Rage. IRL.

Even though our current tall and strong talent trees have been pruned down to the size of a small bonsai, the devs have clearly stated that the players won’t be forced to deal with useless talents anymore.

Indeed, this has been a problem with most classes. In all specs, there are either talents that are deemed absolutely necessary(and that everybody takes), or talents that need to be taken to reach the following tier. Either way, the end result is that, rather than providing more than one viable alternative, all classes have a clearly defined spec, with any deviation from the norm being quantified as a dps loss.

Judging by the current state of the trees, I’m expecting to have a few viable options in a spec. While looking at the balance tree, one can see several options, depending on what your poison is. Of course, some talents have left me quite bewildered. In their current incarnations, there is still a clear distinction made between pve and pvp talents, in all trees. However, there seem to be clear options allowing builds focused on pve, pvp, or a mix of the two.

With 41 available talent points in total, I find it quite likely that the builds will require 31 points in your main tree, with the other 10 spread in a second. The lower tier talents seem quite specifically designed to be attractive for all specs, since they generally buff the main abilities of feral, resto and balance druids. As such, I’d expect a multitude of possible specs(balance with points in feral or balance with points in resto, anyone?), all remaining to be decided based on glyphs and talent synergy.

All that remains to be seen is how Eclipse(and to a lesser extent, Tree of Life) will be changed. The mechanics should be core parts of their respective specs, and seeing the final implementations will be the only way to tell whether Cataclysm is something druids should be excited about.

As stated in my previous posts, I am raiding in a 10-man guild. As such, my gear/spec/glyph choices are tailored for that, rather than a more general 25-man raid environment. To help other druids that might be in a similar situation, and to (hopefully) get useful input on whether my choices are good or not, I have decided to explain them in more detail, starting with my spec.

As you can probably notice from my armory, I am running a pretty standard 11/0/60 resto spec. I have decided to spec that for several reasons:

My glyph choices are, I hope, quite obvious. My major glyphs are:

So blizzcon’s almost over – you obviously have all heard the exciting news. A couple of things to consider, especially from the perspective of a warlock:

All in all, blizzcon raised almost as many new questions as it answered. I’m looking forward to the new guild leveling mechanics, to worgens and to flying around in the old world(speaking of that, I’ll have a guide for getting a cool mount coming up soon).

Bring on the cataclysm!!!

I have to say that it finally feels like destruction’s reached its full potential. The developers seem to have finally realised that buffing gimmick spells isn’t the way to go, and the new Fire and Brimstone talent shows it.
In all simulations, destruction specs are now pulling ahead, as it should be, really.

However, due to some conversations I’ve had with other warlocks, I figured I should clarify a couple of things. First of all, crit is not something that any warlock, especially destruction specced ones, should stack. Crit gives you extra chances to do double damage, true. But it’s still relying on rng. Haste and spell power provide the quantifiable dps gains, as well as spell hit until you’re hit capped(either 13% for raiding alliance, or 14% for horde).

Second of all, Tuskarr’s Vitality is better than Icewalker simply because (and I know this is a hard one to get your head around, boys and girls), the faster you get in range of your new target, the faster you can dps it. 12 crit rating(since nobody in their right mind actually gets to use the 12 hit rating from surefooted, but gets hit capped from gear) won’t help. Running out of fires faster will.

And third of all, since I’ve been cross-linked on the realm forums I figure I should say sorry for rubbing a few people the wrong way. Not that I care or anything, I’m just sorry I didn’t do it sooner:)
As a heads up, my old guild changed their rules. They now allocate raid spots on a first come first served basis(gl with hard modes/yogg), and the guild master’s name is back on the “contact these people if you have problems” list. Since, you know, steps must be taken and all that. Including offering officer promotions left and right, in the hopes that more people will start flocking under the banner of an invisible gm that suddenly remembered he has a guild to “run”.
Feel free to comment and to state your points of view. As long as you do so in a civilised way, I don’t see why we can’t debate. Of course, if there is something to debate, but from the whispers I’ve been getting it doesn’t look like there is.

Happy reading, and please feel free to come back! Hits are always welcome.