Tag Archives: Cataclysm Talents Mastery

( July 8 ) To those who don’t keep up on World of Warcraft news, get out from under your rock and pay attention. ’cause this might be one of the biggest news items about Cataclysm since it being announced.

We’re going from 51-point talent trees to 31, and you’re only getting 41 talent points to spend by 85.

“WHAT?!?!?!?!” Don’t believe me? You can read it here.

If you’re pathetically lazy or perhaps just in a hurry (either way, what are you doing here?), here are the important points:

• When you reach level 10, you’ll be asked to select a talent tree. When you do, the other two trees will be locked out for use, but you will be given the associated defining skills right away. For example, if you’re a warrior and you select arms, you’ll get mortal strike at level 10. Discipline priests will get penance at level 10. Enhancement shaman will get dual wield and lava lash at 10 – and so on.
• The other trees don’t open up until you’ve put 31 points into your selected tree.
• Instead of gaining a talent point every level, you will gain one every 2 levels. This means you won’t have access to your secondary tree until 70, and you will only get 41 points to spend by level 85.
• The Mastery system is being reworked. Now the passive bonuses associated with putting points into a tree will just be automatically given to you when you pick your specialization. These will be flat percentages instead of values that increase as you put more points in. The unique ability from the previous Mastery system will now be learned from your class trainer, and improved by the Mastery stat, found on Cataclysm items from level 78 on.

This means the class-defining talents will no longer have to be buried deep into a tree to prevent the other specs from getting it – you’ll just be handed it right away. It also means it will be significantly easier to cut away all the little filler talents required to get deeper into the tree, so you can just start picking up useful stuff right away.

As someone who has leveled 8 characters to 80, and is currently at level 53 with a 9th, among a slew of other alts, I happily welcome this idea. I’ve played 7 of the 10 classes fairly extensively, and almost all of them are a royal pain in the ass until at least 20, most until 40. Hopefully it will help prepare everyone for their roles at 85 much quicker, as well, as they’ll be handed the tools they’ll use at end-game content from the get-go, so they have plenty of time to get used to them.

How do you feel about it? Are you concerned there won’t be enough variety, or do you welcome the changes and trust Blizzard to make each talent a significant upgrade?