PTR 3.3.3 Notes Updates - More about Mastery System

by Lucifer on March 11, 2010, 01:23:05 AM

PTR 3.3.3 Notes Updates

Source
Hunter Hunter
    Pet Talents
    • Heart of the Phoenix: Cooldown reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.
    Warrior Warrior
    • Thunderclap: This ability now counts as a ranged attack, granting it double damage on critical strikes instead of 150% and ranged miss chance, and still cannot be dodged or parried.
    Arms
    • Bladestorm: Warriors can now be Disarmed while under the effects of this ability.

    Items
    Glyphs
    Druid Druid
    • Glyph of Focus: Now increases the damage done by Starfall by 10%, down from 20%.

    More about Mastery System

    Source
    Masteries Q&A (src)
    1. 28/28/20 spec. Does mastery on gear affect both highest trees or give no benefit at all?
    Mastery on gear gives you one bonus. That bonus is the third passive (the unique one) in the tree in which you’ve spent the most points. In the examples we gave, those are Absorption, Radiance and Runic Power generation.

    2. How are ferals and Dks as tanks working with mastery system in place? Are they to care about it for threat or do they have separate bonuses.
    Ferals will have passive bonuses that say Cat: melee damage done, Bear: damage reduction. For death knights we have a different plan in mind that we’re not quite ready to discuss. DKs are undergoing some slight changes so they aren’t so GCD constrained and are less limited by rune cooldowns.

    3. How are the non-pure classes going to be balanced against those with a full 76 point passive benefit? Balance, enhancement(not so much), shadow, feral, ele, resto, holy and Ret all have this issue.
    Assume you only get the passive bonuses for the tree in which you’ve spent the most points, and there is a ceiling per tree (which could be something like 51-55 talent points). If you spend more points than that in a tree you still get the benefits of the talent. If you spend points in another tree, you are benefiting from those talents instead. Unless you try to make say a 40 / 36 / 0 build, you shouldn’t be losing passive bonuses.

    If you turn level 10 and spend 1 point in Discipline, you are now a Disc priest. You receive the Disc talent tree passive bonuses and mastery rating on gear benefits your Disc passive bonus (Absorption). If you reach level 85 and have 70 points in Disc and 6 in Holy, you are still a Disc priest and the same rules apply. If you change your build to 51 Disc / 20 Holy / 5 Shadow, you are still a Disc priest.

    4. Hybrids who use spells not improved by their spec on occasion such as heals or the extra lava burst are feeling that their non-specced spells are going to be extremely weak as compared to now.
    They are weak now and the intent is to keep them that way. We aren’t trying to nerf them any more than they are today. If we want to make sure Resto shaman can do big Lava Bursts, we’ll give them a talent or something to make that happen. We don’t want Resto shaman to Lava Burst anywhere on the scale of an Elemental shaman. Again, how they perform today is pretty much the target for where we want to end up.


    Mastery bonus distribution (src)
    Would the 'intended role' of disc be preventing damage? It almost feels as though the third disc bonus should be the first, and the third replaced by something similar to the divine aegis effect, where direct damage creates small shields.
    To answer your question -- and this applies to all classes. the first two mastery stats are gained by placing points into a given talent tree (and wearing the gear intended for your class, e.g. leather for druids). This will allow us to remove many of the talents that always felt mandatory, especially at the min-max level, and allow room for customization.

    When we begin revealing specific class information, (such as new spells and abilities, and the talent tree revamp) -- the posts we've made thus far, will make much more sense. I feel, players should look at the stat/system changes, as well as this mastery post as a "piece of a puzzle" -- and ask questions, provide feedback, but understand that until more information is released, it's not possible to see the whole of the picture.

    Mastery System Preview

    by Lucifer on March 09, 2010, 09:52:32 AM
    A few days ago Blizzard told us more about Cataclysm Stat & System Changes and now we will learn about Mastery System...

    Source
    Last week, we gave you an early look at the changes we’re making to the stat system in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and explained how these changes will ultimately provide players with more interesting gear choices and make stats easier to understand. Today we’d like to go into more detail about a brand-new feature that’s an integral part of this overhaul: the Mastery system, a set of new game mechanics designed to allow players to become better at what makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. With this system, we want to accomplish three things: give players more freedom in how they allocate talent points, simplify some of the “kitchen sinky” talents that try to do too much at once, and add a new stat to high-level gear that makes you better at your chosen role.

    Here’s how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you’ll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree -- meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear.

    One of our primary goals with Mastery is to give players more flexibility to choose fun or utility-oriented talents rather than make them feel obligated to pick up “mandatory” but uninteresting talents, such as passive damage or healing. (For examples of the kinds of powerful but boring talents we’re talking about, take a look at the talent tier just above the 51-point talent in many of the existing trees.) In a sense, Mastery makes it so every talent in (just for example) a rogue tree essentially has an invisible additional bullet point that says “???and increases your damage by X%.” This way, if you choose a talent like Elusiveness (which reduces your chance to be detected while stealthed) or Fleet Footed (which affects movement), you won’t feel like you’re giving up damage in exchange for utility.

    There will still be talents that boost damage, of course, but those talents will also affect the way you play. For example, you can still expect to see talents like Improved Frostbolt, which reduces the cast time of the Frostbolt spell; it increases DPS, but it also affects the mage’s rotation. Piercing Ice, however, is just “6% more damage” and is the kind of talent we’re trying to eliminate by implementing the Mastery system.

    As we get closer to Cataclysm’s release, we’ll go into more detail about the changes coming for each class, including individual talent-tree adjustments and how Mastery will affect them. In the meantime, here are a few examples to demonstrate the three kinds of passive bonuses we described above. Please keep in mind that we're still working on this system, and the handful of examples we're providing here are, of course, subject to change.

    Holy Priest
    For each talent point spent in the Holy tree, the priest also gets:
    • Healing – Improves your healing by X%.
    • Meditation – Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would likely replace the existing Meditation talent from the Discipline tree, which many Holy priests consider to be a “must-have.” Regeneration will also probably be determined by whether you are in or out of combat, and not the “five-second rule.
    • Radiance – Adds a heal-over-time effect to direct heals, such as Flash Heal. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
    Discipline Priest
    For each talent point spent in the Discipline tree, the priest also gets:
    • Healing – Improves your healing by X%.
    • Meditation – Improves your mana regeneration from Spirit in combat. This would likely replace the existing Meditation talent.
    • Absorption – Improves the amount of damage absorbed by spells such as Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
    Frost Death Knight
    For each talent point spent in the Frost tree, the death knight also gets:
    • Damage – Improves your melee and spell damage by X%.
    • Haste – Improves your melee Haste by Y%. This might allow us to remove some of the Haste in the Icy Talons line of talents.
    • Runic Power – Improves the rate of runic power generated by abilities. While all death knights want runic power, Frost death knights would generally have more runic power than Blood or Unholy death knights (who would receive a different benefit from their respective trees). An Unholy death knight who sub-specs into Frost would still be able to benefit from this bonus, though because they’re investing fewer talent points, they’d benefit to a smaller degree. Mastery on gear would boost this bonus, and no other talent tree would grant it.
    A couple other things to note: Currently, we’re not planning to retrofit the Mastery stat onto current level-80 gear when we roll out the stat-system changes prior to Cataclysm’s release. However, Mastery will begin appearing on select quest and dungeon items. You will also gain a small amount of Mastery by wearing gear of your intended armor type (such as plate for paladins). For players with dual specs, when you change between your two chosen specs, the Mastery bonuses and the benefit you receive from the Mastery stat on gear will adjust automatically based on your new spec.

    We’ll have more details to share about these and other changes we’re making in Cataclysm in the future, and we’ll do our best to answer your questions about the Mastery system here on the forums. For information on many of the stat changes being made in Cataclysm, please check out our earlier update.

    How to protect your World of Warcraft account

    by Lucifer on March 05, 2010, 01:23:00 AM

    A few days ago I read some news all around the World of Warcraft websites about a virus which managed to hack Authenticator Protected Accounts. I wasn't too amazed because there is no 100% secure method to protect your account but if you know what to do your chances of losing your account are extremely low. I'll try to guide you by giving you some tips on how you can protect your account details. Remember, this is not necessarily only for a World of Warcraft account. Since Battle.net accounts deal with more than World of Warcraft, if someone compromise your account this can also affect games like Diablo III and Starcraft II.

    Here are a few ways to prevent account theft:

    1. Keep your WoW account email and password private

    Do not post your email and/or password that your are using for your WoW account on forums or blogs or something like that. Do not email them or use them in chats with your friends. IF you want to tell someone you trust your account details use the phone. (Remember that transferring the account details is not safe either!)
    If you register to forums or websites (especially the WoW related websites) do NOT use the same password and/or email that you are using for your WoW account.

    2. Do not randomly click on strange adds and/or links

    Especially on the WoW related websites avoid clicking on random links or adds that fly around everywhere these days. You can never know if you can trust any of those links. Read below and use a better internet browser and an anti-virus software.

    3. Use a strong and unique password for your account

    Keep your password unique. Use it ONLY for your WoW account. Like I said above, do not use the same password you are using for your WoW account anywhere else BUT for your account.
    Also do not use simple passwords like "pass" or "warrior" or anything simple like that. Be more creative. You can use up to 16 case sensitive characters for your password. Use something like "ILoveW0WJuJu123#" (that was just an example, do NOT use that!).
    A strong password should have: case sensitive letters, numbers and special characters.

    4. Use anti-virus software and a firewall

    All PC users should have something like this installed on their computers. The best anti-virus and/or firewall programs are the paid ones. You'll never find a free one at the same level of performance with a paid one. But still, a free anti-virus is better than nothing and it can increase your PC security by a lot.

    Here are a few free anti-virus products you can use:
    Here are some free firewalls:
    These programs are only a few examples added there in no specific order. You can search yourself for the product that suits you best but remember, always download it form the official website.
    Also, do not forget to UPDATE your anti-virus and firewall. An old anti-virus is pretty much useless.

    5. Use a Malware / Trojan / Keylogger scanner

    It is always good, beside your anti-virus, to run some additional scans. The good thing is that most of the products for this job are free (or they have a free version most of the time).
    Use Spybot Search & Destroy. It is totally free. Install it, update it, run the Immunizer and after that scan your PC.
    Use Malwarebytes. It has a free version too... Install it and perform a full scan.

    Use these scans from time to time and your PC will be a bit more secure.

    6. Download only from trusted websites

    Whenever you download a new addon or your vent client after a reinstall or if you download an addon updater client use the trusted website only.
    For the addons use the curse.com, wowinterface.com OR the addon author official website. Even so, if you are not sure about the source do not download and ask for your friends or guild mates help to tell you where they downloaded that addon from.
    For ventrilo us the official website: http://www.ventrilo.com/
    For addons updater clients use their official websites also: curse.com or wowmatrix.

    Basically for anything you are downloading check the address bar of your browser. Read the name of the website carefully and be sure it is the CORRECT one.

    7. Watch out for site phishing

    Even if a website looks EXACTLY like the official Blizzard website it is not necessarily the right one. Read the URL of the website you are in carefully BEFORE submitting your account details to it.
    Also, using a secure browser helps a lot with this. Try using Firefox or Opera. Usually on Firefox your address bar will look something like this when you are on an official Blizzard website.
    ""
    Note the blue battle.net background. It means the website is verified, secure and authentic.

    8. Wise WoW Account management

    There are two important things you have to remember when you create your account.
    Always keep your WoW CD Key safe and always remember where you left your CDs after install.
    Always remember your account Secret Question.
    If your account is hacked these are the only "tools" to recover your account.

    9. Avoid using other computers but your own

    Whenever you log WoW or access your account management is better to do it from your PC. You never know if that PC is infected or not.
    Public computers like net cafes should be avoided mostly. Most of the public computers are infected with different kinds of trojans and keyloggers that can "steal" your account details and compromise its security.

    10. Use an Authenticator

    Last but not least: The Authenticator! Yeah, some virus managed to "hack" this method, but that doesn't mean it is not a VERY good method to protect your account. If you follow this guide to the letter and you add an Authenticator to your account as well it will be a BIG plus to your account security. (and you get a great in-game pet too! ^.^)

    "core hound"

    Basically, if you follow all tips of this topic you should have your World of Warcraft account pretty safe. Noting is 100% secure these days but at least you know you did everything you could to protect yourself. Remember to always scan your PC at least once a week. Update all the software products that you are using and also do not forget to update your Operating System.

    Do you have any other tips to help others protecting their WoW accounts? Tell us about it...
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