Q&A talent response

[Deleted]

I love the way they make "freely switching talents would enable player to pick the best ones all the time" sound like it's a bad thing lol

I thought that was the whole point of having fucking talents in the first place

Particularly when the warlock talents are specifically designed so that to perform one role effectively you automatically perform another badly. Warlocks, particularly affliction and destruction, have to give up a hell of a lot of single target to do proper aoe (and vice versa).

If that was part of a sensible "strength and weakness" map and applied to all classes, it wouldn't be an issue. But of course it is not. You got god-classes able to aoe and single target effectively.

Which means in pug groups they are the automatic preferred choice. Why bother to take an afflock, yeah great on aoe but that's all he can do, he will be absolute garbage on the bosses, cleaving, bursting anything down etc. Just take a mage with Living Bomb who will also be able to do way way better boss damage. Mind you that is true even if the afflock takes single target talents anyway, the pitiful few you see around don;t even bother.

[Nevcairiel]

The key point is that they want you to make a meaningful choices, and if it would be free you could literally macro talent changes and switch for every single mob, which would take basically all meaning out of any choices you make.

But of course they explained that as well

[Deleted]

As I said, I wouldn;t have such an issue with talents being like this if it applied to everyone but they don't.

But of course I explained that as well.

I realise they want talents to be "significant choices" but the point is that they are way more significant and limitting for some classes than others. Destro and affliction can;t really do effective aoe and single target damage. Mages and hunters can. The differences between their aoe and single target talents are smaller, and they get more compensation in their artifacts.

Affliction is an extreme example. You've already got mediocre single target damage, and to go all-out aoe you have to give up a lot of that on top, and the artifact has no compensatory trait to round things out because it too is tilted towards aoe. Mages have strong single target and giv eup a small amount to go aoe. Barrage is such a good talent they foudn it necessary to nerf it, presumably to make the othe talents look more desirable, but every hunter I see still takes barrage.

The result is not people taking "significant choices". Mages pick a best all-rounder and stick with it, and afflocks talent full aoe to be the party trash-bitch and get carried through the boss fights. One natural consequence is that all-rounders are more desirable for parties - if you got an afflock in a dungeon you need a high single target class to balance them out. Most pugs don;t want the bother, they just pick a good at all things class instead of an afflock.


That's not choice. It's being tunneled into a role. What's the problem with swapping talents often? It adds more variety and interest to the game if you have to work out what is best for a particular situation, particularly as it means adapting your rotation and using a broader range of abilities as well.

And it's even more bizarre that you can change your entire spec for free without limit (except in M+)..but not talents within a spec.

Shouldn;t your speciality be an even more significant choice than your talents? Talents are there as enhancers to allow you to adapt to different requirements.

[gruxxar]

I tell you what, I played on the beta when you could swap talents around with eaze and i honestly had a blast. You could setup macros for the different roles you wanted to fulfill and it made your playstyle different constantly.

I mean, if all specs have st/cleave/aoe talents why not let the free swapping occur? (Outside of spels that are on cd) then there wouldnt be a few specs that feel so underwhelming in some areas

[Jessicka]

If you can freely switch all the time, they might as well be all unlocked all the time. There are plenty of talents that you either use or you don't, though, like Sow the Seeds; you pick it because you're casting SoC, or you don't because you're not going to. So in many ways it wouldn't make any difference to those. I think this is why some are going baseline. For it to be meaningful, you should want all of them and miss them when they're not picked. They seriously missed that mark in the current game.

The problem is these talents, and in particular the binary AoE build Vs ST build that make so much swapping desirable, not the inability to free swap.

[Gaidax]

Talents should represent a meaningful choice, if everything is free for all, then what's the point of talents even besides maybe locking out broken combos by sticking them on the same row?

IMO, current system is not good, but free for all like it was in beta FOR SURE is not good, it simply both sacrifices the flavor and customization for your character and is a hassle really.

[Catalystics]

uhmm, altho i find it annoying as well. We are warlocks, set up a summ stone and voila.

[Walrock]

I find it a little bit confusing that in an addon, where everything is about your class, spec and identity, you can switch your identity(aka spec) every 5 seconds without cost, going from being a healer to tanking everything you see, but changing you playstyle a bit is locked behind tomes/cost.

I think we should go back to the old system, changing your spec should cost 25g up to 100g, free in rest xp zones and when you join via the LFG tool.
Changing talents is free, but you can only change them for 1 min with a 10 min cd, ofc still locked for M+.

The reskill tomes become AP absorb tomes, allowing you to invest AP into those tomes which you can then send to an alt (acc-bound to prevent selling AP), making alts more playable without having to wait weeks to make AP farming bearable.
This assures that the inscription profession keeps it profit point and the player gets more freedom.

[BannedForViews]

The key point is that they want you to make a meaningful choices, and if it would be free you could literally macro talent changes and switch for every single mob, which would take basically all meaning out of any choices you make.

But of course they explained that as well

You'd still need to be out of combat.

The reason is quite simple. They need a gold sink to make inscription a meaningful profession. Nothing else at all. You already can freely swap talents, you just need to pay 700g each time you want to do so.

[Deleted]

Just bring. Ack mop aff lock and I'll be happy, soul burn soul swap <3

[Liarparadox]

Just bring. Ack mop aff lock and I'll be happy, soul burn soul swap <3

I hated soul swap; but I'll take it any day of this POS aff state.

[Dwill]

Talents should represent a meaningful choice, if everything is free for all, then what's the point of talents even besides maybe locking out broken combos by sticking them on the same row?

IMO, current system is not good, but free for all like it was in beta FOR SURE is not good, it simply both sacrifices the flavor and customization for your character and is a hassle really.

Except that if you have enough money, nothing really changed.

[Coffeexbean]

all they need to do is buff up our baseline abilities and then our talents can be a choice without feeling forced to do one or the other... blizzard pls.

[Brickwalls]

They're better off designing talents to not be so widely swinging between content types. I understand the idea of oh here's a single target talent, here's a cleave talent, etc, but it's just going to bother people and make them want to switch every time.

Talents would be better off just being utility and flavor. Make them change how your rotation works, make them change how you buff people or get around, don't make them so you suck shit on one boss and not on another.

[Gaidax]

Except that if you have enough money, nothing really changed.

Which is why I say that current system is not good.

[Deleted]

You'd still need to be out of combat.

The reason is quite simple. They need a gold sink to make inscription a meaningful profession. Nothing else at all. You already can freely swap talents, you just need to pay 700g each time you want to do so.

And - dont forget - it helps us locks get a raid spot for the summon stone :-D

[Zuckuss]

I think this will be less of a problem as the expansion progresses. Players will have less pressure to play one spec because of an AP sink months down the road. I imagine myself swapping freely between specs at some point.

I think the devs would rather see warlocks changing specs to square up an encounter rather than talents. Sadly, AP and knowledge won't allow this to happen without investing lots of playtime. Its an unfortunate side effect that having a true off spec requires grinding both gear and AP. Granted you can bank gear, the AP tho is the real problem.

[Dwill]

Which is why I say that current system is not good.

Which is also why they shouldn't have changed the previous system if the only thing they did was a price increase.

[Skaiz]

I hated soul swap; but I'll take it any day of this POS aff state.

Man i also hated soul swap. Honestly I think they got it ok during the haunt days of warlock. I just really want to see malefic grasp back. if it worked like it used to, that would solve that single target problem in a heartbeat

[n0n3]

The issue with the talents from my perspective is that for warlocks you need to pick between ST and AoE/Cleave, while other classes can go with a cookie cutter spec that works for both aoe and single target situations.
Blizzard had an idea that talents are meaningful and you should constantly switch between them, but this doesn't applies for all specs in the game and some have it easier than others. Unfortunately, warlocks got the short end of the stick, while other ranged classes like mages or hunters for example have it easier and they can run with the same spec in 90% of the situations.