[url=http://twitter.com/greth22]Celaria[/url] made a wonderful post on [url=http://jteager.com/viper/]I Was In Viper[/url] called [url=http://jteager.com/viper/?p=66]"Talents that will not exist next year"[/url]. After reading through all of the passive bonus/mana bonus talents in the Hunter trees, I started thinking about what our trees would look like come next expansion. Doing a little digging and not so much thinking, I started to realize that our talents are the most in shape out of any class with regards to "Cataclysm Ready". Almost every talent we have does something actively present that is not present passively 100% of the time. While I do think that a lot of our talents are "overburdened", 29 of 94 talents have two or more effects, not many of them are passively so. [b]Blood[/b] - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/bladed_armor/]Bladed Armor[/url]: Almost a mandatory DPS talent in every build right now. I would not be surprised if attack power gets pushed into Blood's passive bonus stack along with ArP [if they choose to keep it at all] and +% healing bonus. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/two-handed-weapon-specialization/]Two-Handed Weapon Spec[/url] : A prime candidate for the "Path of the Ancients" bonuses where this type of decision can be made more easily. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/dark-conviction/]Dark Conviction[/url] - > [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/bloody-vengeance/]Bloody Vengeance[/url] : Much like the Paladin versions (Conviction->Vengeance), I expect whatever tree gets made into our "hard physical dps" tree, this will be built into it again. Whether or not that is the blood tree remains to be seen. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/veteran-of-the-third-war/]Veteran of the Third War[/url] : Has been our trash collection talent since it was first implemented in WotLK beta. It has slowly grown into a three part talent that has been nerfed or buffed almost every patch in the past year. Super passive, too good to pass up most of the time. [b]Frost[/b] - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/toughness/]Toughness[/url] : There is a version of toughness in every single melee class talent set in the game. I don't know how to best handle it, because there needs to be a trade off in talents for pvp survivability or talents become very unnecessary. Trading five points to get out of movement slowing effects 30% faster is a nice bonus, almost something that should be rolled into resilience or put as a set bonus on gladiator armor scaling up to five pieces for 30%. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/black-ice/]Black Ice[/url] : The definition of a passive talent that Blizzard is trying to get rid of. Replacing it with a disease that makes people take 10% more frost and shadow damage would be a great change. Raid utility and dps all rolled into one. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/nerves-of-cold-steel/]Nerves of Cold Steel[/url] /[url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/threat-of-thassarian/]Threat of Thassarian[/url] : Passive dual wield bonuses that should be wrapped into the frost tree passive stack. As you put points in frost, your offhand does more damage, you hit more, and you double strike more often. Just makes sense. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/frigid-dreadplate/]Frigid Dreadplate[/url] : Another passive talent that should be rolled into frost's passive stack and replaced with something like "5/10/15% chance to cause fear in your attacker when struck in melee combat". That would teach the paladins their place. ^^ [b]Unholy[/b] - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/anticipation/]Anticipation[/url] : Another pure passive talent that will get rolled into Unholy's passive bonus stack. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/ravenous-dead/]Ravenous Dead[/url] : The ghoul is the bread and butter of the Unholy Death Knight's talent dps. Making a 51 point Unholy DK's ghoul better than a 20 point or 0 point Unholy ghoul just makes sense. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/necrosis/]Necrosis[/url] : Unlike Black Ice, I think this talent could work with a minor change. Instead of doing 20% more as shadow, changing the auto-attack damage to be 50% disease or poison/50% physical would be a great utility for the Unholy DK's. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/dirge/]Dirge[/url] : Much like Chill of the Grave in the frost tree, this talent needs to be reworked int a passive stack bonus at a certain number of unholy talent points spent. No one likes spending talent points on +2.5 rune power per Icy Touch. - [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/impurity/]Impurity[/url] : Much like Bladed Armor, this talent should be rolled into Unholy's passive bonus stack. As Frost does not have a general +AP talent like Impurity or Bladed Armor, I don't see this becoming a general passive bonus based on level. Lastly, the Death Rune talents need to be reworked. As they are now, they are mandatory in every single tree regardless of spec or rotation. If you aren't using some rotation that consists of F->U->FU->B->B->Dump->FU->FU>Dump->DD, I don't know what you're doing, but it needs to change. [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/death-rune-mastery/]Death Rune Mastery[/url], [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/blood-of-the-north/]Blood of the North[/url], and [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/reaping/]Reaping[/url] are all worthy of becoming a passive bonus in each tree. Keeping them out of the general Deathknight bonuses will prevent the Unholy Obliterate rotations from coming back and keep everyone using the appropriate strikes as they should. Given all of that, I think we will see a lot of these replaced with Desolation/Desecration like talents that split up effects into multiple talent spots. Almost every one of the tier 10 talents does two things, one passive buff, one mechanic, and they are all prime targets for replacement. However, I think we will also see a lot of new talents in the middle, not necessarily a 66 point talent point level. So, like everyone else, I'm adding my speculation to the mob voice and hoping for the best. What do you think is going away? What do you hope is going away?

Over the past three years, something has been bugging me about Warcraft. Before you tune out, this is not a waxing poetic about the glory days of vanilla. For those of you who remember the bad old days, you might remember with fondness the battles over Hillsbrad. Without a doubt, I have the firm belief that the SS/TM war happened on every single server in the game. For the most part, a great deal of fun was had by all concerned, except the poor level 20's trying to level amidst a field of god-like 60's rampaging the countryside. That was the basis of the Alliance vs Horde experience in WoW. When Burning Crusade dropped, we got to do it all over again in the appropriately named Hellfire Peninsula. Ever wanted to know what having every single player on your server in one PvP battleground was like? Hellfire Peninsula on 16 January 2007 was probably it. I spent more time killing alliance than leveling that week and probably was about the 900th person to hit 70 on my rogue, but I know for damned sure I was in the top 10 on HK's that week and didn't do a single battleground. Prepared for even more mayhem, I was sorely disappointed when the facts of level 70 life settled right on top of me: standing around Shat. Shattrath was the first "blue" zone. Sanctuary. No PvP allowed at all, period, no exceptions. Lore-wise, it didn't make much sense either. I can kill Archimonde and Illidan, but not Alliance newbs around Shat because a giant crystal snowflake said so? Nope, we must live harmoniously with the Alliance. As the Lich King started amassing strength in Northrend, little things started to creep out about achievements like: [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/619/for-the-horde/][For the Horde!][/url]. Could this be the face of the new war? Constant sieges and assaults on our Warchief, Alliance bodies littering the hallways of the Stormwind Keep and the Valley of Strength, murdering that s.o.b. King Wrynn? It was.. for a while. In reality, I have probably killed King Wrynn about 25 times in my entire WoW career, almost all of those before the Black War Bear mount was in the game when non-raid nights consisted of slipping a warlock (frequently my wife) and some rogues into Stormwind Park and summoning an entire raid army there. I think the mount was a great addition to that particular achievement, it keeps the raids going even if they are much less frequent now. Unfortunately, the only thing that I see drawing Alliance into Orgrimmar any more is the Lunar Festival. The Alliance have to ride right through Orgrimmar and next to the hall of our beloved Warchief to shake hands with a cow standing in a spotlight for 1/77th of an achievement. These poor bastards have to dodge a gauntlet of people, like me, who frequently stand next to the portal hut on the way to the back door of Org and hit them with slow over and over again while guards, newbs, and rampant Blood Elf Paladins murderfy them with no thought other than getting [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/1006/city-defender/][City Defender][/url] or maybe some casual harassment. So I pose the simple question: Is the war over? The Alliance and the Horde have signed a de-facto peace treaty with one another by continuing to live in these sanctuary cities abroad and to the North in order to better pursue the extinction of our common enemies. I believe we have been at peace for too long. As I said on twitter earlier today "Death to the Alliance, full time, all the time. Dalaran should have streets filled with blood." Maybe the last half of that sentence is a bit of hyperbole, but the sentiment remains the same: We should be killing the Lich King *and* the Alliance. We are the Horde, we can do both. While making Dalaran/Shat a free fire zone seems a bit extreme, the war can be ramped up safely in the old world where we don't share a home and here is how: 1) Establish buffs to honor in battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, and world PvP (including capital cities) for killing a world faction leader in the past week. To aid the defenders, slow the respawn on Thrall, Wrynn and the rest down to 24 hours and reward everyone in the capital city zone with a set amount of honor every time a raid of significant numbers touches a world leader and he lives through the combat (with a proper cooldown to prevent exploits). Also, these events should favor the defenders by allowing them to use siege engines and other devices around the city to kill attackers at choke points similar to Wintergrasp walls with portals for defenders only. 2) Double honor gained for killing a player in a capital city. Also remove diminishing returns on players killed in capital cities. If two horde and two alliance want to farm honor for 19 hours by repeatedly killing each other and ressing, so be it, though I doubt many will sit by with reds in their capital cities. Honor for gear is not exactly valuable, with rated battlegrounds coming up, even less so. 3) Establish a criteria for city offense/defense as part of the new rank structure when it returns. Warlords should have been a part of many city sieges on both sides of the lines, not just over some timber hut in the middle of Warsong forest. Require world leader kills and player kills in enemy territory, just like with achievements now, but cumulative, in order to avoid the full time job with overtime that High Warlord became before. 4) Give honor/arena gear price discounts for players with city raiding achievements. There should be a reward, a real, tangible reward for taking the battle to the Alliance where they live and to keeping Thrall safe. This seems trivial but completely worth it. Now Gladiators, High Warlords, and newb level 70's have a reason to jump into the war with both feet, even if they're only in it for the honor. Additionally, make the discount expire every arena season, corresponding to new campaigns in the war. 5) [[ When this post was starting to be written, this said give world PvP'ers ways to get the gear that only BG marks received before, but that has since been put in the works via 3.3.3. Kudos, Blizzard, on finally killing BG Marks, I am not sad to see them go. ]] .. and that's it. The point is to make killing a world faction leader something to be proud of. The Lich King is very important, but so is Thrall. It's time it felt that way. #ForTheHorde!

Talents should be your toolbox, not your tool belt, for being your character. Your tool belt has your screwdriver and your hammer and you use those every day, all the time. Your tool box has your lathe and your jigsaw for when you want to work with wood, but it also has your Bosch CB706 Cement Circular Saw Blade for when you are working on other projects. Your toolbox has a lot of tools in it, no project is ever going to require every single one of them. Occasionally you need to borrow a tool from a buddy who specializes in woodcarving to get the job done, just like he occasionally requires your expertise in framing on certain projects. This is what talent is: knowing something that makes you unique and sometimes necessary. Talents should provide capabilities that do not come at the cost of doing your job, whatever that is. Tank talents should not lower survivability, DPS talents should not lower DPS, healing talents should not lower healing prowess. Every tanking tree should have a ranged taunt component in it that costs points. MT's will not use it, OT's will love it. Every DPS tree should have AoE and Single Target talents available for purchase. Every healing tree should have the same AoE and Single Target talents available. Improved Blizzard is a good example of this: a talent that just adds a great capability to a spell, but is not necessary for every situation. Additionally, every class should have unique talents that do not apply to the Tank/Healer/DPS triangle that makes them do something rare or unique. Rogues have lockpicking (and mages once did), Warlocks have summoning, Hunters have tracking, Mages have vending machines, Priests have mind control, Shamen/DK's have water walking, many classes have water breathing. These are non-combat (yet frequently combat applicable) talents that should be talents. Though I am still waiting for the underwater dungeon given the prevalence of underwater breathing apparatuses, classes with underwater breathing, and the everyone is undead breath timer. (Right after Engineers get personal submarines, please.) Talents that diversify class defining abilities into more than one stop shops for more damage versus utility should be the order of the day in Cataclysm. Glyphs are the perfect place for tradeoffs and the +1% damage talents. I consider glyph of fireball to be the perfect glyph: I am trading damage over time for potential damage up front. The math on the glyph is easy to calculate and that should make it easy to balance so that it is a true choice of rotations and situations, not just more dps. If someone PvP's a lot, they should want to keep fireball like it is, the dot talent is useful while they cry themselves to sleep for being a fire mage in PvP right now. However, a raider could care less about the fireball dot unless some combo enables him to use that debuff productively for more damage throughput or mana efficiency. This is a choice which when balanced properly is a game play decision and not a make or break dps-for-more-dps' sake decision. Glyph of Frostbolt on the other hand... are there still frosty raiders?

This week's [url=http://www.blogazeroth.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2266]Blog Azeroth[/url] topic is "What are you doing to get ready for Cataclysm?" and today is Friday, so I figured I might offer an homage (blatantly copy) to one of my favorite bloggers, [url=http://twitter.com/anexxia]@Anexxia[/url] of [url=http://www.furlinedteacup.com/bibleofdreams/2010/05/friday-five-5-ways-im-getting-ready-for-cataclysm.html]Bible of Dreams[/url], and integrate some "Friday Five" into this post. I have to admit that right now I am not absolutely certain what my main will be come Cataclysm, nor what there is to do in Cataclysm that needs to be prepared for now, so my list is somewhat ambiguous and just paints the broad strokes of my increasingly granular Cataclysm starting gate strategy. [b]1) Wrapping up Azeroth as we know it today.[/b] Lets face it, this might be the last time we get to see the barren version of the Barrens or Desolace. This is the last time Thousand Needles isn't a lake. A great deal of what we regard as "the old world" is going away. Being an unrepentant Achievement Whore, I can't help but think a great many of the old achievements are going the way of level 60 Onyxia and becoming Feats of Strength or just feats that cannot be accomplished anymore. I still have a great many feats left to accomplish on my mage: finally finish the damned [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/46/world-explorer/]World Explorer[/url] achievements (I've been doing them piece meal for months), wrap up [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/Classic_Dungeonmaster/]Classic Dungeonmaster[/url], and utilize one of the few remaining Saturday's between now and Cataclysm to win the Derby and finally finish [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/1516/accomplished-angler/]Accomplished Angler[/url]. I had plans to be [url=http://db.mmo-champion.com/a/battlemaster/]Battlemaster Ccyd[/url] by Cataclysm/Rated Battlegrounds, but unless I rediscover my love of WSG, that just doesn't look like it is going to happen. [b]2) Prepping my Hunter in case the Blizzard rework of the class makes them awesome at 85.[/b] I have to admit that I love playing Hunters. I have had one in every expansion and it was my main through most of Vanilla when I was in a very competitive raiding guild on Eredar. With Hunters finally losing mana, I no longer have to worry about whether or not I'm in Viper or about the efficiency of my leveling DPS rotation since Focus will regenerate over time and with certain shots. I am looking forward to seeing what Blizz has in store for one of my favorite classes. [b]3) Strategically taking names I want for my goblin alts =) [/b] I know it's mean spirited and probably against the EULA, but I have two character slots sitting on my account with level 1 orcs with names I want for my goblin rogue and goblin shaman. This probably makes me a bad person, but I'll deal with the karmic repercussions when the time comes. [b]4) Making friends within my guild's 10-man community[/b] I anticipate scaling back my raiding efforts to just 10-man teams after Cataclysm goes live, so long as 10's are no longer second class citizens. I admit that I mostly enjoy 25's for the elevated rewards (both gear and achievements). I don't think the 25's environment is more enjoyable as raids switch from conversations *with* friends to broadcasts *at* raiders. I have had the joy of finally hitting ICC10 with one of the better 10's teams in my guild this week and it has only reconfirmed my earlier thoughts regarding problems I have with 25's, they're just too impersonal. Provided Blizz backs up their earlier announcements that they plan to make 10's and 25's equal, I don't anticipate hitting 25's after Deathwing rends a hole in the landscape. [b]5) Stockpiling gold for "Old Weather Flying" and Ms. Pilton's new fashionable bag![/b] While "Old Weather Flying" might be slight hyperbole, we all know it's coming: the fashionable gold sinks. I have the mounts, the bags, the bike, a Kirin Tor ring on my DK, and both a Grand Ice and Grand Vendor Mammoth on my mage. I loathe to admit it, but I like the fashionable gold sinks, they give me something to buy instead of just filling my bank account with useless yellow pixels (now I have useless mammoth shaped pixels that carry my friends). At some point, I hope they sell a two-seater flying mount like the X-21 so I can fly my wife around full time instead of just when she can hop on the bike. On a side note: Does it seem like these posts are coming earlier and earlier? We don't even have a release date and we still have an NDA. When WotLK dropped, I started commenting about getting ready for my DK in Sept (WotLK dropped in Nov), it's May and we probably have six months of Lich King left. Enjoy it! So, that's it. What are you doing to get ready for Cataclysm?