World of Warcraft - Class Talent Systems Panel

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Talents 2.0
  • Major change to class talent trees, and this is a new phase of development for the talent system.
  • The goal is to have you sit to another next to another combat rogue, and this combat rogue will actually have different talents than you do!
  • Character customization was the original point of talents in the first place but overtime cookie cutter builds dominated the scene.

New Model
  • Class Abilities are available to all specs in the class. All warriors learn heroic strike for example.
  • Spec Abilities are available to certain specs. Only Arms warriors learn Slam. Retribution and Protection paladin get Hammer of the Righteous, etc ...
  • Talents are optional skills/bonuses available to all specs. Any warrior can choose Throwdown, and you will have to pick between 3 different crowd control abilities on this level of talent.
  • Level 15 - You pick your first talent. For example, warriors have to pick between Juggernaut / Double Time / Warbringer and players will have to pick which mobility ability they want to pick depending on their playstyle.

Talent Philosophy
  • Access to stuff you never could before. If you were a subtlety rogue you knew you weren't going to get something like Killing Spree. And because talents are going to be all in the same tree, you're going to be able to combine them in a way that you never could before. For example, any rogue can have Shadowstep!
  • Several new, overpowered (feeling) talents will be added to the game.
  • If you don't see a beloved talent in your new talents list, don't worry, it's probably something we gave your spec as a baseline. For example all Holy priests now have Circle of Healing.
  • No mandatory talents anymore.
  • Every choice should be hard but fun!

Talent Preview
  • Design will iterate a lot on individual talents
  • Don't obsess about the numbers

Death Knight
See screenshots of all tiers


Druid
See screenshots of all tiers


Hunter
See screenshots of all tiers


Mage
See screenshots of all tiers


Paladin
See screenshots of all tiers


Priest
See screenshots of all tiers


Rogue
See screenshots of all tiers


Shaman
See screenshots of all tiers


Warlock
See screenshots of all tiers


Warrior
See screenshots of all tiers


Change is scary!!!
  • Talents aren't set in stone yet.
  • Questions will be answered during the Q&As tomorrow.
  • An online developer Q&A will happen on October 27
This article was originally published in forum thread: World of Warcraft - Class Talent Systems Panel started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 244 Comments
  1. kingmob's Avatar
    The real issue with cookie cutter specs is the sway that the theory crafting and hardcore raiding cultures have on the game. People are always going to copy people like Landsoul, etc. I think it's going to be game-changing for spec freedom but I still think the broad spec types of tank/dps/healer are going to exist. Anyone hoping for genuine hybridization from these changes is getting their hopes up too soon.
  1. Sw1tch's Avatar
    These talents are just examples right? Because this would be terrible. Like who wouldn't pick Vendetta for rogues
  1. Arcangel14's Avatar
    Druid "talents" sounds pretty bad...
  1. Nestle's Avatar
    I'm sorry, I usually am all for what blizzard does, but those mage talents just plain suck for PVE lol
  1. Sw1tch's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nestle View Post
    I'm sorry, I usually am all for what blizzard does, but those mage talents just plain suck for PVE lol
    Yeah i'm hoping that this is just example.
  1. mmoc27d21589f6's Avatar
    No mandatory talents anymore.
    That's great: eliminating the problem of mandatory talent by directly eliminating any form of choice by the player. You can't miss a mandatory talent anymore, because you can't choose it, you are forced by the game to learn it as you level up. There aren't cookie cutter build anymore, the game now automatically give your class a cookie cutter build and you refine the edges. Ridiculous.
  1. probert's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by kingmob View Post
    The real issue with cookie cutter specs is the sway that the theory crafting and hardcore raiding cultures have on the game. People are always going to copy people like Landsoul, etc. I think it's going to be game-changing for spec freedom but I still think the broad spec types of tank/dps/healer are going to exist. Anyone hoping for genuine hybridization from these changes is getting their hopes up too soon.
    As a WoW community, we have Trion to thank for showing up Blizzard on their talent strategy in Cataclysm.

    Prior to Cata, Morhaime was waxing philosophically about how cool Modern Warfare 3 skill unlocks were, and how talents were essentially too complicated. We thus got 3 talent trees, where the ability choices were minimal to the extent that every player was the same once they picked their role.

    Trion went the route of virtually unlimited choice... Blizz even chided Rift for being unbalanceable. Guess what? There's hardcore min/maxers in any game EVER -- wow, rift, world of tanks, pokemon...super mario brothers...pong. Trion left the community to police itself (tweaking abilities between patches, as a matter of course) and its worked out fine. Choice = risk, and I'd prefer playing a game where I can make choices and play the way I want.

    I'm glad Blizzard hasn't lost the ability to correct their mistakes. This new talent system looks much more promising!
  1. Nirosu's Avatar
    Some class talents seem really bad, guessing their will be more changes to them along with pairing and different ones. Definitely will have cookie cutters for pvp for pve seems like it talents don't seem like they will matter too much to how effective you are.
  1. Firen's Avatar
    Keep in mind we're months away from beta and even more months from the release. I don't think everything presented here will actually go into the game like this.
  1. Nak's Avatar
    Holy crap... Death Knights acutally get Remorseless Winter! I never thought this day would happen!!! Thank you Blizzard T-T to bad it got extremely nerfed from Halls of Reflection... lol
  1. iorcedurmother's Avatar
    So there's only one talent tree for every class?
  1. k1037's Avatar
    People who think this is going to add customization or unique builds: You can change them at any time, just like glyphs. EVERYONE will have access to EVERYTHING. There's no need for cookie cutter anything now - because you won't actually have specs or ever need to choose anything other than what you want to use for the next 5 minutes. This makes all players identical.
  1. The Ogdru Jahad's Avatar
    This looks like a pretty wrong direction to go in for talents.
  1. Glaziola's Avatar
    I like the new dk spells/talents makes us feel more like the lich king ^^
  1. ZenX's Avatar
    I for one am happy about the new DK talents, though would have been happier if some of our baseline abilities for not made into talents, but instead we were given newer talents : /
  1. Sw1tch's Avatar
    All i have to say is:

    The talents in the mage tree better be dramatically changed for Mists. Mana Shield, seriously?!?
  1. mmocdf27a6c601's Avatar
    anyone has the screenshots of the class coolest logos ever?
  1. mmoce6f32586f5's Avatar
    shamans 404
  1. Ohforfsake's Avatar
    haha bear hug! this is so epic and mass aoe death grip to druids? holy *bleep* XD ..and a vanish too!
  1. iorcedurmother's Avatar
    Since this will be working like glyphs the only difference this will make is cookie cutter builds for each separate encounter. Except instead of having 3 diff classes with 3 different talent specs it's gonna end up with every spec of one class most likely having the same spec for each different encounter.

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