Cataclysm trees' passive/mastery bonuses

#0 - Aug. 24, 2009, 8:24 p.m.
Blizzard Post
This is just for fun. For the class(es) you play, what are your predictions and/or wish lists for the bonuses tied to the Cataclysm talent trees? We can look back on this later and see how well or badly we did. And who knows, maybe some interesting and/or useful ideas will come out of it.

A summary of the ideas offered in this thread so far may be found beginning on Page 18:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19378364502&sid=1&pageNo=18

To get started, these are two examples they showed in the panels. Each tree gets three bonuses, which seem to follow the following pattern:

Passive: +X% damage/healing/mitigation (based on role)
Passive: +Y% to a specific stat (based on what the spec likes stat-wise)
Mastery: +Z% to something particular to your spec design. IE + pet damage, cooldown reduction, etc. This one is increased by the Mastery stat on your gear, but only for the tree in which you spend the most points.


Paladin

Holy
- Passive: +% healing
- Passive: +% spell crit
- Mastery: +% crit heal (don't know if this means crit bonus or crit chance)

Protection
- Passive: -% damage taken
- Passive: +% health
- Mastery: +% Block amount

Retribution
- Passive: +melee damage%
- Passive: +melee crit%
- Mastery: -ability cooldown%


Rogue

Assassination
- Passive: +%melee damage
- Passive: +% melee crit
- Mastery: +% poison damage

Combat
- Passive: +% melee damage%
- Passive: +% hit chance
- Mastery: +% armor penetration

Subtlety
- Passive: +% melee damage
- Passive: +% melee haste
- Mastery: +% energy regeneration


My suggestion for Mages:


Mage

Arcane

I expect we'll see the following talents removed/reworked: Arcane Focus , Spell Impact, Student of the Mind, Arcane Meditation, Torment the Weak, Arcane Mind, Arcane Instability, Arcane Empowerment, Mind Mastery, Netherwind Presence, Spell Power.

So, what we're looking to replace here is a lot of raw damage (coefficients, base multipliers), a lot of stats (Int/Spi), and a moderate amount of miscellaneous stuff (crit/haste/hit/regen/crit damage bonus).

My assumption is that the passive bonuses focus on the stuff that we need to replace a lot of; the miscellaneous stuff may not be directly replaced. For example, the small amount of passive Haste from Netherwind Presence is unlikely to be restored by a bonus, as is the crit damage bonus on Spell Power; these will be compensated for by a large passive damage bonus (remember, they're putting 70+% passive damage on the primary tree, as we can see from the Rogue and Retribution examples).

Passive: +% Spell Damage (replaces raw damage, compensates for miscellaneous losses)
Passive: +% Intellect (replaces lost stats)
Mastery: +% Regeneration (allows more use of highest-DPS rotation)


Fire

What I think we'll see removed/changed in Fire is: Incineration, World in Flames, Improved Scorch, Playing With Fire, Critical Mass, Fire Power, Pyromaniac, Empowered Fire, Burnout.

So we need to replace a lot of raw damage (coefficients, base multipliers), a lot of crit chance, and a moderate amount of miscellaneous stuff (regen, crit damage bonus).

Regen (this applies to Arcane as well) is clearly going to operate under a different mechanic in Cataclysm than it does now, so we'll not worry about that.

Passive: +% Spell Damage (replaces the raw damage)
Passive: +% Crit Chance (replaces the lost crit)
Mastery: +% DOT Damage (replaces the lost crit damage bonus, focuses on type of damage that differentiates Fire)


Frost

We'll probably see the following removed/reworked: Ice Shards, Precision, Piercing Ice, Winter's Chill, Arctic Winds, Empowered Frostbolt, Chilled to the Bone.

So we need to replace a lot of raw damage (+% damage, coefficients), a lot of bonus crit damage, and, well, the only other thing left is a wee bit of hit chance. As with Arcane, I'm going to assume that the Hit is too small to replace directly with its own bonus, and that the loss will be compensated for in the general large %damage bonus.

Passive: +% Spell Damage (replaces raw damage and misc losses)
Passive: +% Spell Haste (because Frost needs another bonus, has nothing substantial to replace, and likes Haste)
Mastery: +% Spell Critical Strike Damage Bonus (replaces Ice Shards)

I had considered putting crit damage bonus on Passive #2 and haste on Mastery -- this would have made the damage bonus more accessible to Fire and Arcane in a Frost subspec. However, Haste already has a gear stat -- making both Haste Rating and Mastery increase Spell Haste would have been weird, and strikes me as unlikely. Plus, I already compensated Fire for the loss of Burnout by increasing its DOT damage. Arcane will likely need a crit-proc talent to boost its crit scaling.
#26 - Aug. 25, 2009, 7:32 a.m.
Blizzard Post
I don't often blue a thread just to draw attention to it, but I will do so here. Given that we haven't worked this out for many classes yet, it could be a fun thread.

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