It has been stated by a blue (I don't have link handy) that the new talents (and presumably WoW 2.0 in its entirety) will be pushed prior to TBC being released, possibly before Christmas. When I heard this my first thought was "aw crap we're going to have to relearn a lot of fights, will it be worth it so close to the expansion". I don't have a list of what the ramifications will be of changing the talents (feel free to list them in followup posts) but I know some of the mechanic changes will have a huge influence on current raiding. The nerf to downranking, the blocking of emergency monitors/decursive, and a bunch of other things I can't remember. Relearning these things for the new content in the expansion is acceptable to me, as we'll be learning new content anyway. But having to relearn the encounters we're already doing and so close the expansion, I have a feeling this could turn into a fiasco more than a boon.

What are your thoughts on this? What talent/mechanic changes can you think of that will have a serious impact on current raid encounters? Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I have a really bad feeling about this.

Edit: list of changes that are going to be broken in the current raiding environment:
Nerf to downranking
Nerf to decursive
New hunter mechanics without corresponding skills that complete the changes
Nerf to mage threat reduction

My thoughts on this are pretty simple: I just hope we can farm enough of what we want before the 2.0 patch and then get our guild TBC betas and can be done with pre-TBC content for good. I don't look forward to doing mobs like Sapphiron, Noth, or any others that require decursing at all.

I remember them saying somewhere that encounters balanced around decursive would be reworked.

Having access to all talents designed for TBC 25 ppl raid in 40 ppl raid enviroment will definetly amplify total damage output a lot. Even without last 10 talent points to complete lev. 70 builds and without pallies/shammies on both sides.

Having one druid with improved FF and moonfire aura in one group (and another with improved LotP), one shadow priest with VE/VT and Misery, one warlock with Malediction, one shammy with +crit totem (and another with +AP buff), one pally with +damage crusader, one hunter with expose armor and so on...

It will somehow balance broken mods for sure.

I think we can safely say that wont happen -.-
This change is certainly going to make certain encounters easier since the new talents improve new specs (mine is probably the only spec who gets it really up the ass with this change 5/31/16 fury-prot). The change to decursive is probably what is going to be most substantial but can you imagine maexxna with stacking HoTs? what a joke...

So long as they do change any fights that are based around Decursive, then i think that the 2.0 patch (or whatever they decide to call it) will not have too bad an impact on raiding.

The difficulties that are brought in should be more than made up for by the stacking HoTs, increased debuff slots, and new higher level talents.

We will have to learn to use the new skills and how to deal with down ranking anyway, and by bringing it in earlier it will give people a chance to get used to it.

As an additional it will give those people who are waiting for the expansion a reason to keep playing rather than just disappearing for 2 months.

The overall increase in dps probably makes up for it by making the fight end earlier and having you have to spend less mana healing so you can uprank.

Making the fight shorter won't help as much as you think. The majority of the mana in a Patchwerk/Sapphiron fight is not what you have from the beginning but what you regen during the fight.

Patchwerk will still be easy if you have good equipment though. I can heal OT1 with rank 1 Greater Heal now using only some regen pots (mageblood, nightfin soup). The downrank change may force me to use rank 2 instead but it will still be manageable with mana pots.

Sapphiron is a totally other scenario. I have to use the most mana efficient heals and mana potions this whole fight and still it's hard to not run OOM. I think it will be extremely difficult when you don't have mana efficient heals any longer.

Dont forget the shadow priest mana version of vampiric, move low mana healers in a group with one and let the regen begin, heh. Also, sapphiron wont be majorly affected, since the mod does not decide which of 2 decursing spells you use there, since it is only curse, just have it list the people in the prioritied list as it does now, and click it there, and voila, it is you who decides both spell and target, of course, they will have to recode decursive itself to actually function though I expect. Anyhow, I'm not too worried. (of course, that might be due to ignorance, which as we all know, is bliss.)

My prediction - so many people in my guild will want to PvP instead of raiding that we'll never notice its effect on raiding, because there won't be any. :)

This patch will be a total mess for some classes, e.g. mages and hunters. Mages will get their agro reduction nerfed by 20%, but with no invis to compensate that. Also we will lose 3% spellhit from EP with nothing to compensate that either. In most optimistic scenario mage DPS will remain same, but at the cost of arcane talents (mana regen)
It will be even worse for hunters - new aimed, AP changes, but no Steady, no Viper aspect, no new bullets. I have a slim hope that Blizz will realise what mess that patch will create and change their plan with this patch.

I'm pretty hesitant about nerfed threat reduction...

As much as I would love to have the talents on live, I hope it doesn't happen. As mentioned, some classes outright need the skills gained 60-70 to counter class balance changes being made. Makes me somewhat glad I can get 18% hit presently though, it'll make the EP loss minimal if this occurs. This also begs the question, what happens to fire mages? Do they get the new talents and new ignte mechanic, or just one of the two? Losing 20% threat reduction with current ignite behavior will be outright dangerous for a lot of encounters (Hello Thaddius).

Wouldn't the numbers on Devastate make up for that?

It probably will.

Yeah, I'm thinking about suggesting some PvP raids in lieu of a PvE raid night or ten, between the patch and the expansion. Everyone is going to want to stock-up on Honor points, PvP is going to explode after this patch.

Blizz is definitely playing with fire with the PvE mechanic changes that might or might not be included with this patch. Hopefully the PTR's will be able to identify what should make the patch and what should wait for the expansion.

The latest post I have seen saying anything about the 1.13 or 2.0.0 patch, depending on what they call it as they still don't know themselves, indicates that what will be in it is not know yet.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...geNo=1&sid=1#4
Until they come out and say what will be in it all this talk is pointless IMO.

Edit.http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=43154830&pageNo=1&sid=1#4

The talents reviews -are- confirmed in. Half the posts here discuss those, and the other half are portrayed in what-if stances.

Edit: And the honor system change, last I heard.

Assuming the mechanics changes are in the largest problem I see with them isn't so much that they'll make things impossible, it's more that people will need to change their routine and do things differently. And I'm sure most of us here have at least some experience with how resistant to change people can be, especially when we're talking about changes taking place to tactics in an environment in which your entire success hinges on performing the tactic as best you can.

So yes, if the mechanics change, it'll most likely set back a fair number of guilds for a period of time as people adjust. But I think the changes when seen as a whole still add up to everything being possible, just as long as people don't try to hang on to their old ideas too much. Especially for some fights (Patchwerk was named above and is a good example) the tactics would probably have to change quite a bit and it'll take some adjustment... But on the plus side some of the changes also make things easier than before.

As people are saying, if anything, I have a feeling raiding is going to be hurt more through a revitalized interest in PvP with talent changes than anything else.

Well to be honest, Patchwerk MT healing would be trivial with stacking HoTs which kinda frees up healers for the OTs. It cuts both ways I guess.

I can't see that they would do one without they other, the balance of reducing(?) the healing coefficient depends on the stackability of HoTs surely?

You're probably correct... I'm admittedly shooting in the dark here, but the impression I got with these two changes hand in hand (and the healing coefficient nerf destroying the utility of HT4) is that Blizzard wants Druids to heal in a different manner, namely being the HoT top-up bots with a powerful oh-shit button once every 15 seconds, rather than just being a priest with slightly different numbers.

I know HT4 has been the staple heal spell for many, but I'm actually pretty used to HT5/6 - probably because of oceanic ping conditioning and needing bigger payloads - so the transition from a 3.0 cast to another 3.0 cast plus HoT's won't be as drastic for me compared to most, I guess.

(((Still, no lifebloom at 60 = less HoT's to play with)))

New talents for the raiding rogue = meh... Still wont have a decent new build.. will stick to 18/33 .