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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What about the new talent specs is confusing you?
by Dan O'Halloran 
Oct 16th 2008 at 8:00AM
New spells! New talents! New...confusion. We posted a number of new talent guides (don't see yours? It's coming soon!) as well as the Skill Mastery series to give you the information you need to respec your toon(s) come pach day. But having logged on last night, I still had to walk many guildies through their talent choices. They weren't sure what specs work and which don't anymore. There is a certain amount of information overload going on for many players right now.Is there anything you are unsure of with your new builds? What talent information are you looking for that you haven't found yet? Is there a talent, skill or spell whose function is unclear? Leave your answer here and we'll try to clear it up for you
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
darian Oct 16th 2008 12:51PM
I have to disagree that this post is proof of anything beyond the general confusion that comes with patch day. It's very clear that this is more about understanding the new talents than about listing the new cookie cutter specs and rotations.
Min/maxing's popularity has dated back to the first class reviews. This isn't a new paradigm, it's just one that explodes with each expansion and then settles down as changes become more muted.
Similarly, just because the theorycrafters like myself are dancing around in euphoria at all the material we have to work with doesn't somehow impinge upon your ability to spec how you like. You may not be in the limelight at the moment, but you probably have a comfortable majority that needn't be cross about our temporary blissful prancing.
Octale Oct 17th 2008 7:57AM
@ Mitch,
You're right, to a point....
So long as you're soloing, spec 0/0/0 for all I care. The instant one walks into a team situation, he/she is obligated to perform at the highest level latency allows; the direct consequence of this obligation to perform is min/maxing one's spec. If one is not going to min/max one's spec, then they ought to know where they're losing performance and by roughly how much (either as a raw number or as a percentage), and be able to explain their talent choices. These things should fall under common courtesy and "teamsmanship", but somehow don't.
ChromeGnome Oct 16th 2008 8:19AM
It would be nice to know whether all this extended HoT duration for druids added ticks of the same value or spread it out over longer (talents and the tier 5 regrowth bonus)
Raaj Oct 16th 2008 9:31AM
If it spread the same healing out over a longer stretch, what would be the point of having a talent for it? Talents don't reduce effectiveness, they raise it.
ChromeGnome Oct 16th 2008 10:49AM
by increasing the length you can keep stacks of 3 on more people
darian Oct 16th 2008 1:05PM
Nature's Splendor doesn't affect the rate of healing, it adds additional ticks.
Kiukiu Oct 16th 2008 8:20AM
I did almost double the DPS (42% to 22%) of a more geared Warlock in H BF just 5 minutes ago before the server crashed who appeared to be a skilled and decent player. This much DPS as a Ret paladin while immensely fun is still very...unnerving. In PVE, I'm not used to managing GCDs so heavily and in PVP, not used to being able to blow my wings (or being able to bubble after popping them).
On the whole though, I love being Ret now...but it's an unhealthy and sick kind of love. Like being with a much hotter and richer person that you want so badly that you cling tight to yet know that in a month, you're going to be back to being useless and unwanted by everyone again.
Millari Oct 16th 2008 8:26AM
In heroics with the current front end dps that most classes have, it is hard for a lock to do any real damage. Our Burst damage has been removed for the most part and if a mob dies in 10 seconds... well that isn't enough time to get half the dots up. However if you look at the boss dps and overall lock survivability its very improved and a lot more fun!
Arcaria Oct 16th 2008 8:31AM
Wow, I didn't know Kevin Federline was a ret pally.
lynnia+alts Oct 16th 2008 8:21AM
The new tier one druid talent genesis. What is a periodic damage/ healing effect??? When does this apply and when doesnt it??? Is this a brilliant talent that procs all the time or is it something that never does that I should avoid???
Kudrania Oct 16th 2008 8:38AM
I'm not confused as much as overwhelmed. Between rebuilding my UI, picking talents, going through my gear, leveling inscription on my alt...Well, you can see what I mean.
It seems that the days of cookie cutter builds have gone the way of all things. Personally, I'm quite happy about that. I like the flexibility I have as a resto shaman. It is going to be expensive though. I see many respecs in my future.
Sarem Oct 16th 2008 9:04AM
Everything is still just as cookie cutter as ever, except resto shams got boned again, bc none of the good resto gear has crit on it, and Now you will need more crit and we have ALOT of wasted MP5 now, since You would need to TRY HARD! to use all your mana in 1 pull.
Tonight I will be running kara with no healers since everything has such crap hp, and everyone does CRAZY dps.
NoTomorrow Oct 16th 2008 8:24AM
All that has confused me is that the fury warrior's former 41 point talent (rampage) is now a passive ability, it also seems to have been nerfed in terms of attack power so that it can affect nearby party members. I think that can be useful for raiding, as there can be multiple melee dps, but in 5mans, having more than 1 mdps seems to be rare; most groups take more casters and ranged dps than using warriors/rogues/Druids in the same group.
Axolotl Oct 16th 2008 8:28AM
The most confusing is the fact that we must "unlearn what we have learned" (Thank you Yoda)
We have to accept that for a time (even if short), we will not know what the optimal DPS/HPS rotations are, we will all look like noobs (and might even get called so again, tsk tsk) and we will finaly pwn face if we have a retribution paladin (What the ... i just pwnd a rogue, and a warlock, and a druid, and ?!?!)
Orrin Oct 16th 2008 8:29AM
Well, my main is moonkin and I'm very much excited about those changes - now I can wipe packs of mobs with cool AoE spells, having mana regeneration without Intencity or Ometn Of Clarity - it' cool. And I dont need to Moonfire and Insect Swarm everyone of them before usinf Barskin and Hurricane. The little dazing thing my treants and Barskin do are helpful too - though I can't give cold-mind analysis, I'm out of mind :)
Some of my guildmates, who didn't pay attention to wowinsider posts, are confused at most. One of them - he's priest - says that healing is screwed to say the least and he's going to quit WoW after 3 years of playing. Well, usual complains, I think he will be allright in a couple of days.
I have concern about PvP balance since there was plenty of retro pals there yesterday and my complaining guildmate was the only healer during 5 or 6 matches i took part in - the whole situation is unsettled now, it will take a couple of days (weeks?) and couple of hotfixes to reach some stability
klink-o Oct 16th 2008 8:37AM
I too have yet to find the rythme of affliction in raids. Haunt should really last longer than 10 seconds I think. Keeping it up with all the other dots, then weaving in the nightfall procs, or using drain life when the mob is low or to keep up corruption. It's way too complicated to get a good rotation going. And I still haven't figured out if I should be using shadowbolt or immolate. I'll definately be trying a new spec next raid. (My God the nerfed bosses are a joke, btw. Don't blink or you'll miss the fight.) On the plus side it's awesome for solo content.
Pardon my awful grammar, me sleepy. :P
Caronome Oct 16th 2008 2:08PM
Yeah, even by page 150 on the EJ site I am confused. Worse, the addons I used to show me spell/curse durations no longer work. ( In fact, unlike Bliz's claim, I see many addons failing. )
Any suggestions as to rotations or addons that will allow one to juggle a Cor/Haunt/UA/SB/DS mess would be appreciated.
steve Oct 16th 2008 8:37AM
Re: priest changes
One of the changes to the priest class in the patch is no more down-ranked heals -- greater heal and flash heal have the same mana cost regardless of rank. Mana management becomes much more important, and there are some new talents that help with that. My priest is level 68, and I've been playing a hybrid shadow/holy spec for the last 30 levels so I can heal in 5-mans and still effectively solo.
My talent question is whether there is still a viable hybrid spec for soloing *and* healing. I did a little of both last night with 30 points in the shadow tree and the rest in holy. Early indications are that my dps is better but am going out-of-mana way earlier. Would love to hear some thoughts about viable hybrid priest specs.
Silkath Oct 16th 2008 9:37AM
Gone are the days of effectively infinite mana for priests. Also gone are several of our mana-management tools (down ranking and chain potting) and cancel-casting is no where near as effective as it was pre-patch (though it's still vital.)
The two key mana-management talents (healing-wise anyway) are deep in their respective trees. Serendipity is a 36-pt Holy talent and Rapture is a 36-pt Disc talent. As a hybrid you don't stand much chance of picking either of these talents up. Chances are you'll just have to be very, very careful with mana when healing.
Hunahpu Oct 16th 2008 1:02PM
It might be worth your while to toy with a disc or a disc/holy spec. You won't be able to heal as well as a holy priest or dps as well as a shadow priest, but you should be able to do both efficiently without going oom. Many of the new disc talents boost both damage and healing and the new 51-point talent Penance gives you the ability to either heal or dps with the same spell. Grabbing Divine Fury in the holy tree would compliment a disc build well since it affects the cast time of holy and dps spells.