Do you miss the old Talent System?

[Ethes]

All talent rows are used in Throne of Thunder, perhaps not all of the actual talents, but that's something that as a hybrid class you have to give up to a point. While Blizzard tries and should try to make all talents usable in all specs, the reality of the situation is that Talent A may be (generally) more useful for DPS, Talent B more useful for healing, etc.

One way to fix that aspect is to have more niche encounters in PvE that can bring out more obscure talents. Stay of Execution was never used as a healer except long NPC-healing fights (Tsulong), so more fights where NPC healing is either required or optional can make it shine.

PvP already has more uses on most talents, and I think Blizzard is trying to fix the talents that see no use anywhere already. It's far better than the old system where talent was quite literally deadweight or mandatory, or "you're doing it wrong"

---

I tried Rift because I was bored of WoW at one point and wanted to see about switching. Even a glance at the talent tree had me coming back to WoW before I hit level 3 in Rift.

What I was trying to say was, is that at the level of heroic raiding there is not really a 'choice' to begin with.



Tier 1: Fight dependent, but you'll generally pick between Speed of Light and Persuit of Justice (SoL is very good at heroic Megaera and Iron Qon (if you're not teleporting with a lock portal)
Tier 2: Fist of Justice is the only talent that will have some use in certain fights (Council, Horridon). Other talents are worthless
Tier 3: Eternal Flame, extremely overpowered and a must have
Tier 4: Again fight dependent, generally you'll choose between Clemency (Ji-Kun) and Unbreakable Spirit (heroic Council)
Tier 5: For the first time there is some 'real' choice. But generally Holy Avenger is the best talent, as you'll be able to do more healing at a moment of your choosing. (great talent for Megaera, can use it for great AoE healing every other rampage!).
Tier 6: Either Holy Prism or Light's Hammer, depending on whether your raid stacks up or not (stacking fights: Megaera, heroic Twins, Iron Qon. Non-stacking fights: Primordius, Dark Animus). As you pointed out, execution sentence is useful @ tsulong as you pointed out.

But the point is, that this talent system doesn't really bring as much choice as Blizzard claims it does. The only thing it makes you do is change your playstyle depending on the fight.

Now when comparing Holy Paladin specs at the end of Wrath, you could actually choose between 2 specs for a different playstyle (holy light vs. flash of light) which were both viable. That was a choice, this isn't really...

[Grand Crusader Absalom]

I don't understand how the old system rewarded players better? On some trees you'd get a new ability each 20 levels, now its 15. We get new abilities, passives ones too, when we level now. Increasing your critical % by 1 each level isn't exciting.

[Killadrix]

I miss the old trees, but I like being able to change talents on the fly.

I agree with this.

It was a little silly to have to put 5 points into a 5% damage increase talent, but I do miss getting talents every level (or two)...

[Solarth]

Pretty much this. Of course, creating all those unique abilities is hard enough without adding even more requirements. Unless every second tier was a boost to a baseline skill (example, 10% extra damage to Fireball). Problem then is certain talents are mathematically superior, thus defeating the purpose of the new talent system.

- - - Updated - - -



There was little point in changing talents, that's the point. There was a 'correct' talent setup, with a tiny amount of variation and usually zero choice on additional abilities.

Currently changing talents can completely alter the way a spec is played!

Firstly there was almost always 2-5 points that you could put anywhere in the old specs. Further more the only choices you have in these builds is how you choose to cc something. The dmg abilities you have to choose from do get outperformed by one choice or the other. So lets see taking a hunter for example what choices do I have to change around in a raid situation, I could maybe change tier 1, so I do not really see your point.

So to your argument, a hunter has 1 of 6 talent points he could change, as opposed to 2-5 of 61/71.

[Arbs]

Nope, not missing them much at all. The old talent trees had their good & bad points, so do the new ones. I still prefer the new ones for the fact of how easy it is to completely change your playing style, and how much choice we now have compared to before.

I agree with this, I rather have 18 Abilities to choose from than just 2 abilities with 98% stats buffed in the tree.

The old Talent Tree was so broken there was 1 spec & 1 spec only that you had to use or you were doing it wrong.

Hell I actuallly looked at my talent tree more than before & I actually wonder what would be good & what is not, back than I brought up Wowhead, connected the dots & never looked at it the talent tree ever again until there was a change made.

People seem to think that the more points the better, but no they fail to realize that 98% of those trees are just 1% buff increases not much excitement about that. Ya smaller numbers of choices, but the choices are actually worth something for once & you get to use your head.

[Aqua]

Nope. It was mindless.

Padding disguised as depth. You all know as soon as it became more widely known that you all popped onto EJ, copied the cookie cutter, with maybe 1 or 2 adjustments if you were really clever, and just went with it for nearly most of an expansion. Maybe an adjust if a patch radically altered a talent and later a glyph in wrath.

The new talent system I actually find myself opening up before each boss encounter to think which ones will benefit.

I AM ACUTELY AWARE, that this system works better for hybrids than it does for pure dps classes at the moment. Where the pure dps classes seem to have abilities that are either all good in pvp/pve/per spec or all bad. For healing/tank combos I really do have to pick and choose and alter based on encounter. The system could stand to be improved on but no I do not miss that old tree trunk of point pushing.

The 'different' builds were only ever used to screw a mechanic/cheese something/be some odd class combo for a raid thing/do something creative solo, and those were rare.

[Smashinkegs]

Of course who wouldn't. I had a lot of fun w/ it

[Solarth]

This is what I remember the most about raiding prior Cata, clear to the boss, warlock stone down so the tanks and healers can go respec. Kill the boss, clear to the next boss, lock stone so the tanks and healers could go respec. Hmmmmm seems to me if the case was there was "one" way to go all that was kinda bs huh!!!

[Arbs]

This is what I remember the most about raiding prior Cata, clear to the boss, warlock stone down so the tanks and healers can go respec. Kill the boss, clear to the next boss, lock stone so the tanks and healers could go respec. Hmmmmm seems to me if the case was there was "one" way to go all that was kinda bs huh!!!

Very beginning of Vanilla maybe

[Nehem]

imo

specialization it's ok
glyphs are also fine
mop talents are more like ability or a power of your character (lol you have to choose 6 useful spells from the list of 18 useless)
wotlk talent tree was super you could build many useful builds/hybrids like frostfire mage ... but now you don't have any choice - fire mage it's fire frost it's only frost, if you know what I mean...

[Solarth]

imo

specialization it's ok
glyphs are also fine
mop talents are more like ability or a power of your character (lol you have to choose 6 useful spells from the list of 18 useless)
wotlk talent tree was super you could build many useful builds/hybrids like frostfire mage ... but now you don't have any choice - fire mage it's fire frost it's only frost, if you know what I mean...

Whhhhhaaaaatttttttttttt you're telling me there was more than one build?

[angelflavor]

I've been playing since Classic began and even though I thought talents were one of the best parts of this game. I feel the change was a good one.

[Auxis]

Yes, I do miss the customization. Maybe if they ever add Path of the Titans, it'll be like the old talents.

[Deleted]

I think the old talent system was better, but the MoP talent system is not bad either.

[Bramickias]

I don't really miss them. After trying the skill forest of Path of Exile and the crazy combos of Rift, it was just more obvious that WoW skill tree were always pretty small and boring to begin with.

[Vensu24]

I do, especially when I'm leveling a toon. Dinging and having no reward for it makes it less fun.

[Paulosio]

I miss earning talent points regularly... Even if you ended up putting it in something fairly uninteresting it still felt like your character was progressing... I wont miss not being able to do 3 or 4 bgs without having to spend a load of gold and time completely redoing my talents.

I quite enjoy choosing what talents to take depending on what boss or activity im doing while before you were basically stuck with your choices.

- - - Updated - - -

This is what I remember the most about raiding prior Cata, clear to the boss, warlock stone down so the tanks and healers can go respec. Kill the boss, clear to the next boss, lock stone so the tanks and healers could go respec. Hmmmmm seems to me if the case was there was "one" way to go all that was kinda bs huh!!!

8 out of 10 talents weren't choices... I think in Survival PVE spec during wotlk I had about 2 talents points that I actually had a choice to make on depending on what boss / activity I was doing.

For my BM spec it was the same. There was basically a fixed spec for PVE with maybe 1 or 2 talent points that were optional... The only time it wasn't like this is if I changed my talents for a completely different activity such as PVP or soloing.... but again there was basically a set spec for those activities with only 1 or 2 choices to make.

I don't know if it was this way for every class but it was certainly the case for my hunter.

[Last Attempt]

I liked the Wrath skill tree a lot, I liked how you could have so many different options and try different things with the wrath skill tree. I don't really like how you're so limited with picking talents now I doubt they'll ever bring back a big talent system though.

[Volitar]

No, I do not miss the old system where everyone used a cookie cutter build.

As apposed to now where everyone uses a cookie cutter spec on each different fight. Yay!

[The One Percent]

No, the old talent system had mostly uninteresting choices. I do wish they had a tier every 10 levels instead of 15, though.