Upcoming talent change gutting

[Mafic]

Flying was a point of contention on announcment, but as someone in beta, PVP gear is literally worse than most PVE gear and it scales you to a template anyway, PVP gear give a very very tiny advantage as it has a fuck ton of versatility on it, but currently the game is so bursty and melee heavy it doesn't do shit

And also "half their abilities" gone is a gross hyperbolic statement, most classes even gained buttons through talents etc, some classes obviously lost buttons like MW and Hunter, but comparing most bars to live, I break even

I am not sure it is breaks even because some classes were pruned really hard. Rogues for example lost way too much and most talents are passive (literally 2/3 of talents for Rogues are passives).

The PVP gear changes are pointless because the PVP gear has versatility but that is disabled during instanced PVP due to templates. The entire concept of it is pushing PVP players to do PVE it seems to me.

[Mixxy]

I continue to not understand why the decision of whether to go to a city to change talents or stay suboptimal is better. If that's what you meant by it being a band-aid, then fine, but I think they are making things worse, not better.

You don't need to go to a city. You need to go anywhere you get Rested experience.

Inns give rested experience. And there's one in almost every quest hub you'll find.

[Mafic]

Why is the goal of sticking with a particular set of talents suddenly on the table? We didn't have that goal before. They designed talents explicitly to be situational, the entire change from talent trees to talent tiers was about that.

They want talents to have a high opportunity cost and be meaningful. But what Blizz fails to realize is that they have designed many talents that are:

1. Passive
2. Highly situational
3. Pits AoE talents versus single target

If they want players to stick with talents, then they need to make all talents powerful and not highly situational and niche.

[rda]

They were designed that way. They've undergone re-balancing and redesigning... and are going to go through a lot more when Legion launches.

Saying "We could swap in MoP so we should always be able to!" is like saying "We couldn't swap in Vanilla, so we shouldn't ever be able to!"

Things change.

"Things change" doesn't amount to much. If that's all they can say in defense of the decision - and I certainly didn't hear anything that would have made sense - it's a bad decision. Sure, things change. This particular change is making things worse, not better.

[deadman1]

If you're in a raid, chances are you'll have a Scribe to drop one if needed.
If you're in a five-man, you're not gonna need to fiddle with your talents. If you're in a five-man and you really need that extra 1% AoE DPS on trash pulls, maybe you're not ready for the content.
If you're out in the field, questing or doing dailies... and you REALLY need to swap talents take a minute or two to run to the nearest Inn.

You are conflating requirement with personal choice.

The free talent changes aren't limited to Order Halls/Cities. It's anywhere you get Rested. There are Inns everywhere.

I have yet to see 100% confirmation on that, but I'll take that as fact since I don't have complete evidence either way.

[rda]

You don't need to go to a city. You need to go anywhere you get Rested experience.

Inns give rested experience. And there's one in almost every quest hub you'll find.

We went full circle now. If this is easy and only a minor inconvenience, then why do this at all? No answer.

[deadman1]

Reference?

I'm not saying it isn't true, but I'd like to see it actually stated by a dev that they are designing fights around multiple re-talenting.

And using that as an example just means that they've overly homogenized the gameplay, and they should probably back off on talent based mechanics and work on more gameplay mechanics. If there is a boss that can't get done without a ton of movement based talents, maybe chop some HP off and force the raid to choose to throttle dps and build instant cast procs for the movement phase or let the raid choose to burst damage before the movement to off-set the DPS loss.

Most raiders know going in what fights will require what talent set, I don't think it's the talent swaps or picking the wrong talents that cause raids to hit a wall on harder bosses. Some are merely a bigger gear check and require multiple runs of lower bosses to gear on, some are simply mechanics that the raid needs to work around and get used to (ie L King and dropping people off the ledge.) Anyone who pugged during Thaddius in OG WoW will see what happens when raids can't get their mind around what are pretty simple mechanics. Hell in Cata you had Altairus, which was pretty similar to Thad (had to be cognizant on which side you were standing) except you just had to run upwind of the boss himself. And people still didn't get it until a couple of wipes in, and this was right after Naxx was released again in Wrath and Thadd was pretty much the same.

I see no reason why there can't be tighter tolerances on the bosses. Offset talent swapping with adjustments to the raid itself.

It doesn't need to be stated by a dev ... like I said

The fact that it takes the best of the best weeks or longer to kill a boss while playing 100% optimally is evidence of that.

Practice trumps intent.

[Raiju]

I have yet to see 100% confirmation on that, but I'll take that as fact since I don't have complete evidence either way.

Front page

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)

[Deleted]

I don’t see any issues honestly, this is more of an inconvenience than an actual problem. Just hearth and change talents, get summon back? Freaking out over nothing again...

[aethermachine]

Why is the goal of sticking with a particular set of talents suddenly on the table? We didn't have that goal before. They designed talents explicitly to be situational, the entire change from talent trees to talent tiers was about that.

Its not "all of the sudden" it's a new expansion and tons of changes happen. Also, talents were like this most of WoW's lifespan, it's not a crazy new idea.

And now they aren't, otherwise why the change? I don't like having to swap talents constantly to play optimally, that is just me, I know it doesn't satisfy everyone.

[Azlo]

As long as raid zones are "safe spaces" then we're good to go.

I like to experiment in between pulls (read: we don't kill the boss so all the "kill boss get safe space" solutions don't work). I guess Blizzard is telling me that the best way to play is to read a guide and just pick the talents that it recommends rather than trying to figure out the best talents for me.

[Dagzter]

I think Watcher trying to explain game development concepts to the playerbase is a lost cause though.

It certainly does when he employs nonsensical analogies (such as his example about switching talents between DPS and Mobility when sprinting between trash mobs, which is nonsensical as no class has Mobility and DPS talents on the same row anyway) and pointless straw-men arguments (such as his hypothetical scenario about actively switching talents in-combat, which no one has ever requested or discussed and is therefore completely irrelevant).

[rda]

Did you read the clarification? It's a scale. They believe they went too far and want to pull it back so that you don't just switch between trash > boss > trash > boss.

Switching at every inn/city is not 'never being able to switch' it generally rewards thinking ahead, though.

I read the clarification and I don't care what they think is too far. It's me playing the game, not them. It's me they should be asking regarding how things feel. I didn't ask them to dial it back, so leave that thing alone and find something better to do.

But whatever, look at the change. It will be either completely inconsequential if the scribe item is cheap, adding a minor inconvenience just because without changing much. Or it will replace the decision of "do I switch from talent / spec X to Y" - which, yes, is frequently clear at least for raiders after some weeks on content - with the "decision" of "do I switch or am I going to be lazy and suboptimal". How on earth is the latter decision better than the former??? It's just stupid.

[deadman1]

Front page

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)

Again the places he listed are all main city hubs. Like I said, I won't argue against it because the statements lean toward what you are saying, but I'd just like further clarification.

In this case, if you're returning to any safe area (your Class Order Hall, Dalaran, Stormwind, or whatever) in between activities

[Raiju]

It certainly does when he employs nonsensical analogies (such as his example about switching talents between DPS and Mobility when sprinting between trash mobs, which is nonsensical as no class has Mobility and DPS talents on the same row anyway) and pointless straw-men arguments (such as his hypothetical scenario about actively switching talents in-combat, which no one has ever requested or discussed and is therefore completely irrelevant).

He didn't strawman, he explicitly mentioned those as the 2 extremes of a scale to highlight it's a balance and not binary changes.

Also: most classes choose between defensive/healing & mobility on tiers.
@Mush you understand 'or whatever' is as obvious as it's going to get for pointing out the list was non-exhaustive and they explicitly stated the conditions - not stating cities, sanctuaries, or anything merely places that give rested.

[aethermachine]

"Things change" doesn't amount to much. If that's all they can say in defense of the decision - and I certainly didn't hear anything that would have made sense - it's a bad decision. Sure, things change. This particular change is making things worse, not better.

Did you read anything above "things change?"

[rda]

That is your personal opinion. I find that the explanation Blizzard gave on the change made a lot of sense.

"Things change" as a basis for changing things is noise.

- - - Updated - - -

Did you read anything above "things change?"

Yes, I did. Anything you wanted to say?

[Kelathos]

This is going to be so dumb for raiding they do realize that if they make getting those tomes even slightly hard to obtain that any raider is just going to hearthstone to Dalaran switch talents and take a summon back?

The value of Warlocks just skyrocketed.

[Mixxy]

"Things change" doesn't amount to much. If that's all they can say in defense of the decision - and I certainly didn't hear anything that would have made sense - it's a bad decision. Sure, things change. This particular change is making things worse, not better.

The talents and talent trees have all undergone pretty major changes since MoP introduced the idea of "changing on the fly". Most talent tiers now have a set theme.

There's the "survival tier" at, say, level 15. Then the "mobility tier" at 30. And then the "AoE tier" at level 45. There's no longer any need to swap between them from fight to fight. The only reason we still DO is because, by the very natural of the universe, some talents are gonna perform slightly better than others on certain fights.

Not enough that you need to use it. But enough that if you do swap to that talent, you'll do like 1% better.



I can't believe people are putting up this much of a fuss over that small a loss. It wasn't fun, it wasn't engaging. It was just "Hold on guys, I wanna change my talents" every other trash pull.
Take five extra seconds before the pull... or take five extra seconds to kill the mobs. Who cares? Nothing changed. Only your numbers on Recou- ooh and I just figured out why people are upset.
As always, it comes down to epeen.

[Mafic]

The talents and talent trees have all undergone pretty major changes since MoP introduced the idea of "changing on the fly". Most talent tiers now have a set theme.

There's the "survival tier" at, say, level 15. Then the "mobility tier" at 30. And then the "AoE tier" at level 45. There's no longer any need to swap between them from fight to fight. The only reason we still DO is because, by the very natural of the universe, some talents are gonna perform slightly better than others on certain fights.

Not enough that you need to use it. But enough that if you do swap to that talent, you'll do like 1% better.



I can't believe people are putting up this much of a fuss over that small a loss. It wasn't fun, it wasn't engaging. It was just "Hold on guys, I wanna change my talents" every other trash pull.
Take five extra seconds before the pull... or take five extra seconds to kill the mobs. Who cares? Nothing changed. Only your numbers on Recou- ooh and I just figured out why people are upset.
As always, it comes down to epeen.

A lot of classes in Legion lost themed talent tiers...which is why warlocks have to choose now between a defensive or demonic port.