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Monday, October 24, 2011

Where are my Lambs?

One of the things I've yet to see any real coverage on is how certain existing talents are going to make the jump into Mists of Pandaria outside of the six talent selections. While I'm very excited about the new talent revamp and how it's going to play out, I do worry that certain game-changing talents are going to go the way of the dodo. Additionally, I totally accept that I may have misread, misunderstood or misinterpreted something that answers this question, but I'll get it out there.

What about the active talents that make specs work?

It's long been a desire of mine to see the back of two things:

1) Passive increase talents.
2) Multi-point talents.

Passive increases to critical strike rating, raw output or other stats are as dull as dishwater and I don't think anyone will miss them. A few were baked into the level 10 choice but, honestly, nowhere near enough. Almost as bad are those two to three point investments just to get a talent to DO something and, again, I shan't mourn their passing. What concerns me is that some of the most compelling talents in the game have seen little or no mention for Mists of Pandaria, and I'd be shocked if this was merely an oversight.

We know that many of the talents you pick up now are going to be baseline abilities in their appropriate spec. So if you're wondering where Devastate or Raging Blow have gone, you'll get them as you level and no choice need be made. But there are still many talents that, while often passive, alter how the game is played; almost universally for the better.

Ignore crap like War Academy, Toughness or Cruelty.

What about Lambs to the Slaughter, Rampage or Sword and Board?

Are Arms warriors going to see Taste for Blood and Sudden Death? What about those Fury warriors who love Executioner and Heroic Fury? As a tank, the loss of Blood and Thunder and Safeguard would be really upsetting. I'm comfortable with the removal of talents that don't really do anything other than add bland passive increases, but there are several talents in there that make the game fun and provide quality of life.

Essentially, full ability lists for each spec as well as a good look at the tooltips are going to provide some answers. It's doubtless that this is going to impact every class, too, as I can't believe that warriors are the only class with meaningful talents that change the way we play.

However, the Fury list I saw at BlizzCon just gave me a bit of a shiver when I didn't see Rampage in it. Sure, they could make it part of the specialization at level 10, but that would just make levelling even more laughably trivial than it already is. And are we really to expect Rampage, Executioner, Furious Attacks, or Die by the Sword to appear in there too?

Further clarification is going to be very interesting as the unravelling of the new talent system picks up in pace following the bright lights in Anaheim.

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