Shiny new talents or a step backwards in character design?

[Corgrash]

I am currently enjoying the changes being made to the game and look forward to the many more changes to come.
However, I have something that has been bugging my insides for a week or two and that is the changes to the talent trees.

They monkey safe. I think its impossible to even make a spec that is bad.
Same with glyphs.. there isnt any real choice there, its simply pick these and put them in. I mean whats the point in having the trees if there isnt actually any choices made :P may aswell select the class on character creation and have the package.

I seem to remember when they introduced talent trees to wow, they were advertised as an aspect of the game to make your character more unique compared to another character of the same class and to add a more immersive element to the gameplay.
I feel they have almost completely removed that.

Am I alone here? I mean one of the things I enjoyed about WoW was the decision making in how you spec your char to get the best performance from it you can. To me it seems they have made a cookie cutter spec for us and there is no way around it to choose differently.

[JustKidding]

Good thing you're not a game developer. Making bad talents just for the purpose of making it bad is a stupid game design.

And these new talents trees have less cookie-cutter specs than ever, so once again you're wrong.

[Kworal]

Most players were already googling and getting a cookie cutter spec, that 90% of the other players already used. It was not a way to distinguish players at all. At least now, bads won't spec "too bad", not that it will keep them from doing 2k dps with 30% ICC buff ^^

[Dallanon]

Totally agree. The new trees are a joke. You have 3 spec choices and almost no choice within them. Whatever choices you do have are all but meaningless.

I agree that this will make balancing much easier for Blizzard, but it feels like, after 6 years, they just threw their hands up and said "screw it" and took the easy way out and left the player with nothing but cookie cutter.

[manaclaw]

Well the problem is, when before when there were real decisions to make, there became a BEST spec and people who couldn't figure it out would just find it on EJ. Now when you can have close to equal performance with a different spec, then you are truly adding a unique element to your character by selecting the talents you like the most.

[Corgrash]

Good thing you're not a game developer. Making bad talents just for the purpose of making it bad is a stupid game design.

And these new talents trees have less cookie-cutter specs than ever, so once again you're wrong.

I agree on that, however I was more on about the talents that were more decision making along the lines of:

"hmm both these talents are good but I can only afford to choose one. Oh the other [insert class] in the raid team has picked that one so I can choose the other one and communicate with the player to work together"

[Ragels]

There already were cookie cutter specs. There are literally about the same amount of choices to be made regarding specs and glyphs as there were, it's just that it's a lot more obvious what they actually are.

Sorry if you were one of the people that thought splitting all your talents evenly in three trees and glyphing for sub-optimal things was fun.

[Nahte]

Talents were never about customization ; they were about optimization.

Two different things.

These changes are awesome, since it allows your character to specialize that much earlier, even if the choices in doing so are limited.

[Deleted]

Problem is, now it won't be as easy to spot the bads via their talents, as it used to be :/

[Nymphys]

It is a shame that for some specs, there's pretty much no PVE choices at all. It's mostly like "Everything in this tree except those 3 points in that PVP talent.. and these few in this tree which are obviously for my spec.."

Building a PVP spec offers a LITTLE more variety around play style. But not much, you still have to cram virtually all your points into that one tree, and just pick to do without the weakest talent. ><

It'll be good for the future though, I feel.

[baddetiger]

So, you are saying that you want the freedom to choose which talents to get that will improve your character in the best possible way.
But in the meantime, you are complaining that they actually provide this without you needing to browse through various internet forums to find it.

You sir, are one odd fellah.

[Terranor]

Well with the old ones you just looked up cookie cutter spec and copied it.
Here you have the cookie cutter spec showed to you so you don't really have to look it up PLUS a few points to put for utility.
For Unholy DK for instance you have 37 cookie cutter points and 4 that are your choice (with at least one having to be in the first 2 tiers of UH) so you basically have 4 more points to spend in utility than you had in 3.3.5.
I just wish the whole trees were about those utility points, you know for instance in a dps spec you would have all the dps cookie cutter talent given to you when you choose the spec or to learn like baseline spells when you level up while the trees would only be utility talents.

Also it's kinda the same about glyphs.
The new Major Glyphs are awesome it's pure customization (well at least for some specs) but the Prime are just... well there is no choice at all but like for the talent, even if there was choice we would only get the cookie cutter ones so maybe the Prime Glyphs' effects should come with the spec?

Problem is, now it won't be as easy to spot the bads via their talents, as it used to be :/

Yeah but in the other hand, if they have a better spec than before maybe they won't be as bad and actually help the group a little.

[JustKidding]

Totally agree. The new trees are a joke. You have 3 spec choices and almost no choice within them. Whatever choices you do have are all but meaningless.

I agree that this will make balancing much easier for Blizzard, but it feels like, after 6 years, they just threw their hands up and said "screw it" and took the easy way out and left the player with nothing but cookie cutter.

LOL and all the crappy talents were such a choice back then? Take off your rose colored glasses.

There was never a choice, at least now you can spec whatever you want and not be so left behind compared to a cookie cutter spec. THAT IS CHOICE.

[Raynfal]

Talents have always been extremely cookie cutter. I don't think I ever strayed more than 5-7 points away from "teh best" spec for each tree. And that was out of 51, 61, and 71 point trees. So 10% wiggle room, give or take.

In the new trees, I have about 3-5 points of wiggle room to mess around with utility and crap. That's basically the same wiggle room as before, if not slightly better.

If anything, they gutted the boring talents and made the trees more interesting, even if you only ever use "teh best" spec posted on Elitist Jerks.

And granted, I've never liked to stray way off and try drastic talent builds, so my wiggle might be less than your wiggle.

[Corgrash]

There already were cookie cutter specs. There are literally about the same amount of choices to be made regarding specs and glyphs as there were, it's just that it's a lot more obvious what they actually are.

Sorry if you were one of the people that thought splitting all your talents evenly in three trees and glyphing for sub-optimal things was fun.

Oh if only

I will take the Shammy Restoration tree for an example.

One of the choices I found when specing my shammy was I could either spec into elemental weapons for the increased healing power, spec into Healing Way for bigger Healing Wave heals, or spec into Improved Reincarnation so that if I have to res using it I wouldnt be completely useless until Innervate is cast due to mana.

All 3 talents are beneficial thus making a decision about how your character is rather than "here you go, heres a checklist to tick off, aka your talent tree"

I would of preferred them to take the decision making level of the specs to a higher level and create more interesting choices in that direction, than take away player input and simply make a talent tree even a monkey could fill out.

[Azutael]

Problem is, now it won't be as easy to spot the bads via their talents, as it used to be :/

Sure it will, inspect their gear.

oh wait, gearscore. I forgot, People dont inspect eachother anymore. Well hardly anyone anyway.

[Ragels]

Oh if only

I will take the Shammy Restoration tree for an example.

One of the choices I found when specing my shammy was I could either spec into elemental weapons for the increased healing power, spec into Healing Way for bigger Healing Wave heals, or spec into Improved Reincarnation so that if I have to res using it I wouldnt be completely useless until Innervate is cast due to mana.

All 3 talents are beneficial thus making a decision about how your character is rather than "here you go, heres a checklist to tick off, aka your talent tree"

I would of preferred them to take the decision making level of the specs to a higher level and create more interesting choices in that direction, than take away player input and simply make a talent tree even a monkey could fill out.

Beneficial? Sure.
Optimal? Not in the least.

Please stop convincing yourself that because you had the choice to use a sub-optimal spec and it's now harder to have a sub-optimal spec that they are somehow "giving up."

If anything, there are more choices now, because it's obvious what talents you really need, leaving more open for flavor. I found that while messing around with the new talent calculator that I often found myself wondering which subspec would be more fun, because neither offered something completely optimal.

[Deleted]

I'd say you have more room for making your own specc now than before.. Before atleast most classes just had 1 specc that were the ultimate specc that everyone would use.. maybe depending how much hit you had you could take 3 talents and replace

The only specc i can think of that had a bit choices were boomkin. Wether or not they wanted trees, or typhoon. or put them into some other maybe more riski talents. Also they had to change specc all the time while gearing up due to the mana issues a crap geared boomkin will have without speccing into it. (i havent played all classes at high gear, but most of them tho)

Imo this new talent system will give you more freedom in picking talents you like without screwing up completely

[Nymphys]

Sure it will, inspect their gear.

oh wait, gearscore. I forgot, People dont inspect eachother anymore. Well hardly anyone anyway.

Meh.. gear doesn't tell you anything either. I've seen very badly played 50k+ tanks and ICC geared healers that can't keep a group/tank up to save their life. Literally in fact - can't count the number of times I've had the other healer drop on the hard bosses in VOA and had to keep both tanks and the rest of the group up for the next couple of minutes with my T9 holy pally.

The only real way to tell a bad is playing with them. Which is why I like the push back to guilds.

[axelnomnom]

Doesn't matter. Everyone will go to EJ and just copy their specs.
I'm only sad about my rogue. My mut pvp spec was perfect