It feels like the talent trees went backwards

[Spurmwhale]

to basics and more cookie cutter. a lose-lose terrible idea from what i'm experiencing thus far. despite how Blizzard has tried to justify it like "they only took out the fluff and gave it to you for free and now every ability means something" it sure as hell doesn't feel like that. i feel like i'm completely specializing in one spec tree and will be VERY similar to every other mage spec'ing in that same tree, if not identical. whats worse is we have to go all the way down to the bottom just to put points into any of the other spec trees, and even at 85 the only differentiation between 2 people that specialize in the same tree will be which other one they choose, and only more or less in the top 2 tiers.

i don't get how this is better in ANY way. less options, more cookie cutter to other players specs, in fact WAY more it feels like since there are obvious must have talents in some trees, and obvious very optional ones, and you're already spending a ton of pts to get to the bottom anyways. and it just seems much more primitive than what we had before this patch. i know people will defend Blizzard here just to defend them but do you REALLLY feel what they did was more enjoyable in terms of playing with specs? differentiating yourself from other players of the same spec? i don't AT ALL. in fact i don't see ANY positive out of what they did...i feel more of a clone to another frost mage than i did before this patch. way more of a clone tbh.

PS why won't my summon Water Elemental freeze all in one macro work anymore?

[Deleted]

Your spec wasn't cookie cutter before 4.0.1?
"Non cookie cutter" as in "I made up my own spec and I'm doing sub par dps in raid"?

[Spurmwhale]

Your spec wasn't cookie cutter before 4.0.1?
"Non cookie cutter" as in "I made up my own spec and I'm doing sub par dps in raid"?

less since there was more differentiation/variety in the fluff choices. i pvp mostly so maybe you're not looking at it from my viewpoint but there were a lot more fringe talents i opted at different points to spec into with the old trees, that many mages probably went another route. for ex. 6% spell damage resist talent(forget name). now theres like 2-3 talents in the whole frost tree that are pretty fluff that would be the only differentiation between 2 frost mages, while many of the talents would probably be in almost every pvp frost mages spec where they forgo those 2-3 across the board...

[Spoonman]

Who said something about a cookie?

[Zetsumei]

I kind of like the new abilities in the talent trees. But I think I get what you mean; you have to get almost every talent in order to get to the 31 talent point. However, I feel that there are a few talents that you can swap/specc by your personal preference in PvP. But for a PvE specc it all feels the same.

PS why won't my summon Water Elemental freeze all in one macro work anymore?

Show us your marco and we'll figure it out

[Spurmwhale]

I kind of like the new abilities in the talent trees. But I think I get what you mean; you have to get almost every talent in order to get to the 31 talent point. However, I feel that there are a few talents that you can swap/specc by your personal preference in PvP. But for a PvE specc it all feels the same.


Show us your marco and we'll figure it out

i have to get home since its saved there but i had multiples of them that WERE working before the patch, but now they won't cast freeze anymore. they'll summon WE, but just won't activate the freeze ability with it anymore, even if i press again.

[Jhoff]

You used to have 1 spec, despite the endless amount of talents to chose from, there was only 1 really viable for raids (1 in each tree). Now there are a lot of utility you need to take to get to the bottom. That's a good addition if you ask me

[Spurmwhale]

You used to have 1 spec, despite the endless amount of talents to chose from, there was only 1 really viable for raids (1 in each tree). Now there are a lot of utility you need to take to get to the bottom. That's a good addition if you ask me

again i don't know about pve, but let me go to the talent calculator and i'll give you the 2-3 that are fringe, while EVERY pvp F.Mage WILL HAVE almost everything else but those. since they HAVE to get to the bottom anyways, and there is a rather huge disparity between the necessity/effect of most vs those 2-3 fringe...

---------- Post added 2010-10-13 at 01:13 PM ----------

Piercing ice - 1% crit = fluff optional

Piercing Chill - applies chill to added target = fluff optional

Reactive Barrier - below 50% barrier proc that obeys the cooldown = fluff optional

*the above talents are very likely talents many F.Mages will forgo due to their effects being much less profound than the rest of the tree talents

------------------

Ice Shards- Blizzard slow/icelance range = fringe

Enduring Winter - mana efficiency/group mana returns = fringe

Improved Freeze - FOF procs from WE summons = sort of fringe

*above are talents that will probably be the only differentiations between 2 different FMages
------------------------------

pretty much everything else is a MUST-HAVE for PvP at least...

[Twoflower]

I hate how you have to spend 31 points in one tree before unlocking the others. This seriously takes away customisability.

[Spurmwhale]

I hate how you have to spend 31 points in one tree before unlocking the others. This seriously takes away customisability.

whats worse is even when you go into the other tree's there are no brainer ones in the top tiers that everyone else specing will gravitate to.

Arcane
------
-Imp CS
-Netherwind Presence

Fire
---------
-Burning Soul
-altho its probably 50/50 between filling out MoE/ImpFireblast, and thats really more about just getting to the next tier

[Swizzle]

Imp Blink or.....Invocation? GO GO.

[Creomortis]

(im a rogue) I have to agree with the others, this is far more cookie cutter than before which is what they were trying to move away from.

[Spurmwhale]

Imp Blink or.....Invocation? GO GO.

i haven't had to make those decisions yet, but i'll answer that once i hit 81+

[Deleted]

Specs have always been a no-brainers, but since 90% of playerbase doesn't have a brain, you often used to encounter some weird specs in pugs and hear people justify them saying they just "enjoy playing and don't care". I'm more than glad we can get rid of those clowns.

[axelnomnom]

They did remove cookie cutter by making every spec have the no brained talents and then some situational talents. You have about 2-4 talents that won't up your dps so there is a little more choice.

[Deleted]

I prefer the fact that while yes, there are still cookie-cutter style builds, there's a couple of tiers in every tree I've seen that demand some utility choice - picking between two non-dps-boosting talents, and you can't avoid that. I agree that the trees are a lot less interesting now, but don't dislike them - they just made the theorycraft for best dps spec obvious, rather than needing forum trawling to find externally. Also means that people who don't like to look outside the game for their information can do just fine now.

[Oweena]

Name one spec that has multiple fluff choices pre-4.0...

All 3 mage specs no

All 3 hunter specs no

All 3 warrior specs situiational raid buffs but no

All 3 DK specs no

All 4 Feral Specs definatly no

etc etc.. There was 0 fluff talent back then, there was cookie cutter and thats all

[digiNuck]

Specs have always been a no-brainers, but since 90% of playerbase doesn't have a brain, you often used to encounter some weird specs in pugs and hear people justify them saying they just "enjoy playing and don't care". I'm more than glad we can get rid of those clowns.

This.

I don't know if you remember most of WotLK or not, but a vast majority of people REALLY managed to take sucking to new and interesting places. The game became a huge mass of anger and stupidity as a result. This is Blizzard's way of recognizing that most of their players are probably required to wear helmets at all times just to make it through the day and trying to remedy the problem by reducing some of the bloat the game has gained over the last 6 years.

Anyone who knew what they were doing were already using the same spec as everyone else who knew what they were doing, so there is no change for those of us who can count to 10 without using their fingers.

[Spurmwhale]

Name one spec that has multiple fluff choices pre-4.0...

All 3 mage specs no

All 3 hunter specs no

All 3 warrior specs situiational raid buffs but no

All 3 DK specs no

All 4 Feral Specs definatly no

etc etc.. There was 0 fluff talent back then, there was cookie cutter and thats all

there was actually a lot more fluff/decisions for mage trees at least, way more than now. give me an old talent calculator to reference and i'll list them. but that is common sense when you have a lot more talents to choose from...

guarantee there will be way less differentiation between 2 FMages now than we had before. WAY less. or even feel free to list all of these frost builds that people are going to run with that aren't cookie cutter from the new trees.

[Spurmwhale]

This.

I don't know if you remember most of WotLK or not, but a vast majority of people REALLY managed to take sucking to new and interesting places. The game became a huge mass of anger and stupidity as a result. This is Blizzard's way of recognizing that most of their players are probably required to wear helmets at all times just to make it through the day and trying to remedy the problem by reducing some of the bloat the game has gained over the last 6 years.

Anyone who knew what they were doing were already using the same spec as everyone else who knew what they were doing, so there is no change for those of us who can count to 10 without using their fingers.

while there may have always been no brainer choices for many of the major talents, there WERE fringe choices mages made before that differentiated them more than now. like i said the 6% whatever it was called lowering spell damage taken is one i can remember off the bat that some took, some didn't, but now there is way more no brainer period.

but again there are much less options too which kind of pigeon holes the choices down, and more rules to having to put so many pts to get to the bottom before you can go anywhere else.