The latest PTR build came out a couple days ago and WoWHead updated their talent calculator according to the newest changes. Besides a few icon errors it’s displaying all the talents properly and in the correct tier positions. One notable change to the latest 3.1.0 Patch Notes totally hit me in the face was that they decided to move Master of Ghouls back up to tier 6 instead of 4 (so it’s back to where it was). So all that theorycrafting I was coming up with for a possible 51-2-18 build is gone out the window.

Honestly with the new changes they’re putting into Dancing Rune Weapon as well…

• Dancing Rune Weapon: Damage done by this pet is reduced by 50%, but the cooldown is reduced to 90 seconds.

Great change for PvE DPS since it should increase overall DPS since it’ll be available on pretty much every pull and should remain the same for long boss fights. However, blood seems to be less and less of a viable PvP build anymore. Last PTR build had DRW doing 50% damage but lasting twice as long, a shorter cooldown instead makes it horrible for PvP in my opinion. Sure, 50% more damage still is some burst but also considering Plague Strike will no longer remove HoTs (Heal over Time) anymore our burst is nil against HoT heavy healers (Shamans and Druids). Hopefully though the Plague Strike change should encourage a revival of Resto Druids, curious how the once most popular arena classes (Warrior and Resto Druid) are now the the most neglected.

What baffles me is that it almost seems Blizzard is biased towards Unholy, which I have nothing against, it’s a cool talent tree and I am currently using it for PvP due to it’s sheer utility… but this seems to go against their latest agenda to allow all talent trees be PvP viable. A cool idea on paper but a herculean task to accomplish in an MMO which frankly I can see it being possible for hybrid classes but not for core classes like Warrior or Priest (Prot/Holy PvP? Seriously?)

I personally think it’d be cool if they could pull it off, more diversity please, I’m tired of the same Arena match-ups (yeah I play a Holy/Unholy 2v2 comp setup as well). I recently dinged 80 with my little twink project priest and am going to try Disc/Enhancement Shaman just to spice things up and actually try a challenging comp.

Well considering these latest changes it seems Frost may be the 2nd viable PvP tree (Unholy will still be popular nonetheless) since it’s shaping up to have nice control and burst as well as survivability. Time to erase our whiteboards and theory-craft again.

Tags: 3.1.0 Patch Notes Updated, New Talent Calculator, PTR, PvP

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 09:30 pm and is filed under Death Knight, News, Patch Notes, PvP, Talents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.