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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 4 of 5)
Michael Oct 16th 2008 11:27AM
With Viper as powerful as it is now, I don't see any reason for hunters to seriously QQ about mana anymore.
Pet's tanking in an instance? End game heroics? You do this? I don't think party members would appreciate me showing up with a hunter and pet spec'd for tanking. They want damage and they want it fast. They certainly don't care if my pet dies.
darian Oct 16th 2008 1:04PM
Improved Mend Pet is far from a waste of a point, particularly if you're a BM hunter.
The crucial aspect of Improved Mend Pet is less the mana cost and more the utility of being able to "Cleanse" your own pet. When soloing, and in the vast majority of raids/instances, you are responsible for your pet; healers are far more preoccupied keeping players alive and free of debuffs.
As an aside, BRK seems to think that Tenacity pets may be capable of tanking 5 mans. It remains to be seen how practical a hypothesis that is, but dismissing it outright given the success displayed in BRK's videos is somewhat closed-minded.
Michael Oct 16th 2008 1:28PM
Improved Mend Pet is dismissed outright because a BM hunter is better served elsewhere, specifically in the MM tree. Yes, Improved Mend Pet is all flowers and peaches, but it's benefits are not worth nearly as much as another point invested in MM.
Burst damage takes out my pet most of the time. Being able to cleanse is low pro.
End game hunter spec is pretty much all about AP, and if you need to cleanse your pet to keep it from dieing while running dailies, you're doing something seriously wrong.
If I showed up at a heroic today and said that my pet was tanking, I would get laughed out of Outland. And, even if it was tanking, it would be getting healing and cleansing from the healer.
Speedmonkay Oct 16th 2008 10:20AM
Information I would really love to see is an article on the 3.0.2 changes specific to the balance spec for druids. They still havent gotten their article even though it was stated that there would be a Shifting Perspectives article covering moonkns posted on Tuesday night (btw its Thursday and still nothing). But thats kind of the norm; moonkins hardly ever get any kind of coverage.
Still waiting on an article saying "Moonkins still shoot lasers from the sky"
LostOne Oct 16th 2008 10:27AM
Not so much confusion as annoyance. The demon transformation for 51 point demonology Warlocks needs to change the action bar like when a druid shifts forms or a rogue stealths. The demon transformation adds a bunch of abilities that I don't have room for on my action bars.
Ben Griffiths Oct 16th 2008 10:35AM
OK assuming the comment system works for once. Elmo; the point of these changes is that you don't need a shot rotation macro as the clipping issue that the macro addressed is now fixed.
prudychick Oct 16th 2008 10:34AM
umm...everything...
Magnacarta Oct 16th 2008 10:38AM
Can someone please explain to me the new mechanics for Pally Tanking. Should I be using spell damage at all now? Or should I be looking for a mitigation, high dmg weapon or still be using a +spell dmg weapon. I'm very confused as to which is better.
Khanmora Oct 16th 2008 10:55AM
Put down the mage sword, your abilities scale better with AP now, so use Str as a base stat more than spell dmg.
Bravehome Oct 16th 2008 10:53AM
At lynnia+alts:
Blizzard has stated it has thoughts of raising the overall damage of Exotic Pets to 10%, but I do not believe that has happened yet.
I am currently enjoying my now lvl 70 Chimaera, both in Solo and PVP roles. Talenting for Longevity, my pet keeps opponents slowed over 70% of the time (5 sec slow, 7 sec CD), loving the kiting! The only thing that 'confuses' me is when attacking opponents (with Froststorm Breath active) he 'stutter-steps' towards opponenets (even with Dive) until in 30y range then things smooth out. Hopefully Blizz will work out this closing issue.
AotV is evidently getting a future face-lift by having some passive mana returned (like old Aspect) in addition to damage returns. This is mainly useful for PvPers whose opponents are adept at LOSing.
bigjonno Oct 16th 2008 12:15PM
My biggest problem right now is speccing my survival hunter. I used to be BM and switched because my guild would benefit from the mana regen. (After running Kara last night the healers told me, in no uncertain terms, that I am never allowed to go back.)
The tricky bit is figuring out which talents give me the best return on damage. 6% over 30 yards or 3% if they have a serpent sting on them? Int as AP or extra critical damage? It hurts my brain.
crsh Oct 16th 2008 11:14AM
Warlocks' 51-pt Demo talent (Metamorphosis, aka Mini Illidan Form Of Sweetness) confuses me. While cool, is it intended for PvP (then why the AoE taunt?) or PvE (won't I get killed after 30-second duration due to over-aggro?).
Archex Oct 16th 2008 11:44AM
So...glyphs. I know that's not a talent spec but it's related right? Anyway, I was under the impression glyphs were pretty easily swapped in and out ala gems but cheaper. Then I go to use a glyph last night and it says I need to be near a libram of something, which involves going to to inscription trainer in an azeroth city. Is that only the first time or every time I want to change I glyph I'm burning a hearthstone cd going back and forth from a major city?
darian Oct 16th 2008 12:54PM
You always have to be near a Lexicon to swap glyphs. This makes it slightly harder to switch than gems, but with good reason.
The alternative is for Blizzard to have to balance raids and instances around players swapping Glyphs for the specific encounters. While the ultra hardcore would easily put up with that the same way they all trained Leatherworking to stack drums, I think most players would rather be able to stick with the Glyphs they like.
caronome Oct 16th 2008 2:08PM
As for "swap", outside the promised "dual-spec" feature, the new glyph destroys the old glyph. So naturally inscribers will encourage you to swap early and often. lol.
Tia Oct 16th 2008 11:48AM
I have tried the holy specc a bit, and what I find confusing is that all spells cost more mana now than they did before. Why is this? I find myself oom too fast too often, and trying to be efficient is not as easy without downranking. I am trying a raid tonight and hopefully will get a better view of the whole mana regen in raid with hunters/spriests in raid.
Tia Oct 16th 2008 11:50AM
Holy priest btw...
VSUReaper Oct 16th 2008 4:10PM
What kind of gear are you wearing, what is your spec like? What is your DPS rotation?
Walking around shat, I found alot of priests setting themselves up for trouble in that they are skipping disc talents in order to go more holy. You NEED meditation in order to have decent mana regen. Also, if you go down far enough, get serendipity to help offset the mana regen. Also look into a flash heal glyph.
If you are running around in PVP hear, yes, you are going to go oom fast. Most of the priest PVP gear has horrible regen stats, and is designed to let you take a few hits. Go get some spirit and play with spiritual guidance.
Finally, your rotation. Used to be, we would open with a Holy fire since it was such a long cast, and then mindblast, smite, smite (maybe throw a sw:p in somewhere? I personally never liked pain's cost). Try changing it up so that you open w/ mindblast, Holy Fire, smite, smite and it should be dead by then. If it looks like it has a lot of HP, then pain it in between the MB and HF.
Angus Oct 16th 2008 11:51AM
I decided to spec the shaman to make herb gathering easier for elixirs.
I had a weed with a mob on it so I drop, release the wolves and proceed to walk up to the weed. World server crashes.
I move on to another spot after it is back up. Again, a hostile mob, drop, wolves, server crash.
Third time, paranoid. Kill mob normally, pick weed. No issue. Summon wolves to kill something for a quest, and boom, they demolish him. Oh yea, as I was looting, everything freezes and "World Server Down."
So what I want to know is why the description of Feral Spirit doesn't clearly state:
"These wolves are so powerful they will crash your server"
At this point I think every time a shaman uses them, this happens. I've seen someone summon them in shat and I yell "NOOOO!" and the server crashes. Been on a flight point and it happens. I saw a shaman underneath me summon them.
Okay, maybe I am just paranoid.
Saintjames Oct 16th 2008 12:05PM
Many classes are experimenting with all the new dps tools they have. Holy priests still have to put 14 points in the discipline tree and can't get to the top of the Holy tree; mana is now harder to come by than before the patch; downranking, which added to healing spell toolkit, is gone; desperate prayer, which used to be free for a dwarf, now costs a talent point and costs mana; Hymn of Hope is a joke.
I can't help but wonder if WoLk will see a drop in priest numbers.