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The Big News
Recently Blizzard announced plans to trim some loose branches from the talent trees in an attempt to overhaul the trees altogether. They also reduced the number of talents a character has available and how quickly we gain them . At level 85 each character has 41 Talent points to spend – the kicker is you absolutely HAVE to spend 31 in your tree of choice. No more Hybrid specs…

Increasing Options by Severely Limiting Them
With less total points to spend each talent point becomes more valuable. This will presumably be a challenge to developers when it comes to balance, but also in that we need to have meaningful options. The big promise with this change is that we’ll be losing a lot of fat and keeping the good stuff. Judging by the current (and incomplete) Death Knight trees, I’m hopeful. They’ve economized by getting rid of “bonus” filler like Improved Rune Tap and simply baking the Improved into the basic talent. So now for one point in Rune Tap you get an ability that heals you for 20% of your health with a 30 second cooldown.

These changes are bound to have significant impact on what talents become popular. In the case of Rune Tap there has long been a division between players on whether it’s too expensive to be worthwhile or as I’ve always put it, “It’s a freaking heal pot on steroids you can use over and over in a single fight!” Now we have the super version for a single point AND it’s synergy with the newly reworked Will of the Necropolis which, when procced refreshes a Blood Rune and finishes the Cooldown on your Rune Tap. Add to this a mastery bonus that gives us damage absorption everytime we heal ourselves. All that together results in: if you don’t have Rune Tap and you’re a Blood Tank – you are doing it WRONG!

One interesting thing to note is that some of your favorite and essential tanking talents are now baked into the tree, meaning that when you choose your primary tree you get access to those abilities immediately. What does Blood get?

+ Blood
A dark guardian who manipulates and corrupts life energy to sustain himself/herself in the face of an enemy onslaught.

» Veteran of the Third War (Currently a 3 Point Talent)
» Death Rune Mastery (Currently a 3 Point Talent)
» Heart Strike (Currently a 1 Point Talent)
» Vengeance (Mastery)
» Healing Absorption (Mastery)

The Bear in the Room
This does beg a question or two though, since we’re now forced to dedicate ourselves to a specific tree – why not give us Crit Immunity with the other abilities rather than spending 2 of our now much more valuable Talent points on Crit Immunity instead? Blame it on Druids, it wouldn’t make sense for Feral cats to have Crit Immunity, and it would probably end up being imbalanced. And it’s not likely that Blizzard will remove the kitties either. However, Ferals in general seem to be problematic in the new system which is why I mention keeping a wary eye their direction – I REALLY don’t know how they’re going to balance Feral at this point.

Back to Death Knights
The new trees are shaping up, but honestly there’s not much outside of the Blood tree to get. It’s more about what you like best in the second tiers of Frost and Unholy. With this few talents to spend outside of Blood it’s not likely you’ll see many 31/5/5 specs running around. More likely you’ll see 31/10/0 or 31/0/10 or some variation. For me it comes down to two talents Morbidity in the Unholy Tree and Lichborne in Frost. Morbidity is great on multiple mobs, Lichborne for the MT is great. So it’s a real toss up, but probably depends on what you end up doing the most. If you’re normally on add duty go for Morbidity. If you’re the guild MT go for Lichborne.

Personally, I’m going with Lichborne. What makes it so great? For starters being immune to Charm, Fear, and Sleep for the duration. And being able to heal yourself with Death Coils (it makes you Undead temporarily). Also Runic Empowerment from the first tier of the Frost tree is likely to be a godsend for tanking with the new rune mechanics.

My Current Death Knight Tanking Spec of Choice – ( here )

Final Thoughts
It’s still a bit early to say a lot about the new talent system, I will say though that I think it has the potential to be really great. As ever I am cautiously optimistic, here’s hoping the end of the world is worth it…