New Cataclysm Leaks: Mastery System and Zones [World of Warcraft]

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Now that the World of Warcraft "family and friends" closed-alpha testing is underway, new Cataclysm details and rumors are popping up in the blogosphere faster than ever before. Following last week's news about the upcoming expansion changing the structure of instancing, a series of unofficial and unconfirmed reports have begun circulating now that Cataclysm is somewhat "in-the-wild" (the "friends and family" testing phase isn't open to the public and the expansion technically remains under Blizzard's NDA).

World of Warcraft fansite WoW.com recently posted a couple of news items regarding Cataclysm's new "Mastery" system and zone listings. Since many fans might consider these details as spoilers, we won't post the specifics until after the jump. In this post at WoW.com, the site reports that an "anonymous tipster" sent in a "a text document that seems to reveal all the zones in World of Warcraft and also appears to include most of the new zones and subzones in Cataclysm," according to the post. Shortly after, in another report, the site references recent data-mining results gathered by MMO-Champion, which allegedly reveals all the class-specific Mastery system bonuses (only a few of these Mastery bonuses were confirmed in earlier forum and news announcements, so far). Complete details after the jump.

In WoW.com's recent post about the new Cataclysm zones, the site refers to a text file it received from an anonymous source. The site recognizes the potential for fake leads, but the text file apparently stood out because of its detail. "[...] it's reasonable to expect a lot of false information as tricksters try to take advantage of the community's interest," the post explains. "However, we examined the file closely and the wealth of details make it appear pretty legit." Either WoW.com or the anonymous tipster uploaded the information to Pastie.org, a text-file repository and hosting site. At the time of this writing, the file can be accessed at this link. The document, which contains more than 2,700 entries, appears to list every zone and sub-zone that will be in the game when Cataclysm is released (altered zones are reflected as well).

In a later post about the upcoming Mastery system, the site referenced new data-mining results from MMO-Champion. In these unconfirmed findings, MMO-Champion lists all the Mastery bonuses for each class, which includes three bonuses for each spec, as anticipated. (For example, Warrior: Arms, Fury and Protection spec bonuses.) Many of these bonuses were vaguely referenced by Blizzard in its series of Cataclysm class changes reports, but that information didn't include the specific bonus mechanics for each Mastery set. If MMO-Champions' findings are accurate and closely reflect the official data when Cataclysm is released, it's a nice glimpse of what players can expect to gain from the Mastery system. Again, check out this link for a list of all the alleged bonuses.



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