Why 3.0 will change Arena entirely

Sorry for the late post tonight. Passed out after our abortion of a raid that took almost six hours to clear Sunwell because of downers wiping us on Entropius (you know who you are, goblins). Anyways...

According to this post by a community manager from Blizzard, the next and final big content patch before WotLK that includes the new talent builds and vastly different game mechanics will be implemented while Season Four of arena is still on-going. This means a lot of things, but most importantly, it means an entire change in game direction and a whole new era as we know it. There are a lot of reasons as to why this holds true, so in tonight's article I'll cover what has most significantly changed with each class for better or worse, as well as why the new patch will possibly be the worst decision Blizzard has made to date. In a future article, I may cover what team compositions will possibly prove to be strongest with the 3.0 features and mindset at level 70 and at level 80.

Assumption of Level 80:
Much like when Blizzard imeplemented the WoW 2.0 41-point talent trees into the game shortly before TBC, and much of the dissaray it caused, the WoW 3.0 talents are almost entirely based around players being level 80 and consequently having 71 talent points to work with, not 61. The main difference was that Blizzard did not start rated arena until after everyone had attained level 70. Many talent trees had talents shuffled around because of this. Druids most notably had Insect Swarm AND Feral Charge moved to 5th tier in their respective trees. Rogues had several talents moved higher up (more accessible) in the tree, such as Elusiveness, Serrated Blades, Dual Wield Specialization, Dagger/Fist spec (Close Quarters); while others such as Improved Sprint moved deeper in the tree. Warlocks had Soul Link moved all the way up to 3rd Tier Demonology (although slightly less effective), and warriors notably had Death Wish and Sweeping Strikes once again swapped in position. This obviously mandates a huge difference in not only spec, but playstyle for many of the aforementioned classes, especially when we discuss the next section of this article.

Damage Scaling with Level 70 Hit Points
I've played beta; I've played it a lot. Some of the new abilities that certain classes get do absolutely ridiculous damage because they have enormous damage coefficients on them. Some of which that come to mind include but are not limited to: Deep Freeze for Frost Mages, Explosive Shot for Survival Hunters, Judgement of Command for Retribution Paladins, and Haunt (and resulting DoT damage) for Affliction Warlocks. When I say big damage, I'm saying that a mage in top-quality level 70 gear can Deep Freeze (a 5-second stun) crit easily for over 3,000 damage on a high-resilience target; this after frost nova'ing for 700+ (it scales a lot with damage now), ice lancing at least once for up to 2k, then deep freezing, then another 2-3 spells that all gain shatter bonus during the duration of the stun. The mage I play on beta could easily push out 15-20k damage in the duration of one frost nova, freeze, or frostbite as a result; all at level 70. The point here is, although these types of abilities may be balanced (although Deep Freeze is admittedly op even by mages in beta) at level 80 where everyone is typically running with close to or higher than 20,000 hit points, it's going to make things a complete joke at level 70 where everyone has half of that in the best arena gear available. God forbid you wear PvE gear with lower stamina, as I truly pity you while you get absolutely victimized by mages.

Having said those two main points, I'll now cover each individual class and discuss their new strengths and weaknesses and what is most significantly changing about their class design with the new 3.0 talents, as well as what is to be expected to be their strongest arena spec.

Druid:
Druids will still be the king of mobility and healing power; make no mistake. Despite a minimal nerf to lifebloom, druids have gained lots of raw healing power as well as many versatile healing methods in 3.0. Of which include expanding their lifebloom (and other HoTs/Dots) duration several seconds, Flourish, and Living Seed.  The main difference that restoration druids will have to deal with is the decision to either sub-spec Balance or Feral, since dabbling in either one nets them nothing anymore. I feel this is a no-brainer and I feel that this will be the most powerful druid spec of 3.0. With Dreamstate moving up in the tree to make it accessible as well as having Swiftmend and 2/3 Natural Perfection to back it up, druids can attain ridiculous healing power, longevity, and DoT damage all at the same time. Druids will have to simply learn to rely less on Feral Charge as both an escape and ranged interrupt.

Hunter:
The most notable changes from the Hunter class are mainly the dispel mechanic of Arcane Shot being moved to Tranquilizing Shot instead (godsend for certain classes), as well as Freezing Trap now no longer breaking on damage, effectively allowing a hunter to freeze a caster and viper sting their mana away. While I haven't looked too much into hunter specs as they were implemented last as well as changed quite often, I feel TNT will become the new Mace Stun after seeing how powerful it is in beta and how well it works with Explosive Shot. That said, the most powerful spec would seem to forego Aimed Shot in favor of Explosive shot; something along the lines of 0/10/51. Hunters also have much more powerful cooldowns at their disposal with abilities such as the new Disengage, Freeze Trap, etc, therefor Readiness also becomes much more valuable and powerful.

Mage:
Almost no question about it, every arena mage will spec Deep Freeze. The talents in Deep Frost are simply too good to pass up for any arena mage, and are simply miles ahead of anything deep arcane and deep fire can offer. Shattered Barrier, Fingers of Frost, and Brain Freeze are all the first things that come to mind. That said, I feel variations of a 2/7/52 spec such as this one will be most dominant, with the new Arcane Subtlety making dispelling mage CC and slowing effects a complete nightmare with so many cover debuffs working alongside the new 30% dispel resist. With the ability to currently 1-round almost any player in the duration of a freeze unless it is trinketed, it will be interesting to see how much Blizzard tweaks their damage in the final passes of beta before 3.0 is released.

Paladin:
Retribution will finally have real potential in arena, as the ret paladin has gained a lot versatility and support abilities, as well as sick burst potential, as I'm sure everyone has seen in the multitude of videos out there today from ret paladins in beta. I feel that this would be the most powerful Retribution spec at level 70, offering most of the best Retribution damaging talents, as well as stun removal with the Art of War, and the ever-so-important 30 seconds off HoJ cooldown in the protection tree. As for Holy spec, I feel that this build is the most powerful as it provides all of the essential PvP holy talents, as well as Stocism and Guardian's Favor. While Sheath of Light is amazing for holy paladins, I feel that it's too deep in the ret tree to sacrifice other talents for until reaching level 80. It's absolutely necessary for a holy paladin to have full crit talents to utilize Infusion of Light (instant holy lights following a holy shock crit) to its fullest.

Priest:
Unfortunately for healing priests out there, I don't feel that their specs will change much at all with 3.0. If anything, priests will have to be forced into dropping power infusion for other talents in the disc tree that were previously worthless such as Improved Inner Fire (because Inner Fire affects spell power now), possibly spec'ing something like this. Shadow priests, on the other hand, got enormous buffs in the new talent tree, with many of the deep-tree talents being purely PvP-oriented talents. I feel shadow will make a huge comeback come 3.0 with the new survivability and raw power that the tree has. I feel that this spec or a close variant of it will prove to be the best in 3.0 arena, as it provides all of the essential shadow talents as well as the amazing 30% dispel resist. With Dispersion also how godly that it currently is on beta, it will be interesting to see if Blizzard eventually tones it down or not.

Rogue:
Despite how powerful Shadow Dance is, I feel that with the current trend of arena involving healer/dps teams, deep Assassination wins out easily. With Deadly Brew and especially Infectious Poisons (very surpised this hasn't been nerfed yet), along with the now non-positional Mutilate and the complete lack of cooldown on Hunger for Blood, makes this a no-brainer really. Ironically, I feel that EU had it right all along once again, and that this 54/0/7 spec will reign supreme. With Improved Expose Armor no longer being necessary, as well as consolidated ranks of MoD and Oppurtunity, this spec provides everything good from the assination tree as well as long-range sap and MoD, making it easily a good choice. A 51/5/5 spec is also an option if you drop Dirty Tricks and Deadened Nerves to pick up Dual Wield Specialization. Feel free to post if you feel otherwise.

Shaman:
Although I won't cover specs for all 3 different trees, it must be said that all 3 specs have obviously gotten much stronger. Resto shamans will be torn between taking toughness or deep resto talents, enhance shamans finally receive their snare break (Spectral Transformation) that they've always wanted, and Elemental shamans received a huge boost in not only survivability (with talents such as Astral Shift), but as well as burst potential (because they needed more of that). I feel shamans will be one of the few classes where going any tree all the way down to 51-point talents will be viable (for specific comps obviously).

Warlock:
With how disappointing both Destruction and Demonology have been on beta thus far, I think it is a no-brainer that every arena warlock will spec Deep Affliction/Demonology. After playing a friend's warlock in beta quite a bit, I feel that a 46/15/0 spec like this (possibly swapping Demonic Aegis for Eradication instead) will be the obvious and best spec come 3.0. The new Shadow Embrace, Improved Fear, as well as having access to UA, Dark Pact, instant howl, and Soul Link all at the same time makes this one of the easiest decisions of any class. The new Curse of Exhaustion being a 50% snare castable at 36 yard range talented for a 12 second snare curse is also an amazing buff to warlocks.

Warrior:
It's really hard to say right now what will be the most powerful warrior spec for arena in 3.0 as the Arms tree is still atrocious on beta and is in the process of being tuned (read: buffed). If Arms continued to stay as complete crap, I would have to say that this 8/52/1 spec will be the most powerful, as it provides all of the best fury utility and damage talents, Titan's Grip (obviously), stun duration reduction from arms, and the one rank in Tactical Mastery that a warrior will only need to do instant reflects and disarms (both reduced to 15 rage cost). Giving up 15-second intercepts will hurt a great deal, so I do personally hope that the Arms tree is fixed, because I would also rely on a more consistent application of healing reduction rather than hoping for good RNG on the new Furious Attacks (based on procs per minute off white swings now). Lord Kalgan, save your precious class!

 

On a final note, I truly hope Blizzard ends season four before implementing this last content patch. 3.0 will change the game entirely from what we know it to be and I don't think that's a very good thing to do mid-season of arena. End season four and let people **** around with 3.0 talents in a non-official season if you really want, but don't **** everything up mid-way. Have some common sense here.

Tags:

World of Warcraft

Report Post