Talent trees in the most recent beta build

I’ve been playing around with the latest beta build talent trees. MMO Champ’s Cata Talent Calculator is fairly updated, though they haven’t yet made the Furor and Heart of the Wild swap (Furor is now in the Feral tree and Heart of the Wild is in Resto). Otherwise it looks alright though.

The kitty spec is fairly straightforward in my opinion.

Feral Tree:

Tier 1:

Feral Swiftness 2/2: Increases your movement speed by 30% in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form or Bear Form by 4%.

Furor 3/3: Gives you 60% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear Form, and you keep up to 60 of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin/Caster form by 6%.

Predatory Strikes 2/2: Increases the critical strike chance of your Ravage by 50% on targets at or above 90% health, and your finishing moves have a 20% chance per combo point to make your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. become an instant cast spell.

Tier 2:

Fury Swipes 3/3: When you auto-attack while in Cat form or Bear form, you have a 12% chance to gain an extra auto-attack on the same target. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.

Primal Fury 2/2: Gives you a 100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage anytime you get a critical strike while in Bear and Dire Bear Form and your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point.

Feral Agression 2/2: Increases the damage caused by your Ferocious Bite by 10% and causes Faerie Fire (Feral) to apply 3 stacks of the Faerie Fire effect when cast.

Tier 3:

King of the Jungle 3/3: While using your Enrage ability in Bear Form, your damage is increased by 15%, and your Tiger's Fury ability also instantly restores 60 energy.

Feral Charge 1/1: Teaches Feral Charge (Bear) and Feral Charge (Cat).

Feral Charge (Bear) - Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for until cancelled. This ability can be used in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form. 15 second cooldown.

Feral Charge (Cat) - Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 sec. 30 second cooldown.

Improved Feral Charge 2/2: Increases your melee haste by 15% after you use Feral Charge (Bear) for 8 sec, and Ravage will temporarly not require stealth for 3 sec after you use Feral Charge (Cat).

Tier 4:

Leader of the Pack 1/1: While in Cat Form or Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%. In addition, your melee critical strikes in Cat Form and Bear Form cause you to heal for 8% of your total health and gain 8% of your maximum mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.

Tier 5:

Primal Madness 2/2: Tiger's Fury and Berserk also increase your current and maximum energy by 20 during their durations, and your Enrage and Berserk abilities instantly generate 12 Rage.

Survival Instincts 1/1: Reduces all damage taken by 60% for 12 seconds. Only usable while in cat or bear form.

Endless Carnage 2/2: Increases the duration of your Rake by 6 sec and your Savage Roar and Pulverize by 6 sec.

Tier 6:

NomNomNom 2/2: When you Ferocious Bite a target at or below 25% health, you have a 100% chance to instantly refresh the duration of your Rip on the target.

Rend and Tear 3/3: Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 20%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 25%.

Tier 7: 

Berserk 1/1: When activated, this ability causes your Mangle (Bear) ability to hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown, and reduces the energy cost of all your Cat Form abilities by 50%. Lasts 15 sec. You cannot use Tiger's Fury while Berserk is active. 

Clears the effect of Fear and makes you immune to Fear for the duration.

Resto Tree:

Tier 1:

Blessing of the Grove 2/2: Increases the damage done by shred by 4%.

Natural Shapeshifter 3/3: Reduces the mana cost of all Shapeshifting by 30%.

Heart of the Wild 3/3: Increases your maximum mana by 15%. In addition, while in Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 10% and while in Cat Form your attack power is increased by 10%.

Tier 2:

Master Shapeshifter 1/1: Increases critical strike chance by 4% in cat form.

The kitty spec is fairly straightforward. I’ve skipped Infected Wounds as more of a situational PVE talent (some cats pick this up currently for HM Lich King work to slow Valks), a bear talent, or PVP talent. Similarly, Nurturing Instinct I tend to find a bit more of a PVP talent (for self-heals) but may also have situational use in PVE. Survival Instincts (now only a damage reduction tool) is also arguably a situational PVE talent, however I find this a much more useful tool to pick up. In its new form in Cata, it operates much more like a Shield Wall which has a great place in reducing damage in fights (particularly if you pull aggro on something accidentally), so it may be a situational tool but a much more useful one. Good to pick up!

The Restoration spec I’ve seen a lot more room for different specs. The build I’m currently liking is as follows:

Restoration:

Tier 1:

Blessing of the Grove 2/2: Increases healing of your Rejuvenation by 4%.

Natural Shapeshifter 3/3: Reduces the mana cost of all Shapeshifting by 30%.

Tier 2:

Master Shapeshifter 1/1: Increases healing by 4%.

Improved Rejuvenation 3/3: Increases the effect of Rejuvenation by 15%.

Naturalist 0-3/3: Reduces the cast time of Nourish and Healing Touch by .1-.5 seconds.

Tier 3:

Living Seed 3/3: When you critically heal a target with Swiftmend, Regrowth, Nourish, or Healing Touch you have a 100% chance to plant a Living Seed on the target for 30% of the amount healed. The Living Seed will bloom when the target is next attacked. Lasts 15 seconds.

Revitalize 0-3/3: When your Regrowth or Lifebloom ticks critically hit, you instantly regenerate 1-3% of your mana. Effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds.

Nature’s Swiftness 1/1: When activated,  your next Nature spell with a base casting time of less than 10 seconds becomes an instant cast spell.

Tier 4:

Nature’s Bounty 3/3: Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 30% on targets at or below 25% health, and you have a chance when you critically heal with your Nourish or Healing Touch spells to reduce the cooldown on your Swiftmend by .5 seconds.

Empowered Touch 2/2: Your Healing Touch spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects and your Nourish spell has a 100% chance to refresh your Lifebloom on your target.

Tier 5:

Efflorescence 3/3: When you critically heal with your Regrowth spell you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, healing all nearby friendly targets within 15 yards who stand on them for 30% of the amount healed by your Regrowth every sec for 7 sec.

Wild Growth 1/1: Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 2866.15 over 7 sec. Prioritizes healing most injured party members. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration.

Gift of the Earthmother 2/2: Iincreases the healing done by the bloom effect of your Lifebloom by 10%, and your Rejuvenation spell also instantly heals for 6% of the total periodic effect.

Tier 6:

Empowered Rejuvenation 3/3: The bonus healing effects of your healing over time spells and Swiftmend is increased by 12%.

Tier 7:

Tree of Life 1/1: Shapeshift into the tree of life, increasing healing done by 15% and armour by 120%. Some spells are also enhanced.

Balance tree:

Tier 1:

Nature’s Grace 3/3: All non-periodic spell criticals have grace you with a blessing of nature, increasing your spell casting speed by 15% for 3 sec.

Nature’s Majesty 2/2: Increases the critical strike chance of your Wrath, Starfire, Starfall, Nourish and Healing Touch spells by 4%.

Tier 2:

Genesis 3/3: Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic spell damage and healing effects and by Swiftmend by 6%.

Moonglow 2/3: Reduces the Mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Starfall, Starsurge, Wrath, Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by 3%/6%/9%.

The main points I’m having a real debate on are those in Naturalist and Revitalize. I will have to see both in action - as Naturalist reduces Nourish cast time as well, I imagine it will be useful. It’s my understanding that both may still have their cast times reviewed, so hopefully it’s not too painful, though apparently Naturalist was put back in because the cast times were feeling too long in beta. We will have a lot of haste in Cata though (particularly as haste will affect our HoTs too) so we’ll have to see how much that cuts down the cast times. 

I would be interested to see just how often Revitalize procs in its new inception, though I see that as being the best talent to drop points in if picking up points in Naturalist. With larger mana pools in Cata and an increased emphasis on thoughtful healing and mana conservation, I think it may be feasible to skip this talent. The mana return isn’t massive, and if one is already being careful with their mana management, it may not make too large of a difference.

The other point I was disappointed to drop was the one point in Moonglow. Due to the nature of the new talent trees, and being unable to spend more than 10 points in the Balance tree, you will basically have to choose whether you want 3/3 in Genesis or in Moonglow (or neither, if you simply put more points elsewhere). The boost to HoTs and to Swiftmend provided by Genesis just felt too important to miss, though, so I deemed the point in Moonglow necessary to drop. At higher gear levels for PVE raiding, this will likely be the optimal choice to maximize healing; better gear should result in larger mana pools and mana regen, and raiding compositions will likely provide replenishment, so the boosts to healing will be more valuable.

With the mana/intellect changes to both Furor and Heart of the Wild, and also the change in their positions (the swap between the Feral and Restoration trees), I considered trying to incorporate those talents into a Restoration spec. I personally did not feel it was feasible, as there was no place I was willing to sacrifice points to inject into those talents. One could argue sacrificing Moonglow for them, though I think the reduced mana cost provided by Moonglow (on a lot of spells, I might add) is more valuable. Furor might be potentially valuable with the increase to intellect, especially as intellect will be feeding into Spellpower come Cata, however for only 2/4/6% intellect I still don’t feel it’s worth sacrificing points elsewhere. Furor now being in the Feral tree also makes it more difficult, as there’s nothing else in the Feral tree worth picking up - the points could be better spent elsewhere to get to additional tiers. The Heart of the Wild mana boost is still better for Ferals in my opinion, given that it provides simply an increase in mana pool, as it provides ferals with a more natural mana pool increase as there won’t be any intellect on feral gear.

All of this is subject to change, of course! We’ll see what the next beta build brings us...