A few Cataclysm beta predictions

In considering the news that has come out about the class changes coming in Cataclysm, I have reached a few conclusions about what may happen on the beta testing realms. I say on the beta realms because everything we know now will likely change by the time Cataclysm ships, so for the sake of realistic expectations, I am limiting the duration of these predictions to the beta. Normally I don't make predictions like these because predictions of this nature are often based largely on conjecture, something that does not come easy to me. Still, from my experiences in game, I am pretty certain about what few predictions I make bellow.

1. Mastery will be a horrible stat for Restoration Druids.
As it stands, our third mastery bonus is this:
HoT Scale Healing – HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration Shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals.
Now, Blizzard has stated, that it is their intention to make us worry more about healing efficiently in Cataclysm than healing quickly in response to high damage, but even knowing that, I doubt that players will be at constantly low health. The healing mentality simply doesn't allow us to let players have low health for extended periods of time, except on fights like Anub'arak. All of the other healing classes will be using their direct heals to heal a target before our HoTs can tic on then, so our HoT targets won't be at low health for very long. This is problematic, for our mastery bonus will only be of any use when our targets are at low health. Sure, most of the other healing mastery bonuses are similar in that they are also only activated at low health or they cause extra healing, but while their mastery bonuses affect all of their spells, our mastery bonus will only affect our HoT spells, spells we don't depend on to save a low-health target. That's what Nourish and Regrowth's direct heal (and Healing Touch once Cataclysm launches, apparently) are for. Because of this, I predict that not only will our mastery bonus be pretty useless when the beta starts, but Mastery will also be a horrible stat for druids.

Now, there are two potential situations that could prove me wrong. A simple one would be if Blizzard changed our third mastery bonus to something with more universal appeal, such as increasing the healing of our heal over time abilities, or perhaps of our direct healing abilities (it would certainly be an interesting bonus). Another possibility is that the scaling applied to our HoTs could be so ridiculously large that a well-timed HoT tick on a low-health target could do a very large amount of healing. Even then, I feel that it would still be too random of an element for druids to favor while gearing up. We'll just have to wait and see.

2. Haste will be better for DoT- and HoT-based classes than direct damage and direct healing classes.
One of the announcements that seems to apply to all classes universally is that all HoTs and DoTs will scale with haste. However, haste will not indefinitely reduce the duration of our HoTs and DoTs; if the duration of a spell is reduced enough, then extra ticks will be added to the end of the spells as needed to keep the duration from getting too low. This means that haste will increase both the damage/healing per second and the damage/healing per mana of our over-time spells, while our direct damage/healing spells will only have their damage/healing per second increased. As such, I predict that the situation on the Cataclysm beta will be the reverse of what it is now: classes that specialize in over-time spells will pursue haste more actively than classes that specialize in direct spells.

3. Enhancement Shamans may stop using Flame Shock (and Lava Burst) once they get a certain amount of Mastery.
The Shaman's third enhancement mastery-bonus is currently set to increase their nature damage. This means that the damage of their Lightning Shield, Earth Shock, and their Maelstrom'ed Lightning Bolts will be increased as they invest more points in the Enhancement tree and get more mastery on their gear, but Flame Shock will not receive that same effect. (I mentioned Lava Burst because it will be affected by Maelstrom Weapon once Cataclysm hits, meaning Enhancement Shaman may use it.) However, it appears that Blizzard will still want Enhancement Shamans to use their fire abilities. Lava Lash doesn't show any sign of losing its Flametounge-based damage bonus, so Enhancement Shamans will probably still be applying Flametounge to their off-hand weapons. This means that when they use Unleash Weapon, (a new spell they will get at level 81), the damage of their next fire spell will be increased by 20%. This damage bonus may be designed to make up for the fact that mastery won't increase the damage of Flame Shock, but will it be enough? With Unleash Weapon on a 15-second cooldown and Flame Shock lasting 18 seconds, it might be, but at some point, I bet shamans will get enough mastery that it won't be enough of a bonus. Whether they reach that point in the beta or in tier-13 raids remains to be seen.