World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Preview

The folks at Mana Pool have put together a quick preview of Cataclysm, though it doesn’t appear to be based on any hands-on time with the World of Warcraft expansion pack.

Six years of skills, spells and specs have left the game’s spellbooks and talent trees rather bloated. One of the major changes to the game comes with the reduced talent trees, having been cut from 71 points to 31. Further, despite promises of certain stats being removed from the game (from Blizzcon 2009 (Spellpower gone. Attack power gone.)) Not quite. Spellpower and attack power are still alive and well, they’re just not on every piece of gear. Instead, players will stack hit rating (because that’s a fun stat to raise), along with some others, depending on the class. So, those stats aren’t gone, per se, as much as replaced by other stats.

While I do agree that the talent trees needed to shed some excess weight, too much shedding might prove jarring and disorienting to the loyal, long-time player. On the other hand, it might be slightly more user-friendly to the new players. Only time will tell at this point, though if you’re interested in seeing the changes, many of them are already live on US and EU servers.