Resume!
WARRIOR
If Blizz thinks Arms warriors won't wine to have bosses constantly moved about for minimal DPS increases, they don't know a DPS's mind. Numbars is everything, and if moving the bosses increases numbars, and tanks don't do it, then the tanks worship HITLER. End of story. Mastery seems fun visually, but bleh (much like Elemental's).
TG will die; Blizz is trying to make Str one-handers for someone other than Frost, and Fury will be it. Damn Blizzard, this is just a dick move; TG was a fan favorite, and I can't see it ever being rad again, lest loot tables be cocked over. Anyway, mastery looks bleh, all it means is that you should be blowing your CDs all the time, which you should do ANYWAY.
Prot looks largely unchanged, so there's not much to say, except HOLY COW A MASTERY I LIKE. Firstly, using Mastery as a way to up threat without dumping more DPS stats on the armor is rad. Secondly, critical blocking is very cool and will likely set Warriors apart as the kings of shields. Very thematic, even if it is just a passive mitigation stat.
There's some hokey things going on with Warriors in general though. So you get a bonus for hitting 100% rage, but also there's a rage dump? Which is it Blizz, do Warriors try to hit 100%, or try not to? I suspect it'll be all about hitting 100%, then dumping/using abilities, and regaining that 100% buff just as it's about to fade. Which feels finicky to me. Shouts and Sunder changes are good, but you knew that already.
DEATH KNIGHT
Looks like the specs are staying roughly the same, so I'ma just freestyle this prose, yo. Blood being the tanking spec is a good idea. While 3 tanks 1 class was fun, and a noble experiment, the concerns of trying to balance them all, both with each other and with the encounters outweigh the novelty. By focusing on one tree, DKs can have a plethora of cooldowns and other neat abilities. Hopefully someone gets Dancing Rune Weapon; it's an awesome DPS ability and I'd hate to see it evaporate. Maybe Frost.
Dark Simulacrum will be mildly useful in PVE for a few bosses, but it will be nothing short of hilarious in PVP. A few scenarios: the warlock fears your healer, and gets feared in return. A shammy hits Greater Healing Wave, and you get healed to full! A mage tries to escape with Blink and you FOLLOW. A cunning paly sees the Simulacrum and DIs, killing you in the process! No clue how many of these scenarios will actually be real, but it sounds like Blizz tried to make an ability DESIGNED to generate hilarious PVP stories.
So the rune system has gone into revision. What this means is DKs willcan have runes off cooldown (a disgraceful situation as it stands), as long as they can get to using them within 10 seconds, it evens out. This will make abilities like Blood Tap and Empower Rune Weapon a huge deal, both for DPS squeezing a little more out of the rotation to tanks firing off emergency cooldowns. I just have to wonder if hitting two buttons (Oblit/Scourge + Blood Strike/Pestilence) plus runic power dumping will be very fun. I could easily see them adding a no-cost attack with a cooldown, just to spice it up; as it stands, it sounds like a dull rotation with a lot of downtime.
ROGUE
Assassination looks poised to continue it's dominance as the PVE spec of choice? Why, you ask? Well, the other two trees are both listed with survivability as a concern, especially combat. Presumably, the extra survivability will come at some cost, and since survivability is only a concern in PVP, it will be like giving up something for nothing in PVE. This is of course assuming the specs are balanced; it could fall out that assassination starts out just in the shitter. Oddly enough, looking at the mastery, it's extra poison damage. Considering they wanted to move away from auto attack + poison damage as the bulk of rogue DPS and that assassination is more burst-y, that seems like an incredibly poor fit.
Despite what I just said, I hope Combat is the king of PVE. Why? Loot tables; daggers are for assholes who hate all other classes. The tree doesn't look much changed, from all they've said, except for getting rid of the weapon-specific talents. Their mastery will probably promote building up higher combos, as their non-finishers are proportionally more powerful. It might even get to the point where it's more efficient to never use finishers, though I doubt that would go un-nerfed for long.
Subtlety is the red headed step child of rogue PVE, and for good historical reason. I imagine it will continue being the slippery bastard it is in PVP, and it's just impossible to tell how good it will be in PVE. Knowing Blizzard and how they handle uncompetitive DPS specs, it will either be GOD SPEC for the first two weeks of Cata and then get steadily nerfed every minor patch until 4.1 or so, or be sort of weak, and then get a minor buff every major content patch until they're viable just in time to kill Deathwing. Their mastery is all right, but I can't help think Assassination and Subtlety should have switched, with Ass. getting the big finishers and subtlety whittling down the opposition with poison.
I don't know that much about rogues, so this one is kinda spartan. I will say this though, Smoke Bombs will be the best quality of life ability a tank could ever ask from a DPS. LoS pulling is crazy stupid looking; you poke your head in, say something bad about a wizard's mom, then run around the corner where the rape-chopper is waiting. I don't know what's worse, that, or the fact that the wizard falls for it.
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I split the previews into three posts instead of the planned two for purely aesthetic purposes (read: OCD). Deal with it.
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