Are we due for a new talent system?

[Deleted]

The illusion of choice is worse than when you could do funny things and experiment.

[Reith]

I actually liked the way it was originally in Cata and MoP. You had choices that made sense relative to each other, and there weren't many "dead" talents. You also had more baseline abilities and the talents mainly enhanced those, with a few exceptions where it made sense for a choice to be its own ability. In my spec's case, the Ret talent tree is a complete mess. That's just my spec, though. I don't know if it's necessarily like that for others or to what degree.

[Deleted]

I imagine we'll see a lot of the Artifact Traits and Legendary Effects turned into talents for the next expansion.

Personally I'd like to move back to WLK talents. I loved when they tried to allow hybridism among specs. Titan's Grip tanking; that's where it's at.

[Reith]

I imagine we'll see a lot of the Artifact Traits and Legendary Effects turned into talents for the next expansion.

Personally I'd like to move back to WLK talents. I loved when they tried to allow hybridism among specs. Titan's Grip tanking; that's where it's at.

If they make Shockadin a spec, I'll be happy with whatever else they do, tbh.

[Wrecktangle]

There is only as much real customisation as there is numerically equal choices.
As in none.
As long as there are simply better choices in a given scenario, there isn't real customisation beyond the best choices in that scenario.
That is currently the case, and has always been the case, and as long as talents are combat affecting will always be the case.

I have specific examples I'd like your input on:

1) WoD Final Verdict vs. Seraphim. Seraphim was the "optimal" choice, but it was only the optional choice with near perfect play, minimal mechanic interruption, etc.. Final Verdict on the other hand was almost optimal, but offered completely different gameplay and was a safer option and had additional utility.

Is there no choice between these 2 talents?

2) Divine Steed (aka a second charge of movespeed) vs. Divine Intervention (cheat death, also reduces bubble cd by 20-50% pending patch).

Is there no choice here either?

[Sylv_]

The answer is fucking yes.

[Mirishka]

I'm going to say no, we're not due for a talent system, because I. Am. Sick. To fucking death. Of Class changes.

I don't want to have my character deleted and replaced with a completely new class every single bloody expansion. I won't want to have to delay the next expansion an extra six months for Blizzard to frig around re-juggling abilities across a new progression system again, just so half the player-base can be sad and angry about how the visceral feel of their class is now broken, un-fun and doesn't flow well.

This is a pattern almost entirely driven by Blizzard's desire to "shake things up" or fix the problems of a very vocal, very small minority at the expense of everyone else. I find very little value personally in having something I've already earned stripped away and replaced with identically named but functionally different abilities that do similar things that I have to re-grind or wait for to be rebalanced. No thank you.

Couldn't agree more. I love how fluidly Wrath and BC built onto the vanilla class cores... ever since that its kind of been a rollercoaster of CHANGE! MUST CHANGE! FOR SAKE OF CHANGE!

And granted, sometimes that's worked out nicely, but I'm a bit sick of every expansion flipping classes on their ears.

[MoanaLisa]

I think there's some interesting stuff they can do with the hybrid system they have in Legion mixing trees on weapons with talents. That sort of thing could be expanded in lots of ways.

As for class changes generally: Yeah, there has been too much too many times. But I just really doubt if they can settle on something and leave well enough alone. Over time I've completely lost the thread on my favorite classes from BC and the changes they made to shadow this expansion didn't work for me at all.

There is no such thing as real choice. Herd mentality runs deep in the game so the developers have mostly stayed away from allowing interesting ideas to percolate up into the game. Shadow is another example this expansion of something they tried and have spent the entire expansion trying to fix. But someone is always going to proclaim some set of conditions as "best" and people will abandon stuff they might like to do that. There could be more choice but metas always dictate against it.

It's perfectly arguable that if all choices math out to be roughly equal then none of the choices are really interesting. BlizzHQ avoids that like the plague these days unfortunately. That led to all the homogenization of "Bring the Player, Not the Class" and the game is still the worse for all of that.

[Fabinas]

They completely fail to make every choice on a talent tier an equally compelling choice, either tailored for situations or simply altering the gameplay. For this to be acceptable it should be done on all tiers of all specs. Huge sisyphean endeavor, futile by design. So, there's usually one optimal choice on each tier, maybe a 2nd for a different situation (ST vs AoE, for example). The third choice on those occasions is rarely or never used.

[ComputerNerd]

I have specific examples I'd like your input on:

1) WoD Final Verdict vs. Seraphim. Seraphim was the "optimal" choice, but it was only the optional choice with near perfect play, minimal mechanic interruption, etc.. Final Verdict on the other hand was almost optimal, but offered completely different gameplay and was a safer option and had additional utility.

Is there no choice between these 2 talents?

2) Divine Steed (aka a second charge of movespeed) vs. Divine Intervention (cheat death, also reduces bubble cd by 20-50% pending patch).

Is there no choice here either?

A choice is when they are equal, they are not.
There are criteria dictating their usage, your ability to play to a sufficiently high standard for one.
If you can play to that standard, and do not need the utility why would the other be an option.

You even listed the reasons for why one would be rated above another, because they do vary.

They completely fail to make every choice on a talent tier an equally compelling choice, either tailored for situations or simply altering the gameplay. For this to be acceptable it should be done on all tiers of all specs. Huge sisyphean endeavor, futile by design. So, there's usually one optimal choice on each tier, maybe a 2nd for a different situation (ST vs AoE, for example). The third choice on those occasions is rarely or never used.

They cannot be equally compelling, because they are different.
There will be varying need for a given characteristic of a talent, which will vary on an encounter basis, your gameplay skill, your gear, the raid composition, and many other factors.
What may on one encounter for whatever reason may be the "best" option may not be the next time, even on the same encounter.

[Ganimah]

As long as people min/max and websites have guides based on World First raiders....any system will be lacking, in the sense that even though there are choices one can make, they won't make them. If Blizz would make the talents balanced against one another, then you wouldn't have the "Follow the Leader" mentality that exists.

Until that time, no change would make any difference.

[Raiju]

A choice is when they are equal, they are not.
There are criteria dictating their usage, your ability to play to a sufficiently high standard for one.
If you can play to that standard, and do not need the utility why would the other be an option.

You even listed the reasons for why one would be rated above another, because they do vary.

What multiple people have been trying to tell you is just because, in your specific situation one talent will be best - you don't immediately know and differences in comp / experience / boss will change the best choice. That IS choice. You are choosing for yourself what works best for you, rather than (for some tiers) 1 choice being best on a boss for practically everyone.

[dextersmith]

I think they only change the talent system when they run out of ways to screw up other stuff.

Mastery was supposed to be a device for tuning but ... let's add a new talent system!

[Spiffums]

Mastery was supposed to be a device for tuning but ... let's add a new talent system!

Now it's versatility!

[Deleted]

Now it's versatility!

It used to be multistrike!

[dextersmith]

I actually liked the way it was originally in Cata and MoP. You had choices that made sense relative to each other, and there weren't many "dead" talents. You also had more baseline abilities and the talents mainly enhanced those, with a few exceptions where it made sense for a choice to be its own ability. In my spec's case, the Ret talent tree is a complete mess. That's just my spec, though. I don't know if it's necessarily like that for others or to what degree.

You had entire rows of dead talents. Mages had 3 different modifications of sheep on top of all the animal versions because your fun and core rotation revolved around sheep. Locks had an entire tier to devastate their own health! You had to decide which was the least hated and never click it. If you had to run away due to low health, one talent let you run by sacrificing 20% of your max health per second......utter stupidity. If only their conviction for sabotage was redirected for improvement.

[Reith]

You had entire rows of dead talents. Mages had 3 different modifications of sheep on top of all the animal versions because your fun and core rotation revolved around sheep. Locks had an entire tier to devastate their own health! You had to decide which was the least hated and never click it. If you had to run away due to low health, one talent let you run by sacrificing 20% of your max health per second......utter stupidity. If only their conviction for sabotage was redirected for improvement.

For me, I didn't have rows of dead talents as ret back then, but I don't know the situation with others. I have 10 dead talents for raiding right now and that's not including the CC tier. :/ Execution Sentence, Consecration, Zeal, Greater Judgment, Virtue's Blade, Justicar's Vengeance, Word of Glory, Judgment of Light, Divine Purpose, Holy Wrath. I think maybe Execution Sentence, Zeal and Consecration are a little better off in 7.2.5, but Greater Judgment, Virtue's Blade, Word of Glory, Judgment of Light, Divine Purpose and Holy Wrath are all completely untouched. There's no reason to take any of these in a raid. Justicar's Vengeance may see some use with the Soul of the Highlord legendary ring, but that ring also pretty much ensures they're not going to change anything to do with Divine Purpose because that's the talent that ring gives.

[ComputerNerd]

What multiple people have been trying to tell you is just because, in your specific situation one talent will be best - you don't immediately know and differences in comp / experience / boss will change the best choice. That IS choice. You are choosing for yourself what works best for you, rather than (for some tiers) 1 choice being best on a boss for practically everyone.

When it is being decided for you, as going for what works best because of other factors, that isn't you making that choice.
It is being decided for you.

You are only deciding for yourself when you don't have all the facts.
And therefore that isn't an actual informed choice, it is an uninformed one which ceases to be one at all once informed.

ANY criteria dictating your options, changing their value are removing choice.

[Raiju]

When it is being decided for you, as going for what works best because of other factors, that isn't you making that choice.
It is being decided for you.

You are only deciding for yourself when you don't have all the facts.
And therefore that isn't an actual informed choice, it is an uninformed one which ceases to be one at all once informed.

ANY criteria dictating your options, changing their value are removing choice.

And how do you get these facts?

Oh yeah, you don't. You make a choice.

I don't get how this concept can be so difficult. Sometimes the talents ARE a valid choice and the puzzle of talents that will maximize your guilds chances of killing a boss will have lots of similar result solutions. You'd have to be extremely ignorant to think you can perfectly calculate all that for each personal situation. The top guilds don't do it completely (only slightly/partially), what does a forum poster have that makes them think they can?

[Spiffums]

It used to be multistrike!

I liked Multistrike. Blood and Unholy using the same gear and stats it was awesome sauce!!