Bring back vanilla-style talent system?

[Sigwald]

Voted no.

Vanilla/BC/LK talents where horrible, Cata was barely acceptable, but still the system was the same, it gave you an illusion of choice where actually there was none, you took one specific set of talents or you performed worse than everyone else. MoP talents finally give you a choice, even if some talents are better than others in 9 out of 10 fights, there is still that one fight.

As a person who likes leveling alts, the only thing I miss from the old design is the feel of progression, I hope Blizz will come up with something to make up for that (reiterate on Path of the Titans maybe?)

[Frozen Death Knight]

Did you even play back then ?

1. Getting full ranks of Improved Mana Blast wasn't as cookie-cutter as you make it to be. The same for Shadow Weaving, the same for Improved Vampiric Embrace.
2. Improved Fade wasn't as useless as you make it to be. The same for Mental Agility.
3. As shocking as it may seem, Priests were actually expected to use Mana Burn back then. Yes, even in PvE. Yet you've labeled 0/2 Improved Mana Burn as cookie-cutter. Remarkable.
4. Congratulations for completely ignoring the PvP-oriented options. Those options clearly weren't there, as some of the contemporary options clearly aren't intended for PvP purposes. Clearly.


Look, I didn't play a Priest in Classic. Good God, your Shadow Priest 101 is so atrocious that even someone like me can easily spot its ridiculousness. Please go "yawn" elsewhere. You make yourself look bad.

His spec makes perfect sense when looking at how the game was played in all the expansions, pretty much. Raiding and PvP were not as defined in Vanilla as they are now, so having a spec solely based on those things you mentioned would not cut it today. Most of those specs' pros would never get warrant a spot in any raid, nowadays, so putting those talents in a contextual vacuum without looking at the game as it is now is not really of much use.

[Gande]

I am apperantly in the minority of players who had actually been around for that system and appreciated that it took some skill to maximize your toon and that you could actually ruin your toon as well.

Now it really doesn't matter what talents you choose. You can blindly stumble through the content. I would go so far as to say that some of the bosses you could probably get past without choosing a talent at all.

Rewatch the original first Ragnaros kill and let me know if their talents really actually mattered.

That wand specialization talent for my mage sure did wonders!

[Pull My Finger]

Remove this, bring back that. Why can't people just play the game.

[muffinss]

I like the new talent system so I don't want them to drastically change them once again lol. The new system has really added in diversity in the specs.

The only thing I would like them to do is make gaining a level more exciting. You can go 2 - 4 levels without a single reward added in with the new level you achieved.

[irongar]

Nobody is bashing you. Try not to take things so personally next time. If you like a system just because you like to explore the tree and you like the mediocre power boosts that each level gives you then that's perfectly fine.

The people I respond to are the ones who try to justify the old talent trees on a raiding level or use incorrect terms to defend their trees. It's fine to admit that the power boosts were at times non-existent or required, but it's not fine to try and claim that the talent trees didn't have a lot of bloat or weren't mostly cookie cutter when compared to today's spec. If WoW's talent system is not what you enjoy I recommend trying another game. Not trying to put that as a GTFO statement, just saying, play what you enjoy. Don't expect games to change to what you enjoy. I don't play Call of Duty and expect them to add in-depth raiding and 25-player LFR and daily quests.

Not taking it personally at all. I just rather have a system where I can spend a ton of points on and figure things out myself. I'm just saying that we shouldn't bash eachother for liking a certain system.

I'm not even talking about cookie cutter builds. Even though today you see the difference when you change a talent (compared to 5% stun resist for example). I admit, I love that as well, but there is for me little to no customization left. Six lines with 3 options each, which most of them are aimed for pvp. No matter what system we have, there will always be cookie cutter specs.

[Deleted]

I voted no because pouring points into a 5 point filler talent to get 5% damage increase on a single strike was really fun...

Much prefer the current system of selecting abilities I can actually use.

[Time Sage]

Lets see... One viable build vs hunreds of viable builds, moreso when you consider gylph and spec choices creating thousands of custom builds that are 100% viable (even if some of the albity choices aren't useful for one boss fight)

Or one viable build that everyone has for each spec.... 3 choices... (Four for druids) or thousands of choices....

Really this is a no brainer.

[fishface]

As nice as the new style is, its idiot proofed and gives very little individualism to the other specs.

The vanilla trees at least showed who knew their class and researched it.

Haha no they didn't. There was no way to inspect people's talents.

Not taking it personally at all. I just rather have a system where I can spend a ton of points on and figure things out myself. I'm just saying that we shouldn't bash eachother for liking a certain system.

I'm not even talking about cookie cutter builds. Even though today you see the difference when you change a talent (compared to 5% stun resist for example). I admit, I love that as well, but there is for me little to no customization left. Six lines with 3 options each, which most of them are aimed for pvp. No matter what system we have, there will always be cookie cutter specs.

But bra, in the old system there was no customization, it was the illusion of choice. At most you'd have 2-5 talents to play with and by then you'd have all the decent talents and so you'd be choosing crap like increasing thorn damage by 75% (from 18 to 32 holy crap).

If you diverged and made your own spec you were straight up gimping yourself which was only acceptable in those days due to ignorance, a lack of transparency in your friend's spec and 39 other players making up for your poor performance.

ive seen a lvl 70 beat multiple lvl 85's in full pvp gear and tons of other crazy things.

Get real, an 85 could one-hit a 70 whilst the hit chance for a 70 against an 85 is abysmal.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I picked up Rift awhile ago. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the talent options in that game. I know its silly, but I don't really see a problem with it. Many classes/specs STILL have a "best" option in MoP, so i don't think the current system really fixed the "cookie cutter" build problem anyway...

---------- Post added 2013-01-16 at 04:34 AM ----------

Lets see... One viable build vs hunreds of viable builds, moreso when you consider gylph and spec choices creating thousands of custom builds that are 100% viable (even if some of the albity choices aren't useful for one boss fight)

Or one viable build that everyone has for each spec.... 3 choices... (Four for druids) or thousands of choices....

Really this is a no brainer.

Thousands? Give me a break. This is also about talents, not glyphs. Go to any old WoW help website and they have "best options for everything you can think of" ... sorry, but its basically the same. Some talents are still rarely used, and many are still "must haves."

[PetersenIII]

I think a LOT of people in this thread are confusing BC/WotLK/Cata talent trees with the Vanilla ones and forgetting just how much you could get with 51 points in three 31-point-depth trees (in which you didn't even have to reach the bottom to put points in other trees). <.<

[Elegiac]

No. The current system is not perfect, but it actually has the potential for offering choice between talents.

[Gilian]

No. The current system is not perfect, but it actually has the potential for offering choice between talents.

Like having the choice between three useless (for me) forms of CC?
And the choice between 6-9 talents that alter my rotation? Talents which, if I want to do max dps, I have to change every bossfight and thus change my rotation every bossfight. Some might see this as fun but I don't. I just want the best spec and play I don't want to have to change my talents every fight just because talent X is so much better on fight Z than talent Y. Accompanied with this talent/addon bug that requires me to reload every time I want to change talents makes it even more annoying.

A little talent changing per fight or per a few fights would be fun but not when I have to change three tiers every fight and have to adjust my rotation and get used to it again.
Like I said before they implemented this talentsystem, there will always be a superior spec. There is still no real choice unless you choose to do lower dps/healing which is exactly the same like the old system.

[Mayhem]

http://www.wowprovider.com/Old.aspx?talent=11215875_9

if i remember correct this was the bwl/aq40 sac/rezz build

[Elegiac]

Like having the choice between three useless (for me) forms of CC?
And the choice between 6-9 talents that alter my rotation? Talents which, if I want to do max dps, I have to change every bossfight and thus change my rotation every bossfight. Some might see this as fun but I don't. I just want the best spec and play I don't want to have to change my talents every fight just because talent X is so much better on fight Z than talent Y. Accompanied with this talent/addon bug that requires me to reload every time I want to change talents makes it even more annoying.

A little talent changing per fight or per a few fights would be fun but not when I have to change three tiers every fight and have to adjust my rotation and get used to it again.
Like I said before they implemented this talentsystem, there will always be a superior spec. There is still no real choice unless you choose to do lower dps/healing which is exactly the same like the old system.

Repeat: The current system is not perfect, but actually has the potential for offferring choice between talents.

There are some very shitty tiers, like Mage level 45 and 90, and there are some amazing tiers like Priest level 90.

In many cases, the difference between talents is often so marginal so as to be ignorable by the average player (you).

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

http://www.wowprovider.com/old.aspx?talent=11215875_9

if i remember correct this was the bwl/aq40 sac/rezz build

sl/sl baby.

[Zuben]

Nah, the current one may be boring in scale, but it's so much more functional that changing back would be foolish.

[Gilian]

Where is the "No No No a million times No" option?

The system we have now is far and away better than any previous iterations of the system. Right now it sincerely feels like a choice for many of the talent trees, despite the fact that some talents are pretty underpowered. Me and my guildmates have had some spirited debates on the use of certain talents, and I definitely like the feel of changing talents on a fight by fight basis rather than trying to make a balanced spec that fits every fight in a particular instance. Some talents are pretty much mandatory, such as Eternal Flame for Holy Pally, but most poor talent choices aren't going to severely impact a raid group very much. If I choose to use Holy Prism or Light's Hammer, the most I'll see is probably a 2-3% change in my healing, and again, on a fight by fight basis. Meanwhile, in the past, you had to google or just plain copy specs constantly because God forbid you forget to choose a +3% hit talent or a talent that impacts a side ability to the point of making it almost overpowered.

Your mileage may vary. If you only have to interact with a system once per expansion it's not a very fun or involving system is it? Old specs didn't reward players who were creative or didn't do the research online and instead chose to use their brains to find the best answer. They just made google mandatory for figuring out which cookie-cutter spec to play.

New talent trees have a way of rewarding players who want to think outside the box for a certain fight.

It's funny that you actually think there are no cookie-cutter specs now. It's funny that you think you now have to think more about picking talents. It's very obvious which talents are best suited for which fight. I don't think more than before. I do respec more than before and sometimes I just don't bother because it is not even worth it.

Talents are either cookie-cutter or pointless to switch because they all do the same thing in the end. And what is fun about cosmetic talents? At least with the old system you could play around. Now you are forced into talents and have far less options just to make it noob-proof and easier to balance while they make you believe it's more fun. All it does for me is that I have to think 10 seconds before a new boss and make me change my spec 5 times during a raid, so much fun indeed.

[Deleted]

the new talent system seems so blant compared too the old system.

but to be honest the amount of choice you have is about the same since you were pretty much forced too take the basic cookie cutter spec. if you want too preform well during raiding or pvp. with maybe if you were lucky 6-10 talents for random choices, that didnt affect your gameplay much (if at all) and often you even had less then that amount of talent points too spread freely around .

now during lvling and solo content you were free too pick what ever weird messed up spec you wanted, which was fine and enjoyable. but no serious semi-raiding guild or pvp guild would take you with a weird talent set up without making you to go cookiecutter build.

so i like the fact that the cookie cutter build became basic for every class. and then you got some free choice on 6 remaining talents (though some talents are pretty much non viable prehaps a rare occasion) overall i actually got more choice now in what i want as skill changes then i had before in the old system

[Gilian]

Repeat: The current system is not perfect, but actually has the potential for offferring choice between talents.

There are some very shitty tiers, like Mage level 45 and 90, and there are some amazing tiers like Priest level 90.

In many cases, the difference between talents is often so marginal so as to be ignorable by the average player (you).

The old system also had potential for offering choice between talents. What is your point?

The average player also has progression raids and wants to be able to do the highest possible dps. Average (according to you) players also do heroic raids. I doubt I am average seeing the players in LFR and LFD.