Talent Specs
If anybody knows me, I am a HUGE fan of trying to do the impossible or going the 'odd' way about doing things:
Examples:
- Valkors doesn't have any sort of land mounts, at all.
- Sylvina is trying to be a Holy Tank
- I was dual-wielding as a Warrior back when it was the dumb thing to do (AKA Why not just use a 2-hander?)
- I prefer style of functionality (Ugly epics? Sorry, I'll pass.)
- I wanted to make my Priest a full Shadow Specced Priest, who refused to even heal or learn any healing spells (I figured this would ultimately screw me in grouping, so I decided against it... although, nowadays, I suppose I'd be able to get away with it.)
- I was a protection Paladin on alliance back when 'Paladins can't tank.' was the mentality.
- I was Survival spec before the Hunter changes, and I wanted to be a 'Melee Hunter'.
So... with all of that being said, here are some specs, and I want some opinions. I'm looking more along the lines of people thinking abstractly though, not telling me "Well, you should do this... and this is completely dumb, and why would you want to do this? etc.", and come up with creative solutions to my oddball desires. Also, have any of you ever made a weird spec like the following?
Shaman:
Shaman Tank - I'm trying to turn him into an off-tank, thus I took none of the threat lowering talents. Although, I may pick up the Parry talent and deal with the lack of threat for the benefit of being able to parry attacks.
Hunter:
I wish I was Accident - I may swap 2% to Parry for the Rapid Killing talent. My goal here is to be a support/CC Hunter, but I didn't want to directly copy Accident's build, so I added some of my own flavor. (This is Accident btw.)
Melee Hunter - Here it is folks, the Melee Hunter. I tried to boost my Dodge as much as possible, as well as Stamina, Armor, and other talents. I also tried to avoid any sort of Ranged Crit Proc talents (which Hunters have a TON of) btw.
Priest:
Shadow Inner Fire Priest - I'm toying with the idea of the shields & inner fire... I'm not entirely sure if these talents are worth it all. I'd like some priestly advice.
Shadow Misery Priest - I dropped the armor buffs and improved my DPS. I'm also curious if the improved Wand DMG talent is worth it.
Warrior:
Fury Warrior - Thoughts? Comments? No ultimate goal here, just a dual-wielding fiend, rogue in plate, etc. I was contemplating on swapping rend with thunder clap now because of the tanktitude it can cause, also... it's available in all stances now, right? (Schwack gave me some suggestions to change this around...)
Rogue:
Valkors' Build - Well, here's Valk's official plans. He's always been a little odd, I like to 'AoE' grind and be prepared to wtf pwn multiple mobs in the face, so I have a lot of fancy cooldowns. I've always thought of him as a 'Slice & Dice' rogue, stabbity stabbity with the daggers and watch the little numbers above their heads fly up like a machine gun chain. MoD is for PvP & general sneakiness btw.
Paladin:
Sylvina's 2.1 Spec - Don't worry, I'm still Holy. But I made a few extra changes, and they were even nice enough to give me an extra talent point to play with. yay.
Alliance Tankanub - This is the talent spec I was playing around with if I ever went back to play my level 48ish Alliance Paladin. (Albriech is my Alliance Paladin, btw.)
Support Nub - Most retribution paladins focus solely on DPS, and cry about their DPS, etc. I decided to try and make a 'Support' Paladin whose melee based attacks and buffs would help the team instead of his own DPS & Solo/PvP abilities.
Examples:
- Valkors doesn't have any sort of land mounts, at all.
- Sylvina is trying to be a Holy Tank
- I was dual-wielding as a Warrior back when it was the dumb thing to do (AKA Why not just use a 2-hander?)
- I prefer style of functionality (Ugly epics? Sorry, I'll pass.)
- I wanted to make my Priest a full Shadow Specced Priest, who refused to even heal or learn any healing spells (I figured this would ultimately screw me in grouping, so I decided against it... although, nowadays, I suppose I'd be able to get away with it.)
- I was a protection Paladin on alliance back when 'Paladins can't tank.' was the mentality.
- I was Survival spec before the Hunter changes, and I wanted to be a 'Melee Hunter'.
So... with all of that being said, here are some specs, and I want some opinions. I'm looking more along the lines of people thinking abstractly though, not telling me "Well, you should do this... and this is completely dumb, and why would you want to do this? etc.", and come up with creative solutions to my oddball desires. Also, have any of you ever made a weird spec like the following?
Shaman:
Shaman Tank - I'm trying to turn him into an off-tank, thus I took none of the threat lowering talents. Although, I may pick up the Parry talent and deal with the lack of threat for the benefit of being able to parry attacks.
Hunter:
I wish I was Accident - I may swap 2% to Parry for the Rapid Killing talent. My goal here is to be a support/CC Hunter, but I didn't want to directly copy Accident's build, so I added some of my own flavor. (This is Accident btw.)
Melee Hunter - Here it is folks, the Melee Hunter. I tried to boost my Dodge as much as possible, as well as Stamina, Armor, and other talents. I also tried to avoid any sort of Ranged Crit Proc talents (which Hunters have a TON of) btw.
Priest:
Shadow Inner Fire Priest - I'm toying with the idea of the shields & inner fire... I'm not entirely sure if these talents are worth it all. I'd like some priestly advice.
Shadow Misery Priest - I dropped the armor buffs and improved my DPS. I'm also curious if the improved Wand DMG talent is worth it.
Warrior:
Fury Warrior - Thoughts? Comments? No ultimate goal here, just a dual-wielding fiend, rogue in plate, etc. I was contemplating on swapping rend with thunder clap now because of the tanktitude it can cause, also... it's available in all stances now, right? (Schwack gave me some suggestions to change this around...)
Rogue:
Valkors' Build - Well, here's Valk's official plans. He's always been a little odd, I like to 'AoE' grind and be prepared to wtf pwn multiple mobs in the face, so I have a lot of fancy cooldowns. I've always thought of him as a 'Slice & Dice' rogue, stabbity stabbity with the daggers and watch the little numbers above their heads fly up like a machine gun chain. MoD is for PvP & general sneakiness btw.
Paladin:
Sylvina's 2.1 Spec - Don't worry, I'm still Holy. But I made a few extra changes, and they were even nice enough to give me an extra talent point to play with. yay.
Alliance Tankanub - This is the talent spec I was playing around with if I ever went back to play my level 48ish Alliance Paladin. (Albriech is my Alliance Paladin, btw.)
Support Nub - Most retribution paladins focus solely on DPS, and cry about their DPS, etc. I decided to try and make a 'Support' Paladin whose melee based attacks and buffs would help the team instead of his own DPS & Solo/PvP abilities.
posted by Sylvina Solaris | 10:30 AM
3 Comments:
I don't think Survivalist and Endurance Training stack. It would be nice though, a 15% health boost.
Shadowpriest stuff (from a raiding shadowpriest, >1k +shadow):
The role of a pure shadowpriest is enhancement. You work hard so that your party doesn't have to. VE tops the party off from incidental damage, and VT keeps them full on mana. As far as utility goes, silence is wonderful for wrangling in that caster on a range pull or keeping a blaster down while CC takes hold, a fear (even a single-target) combined with mind flay sends a mob flying without escaping into adds, and since you're not the healer anymore, mind control becomes a much more consistent form of CC (but watch that aoe, it'll be angry at you if you get jostled about).
As far as talent specs go, there's some required (effectively) points and some not-so-required points.
Required points:
-mind flay, VE, imp VE, Shadowform, VT. (duh)
-All 2nd-level shadow talents. Aggro is a terrible problem with shadow, so affinity is a no-brainer. Imp SW:Pain is 2 ticks of free damage, can't go wrong there. Shadow Focus is incredibly strong for meeting the hit cap vs. high-level mobs. If you plan on raiding at all, you'll want 5/5 and 75 hit rating. That brings you to 99% hit rate against bosses (lvl 73 effective), and the extra 1% can't be overcome.
-5/5 weaving, darkness, and misery. The effect of more free damage (especially that from your entire party/raid from misery) cannot be under-emphasized. You left out misery on one of your builds, but it's essential.
- 3/3 focused mind and 2/2 shadow reach. Mana efficiency is a killer, so this is mandatory, and shadow reach is great for avoiding area-of-effect attacks and using the environment to your advantage. I can't imagine running without it.
- If you're raiding, 2/2 imp fort. Can't be avoided. Be nice to your fellow holy/disc priests and be a useful buffing member. On a somewhat-related note, imp wand isn't very useful. If you run out of mana, you've lost already. Unbreakable will, however, is pretty nice. The mages all get angry when Gruul resonates and I'm still standing there shooting lasers. It's great for 5-man, too, avoiding aoe fears (even though it "will not be a significant game mechanic in TBC", right Blizzard? Grrr...).
Optional stuff:
- 3/3 imp PW:Shield. I love it. For farming, for channeling MC, for saving your main healer or aoe'ing mage, and generally being a better "OH @#$%" button. Martyrdom is a PvP talent, through and through. If you like to pvp, though, it's very good stuff.
- Inner focus. I use it constantly. It's surprisingly useful for saving mana for a 5-minute spell, and with the +crit, it can be a nice boost during a trinket, too. Also, if you absolutely must shift-out and heal, IF+shadowform when shifting back in saves you nearly 1k mana.
- Silence. Yes, optional. If you're serious about max'ing your raid DPS, you can drop it. If you want to PvP or run 5-mans though, definitely take it. It's a great talent.
Talents not to take:
-imp fade. Worthless. Fade is a temporary aggro drop, so to actually use this talent means that you had to use fade once and 9 seconds after it dropped, you had to use it again. Not a situation you want to be in. You never really use fade in a raiding situation, and in 5-mans, if that 6 seconds makes a difference, you're doing something wrong.
-imp inner fire. 30% of your measly armor does very little. Spend the points in 3/3 imp PW:Shield instead or in the shadow tree. Just not worth it here.
-wand spec. If you're wanding, you're not performing your most important three functions (in order of importance): returning mana via VT, high DPS, and returning health via VE. Shadow wand damage does not give health and mana back. Only shadow spells do. Wands are there for an extra +dmg armor slot, that's about it.
-silent resolve: doesn't affect us anymore. /sadface
Here's some PvE spec's to try out:
5-man
Raiding
I don't claim to PvP well, so you're on your own there.
If you're into being a shadowpriest, go here:
Shadowpriest.com
It's a great site. You can learn all about reaching the hit cap, tuning your spell rotation, and selecting gear.
Pewpew and all that.
To be honest I love your experiments, and I like the melee hunter a lot (even if it's not the "best" choice).
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