New Talent changes planned for Cataclysm

New changes are coming soon (tm)! Before I begin with anything, please read the following:

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25626290449/cataclysm-class-amp-mastery-systems-update/

Did you read that yet? In all it's entirety? Good.

Here is a quick rundown of what we can expect for things to come

• At level 10, you choose a Specialization (Lets choose, hmm, I don't know, Retribution)
• Once you place your first talent point, you gain passive abilities and "standard" abilities that your spec needs to be viable. Going with our randomly picked example above, we'd gain both increased Melee Damage, increased Melee Crit Chance, and Divine Storm- ALL at level 10, in addition to our bonus from the first talent point.
• Talent points will be gained every even level, and new spells will be gained every odd level (roughly).
• Once you choose a Specialization at level 10, you CANNOT spec in any "off tree"- This means no talent points in either Protection or Holy- until level 70 (or, until you gain your level 31 ability).
• Most trees have 38-42 total talents.
• Mastery will be a level 75 (or 77, etc.) trainable ability- This is where the "third bonus" of today's trees come into play. I'll assume you get a slight passive bonus, as the Mastery stat does not appear on gear until later.
• You will have a total of 41 points available to spent at level 85, with a minimum build of 0/0/31 in this example.
• Duel specs will work just like they work on live.
• All of these changes are included in the Beta Build, and are ready to go! Yay!

In addition, 2 good Blue quotes by none other than GC popped up, when asked abotu Rets with the new Talent system:

Ret Paladins should feel like Arms warriors who trade off some of their mobility for healing and defenses, and do more Holy damage instead of bleed damage

Final ret talent is more likely to be "Adds 2% additional stats to your blessing of kings"

No, it will be Repentance.

Or maybe Lacerate (the Survival hunter one).

(No it won't.)

From these 2 posts, we can infer that:

1. We may or may not get a gap closer or snare.
2. We may keep some of our defenses, possibly Cleanse or Divine Protection.
3. There will be 3 more "interesting" talents for Ret (since 2 of them, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm, are "baseline" to the spec).

All in All, things look pretty good so far. It will be a very interesting an exciting week once these changes are shown. Stay tuned for more news soon, as well as a complete Talent point breakdown!

~Ron