Last week we were told about the attribute changes in Cataclysm and this is the time to talk about Mastery. It's certainly quite an interesting twist on talent trees, and there will be talents introduced in return for mastery:
Last week we gave you a preview of the changes we are making to the attribute system in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and explained how they will provide you with more interesting gear choices and make attributes easier to understand. Today we would like to talk to you in detail about one of the new features that is an integral part of this redesign: the Mastery system, a new set of game mechanics designed to allow players to get better at what their talent specialization does. be it interesting or unique. With this system, we want to achieve 3 things: give players more freedom when it comes to using their talent points, simplify some of the "multi-role" talents who try to do too many things at once, and add a new attribute to the team of high level that makes you better in your chosen role.
Here's how the system works: As you spend points on a specific talent tree, you will receive three passive bonuses specific to that branch. The first will increase your damage, healing, survivability, depending on the function defined for that branch. The second bonus relates to a commonly found attribute on gear that is palatable to you, such as haste or critical. The third bonus will be the most interesting, and it will provide a completely unique effect to that branch, that is, there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found in high-level gear (level 80 to 85).
One of our primary goals with Mastery is to give players more flexibility in choosing fun or utility-oriented talents rather than making them feel compelled to pick up “necessary” but uninteresting talents, such as passive damage or heal. (For examples of the powerful but boring types of talents we're talking about, in the vast majority of cases, check out any talent tree below the 51-point talent.) In a sense, Mastery makes each talent in (for example) a rogue's tree have an additional invisible line that reads "... and increases your damage by x%)" This way, if you choose a talent like Elusion (which reduces your chance of being detected while stealth) or Greyhound Feet (which affects movement) will not feel like you are losing damage in exchange for utility.
There will still be talents that increase damage, of course, but those talents will also affect the way you play. For example, you can expect to continue seeing talents like Improved Frostbolt, which reduces the casting time of Frostbolt; increases DPS, but also affects mage rotation. Piercing Ice, however, is only “6% more damage” and is the type of talent that we are trying to eliminate with the implementation of the Mastery system.
As we get closer to the launch of Cataclysm, we'll go into more detail about the changes for each class, including individual adjustments to talent trees and how Mastery will affect them. In the meantime, here are some examples to demonstrate the three types of passive bonuses we've outlined above. Please keep in mind that we are still working on this system, and the examples we provide here are, of course, subject to change.
Holy priest
For every talent point spent on the holy tree, the priest also receives:
1. Healing - Increases your healing by X%.
2. Meditation - Improve your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would surely replace the existing meditation talent in the branch of discipline, which many sacred priests consider "mandatory." The regeneration will also surely be determined according to whether or not you are in combat, and not with the "five second rule".
3. Radiance - Adds a heal over time effect to direct heals, such as Flash Heal. Team Mastery would increase this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
Priest discipline
For every talent point spent on the discipline tree, the priest also receives:
1. Healing - Increases your healing by X%.
2. Meditation - Improve your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would surely replace the existing meditation talent.
3. Absorption - Improves the amount of damage absorbed by spells like Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis. Team Mastery would increase this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
Death knight frost
For every talent point spent on the frost tree, the death knight also receives:
1. Damage - Increases your melee and spell damage by X%.
2. Haste - Increases your haste by Y%. This also allows us to remove some of the haste on the Frozen Claws talent line.
3. Runic Power - Improves the rate at which skills generate runic power. While all death knights want runic power, frost knights would generally have more runic power than blood or unholy death knights (who would receive a different benefit from their respective branches). An unholy death knight who subspecializes in frost could also benefit from this bonus, but since the amount of talent points invested is less, they would benefit less. Team Mastery would increase this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
Other things to note: Currently, we do not plan to feed back the Mastery attribute on existing level 80 gear when we roll out changes to the attribute system prior to the launch of Cataclysm. However, Mastery will start to appear on quest items and dungeons. You will also gain a small amount of Mastery for wearing gear of the type of armor intended for your class (such as plates for the paladin). For players with dual specializations, when switching between talents, the Mastery bonus and the benefit received will automatically adjust based on the new specialization.
We will have more details to share with you about this and other changes we are making to Cataclysm in the future, and we will do our best to answer your questions about the Mastery system here in the forum. For more information on many of the attribute system changes to be made in Cataclysm, please visit our previous update: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=12730425020&sid=4