strike: too many points for too little a benefit.
Unrelenting assault: less of a cooldown on overpower.. which is a battle stance only ability, whereas warriors stay mostly in fury. Revenge is the same, nearly never used for arms warriors unless tanking, and even then..
Bull Rush: making a short stun barely longer. eh.
Endless Rage: was lackluster in TBC, still is. Too far down the tree.
Strength of arms: warriors don't particularily need more health. Our gear gives plenty. But a 45 point talent giving a measly 5% strength, when a first tier paladin talent gives 15% for 5/5? Remove the health bonus of this talent, and increase the bonus.
Bladestorm: definitely hope this gets changed. It looks good, huh? Nothing could be farther from the truth. It's not a CC *breaker*, only giving you immunity DURING the effect. You can still be Disarmed. You don't get any speed increase. Most importantly, you also get no rage (white hits and such) for 5 seconds while doing this.. and in a PVP environment that is an unnaceptable amount of time without rage generation.
Overall warrior talents still seem very lackluster and mediocre, to outright bad in some cases. Except Protection tree, which looks good until shockwave.
Cheeno Jul 23rd 2008 10:06AM
Yea, I'm excited about the changes to the prot tree as well. I'm really curious how the change to crushing blows / shield block on a long CD is going to change warrior tanking. I think it's going to be positive for the other tanking classes and possibly a negative for the true "need" to have a warrior Main Tank.
I think Shockwave has alot of potential in terms of flexibility and raid dynamics. You have to keep in mind that there are going to be four tanking classes now and one of the biggest gripes that warriors have is multi-mob aggro/tanking. With raid slots harder than ever for a tank to get, the more that you can do makes you that much more valuable.
Whether we all like it or not, it appears the homogenizing of the tanking classes are on the way and probably here to stay.
tchernobyl Jul 23rd 2008 10:25AM
Cheeno: the problem with shockwave at the moment is the cone effect. Simply put, you still have to dance and move about to get the mobs you want in shockwave's path.. or, move away to affect only those not CC'ed. Right now, it's still very hard to actually use the ability correctly, especially considering how mobs tend to form a semi circle around you.
In effect, mobs form a U around you, but shockwave is a V. It's not affecting everythign it should (unlike say, thunderclap).
And from what I'm reading, the threat generated by shockwave is around double of thunderclap... which itself isn't all that much. For a 51 pointer, it's of less use than say, devasate, or even shield slam which is now a trained ability. Again, it's not worth 51 points.