HUNTER
So Beast Mastery now gets a signature replacement for Steady Shot; big whop. It looks like they're trying to really prop up this tree, which was the red-headed step child of Wrath DPS. See my comments on Subtlety for my predictions. Mastery is exactly what I would come up with given 2 seconds to think one up. Have fun ressing pets guys.
Marksman and Survival look pretty unchanged, aside from the UTTER UPHEAVAL caused by Focus instead of Mana. I like the change, now Rogues won't feel so special and I always welcome that. Both of their masteries look bleh, but it's worth noting that Marksman Mastery's relative worth will increase as your gear gets better, so keep those spreadsheets handy guys!
I'm interested in the cost/cooldown of Camouflage, and I wonder if it will see use in DPS rotations, since it gives you a damage boost for using it. I also wonder if you can use it on a mount; if not, it'll probably be rubbish most of the time, since it will preclude attacking and moving fast. There's a lot of quality of life improvements for hunters, between no more ammo and more pets, which is nice.
DRUID
It is very lame for Druids that their big lvl 85 ability will only be used by Balance. Well, lame for not-Balance druids, I guess. It could be a lot of fun to play Balance provided all you do isn't starfire/wrath/starfire/wrath, with Nature's Torment thrown around as applicable. If there's like, a proc to, say, fire off two mega-powerful wraths, which you naturally follow up with beefcake starfires. The Mastery by itself just enforces alternating.
Feral looks to be getting much love, with a situational utility move and an extra move for bears, plus a Pummel-like move, AND cat rotation is getting a little easier? That's nice. I wish Stampeding Roar wasn't on such a long cooldown, since it's hard to tell when extra movement speed is needed until Taladrim has already killed everyone. Mastery is fine, but notice how there's two of them, one for cat and one for bear? Methinks they could have used this for DKs, to keep blood DPS alive if nothing else.
TREE OF LIFE ROAAAAR! A lot of Druids seem to think Blizzard won't buff their baseline healing, or the tree's effects, and that's pretty outrageous. I like the idea of one class with a Metamorphosis-like button for healing. Restoration gets basically nothing else from the preview, but that doesn't mean the same thing as they aren't changing; seems like they're just re-tooling their spells. The Mastery bonus is rad, but I kinda wished it had played into the new Tree mechanic more, like Demonology.
MAGE
Arcane looks like the spec everyone will be dipping into if nothing else, since now all mages use Missiles. Arcane Focus returns mana whenever you miss, which seems goddamned useless once you get hit capped. Although, since their Mastery rewards staying at high mana (a bizarre mechanic) maybe at high levels arcane mages will forsake hit gear to get mana back. What a brave new world.
Fire mages, whom I have a soft spot for, cause Pyroblast is awesome, look fairly unchanged aside from minor tweaks, but that's fine I guess. They had the most involved of the mage rotations anyway (not saying much). Their Mastery looks all right, but I have to wonder, with no dot clipping, will Ignite be one dot that refreshes and resets its damage based on the last spell, or will they all pile on top of each other, like Impale?
Frost Mages don't seem to get much initially, but with the Arcane Missile change, plus their Mastery encouraging not-Frostbolt, it looks like they'll become a more interesting spec. Not much to say here.
TIME WARP LOL. Take that Shamans; now you'll have to be GOOD to go on raids.
PALADIN (yay!)
Holy Paladins finally get a raid heal ability, as well as a SUPERBEEF heal to match up with the Cata design. I like that Paly raid healing radiates from the paladin; it makes them unique, and still somewhat limited compared to a lot of others. The mastery is a nice way to keep the traditional desire for +crit going, though it might only come out at high enough gear levels.
Prot's getting distinct rotations for single and multi mob tanking WOOOOAH! I don't think it's really necessary to aim to do this, but if they're nerfing Prot's AoE threat in general, it would have probably fallen out that you don't, say, consecrate a single guy. Mastery is bleh; it does mean Paladins will take consistently less damage, compared to a warrior spiking megablocks.
Ret gains Crusader Strike from level one; that's quite cool. From the end-game perspective, though, no concrete changes for ret, aside from making their rotation tougher. No more smashing 12345 to get mad deeps I guess. Their Mastery is all right, though I fear it turning to a crazy bullshit stat akin to Armor Pen.
Guardian of Ancient Kings is totally shithouse awesome and is exactly what I expect from a lvl 85 ability. Useful to all specs, visually interesting, and very useful. Paladins make out like bandits in this respect.
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There, done! In retrospect, this was kinda a bad idea. It ended up being long winded and forced me to comment on classes I know relatively little about (e.g. rogues). Oh well, it was an experiment, and the point of experiments is that sometimes they don't work. See you next time.
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