Cataclysm Beta: Spec masteries

The mastery stat will increase the bonus you receive from your spec's mastery (but not the other specialization bonuses). Continue reading after the cut for a the mastery bonuses for every class and spec.
Death Knight
- Blood Each time you heal yourself via Death Strike, you gain 50% of the amount healed as a damage absorption shield. Absorb increased further by mastery rating.
- Frost Increases all frost damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Unholy Increases the damage done by your diseases by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Restoration Increases the potency of your heal over time spells by up to 20% based on the current health level of your target (lower health targets are healed for more). Healing increased further by mastery rating.
- Feral Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32% and increases the damage done by your Cat Form bleed abilities by 20%. Absorb and damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Balance Increases the bonus damage from Eclipse by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Beast Mastery Increases the damage done by your pets by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Marksmanship Grants a 16% chance for your ranged attacks to also instantly fire an additional ranged shot for 80% normal damage. Chance increased further by mastery rating.
- Survival Increases all elemental damage you deal by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Arcane Increases all spell damage done by up to 12% based on the amount of mana the Mage has unspent. Damage increased further with mastery rating.
- Fire Causes your non-periodic fire spells to deal 10% additional damage over 4 sec. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Frost Your Frostbolt spell causes its victim to take a 12% increased damage from all other spells you attack the victim with. Damage increased further with mastery rating.
- Protection Increases your chance to block melee attacks by 16%. Block chance increased further by mastery rating.
- Retribution Increases all holy damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Holy Your healing spells also place an absorb shield on your target for 8% of the amount healed lasting 6 sec. Absorb increased further by mastery rating.
- Shadow You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to gran you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. The Shadow Orb Increases the damage done by your Mind Blast and Mind Spike spells by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Holy Your direct healing spells heal for an additional 10% over 6 sec. Healing increased further by mastery rating.
- Discipline Increases the potency of all your damage absorption spells by 20%. Absorption increased further by mastery rating.
- Assassination Increases the damage done by your poisons by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Combat Your main hand attacks have a 10% chance to grant you an extra off hand attack. Chance increased further by mastery rating.
- Subtlety Increases the damage done by all your finishing moves by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Elemental Grants a 20% chance for Elemental Overload to occur. Elemental Overload causes a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Lava Burst spell you cast to trigger a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes 60% of normal damage and no threat. Chance to trigger increased further by mastery rating.
- Enhancement Increases all elemental damage done by 20%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Restoration Increases the potency of your direct healing spells by up to 20%, based on the current health level of your target (lower health targets are healed for more). Healing increased further by mastery rating.
- Demonology Increases the damage done by your demon servants and damage you deal while transformed into a demon by 12%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Destruction Increases all fire damage you deal by 10%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Affliction Increases all periodic shadow damage you deal by 13%. Damage increased further by mastery rating.
- Fury Increases the benefit of abilities that cause you to be enraged or consume an enrage effect by 80%. Enrage abilities improved further by mastery rating.
- Protection Increases your chance to block by 10% and your chance to critically block by 10%. Chances increased further by mastery rating.
- Arms Grants a 16% chance for your melee attack to instantly trigger an additional melee attack for 50% normal damage. Chance increased further by mastery rating.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From goblins and worgen to mastery and guild changes, it's all here for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Cataclysm
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Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Artificial Aug 14th 2010 3:49PM
Blizzard is getting away from *talents* that are just damage % increases. The reason for this is, if there is such a talent, it becomes a "mandatory talent" that everyone is forced to spend talent points on if they're DPS (which they are if they're speccing that tree). So they're moving such things into the tree itself in the form of specialization bonuses and masteries. The boring stuff becomes just a feature of the tree itself, and the fun stuff goes to the talents.
Your suggestions for interesting ideas aren't bad, but they're precisely the kind of thing that talents are supposed to be. Using them for masteries instead would be working at odds with the intention for what talents vs. masteries are supposed to be.
Khirsah Aug 14th 2010 11:00AM
Just had a thought: people are already able to hit for 20k+ envenoms, so a 10 stack would be WAY op. Make it so you still can stack 10, but envenom still only consumes 5. This also helps keep it in balance with the combo points. The additional damage from a 10 stack of deadly would still be pretty nice.
Sleutel Aug 14th 2010 12:41PM
Interesting to see that Warrior and Paladin tanks both get Block bonuses while DKs and Druids get extra absorbs. My main concern there is that unless they've drastically changed the mechanic of Block, it will only have any effect against physical damage. Fingers crossed that they scale the masteries to each other appropriately.
Baneraven Aug 17th 2010 10:48AM
DKs and bears don't use shields; they can't block. Absorb is the only game in town for them.
Sleutel Aug 17th 2010 6:47PM
@Baneraven:
Obviously. The point I'm making is that it's an RNG mitigation bonus that only works against physical damage versus a straight-up mitigation bonus that works for any type of incoming damage. Which could make it tricky to balance.
Also, something I just thought of: Warriors and Paladins could potentially run up against a cap for how much they can block in terms of a percentage chance. Absorbs can continue to scale with no defined upper cap.
Ronin Aug 14th 2010 1:06PM
Specializations, spec, specific, spec, spec's, specialization, spec.
That's a lot of "spec" going on in the opening paragraphs! ;)
Peter Aug 14th 2010 2:52PM
Why don't people get this
THESE ARE NOT TALENTS... this is the 'boring' thing that is being added so they could remove BORING TALENTS.
These things are supposed to be 'boring' and just be flat damage/healing increases.
There are also some other changes that people should be aware of. All caster DPS now have 200% crit damage. Those were 'boring' talents that were removed and added to this new system, however, they aren't actually listed here.. but rest assured, all dps casters get 200% crits now without spending talents on it.
Also, blocking is extremely different now. A block is much more useful for damage reduction.. and is not longer mostly used to just make tanks uncrittable. Tanks ALL have talents that make them uncrittable (similar to druids).
Finally. About DPS balancing. This is going to make things extremely easy for the dev team. They have an easy knob to turn. The only difficult part for them will be to actually determine which dps spec is actually doing less dps. There are so many fights that involve CC and other 'non dps functions' that a certain spec could look like they have low dps, but in actuality it is because they were doing other more important things.
Before a raid-leader praises someone for high dps, or screams at someone for low dps, they need to ask ' so what else did you do to help us win'? Because really, it is going to make a huge difference. A spec that does 3% more dps because they constantly were able to keep their rotation going is much less useful than the guy who was doing CC type stuff.
Khirsah Aug 14th 2010 3:24PM
I guess I have to go back and read the original roll-out of the redesigned class trees and Mastery system again, because I thought it said something different.
That is in no way calling you out, Peter. The way I remember it, I thought GC was saying that the % damage increases were going to be part of the tree, and seperate from the Mastery system and Talents altogher. But I guess I misunderstood.
Either way, it is disappointing. I was hoping the Mastery system was going to be a cool, life-altering, event. Instead, it is just a damage bonus. But you're right, it does give the dev team an "easy button" to balance the specs and classes now. So that might be a good thing.
I totally agree with your second point, about sometimes DPS has to suffer for the greater good. If I use a kick to interrupt a cast, that means that I did not use an envenom that would crit for at least 15k damage. There is more to a fight than DPS.
I would also say that same thing about Killing Blows and damage in the BG's. Before you get down on a rogue for "only having 6 KB's and 265,000 damage" ask yourself how many cheap-shots and kidney shots and blinds I used to lock a guy down so that you could get the KB. Ask yourself if maybe I was defending a node that was not attacked very often, because people give up when they learn that there are 2 rogues and resto druid guarding.
And yes, the above is an actual example. I believe the exact quote when I had the those stats in AB was "Go back to PvE, Noob."
Artificial Aug 14th 2010 3:35PM
@Khirsah: Yes, you apparently misunderstood. This is pretty much exactly what they said they were going to do. Instead of having those flat % DPS increasers being "mandatory talents" you had to spend points for, they're now part of the tree itself, in the form of specialization and mastery bonuses.
Balgus Aug 14th 2010 3:14PM
Warrior: Fury Increases the benefit of abilities that cause you to be enraged or consume an enrage effect by 80%.
that will definitely be a sweet boost to Enraged Regeneration.
Paradox Aug 14th 2010 6:17PM
What I find interesting is the Shaman masteries. In theory, as an elem shaman would I be able to snake the enhance mastery for a total of 20% extra dmg instead of the increased overload proc? I cannot test this personally, but long term it seems as if it could be more beneficial. 20% bigger LvB crits? Hello!
Nipah Aug 14th 2010 6:19PM
While it doesn't sound as cool as Elemental, the Enhancement mastery has me happier than I was expecting to be...
Elemental as opposed to Nature damage means that it works with all our shocks, as well as Lava Burst and I would assume even Flametongue, Lava Lash, and Lightning Shield.
So while it may only be passive, extra damage, its 20% passive, extra damage to any spell/ability we use that's not a white hit/Storm Strike.
And we all know that free damage is a fantastic thing to have.
Gherik Aug 15th 2010 4:56AM
Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but the Combat mastery seems to be back-pedaling against the spec itself. Currently, in order to maximize the effects of Combat Potency we equip fastest weapon possible in the offhand, and in order to maximize the damage we deal with instant attacks we equip the slowest possible main hand weapon. Maximizing the effects of the Mastery would seem to require a fast main hand and a slow offhand. Side by side with other comparable Masteries, notably Arms or Marksmanship, both the chance for the Mastery to proc and the damage the proc can potentially deal appears noticeably lower. This is especially true since Combat will no longer has access to the increased proc chance of their poisons. It seems that this Mastery will be simply a welcome increase in damage dealt. However, if the damage gain from Mastery exceeds the damage gain from Combat Potency... we may begin to opt for slower offhand weapons.
Comito Aug 15th 2010 5:09AM
Yeah should be easier in terms of looking at stats to improve yourself in a certain spec I imagine, just maybe with reforging, masteries etc there maybe still a certain aspect thats gonna be good for the hardcore players...
Hahahaha Aug 15th 2010 11:00AM
Frost DKs got a heavy mastery stat - 20% (+) increase in all frost damage - that's like everything major they use. Icy touch, frost strike, howling blast, and heck everytime they swing they can hit frost damage with rune of razorice.
dokhidamo Aug 17th 2010 11:15AM
Feels to me like a bunch of "deal more damage" "take less damage" "do more healing" with different mechanics behind it and with a few exceptions.
But what do you expect from the replacement for AP/SP and the stat blizz said would "make you better at doing what you do"?