[Mage] Nostalgic talents in TBC

[Odobisean]

I remember being able to tank 3 Drake Sartharion in blues because I was able to make a unique tri-spec build on a DK.

That's not really hard most of the top 50 guilds did it in blues with some guild even doing t7 in SWP gear

[Bryanator1989]

I liked the old talent trees too. Wrath and Cata in particular.

[Ilhom]

I don't like them and never want them back. They were the same cookie cutter builds that everyone used. At least now we can change talents depending on the fight. It's much more interactive, and I feel my decisions have more impact than before.

[Salech]

Talents were so cookie-cutter back then I even remember my old elemental shaman spec
http://www.wowprovider.com/?talent=2...51w5204301005j

And yet there were better builds than that when you got certain gear, especially on ele shaman, there were 4 different ways to go depending on your gear.

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I don't like them and never want them back. They were the same cookie cutter builds that everyone used. At least now we can change talents depending on the fight. It's much more interactive, and I feel my decisions have more impact than before.

And today it's not cookie cutter as well?, but with WAY less talent points?, there will always be cookie cutter builds, but now it's just WAY more boring as you just choose 4-6 talents compared to 40+

[Imnick]

god I loved wasting my time clicking on the same boxes 60 times to change one talent, good times right guys

[Ilhom]

It's no where NEAR as cookie cutter now as it was back then. When you went into a raid night, you went in with your talent tree and you cleared that raid. It was extremely uncommon for someone to go back to their home city to respec for a boss. Now when you clear raids, you can be changing specs and talents for each boss fight dependent upon mechanics. Going Evanesce on Gruul to cheese inferno slice or the brands on Mar'gok, Alter Time for bigger bursts of damage or Flameglow for the more static damage. Greater Invis if you need to soak something versus Cauterize which is great for random things that could kill you or learning fights. I hope you understand my point. When I did my 7/10 Mythic clear the past week, I used somewhere around 20ish tomes to adjust for the farm content, along with changing specs that favor the fight, not to mention on progression when I'm trying out different talents to see if they could work well in certain situations of the fight. This was NOT the case back in pre MoP talents. There was one time I went back to respec in TBC on my elemental shaman for a boss fight and that was for Vashj kiting. I used the same build in literally every other scenario. In Wrath, I never changed my talent build during a raid on my DK.

As far as PvP goes, there might have been more variety there. I never have participated in it enough to really know. From a strictly PvE stand point, the current talent system is much more engaging.

Not too mention you're comparing 40+ points of things like "decrease fireball cast time by .1s" versus gaining whole new abilties that can completely alter a rotation. I don't think that is very fair at all.

Edit: And I'd like to make a point about the Elemental Shaman tree that did get posted. That was almost THE tree to be (take 3 from reverberation into Elemental Warding since shocks were a dps decrease) and there was never a point where you changed that spec "depending upon gear" It was mathematically the strongest dps spec, and the only real differences and getting things like a 10% nature/fire/frost reduction, shock cd decrease by like .6s, make your healing wave slightly faster. Those are not meaningful at all and you don't even notice them. And people would argue that getting more hit to surpass hit cap was good so you could get more mp5, when in reality it only resulted in like 2 non-clearcasting LB per 5 minutes or something around there. I used to remember the exact number on that.

[Deleted]

In TBC as mage there was no variety in PvP, the only really strong build was 17/0/44. Silence on Counterspell was too good to give up.

[Agzarah]

The old specs had very little variety for end game, but gave the illusion of freedom which was enjoyable.
but for levelling i think they were infinately better. Passive or not every level offered several degrees of power.

While solo levelling back in TBC i stumbled across a warrior and a slightly lower shaman - we Three manned everything from about level 28 up to mid 60s (not lower content either, level appropriate dungeons, or in our 'healers' case, slightly higher)
Because there were only 3 of us we all had really messed up specs to try and keep up with the dps requirements, but also survivability talents that you wouldn't usually take in a standard build.
It was great fun, one hell of a challenge and totally worth it. You wouldnt be able to do that at all now. (then again, you can solo almost everything now while levelling anyway so thats moot)

[Deleted]

I miss the old talent systems. People say there were no choices, they said it at the time too,.

I always disagreed . so much more fun than now

[bledgor]

Illusion of choice DOES NOT = choice. There were no choices if you were a raider or pvper, there was 1 optimal build for each and if you didn't go it you were hurting yourself and the raid. Please stop beating this dead horse and let it die.

[Deleted]

I'm still annoyed I didn't get to try DW resto shaman in Cata

[Agzarah]

no one has said that illusion = choice. they just said that they enjoyed the idea of what was on offer. likewise, no one has said that they want them coming back

[Anium]

I give you one word : Simplified.

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Illusion of choice DOES NOT = choice. There were no choices if you were a raider or pvper, there was 1 optimal build for each and if you didn't go it you were hurting yourself and the raid. Please stop beating this dead horse and let it die.

Not entirely true, at least for pvp. Was a time when hunters stacked stam in sockets, and chose the stam talent in SV tree for more dmg. Some people chose this method others didn't. This is just one example, but there were many across the board for all classes and specs...

[Super Kami Dende]

As someone who played from Vanilla through to this current talent system.

The current system is infinitely better and actually has more choices that don't leave you subpar.

[Deleted]

http://talenty.embracethedarkness.co...s.html?en&mage

Crazy how many choices you had. Obviously there was best choices. But still as a new player it was exciting.

I played warlock back in BC. I had exactly 1 choice that let me go in raid, and two that let me go in instance. Diversity.

[Super Kami Dende]

I played warlock back in BC. I had exactly 1 choice that let me go in raid, and two that let me go in instance. Diversity.

Pulling 2k dps with Sbolt and curse of elements. best 2 button spec ever.

[solarfallz]

In TBC as mage there was no variety in PvP, the only really strong build was 17/0/44. Silence on Counterspell was too good to give up.

And you think there's ANY spec variety in mage PVP NOW? Also, I got gladiator in season 4 as 0/41/20 (db shatter).

AP fire was pretty cool too (wtf my ui was huge in bc)

There were other fun specs too.

[Khuzog]

No thank you. I agree that spell ranks and talent points gave you a tangible sense of "Yay I'm improving!" every level by rewarding you with the option to click a button to select or train something, but I prefer the way it is now. Sure there's still people running simulations and theory craft spreadsheets out the wazoo to try and milk every last % out of every hypothetical situation but for the most part other than a few glaring issues you can still have tons of choice. Seeing "Your choice" a lot in DPS / tanking / healing guides for PvE AND PvP? That shit didn't happen after the days of "None of us know what we're doing" passed and websites dedicated to min/maxing became the norm.

[Deleted]

I really miss the Cataclysm talent trees to be honest. Back then (or at least around the Dragon Soul patch) all specs were fun and quite viable for me. It followed the same philosophy of an actual talent tree, but with more fun and impactful choices instead of the numerous old +1 crit talents.

Back then you could spec into really fun things like Cone of Cold and breaking Ice Barrier rooting enemies for Frost mages, Blast Wave also procing a free Flamestrike for Fire, and Blink giving you a sprint and defense buffs for Arcane. Such little things really have the specs personality and distinctiveness. It also created a really cohesive playstyle.

Now, the MoP talents (and especially their WoD incarnation) just strip each spec to its bare rotation and at best a talent can sorta fill in the gaps by adding an extra button, unless you choose the passive option. Problem is that I feel every spec is far more shallow than it used to be because when your PvP roots, damage amplification, mobility, defenses, and big nukes are all goddamn talents tiers, you can't have each spec have a unique twist on them. In the case of Arcane things are a joke, because outside of the talents you do not have ANY fun pvp spells or synergies or unique defenses.

[Erous]

Improved concentration aura was the shiznit

Edit: Didn't realize this was a mage thread...don't care, hijacking with pally love