The New Face of Mastery and Trees

After the upset of the new Real ID change we needed something to once again lift our spirits and the great and wonderful Zarhym has brought it with the announcement of a HUGE overhaul to Mastery and the Talent system.

It was a very long post so rather than pull out alot of big quotes I will just sum up each change and give you my thoughts as we go.

The first and largest change is that Talent tree will be trimmed down to 31 points as opposed to the 51 we have currently.
Their goal with this is to help in the removal of boring and passive bonus talents.
To go with the reduction in talents they are also reducing the number of points we have to spend giving us our first point at level 10 then alternating every level after that between a new spell and a new talent point.
I am very happy with this change, it solves the problems Blizzard were having with bloated trees, much larger trees due to increased level cap and helps give us more interesting talents all in one swoop. Also the alternating rewards as you level will help keep each new level rewarding while making sure that its not just another "Ding".

The next change in line for Talent trees is that once you choose your tree you will not be able to take points in the other two trees until you reach 70 and take your 31st talent.
I have mixed feelings on this one as we have yet to see the new trees. My biggest worry is if mandatory talents for two specs lay in one tree for example Meditation in the Discipline tree for leveling Holy Priests currently. However if they can get around this issue then this will help with new players choosing a working spec rather than spreading their points around as some do currently.

The next change takes a grey area halfway between Mastery and Talent Tree's and its goal is to help define the separate trees early. To do this they have set in place a new system where upon setting your first Talent point you will automatically be given a trademark spell for that tree and at least one passive ability. For example a Ret Paladin might be given Divine Storm and Art of War.

Next up are changes to they way Mastery works. They have removed the slow scale of the first tier bonus's and instead made it so the bonus is automatically given in full upon reaching a certain point.
The second change to Mastery is that you must buy the skill "Mastery" from your trainer at 75 before you can use the stat when it appears on gear at 78. This will be similar to buying Dual Weld or Plate Armour and wont make much difference to how the stat is planned to work currently.

Overall these are some very large and very positive change for Cataclysm and now we also have the promise of a showing of the full Talent Trees for all classes some time in the near future.
Di spite what may be happening on the forums Cataclysm just keeps getting better and better.