This finally gives me a chance to see what I’m faced with, in three days from now when the patch goes live. And they weren’t kidding when they said it was a “big patch”. This fucking thing is like 15GB.
So anyway, I’m finally in it. First off, of course my talents are resetted. But this isn’t just from the fact I’m in the PTR again, it’s also the new talent system.
So I played around with it. They did change some tiers around as they said they were back in BlizzCon. But this time it’s finally locked in and will be official.
Level 15, gives your Disengage power an upgrade. I picked the one that frees you from movement-imparing affects. This could be helpful if I ever decide to do BWL again.
Level 30, has improved Stun shots that replace Concussive Shot.
Level 45, has Self-Heals. One being an improved Hawk aspect, and the return of Spirit Bond.
Level 60, controls Focus regen. Fevor is back.
Level 75, I believe has two pet power abilities, and an AoE for you. I chose Lynx Bash over what the tooltip says. How your pet will jump to targets repeatably, attacking 9 times over 4 seconds, and having a 200% DPS boost in the process. That sounds perfect for soloing large groups of enemies.
Lastly, Level 90 which is currently locked, your OP shots. Such as an improved version of Rapid Shot.
Trap Launcher is now a toggable feature (a first for Blizzard), allowing you to launch multiple traps at a single or multiple targets (eg… Ice Trap for one mob, Snake trap for another, and Explosive Trap for a group of mobs in a corner). Really love this feature. Should be useful for my road to Level 90.
Fevor is now improved. It gives an additional 50 Focus over 10 seconds, as well as give you and your pet a “shot” of Focus the second you use it.
So anyway, due to the changes, a few of my old abilities have been removed. Raptor Strike (because we can’t Melee anymore), Steady Shot (now a Marksman only talent. Does make sense), and Immolation Trap (never use anyway. Explosive Trap is better).
Also, I have Trueshot Aura. In Cata and below, you can only get this if you are in a Survival spec. Not anymore! Now you can help your dungeon/raid group out in BM!
Ranged weapons are now carried like 2H weapons, on your back. Mass Effect, anyone? But it’ll look so bad ass with a fucking Sniper Rifle on my back. 🙂
As for the Spellbook, you can no longer have Survival and Marksman talents. But some talents are now part of two talent trees. And the best thing is, when you go BM, the Beast Mastery talent is now part of the Spellbook as a Passive talent, renamed “Beastmaster”.
When it comes to Pets, they also had an upgrade. They, like their masters, can switch between specs now! Also, you don’t have to look for a Cunning pet or a Ferocity pet. You can specify what class you want your pet to be!
And here’s the bad things. Mainly Glyphs. Some glyphs have been removed. Others, used to be talents for BM. Such as Improved Heal Pet which was a BM talent, is now a Glyph. I HAVE to get that glyph.
Another one, no more Pet Talent Tree. When you specify what type of pet you want, you’re stuck with those options only. No more Charge. And no more Natural Armor. I guess they feel with what you get from your own talents is good enough. We’ll see when I get a chance to do a solo.
However, it gives you an option to change your pet’s class on the fly with no cost to you! This is perfect if I find another pet I like in MoP.
There’s also new pet-based Glyphs, such as one that makes your pet immortal when Bestial Wrath is enabled, but it can still take damage.
And a cute little one, is the Fetch glyph. Which tells your pet to loot corpses for you. That will be awesome for soloing.
One last thing I wanted to say, is a new Level 87 talent that I can’t fucking WAIT to get my hands on. It’s called “Stampede”, which pretty much rains down hell on your enemy, summoning every fucking pet you have, even ones in your Stable, for 20 seconds!! 😀 Kick ASS! I can’t wait to do that to a boss. I could imagine soloing Heroics.
Heroic King Yimron. Use that, and he’s going to shit his pants!
Of course, this being an OP talent, it has a reasonable cooldown and 25% less damage that they do normally. But god damn.. that would be overkill on a low level mob.
There’s also a Glyph that prevents all your pets being summoned. Instead, it creates clones of your current pet. Since my pet is a wolf, wow.
And after doing a Culling of Strat run and other dungeons, I feel for the first time ever, that I am ready for this EP.