Cataclysm Class & Mastery Systems Update

[ComputerNerd]

Interesting concept, and a very brave and bold move to throw out what they have been expanding upon for the last 6 years.
This is not lazy as some seem to think. Lazy was adding more and more onto the existing trees bloating them more and more every time.
Certainly the lack of a point per level will be missed with it being seen as something to aim for, but levelling should be about more than just getting the next point.
Locking into a tree has potential, particularly when you get that bonus as a result of it, just it will lock you out from other useful talents as someone brought up the subject of Omen of Clarity.
Taking longer to reach your signature, and often pretty damn useful end-talent is not likely to be a popular move, and I hope there is enough in the tree to provide sufficient utility for your role to make up for that.
As to how well it will work out, we have to see, but most of you should stop flaming an idea which you do not like, before we have even seen it, and providing no arguement whatsoever other than your opinion.

[Gerian]

I like these changes. For awhile I thought something like this was going to have to happen if they were truely going to remove passive talents. Cuz the other alternative is them replacing every boring passive talent with an exciting new talent, which to blizzards defense, is incredibly hard. I believe they really try to put as many exciting passives and spells they can into the talent trees without homogenizing the classes. So, reducing the overall size of the trees makes sense to me.

My only concern is, how many possible talent points you can spend in each tree, ie how specialized in each individual tree you can be. For example they said you would have 42 points to spend by 85...will there will 40 points of talents in each tree....50? I realize there is not a ton of specialization in each tree as is, but I hope this new, shorter talent tree won't make spending points a no-brainer since you can't put points into other trees, and hopefully does not allow for more cookie-cutter builds. Choosing talents within your tree should be hard, and makes things more fun, hopefully there is still some options you get in choosing talents, as opposed to just having enough points for everything.

But I guess we shall have to wait and see for that.

I think the general idea is to cut all the mandatory talents out (brain dead stuff like Cruelty, core tree abilities such as Mortal Strike) and move them to passives through specialization so that you're given more talent options at each tier level. It'd give you the opportunity to take talents that you wanted but had to ignore to flesh out your 51/x/20 spec in WotLK.

[Genju]

There is not a single bad thing about the changes.
They get rid of all "You deal x% more dmg,y%crit", aka all the talents u had to skill to not get called "n00b","rofl how u skilled",......
and its not like you lose those which separates you as a DD from a non-DD spec, cause u get them passivly.

With this system leveling a twink is way more entertaining, and nearly every talent point u get is like "oh hey now i get a funny new talent" and not like "hey i got a lvl up, yay now i put my third talentpoint in a row in +1% dmg "/cheer" .

About the commitment to spend all 31 points in a row in a talent tree:
who doesnt do this atm? 99% of all twinks go all out in one talent tree to get the one special active skill you need to level more satisfied. Now u get it from the start. -> big improvement.

[Coldkil]

that's a pretty big change, i need to see it in the game, before saying anything.

it seems good, but anything can happen.

[Aggronought]

They stated 41 talent points total. So expect to see 31/10/0 or 31/5/5 builds. I can't wait to see the final details in the upcoming beta build

[Nomm]

Now all they need to sort is the amount of keybinds i have.
Do not want more.

Less pls!

[dotSeed]

The problem I've read here is that each tree will be 31 points. You will have to put a full 31 points into one tree before you can put points into another tree. So that means that every combat rogue will be exactly the same, talent-wise. No picking and choosing. I feel like this pigeon holes everyone into a specific type of game play.

I'd rather see something that says you have 10 talents to pick from, choose 6. Or something like that. Then, as a fury warrior, I could have talents that make me somewhat unique.

I'm just not crazy about this setup they've proposed.

Um. You do realise that isn't how talent trees work right. They're talking about the depth of trees, not total points. Current trees are 51-points deep, that doesn't mean you can only spend 51-points in them. The whole point is you CAN choose talents you want without being penalised in your role beyond marginal "maxed out" difference.

[Vasz]

Is this just a diversion to the shit storm they call Real ID?

I have to be honest, im not sure i agree on these changes though. Having less talent points "might" seem boring with it now takes you 10 levels to max a talent insted of 5. I cant even begin to think what they will do to the Ret Pally tree, as most people have 20 free talant points to spend on NOTHING anyway. While Enhancement shaman and maybe MM hunters all have some pretty exciting talent trees.

[Crash]

The problem I've read here is that each tree will be 31 points.

You didn't read good enough, or didn't understand what you read.
"31 points deep" is different than "31 points tree".
Today, we have 51 points deep trees, not 51 points trees : you need 51 points to use the last talent, but you can put more than 51 points into that tree.
The latter is what we're getting for Cata : more than 31 slots to put talent points into, but the last talent in said tree will be 31 points.

[tehmark]

I'm glad that I'm pretty terribly bored with wow now. This whole talent tree business would really piss me off if I was playing still. It is disappointing however.

[Azok Ragetotem]

Only think i don't like about the changes is the mastery being available so late. why not make it ready once they put the 31st talent in instead of waiting almost ten levels?

[Aldarc]

So its a Real ID smokescreen?

[sluggs]

love the changes

[Wild Turkey]

That's so coooooool. Such awesome talents...at level 10! Levelling it's going to be so freakin fun!

[ComputerNerd]

What will change are all of the filler talents you had to pick up to get to the next fun talent, as well as most talents that required 5 of your hard-earned points.

There will be considerably less, if any 5 point talents remaining, so that frees up a huge amount of the space and choice that many here are concerned about.

[Elunedra]

first i was shocked but while reading on it doest seem that crap as they want to keep the tatlent tree basicly the same just smaller

but if they remvoe any of the cool new druid talents we had i swear ill whine !

[Arcilte]

Didn't see this coming... Can't wait to see it in action.

[zaneosak]

I'd like to see you trying to balance it.

Give me a billion dollars and 20 something designs and I will, oh wait thats what Blizzard has already isn't it?

[NathSB]

This doesn't sound too bad, actually. Going to be interesting for sure!

[Futhark]

Uh, some people seem to be under the impression that spending 31 points in a tree will get you all of the talents, so there will be no choices between talents any more. At no point is this stated or implied.

^ This

Plus nothing says you can't do 41/0/0, 35/3/3, etc. so assuming everything is 31/10/0 is not true either.