Okay, so i got bored and set myself up a PTR account to try out some of the class changes coming through in the Pre-Cat patch, and i have brought you some VERY good news. Some more timely than others.
Assessment 1: Hunters, Focus is actually not that bad.
seriously, it isnt. I was kinda pissy and up in arms about it until i noticed something working a rotation out on a Dummy; you're basically doing the same thing you were in Wrath. Sure you can only really fire a few shots standard with the Focus you have, but the point is that, instead of in Wrath where you were pounding Steady Shot because everything is on cooldown-most of your shots are just on the GCD now(like Multi-Shot..... which is BADASS)- you are now spamming it to keep your Focus up for your Explosive Shot and the likes.
unless you're BM, than you're just hitting it to have something to do while you play with procs and pet abilities.
Assessment 2: Mages
subsection 1: Arcane or "Stop bitching about mana-based damage!"
So, to reiterate what i said above, it's not that bad! I spent about 15 minutes in front of a dummy spamming spell after spell after spell and i only ever lost about 15% mana in Arcane Spec. What makes it so simple and mana efficient? simple. when you have the talents Peircing Ice and Master of Elements i spent a good minute and a half spamming Arcane Blast over and over, completely ignoring the proc'd Arcane Missle and eating the 700% increase to mana cost without a flinch, thanks to its high crit rate. I remember once trying that on my 80 mage and ended up getting horribly screwed because my mana emptied faster than... well faster than i could find an analogy for it. So, you can probably top charts like a b***h by hitting Blast and nothing else.... at least at the patch's current state. its probably just a little hickup that will be fixed later on. But if it stays like this, you'll be able to hit about 20k every 2 seconds or so, and that's freaking insane! and its usually always a crit so your mana keeps pumping back because of the Fire talent you picked up, leading to a freaking powerhouse of a spec, if not one of the most boring ever in way of rotation.
Subsection 2: Fire or BURNBURNBURNBURNBURNBURNBURN
Fire is back, kids. It is so freaking back and mroe beautiful than ever. Combustion has been retooled into a more wonderful talent than it was before(a hard thing to do, mind you) that will suck up ALL your fire DoT action(including aoe targeted stuff like flamestrike) into one uberDoT, letting you apply all the goodness all over again so you can have even MORE 'More DoT's'. Blast Wave is now targeted AND, thanks to a talent that also kills the cast time of 'strike, it will cause a Flamestrike to cast on the location of the Wave if it hits at least two people(and why wouldn't it?). i havent checked yet to see if you can have both Flame Strikes-the castable AND talent-based one) on at the same time because i was just too busy burning down a couple dummies to look. Needless to say, though, Fire is an easy spec to fall in love with
Subsection 3: Frost or .... okay i just dont like frost. you people are on your own with this one, i didnt even check it out.
Assessment 3: Shamans
All i got from Shamans is this: I REALLY need to level my Elemental. Seriously, i freaking loved playing with a 80 premade. it was insanely fun and a pissload more mana efficient than my doopy little 45 troll that sucks it down like a crack fiend.
So far, that's as far as i got, i will probably try some other as the days go on, but right now, i am really looking forward to the actual patch to launch. its gonna be a pretty good overhaul, people. Dont Panic, everything's going to be okay
