Upcoming talent change gutting

[Metuere]

I guess you don't raid or?

We have to make a choice when we don't know which will be the strongest spec; we'll have a hard time using OS healers / tanks to make up for afk's and Blizz normally hotfixes class balance a little bit into first tier so chances are whichever spec I picked might get nerfed so I'll spend the next few months grinding my teeth.

As to the catch up for OS weapons, far as I know there' no other mechanism than the fact that the artifact talents costs are exponential and then the class hall things where you start getting more and more AP from items. But it still will always means that AP for OS is AP away from MS.

Just know that while it might not be a problem for *you* it most certainly will be a problem for some of us. As a mage I'm used to being able to bring whichever of my three specs is strong for the fight we're currently progressing and now this will no longer be the case.

I do raid, and I can see where it would be a problem if the systems in place didn't make it much less of a problem than you're making it out to be. The off spec talents on the weapons don't scale exponentially based on your main spec weapon too. Just because your main weapon will cost 100k artifact power or something for the next talent, doesn't mean your off spec weapon will cost 100k artifact power for its first talent.

[Spunt]

As long as this item that lets us change talents on the fly, doesn't require one to be in a safe zone are super cheap and I can stack them to 200, I might be okay with this change.

[l33t]

So, its like this: somebody uses consumable and the tome appears; by clicking on that tome people can respec?

If it is, I love that change.

[Summer]

I do raid, and I can see where it would be a problem if the systems in place didn't make it much less of a problem than you're making it out to be. The off spec talents on the weapons don't scale exponentially based on your main spec weapon too. Just because your main weapon will cost 100k artifact power or something for the next talent, doesn't mean your off spec weapon will cost 100k artifact power for its first talent.

Of course not, but then having just the first talent will be pretty useless.

Fact is it's not possible to maintain them at a roughly similar level without seriously gimping the MS weapon progress. Whereas before this issue didn't even exist.

[darkwarrior42]

Maybe because they've decided that they deviated from the fact that specs mattered and wanted to return to that? I mean they've already pretty much shown that's what they wanted with returning to their idea of class fantasies?
Ontop of that it's hilarious seeing people beg for vanilla but when they try to bring vanilla concepts back into the game it's the end of the world.

Yes, well, I've long been convinced that people who enjoy Vanilla either just love the grind (in which case, I wonder why they aren't playing a more Eastern style MMO), or just are being very nostalgic.

The Class Fantasy thing I'm on board with conceptually, though I question some of their choices (Warrior and Outlaw, while cool, are very distinct changes from what we've seen, for instance.... less "go back to their roots" and more "create new identity).

*shrug* I don't think the gold cost would have made spec matter again. I'm not sure there's a feasible way to do that in WoW, without more substantial overhauls... the game is clearly designed around using DPS specs for a lot of content (I still don't believe they'll ever succeed at making healers good at leveling/dailies, let alone as efficient as dps specs), so asking people to lock themselves into a tank or healing spec is pretty painful. (I've played games that have done that, and done so unashamedly.... it does tend to encourage grouping even while questing, but it's also a pain if you're on when nobody's around).

In TBC I had to pay gold every time I swapped, but that didn't stop my Pally from tanking or healing as needed.... often times going back and forth multiple times in the same day. Spec wasn't an identity for me, it was a tool.... and that's what it would have been in Legion, even if they kept the gold cost.

[Jagorath]

Feels kinda weird -- one step forward, one or two steps back.
All in all, they could have kept respec tomes as they are, all they did is made things more annoying and expensive.

Watcher said :

When it comes to talents, which serve the primary purpose of customization and differentiation, consider two extremes in terms of how they could be handled. Please, take a moment to think through the following scenarios:

But i don't think it's true -- considering more rigid structure of raiding where some fights are more aoe, some single target or whatnot, talents are not choice per se, more like adaptability to the encounter.

[darkwarrior42]

So, its like this: somebody uses consumable and the tome appears; by clicking on that tome people can respec?

If it is, I love that change.

Basically. The cost, as I understand it, is meant to be annoying enough people wont' be doing this every 5 seconds while questing, but a raid group can certainly afford to drop one before a boss to let people swap out talents for specific fights.

So if you're running around the world, you'll probably be better off swapping in a safe zone... but between class order halls, inns, major cities, and the fact you just dont' need to swap that much outside of instanced or pvp content, I don't think it'll be a big deal.

[l33t]

Now stop stop stop people, is this change about changing specs or talents in a spec you currently have?

Because I'm all for this change when it comes to changing specs; but having to use a consumable after every trash pack in a raid because you need to change your aoe talents to ST talents and vice versa, as always, is stupid as hell.

[oplawlz]

Ontop of that it's hilarious seeing people beg for vanilla but when they try to bring vanilla concepts back into the game it's the end of the world.

They're not the same people.

OT: This is a non-issue. Personally I would have preferred a 6 hour cd on talent changes with the scribe item giving a daily quest for a reset off the cd, but hopefully this will deter people from feeling obligated to change talents for every fight without more drastic changes. I do think they should disable raid summons with this change though, just to drive the point home.

[Metuere]

Of course not, but then having just the first talent will be pretty useless.

Fact is it's not possible to maintain them at a roughly similar level without seriously gimping the MS weapon progress. Whereas before this issue didn't even exist.

Fact is that they've stated that levelling a second artifact will be substantially faster than levelling your first one, which if you put even the slightest bit of effort into will take hardly any time. I think I saw someone say that it takes about 2 months WITHOUT putting much effort in?
It's a non-issue.

Yes, well, I've long been convinced that people who enjoy Vanilla either just love the grind (in which case, I wonder why they aren't playing a more Eastern style MMO), or just are being very nostalgic.

The Class Fantasy thing I'm on board with conceptually, though I question some of their choices (Warrior and Outlaw, while cool, are very distinct changes from what we've seen, for instance.... less "go back to their roots" and more "create new identity).

*shrug* I don't think the gold cost would have made spec matter again. I'm not sure there's a feasible way to do that in WoW, without more substantial overhauls... the game is clearly designed around using DPS specs for a lot of content (I still don't believe they'll ever succeed at making healers good at leveling/dailies, let alone as efficient as dps specs), so asking people to lock themselves into a tank or healing spec is pretty painful. (I've played games that have done that, and done so unashamedly.... it does tend to encourage grouping even while questing, but it's also a pain if you're on when nobody's around).

In TBC I had to pay gold every time I swapped, but that didn't stop my Pally from tanking or healing as needed.... often times going back and forth multiple times in the same day. Spec wasn't an identity for me, it was a tool.... and that's what it would have been in Legion, even if they kept the gold cost.

Oh I wasn't referring to the gold cost being them making specs matter. I was meaning the choice of artifact that you start off with.

[Delimit]

I mean, why is swapping a bad thing? Adding arbitrary restrictions and costs to decision making doesn't make them feel anymore meaningful, it sounds a lot like a penalty for wanting to be better at your job.

[Nachtigal]

Of course not, but then having just the first talent will be pretty useless.

Fact is it's not possible to maintain them at a roughly similar level without seriously gimping the MS weapon progress. Whereas before this issue didn't even exist.

This isn't an "issue". It is a choice you have to make. Sometimes, you have to make difficult choices. Honestly, this is the first bit of meaningful progression/grind we've seen in quite a few years. It will give me something to work towards in the off hours. Instead of logging off for the night after raid because there's nothing left to do for character progression, I can go farm AP for my OS, on the offchance I'll want to use it later. Sure, that AP could be useful for my mainspec, but what would be better for my raid group? That next talent in my AP tree, or would it be better for me to progress my artifact for next raid so I can dabble in a little bit of my OS that would compliment the next fight a bit better?

Blizzard is doing good work with this artifact stuff, just because you've grown accustomed to the game being easy everywhere outside of mythic raiding content doesn't mean Blizzard should stay away from adding anything remotely challenging/grindy to your character's power progression. The community as a whole has been asking for more content, when Blizzard gives it to them, they go out and complain that they actually have to go out and do something, it's laughable how back-and-forth the community is as a whole. People can't see the forest for the trees.

[rda]

...

And so, alongside removing the respec cost, that same upcoming build will also restrict the ability to change talents when away from a safe area (defined as an area that provides the Rested state). We currently plan to give Scribes a recipe to craft a consumable Tome that can be dropped in order to allow all nearby players to retalent freely for a time - particularly useful for group play.

So, "we are going to remove the cost, but then we are going to limit you in an arbitrary way and we are going to allow you to remove the limit by paying a cost". ROFL.

They invented this "problem" of switching specs (so what if I change to, I don't know, "activate AoE talents before larger packs of enemies in a dungeon, and then switch back to single-target talents before a lieutenant or a boss"???? SO WHAT? put a 3-5-min cooldown onto the switch, done, solved), heroically "solved" it, got a ton of whine, heroically "solved" it the second time in a similarly idiotic way. Don't they have better things to do then invent artificial issues? I don't know, maybe finish Legion? Idiots.

[Metuere]

This isn't an "issue". It is a choice you have to make. Sometimes, you have to make difficult choices. Honestly, this is the first bit of meaningful progression/grind we've seen in quite a few years. It will give me something to work towards in the off hours. Instead of logging off for the night after raid because there's nothing left to do for character progression, I can go farm AP for my OS, on the offchance I'll want to use it later. Sure, that AP could be useful for my mainspec, but what would be better for my raid group? That next talent in my AP tree, or would it be better for me to progress my artifact for next raid so I can dabble in a little bit of my OS that would compliment the next fight a bit better?

Blizzard is doing good work with this artifact stuff, just because you've grown accustomed to the game being easy everywhere outside of mythic raiding content doesn't mean Blizzard should stay away from adding anything remotely challenging/grindy to your character's power progression. The community as a whole has been asking for more content, when Blizzard gives it to them, they go out and complain that they actually have to go out and do something, it's laughable how back-and-forth the community is as a whole. People can't see the forest for the trees.

This is pretty much my point. If blizzard was to make it so that all artifacts leveled with your main one, they'd be told there is nothing to do. They make it so they level separately, there it too much to do.

[DarthMonk79]

Well from everything I've heard and read there won't be much difference in the spec's anyways. ex... a fire mage won't blow a frost mage out of the water in dps. Yes, there's going to be minimal differences but heavenforbid you're guild can't come over the 0.5% dps difference. Also they're talking about scribes being able to make stuff where that is possible. Just something new to put in the game but make choices actually matter again. So I'm all for it, this game has been dumbed down so much, lets bring back having to think more and have consequences and stuff matter.

[Alvito]

Is there something I miss? Some hidden line? Text that was removed or why do you get all foaming at the mouth over this? So this is the dumbest idea ever? This of all changes? Hyperbole much?

This just hits more people, that and people love to piss and moan. I know I change talents far more then I switch specs so bumping up the cost of that is slightly annoying for the sake of being annoying.

[Nachtigal]

But what no one has seemed to realize, is that you can now switch between ALL of your specs, the only requirements being out of combat and a cast time.

But of course, people only want to see the bad in all of this.

[Summer]

This is pretty much my point. If blizzard was to make it so that all artifacts leveled with your main one, they'd be told there is nothing to do. They make it so they level separately, there it too much to do.

Different strokes for different folks. You enjoy the idea of a grind, I think it's a necessary evil they put in games like this I have to put up with if I want to raid. you think it's great to make a meaningful choice between specs, I detest that I won't be able to bring the full power of my class to progress but must choose to either go all in for one spec and be great on some fights and suck on others, or level two or three weapons at the same time and be mediocre on all fights. I'm sure that's a "meaningful" choice in the sense I'll think long and hard about it but it only serves to make me annoyed and frustrated. What do I care if nonraiders feel they have nothing to do? I'll have something to do while the mythic end boss is up and with our raiding hours that means a long time :P

Also the "short time" of two months, not sure what that's based on? But two months still means that early mythic raiding progress I will locked into one spec, not cool.

So yeah not a fan. If you like it, great, but no point in telling me I have to like it also.

[Leih]

Hah.

Well, people have been whining about wanting more Vanilla elements back in the game.

In seriousness though, I actually think this isn't such a bad change, though if they were serious about it I'd rather they went further than this. At the moment in beta, with no cost, no confirmation dialogue and instant free switching, it's far far too easy for it feel mandatory to switch your talents almost from mob to mob in dungeons (and presumably raids). Some people might like that gameplay, but I think it's a bit stupid. Picking talents is really not a choice or decision but rather one extra click you have to do. Like Watcher says, it's almost like you have a bunch of abilities you can only access from the spell book and between each pack of mobs you have to open your spellbook and drag the one you need next to your bar.

Making talent choices more of a commitment is definitely needed I think. I'm not sure if this is the best solution - but it definitely is a step in the right direction, even if it's possibly a little clunky.

One of the things WoW really needs right now is more weight to your choices and more differences between players. It's bad on live, it's even worse in the current beta build because it's so ridiculously easy to switch between all your "choices" they might as well not even exist.

[Rilas13]

This is interesting, I understand why they want to do it. In the argument of spec identity, I am more for trying to create a loyalty to one. But I think that the artifact weapons will take care of it fine in Legion so I'm not worried about it for now. People will be more primary to one spec then they have been in a long time.

As far as the talents, I don't think restrictions are a bad thing necessarily. This will force people to make more important choices, you will need to have an idea of what you will need for the raid, not setting up between every encounter for the best possible performance.
I certainly see why free talent changing that often is a bad thing. They aren't really meaningful choices like that. I fear that some people will feel obligated to change specs between encounters or bosses, all of the high end guilds will just pop the tomes between lots of the fights so it again becomes a minor inconvenience.
And like others said, people didn't want a gold cost so this is another way to go.