Official expansion talent previews

[Kevin]

They also changed Anticipation to be 4 defense per point instead of 2.

Improved Rend is now +75% bleed damage for 3/3.

Looks like they migh have changed Improved Thunderclap too.
It's now dmg/slow/rage of 40%/4%/1, 70%,7%,2, and 100%/10%/4.

That does make anticipation a little more interesting, though I still expect that you'll see single pieces of armor with that much def on them still. It does mean a constant 0.8% dodge, 0.8% parry, and 0.8% block. So 5% for 1.6% physical damage avoidance, a bit less chance to get crit, some more block %. It's approaching the returns you get for something like deflection. It's more valuable when in a resist set that saps a lot of the physical mitigation from the gear sets. Nice change, though I'm not sure that it will be taken over tactical mastery for most builds.

I keep wondering what kind of damage a build with imp heroic strike + Focused rage (9 rage heroic strikes) + piercing howl could do for damage since HS does more damge to a dazed target. Though it would be nice if booming voice affected piercing howl as well, keeping that up would be 1 2/3 rage / s. Though I guess a 9 second spammable snare would be pretty powerful. I just want to know how much extra damage HS gets on a dazed target. Might not need piercing howl with shield bash doing a daze too and that should be dropped to 7 rage thanks to focused rage.

I guess I really want more info on on just how much of an increase some of the new synergies do. :)