Old talent trees or new talent options

[Pancaspe]

Old system had Zero Choice and took Zero thought. Copy and Paste was the only option.

New system has real choice and versatility. I often swap out talents for a particular fight. LOVE THAT!

[Hand Banana]

Its hard for me to imagine people defending the old talent trees as being better than the new ones. Seriously, all of the old talents exist by being automatically acquired as you level up, there is still the image of "getting stronger" as you go if you pay some attention. Taking a talent that ups crit by 1% but losing 2% crit from level scaling sounds super immersive...

From a pvp standpoint, the new talents are amazing. There are so many valid choices of talents and glyphs that many different people have different opinions on, and the ability to change your "loadout" in the arena pregame is really cool too. Adds depth to the game. The old talents were all but maybe 2 or 3 random points in the exact same spots with hardly any exceptions. The only exceptions I can think of are the (usually OP) gimmicky specs like holy/ret and prot/holy for pallys during WOTLK. Now, for example, the T3 talents for holy pallys completely change your playstyle in a non-gimmicy/OP way like those WOTLK hybrids. Spec selfless and you judge now and have a more aggressive playstyle, spec EF or SS and you get a more defensive playstyle.

The new talents basically give you all the 58 or whatever required points you had to spend and gives you the remaining few "free" points as 6 difficult choices. Difficult in pvp maybe, pve IDC personally.

[Kraenen]

Old system had Zero Choice and took Zero thought. Copy and Paste was the only option.

New system has real choice and versatility. I often swap out talents for a particular fight. LOVE THAT!

you're saying the game locked you into one spec for each class as soon as you hit lvl 10?

[melodramocracy]

Old system had Zero Choice and took Zero thought. Copy and Paste was the only option.

Old system had all sorts of interesting ways to improvise for some classes, especially when it came to the pvp side of things. You should have experimented a bit more.

[Clrg]

I love that you think this is a rational and effective path to knowledge. I'm going to go tweet that Queen Elizabeth is abdicating and see if you post it on here as news.

Anyway, the only people who prefer the old way are the same people who think choosing between a steak and a plate of dog shit is a meaningful choice.

- - - Updated - - -



There are specs that have this (shadow comes to mind) and people still bitch and make "cookie cutter" builds. Which by the way if you're not changing talents occasionally dependent on the fight then you're a weak raider. Cookie cutter builds are for people who are lazy don't dislike thinking, that's all.

Priest and druid have one of the best talents design in the game, sometime all three choices are viable for all the spec, you cant said that for all the classes, some talents are almost never used if you are not in X spec and the other talent is like a core for that spec, lvl 90 talent for mages, echo of elements for elemental, bladestorm and bloodbath, anticipation, etc.

That doesn't mean the talent system is bad. It means some classes need more work on their trees than other. Priests, Warlocks, and Shaman all have a ton of effective choices and are the template they should use for others. Everything has a niche, a usage, and there's no real cookie cutter spec unless you're going for the top 1% min/maxing, and even then it usually only holds true for raw single target encounters.

Hunters, Rogues, and Mages are what you DON'T want your trees to be like. Either useless in PvE (Rogues) or straight up number modifiers/damage cooldowns that homogenize the specs (Hunter/Mage.)

Also, those 2-3 ponts you had contributed little. You typically picked up something like 3% more Stamina or Crit or "some skill I never use can now slow!"

Personally think, as stated on the last page, that they add some specialization specific talents to allow proper diversity. Can have some class wide crossover like say the Hunter T1-3 talents but then add specialization specific ones in order to make talent options actually desirable by the players. It's not fun being a raiding Hunter/Rogue/Mage and having most of your talent options either be core rotational skills that kill what little distinctiveness your specs have to begin with or having talents that you never get to use at all unless you PvP. Or trying to make healing bonuses attractive to a DPS (the Paladin healing tier for example.)

There was talent diversity in lich king, mage ffb, mage fire with some talents in arcane, etc, they killed that kind of hybrid build in cataclysm because they dont like them and it was hard to balance.

[Clash the DK]

There was lots of opportunity for improvement with the old talent system (Pre-Cata Talents). It was not perfect. But the basic template could have been salvaged.



Imagine this:

The WotLK talent template. All talents have their cool and artistic icon representation in the tree. Most important choices in the tree are activated automatically upon reaching a certain level just like right now. But, there would be 2-3 short "paths" within each spec that really offered different options in how you played the spec. You can only choose one. Each and every talent within the tree would have 3-6 talent augmentations attached (Large glyph system expanded upon and inserted here + old "boring" power-up talents such as additional crit for specific abilities). Some of these augmentations would offer utility, and others power. Through leveling you would acquire one singular "Path Point" and multiple "Utility Points" and "Power Points" to fill out your talent tree. You end up with a very customizable system. And yet, everything is still organized in a way that the Dev team doesn't loose their mind trying to balance. Within this scenario, all actual glyphs would just be cosmetic and fun. This allows all of the important decisions to be placed into one single entity. The talent system.

This is what I want. It would be a combination of the WotLK talent trees and the MoP talent grid + Large glyph system.



For Example:

We'll use the DK ability Icy Touch as an example of how the augmentation process would work. You receive IT right off the bat, so it would be in your first tier of the talent tree and activated automatically. After each level gained, you would acquire one of the two different talent points (Power or Utility). Maybe it would rotate between power points and utility points every other level. But all of this would be represented visually by linked icons within the talent tree.


ICY TOUCH - Ability

Power Augmentation Level 1 - Increases crit rating of Icy Touch by 10%
Power Augmentation Level 2 - Increases damage of Icy Touch by 30% (Requires Power Augmentation Level 1)
Power Augmentation Level 3 - Increases damage of Icy Touch by 50% (Requires Power Augmentation Level 2)

Utility Augmentation Level 1 - Slows your target by 50%
Utility Augmentation Level 2 - Roots your target in place for 3 seconds (Requires Utility Augmentation Level 1)

[ringpriest]

Old system had all sorts of interesting ways to improvise for some classes, especially when it came to the pvp side of things. You should have experimented a bit more.

Agreed. My PvP builds were wildly different from my PvE builds. I wonder if some of the players who don't like the old system only started after it started to get locked down (in mid-Wrath, if I remember right).

[Wildberry]

Oooh Big post, let's give my thoughts!
I have recently started my death knight (didn't really play him since WotLK, so that's all I remember).

I recently releveled one out of boredom, all I can say is: Have fun, it's pretty painful until 64 and 75 (Apparently, people need Death Pact and Purgatory before Rune Regen...but, that's just one more problem with the DK talents)

Hmm, you are right about the 'movement'-thing.
But is that a problem with the talent-system or how they decided to fill the tree itself?
I would like to point towards the Paladin-tree, that's how it should be done.
Even on my hunter I am excited with the "movement"-tree in Tier 1, and I like the priest-talents for movement.

The Paladin tree is actually done well, for the most part. (Not because I like the talent tree design, but atleast there's 3 different ways to go about increasing your movement speed, rather than choosing Stun, Sprint, or Slow.) However, I can't comment on what was scrapped from the Paladin tree (I got mine to 80 and benched it, same thing happened this expansion, Paladins just aren't my class it seems.)

That's my main issue though, the new talents would be fine if everything got baked in, but for DK's atleast, a lot of the fun spells that you could actually "feel" you were using were just scrapped.

I disagree that you must pick X. If you have a 50% to make a mistake with X, resulting in lower DPS, than the best idea would be to pick Y (assuming that it's only a 0.1% decrease or something).
It's not about the maximum dps you could achieve, it's about the dps that you will actually achieve.

Most players won't (FYI, I'm using DK 75 talents [Blood Tap, Runic Empowerment, Runic Corruption] as my mental reference for this example) unfortunately, but people who actually do raid (Heroic Modes) would most likely run with Blood Tap (The Harder one to manage) until they got used to it, and use it full time. That being said, I DO see plenty of DK ranks using Runic Corruption, but for the most part (As far as WoL and respectable DK armories go) Blood Tap seems to be the main pick, since it nets the most DPS when properly used.

The way I remember WotLK was "Do you want this healing or dps-talent?". Well, I am dps so there isn't really a choice.
Now it seems more like "Do you want this dps-talent or that other?", which is (in my opinion) much more interesting to play with.
I think the paladin-T6 is the perfect example for that.
LH does not only give more dps on most fights, it's also better since it heals people.
On the other hand it's more "difficult" to manage and not quite as usefull when you need to burn down one target or when the target is moving around.

The Ret Paladin talent tree (I've done some digging)

Common Build (11/5/55 [Core Build was 5/5/55 with 6 "free talent points")

For Paladins, assuming everything was baked in, the new trees might seem fine, because there's really not a lot of flexibility for dipping into other trees, like let's say a class with 1 tank/heal spec and 2 DPS specs, or a Pure could. Personally, I like the old system for pures and classes with 2 DPS specs, but I can see how as a class that has a tank, heal, and DPS tree you would like the new system better.

Although:

Old system had Zero Choice and took Zero thought. Copy and Paste was the only option.
New system has real choice and versatility. I often swap out talents for a particular fight. LOVE THAT!

That is the mentality I have a problem with (I'm not accusing you of having it, just using this guy's post as an example)

LH does not only give more dps on most fights, it's also better since it heals people.
On the other hand it's more "difficult" to manage and not quite as usefull when you need to burn down one target or when the target is moving around.

Let me apply my VERY basic understanding of Ret Paladins (With the help of Krekko's Ret guide [Found Here] as a point of reference. Ret Paladins, feel free to correct me if any of this info is taken out of context, Ret's your spec, not mine.)

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 hybrid DPS-healing spells:

• Holy Prism when cast on an ally, heals them and deals damage to all nearby enemies. When placed on an enemy, it deals damage to that enemy and heals all nearby allies. As a Retribution Paladin, you will most likely use this on yourself or another ally, so that the spell damages nearby adds.
• Light's Hammer places a hammer at a targeted ground location. The hammer deals damage to nearby enemies and heals nearby allies.
• Execution Sentence is a single target DPS spell that deals damage to the target in an escalating manner (slowly then ramping up to a burst).
  

Your choice of which will be based on whether you wish to damage a single target (Execution Sentence) or multiple enemies (Light's Hammer or Holy Prism), and if you're doing PvE or PvP. In the case of multiple enemies, it will also depend on how these adds are placed, your placement in comparison to the adds, how they are tanked and your movement around them as well as their time spent in the damage.

The point is, is that, yes there is a choice, but for players looking to optimize their performance, there really isn't, depending on the mechanics, a certain talent will be the "go-to" talent for a fight, and the other, will be better for a different fight.

Let's face it, 9 out of 10 people don't even use a potion or flask on a fight and they wouldn't even take food unless someone makes a table.
If we're talking about normal raiding guilds, I'd say the same is true for food and potions.
How many people change their talent because it's better on that fight?
How many Warlocks take another pet because it's better on that fight?
I'd say that in most cases the difference in the talent can be ignored because people aren't playing at 100% anyway.

I'm inclined to say that they're all doing it wrong if they're not double potting, have flasks and +300 food and are doing everything in their ability to maximize their performance, but I would really rather not drag that debate in here. For people like that, that just don't care about their performance, sure, I can see them taking whatever talent that they like using the best. You're right about that.

Don't get me wrong though, there was a lot of filler in the old talent trees. I just feel like some of the interesting abilities got scrapped and for some classes (Not Paladins, as already stated.) Dipping into other spec's trees was fun. The New Talent system isn't horrible, however, it could be improved. Mainly though, I just feel like the Old Talents (People making the claim that there was only 1 cookie cutter build.) is an unfair representation of the Old System, and that, while switching talents every fight IS fun for some people, at the end of the day, there will usually be a "right" option and a "wrong" option for specific fights.

(EDIT: And Let me just apologize in advance for the length of this post, I had no clue it turned out to be THIS long.)

[Unholydevil]

so you're saying that since a few people laugh at you you don't actually have a choice? you = lame

I would say that if there is a clear right and wrong choice to the point where there is no defendable reason to choose anything else then you have no real choice. The new talents I find I actually have to switch up fairly consistently which is why I am glad its so easy to do so but if it was not so easy I think you would get a much better understanding of exactly how much more variety the new trees have.

[Toiran]

Let's be honest, the old system was crap, I had a cookie clutter build that NEVER changed for years at time...

Now, I change talents on different bosses and in different areas of the game, I feel like it maybe seems a bit small in terms of choice purely because of the comparison to the old, but the new system is far, far better, and more enjoyable, which was there goal, to let you have fun and have real choice on as when instead of "Oh, heres a build some guy worked out was the best, use this and never change it until we buff or nerf something".

New.

[McNeil]

I liked the old system so much better, as it has been said before you feel like you actually progress with your character.

Sometimes its pretty fun to decide whether to put talents in ''Improved Shockwave'' to reduce the cooldown by 6 sec, or ''Incite'' to do a lot more damage with Heroic Strike, Cleave and Mortal Strike. And these are just vry small comparisons.

[Bashkar]

I think the current system is the right direction, though the decisions should be more plentiful.

I think integrating the Major Glyph and Talent system together, as Path of the Titans, would be better for the game long term.

As with the current system, level 10 introduces specializations, and a core ability is gained accordingly. The player also gains access to PotT should function in three node types.

Type 1. Every 20 levels, starting at 20 (plus one more at level cap), a talent is chosen that has a discernible impact on your priority / rotation system. This would range from adding abilities or procs, introducing a resource or cooldown to manage, etc.

Type 2. Every 15 levels, starting at 15, a talent is chosen that affects a core ability's efficiency, cooldown, function, etc. Earlier on, it'd be as simple as reducing the cooldown / resource cost, or increasing resource generation. Further down, you'd see something similar to Splitting Ice or Icy Veins glyphs.

Type 3. Every 15 levels, starting at 10, a talent is chosen that impacts your mobility, survivability, or control. Similar in function to most current first and second tier talents.

Glyphs would need a redesign. I think they do regardless; their current design is awful for new players (especially with inflation of glyph costs), and are too often a 'set it and forget it' mechanic unless you alternate between PvE and PvE frequently.

I think glyphs could be better suited to focus on changing the flavour of a character. Something that might change the value of a secondary stats, like giving an enrage-on-crit mechanic to traditionally haste-heavy builds. The design space becomes fairly limited, though I've always felt Inscription in it's current incarnation wasn't viable.

[KCguy]

I liked the old system so much better, as it has been said before you feel like you actually progress with your character.

Sometimes its pretty fun to decide whether to put talents in ''Improved Shockwave'' to reduce the cooldown by 6 sec, or ''Incite'' to do a lot more damage with Heroic Strike, Cleave and Mortal Strike. And these are just vry small comparisons.

You're looking at the warrior build and the examples you gave of why you like the talents better isn't convincing, at all. Trying to decide where to spend a point might have seemed "fun" for some, but in reality, it didn't make a difference at all where you put them. lol. Because once you got futher down the list, everyone copied everyone. The old system was atrocious in every sense of the way because it was so cookie cutter. It really was. People are tired of hearing it, but anyone who played back then knows it ws true.Most people would just copy others and would then leave it for months and months at a time. Many, not even looking at it ever again.

The new system doesn't have all the fancy bells and whistles like the old system, but what it does have is more versatility. A majority of the talents in the old system were completely useless, where as most of the talents in this new system isn't.

They just need to add more talents as time goes on.

[brakez]

The new system doesn't have all the fancy bells and whistles like the old system, but what it does have is more versatility. A majority of the talents in the old system were completely useless, where as most of the talents in this new system isn't.

They just need to add more talents as time goes on.

versatile-
1. Capable of doing many things competently.
2. Having varied uses or serving many functions

Mistaken use of that word? No way in hell the new system can even be compared to the old, in terms of versatility. For example, back in vanilla my guild had 5-6 holy paladins at any given time. None of them were ever the same identical spec. We all had the obvious holy talents, but we each branched out into various off-talent choices like imp judgments, imp LoH, imp conc, imp devo, blessing of kings, blessing of sanc, and others I can't remember. All those added up to a lot of extra utility that we wouldn't have provided had all of us paladins chose the cookie cutter holy paladin spec.

When I brought my paladin to raid, I felt like I was making a difference in the raid because of my unique talent build. The new system is extremely bland and boring, and every person of like spec always has the same 6 talents. Might as well just remove the talent system from the game--doesn't give our character's a way to be unique, and certainly doesn't give us more versatility than we used to have.

[derpkitteh]

old. i hate this new crap.

[H3llhog]

The new talent system, for sure. In arenas, for example, I actually have to decide which abilities would be better for the team I'm going against with. The same can happen in some boss battles, too. As a warrior: boss with multiple adds? Let's have bladestorm and bloodbath. Single boss? Let's pick Dragon Roar and Avatar instead.

In my opinion, it is one of the best things they did in MoP.

[Arbs]

versatile-
1. Capable of doing many things competently.
2. Having varied uses or serving many functions

Mistaken use of that word? No way in hell the new system can even be compared to the old, in terms of versatility. For example, back in vanilla my guild had 5-6 holy paladins at any given time. None of them were ever the same identical spec. We all had the obvious holy talents, but we each branched out into various off-talent choices like imp judgments, imp LoH, imp conc, imp devo, blessing of kings, blessing of sanc, and others I can't remember. All those added up to a lot of extra utility that we wouldn't have provided had all of us paladins chose the cookie cutter holy paladin spec.

When I brought my paladin to raid, I felt like I was making a difference in the raid because of my unique talent build. The new system is extremely bland and boring, and every person of like spec always has the same 6 talents. Might as well just remove the talent system from the game--doesn't give our character's a way to be unique, and certainly doesn't give us more versatility than we used to have.

Vanilla is an except to alot of the Cookie Cutter, everything was new cause of that its why Hybrid builds were huge, it wasn't until AQ40 were the cookie builds really got popular & TBC it got even bigger. So of course may people had different specs, but the moment the best specs were discovered than thats when Cookie Cutters began to grow. Because wanted best through-put & cookie cutters gave you that & you never had to worry about another spec until the next patch or expansion.

[Rucati]

The new talent system, for sure. In arenas, for example, I actually have to decide which abilities would be better for the team I'm going against with. The same can happen in some boss battles, too. As a warrior: boss with multiple adds? Let's have bladestorm and bloodbath. Single boss? Let's pick Dragon Roar and Avatar instead.

The only reason you can do that in arenas is because they show you what you're fighting before the match starts, which is one of the dumbest things they've ever added. And in raids all it does it make things more annoying forcing you to swap talents for every single fight because if you don't then you're worthless.

The old system was better, period. There was more variety, and more versatility in what you could do. Now there are certain talents you need for every single fight, no matter what.

Looking at my Warrior from a PvP perspective you use Juggernaut 100% of the time. You use Second Wind 100% of the time. You use Disrupting Shout 100% of the time. You use Mass Spell Reflection 100% of the time. That's 4/6 talents that you never swap out of. So you choose between Bladestorm and Shockwave, and Bloodbath or Storm Bolt. If you're doing something like War/Lock/Shaman you'd use Bladestorm/Bloodbath, if you're doing something like KFC you'd use Shockwave/Storm Bolt, but there's no real variety. You don't really change talents in PvP ever, aside from when you change comps.

In raids all you'd do is swap between Bladestorm/Dragon's Roar and Bloodbath/Storm Bolt. People act like the talents in MoP give you a bunch of options, but they really don't, because there is always only one correct option. Sure there are some interesting talents, but they aren't particularly useful. Every class has 6 talents that are the best for PvP and 6 that are the best for PvE depending on the fight, and you never use anything else.

[PrairieChicken]

If I had to choose from one I will choose the new one because it actually gives choice. Old ones were just class ablilites bound to some talent so it was pretty mandatory if you wanted to function.

If I had option to make a new one I would combine the two. Have lots of talents (old way) and don't tie it to mandatory upgrades (new way).

I would propose diablo style talent system (you have bunch of stuff, choose n) that gives passive upgrades combined with new talent system that gives active skill of choice.

[Wildberry]

Let's be honest, the old system was crap, I had a cookie clutter build that NEVER changed for years at time...

Now, I change talents on different bosses and in different areas of the game, I feel like it maybe seems a bit small in terms of choice purely because of the comparison to the old, but the new system is far, far better, and more enjoyable, which was there goal, to let you have fun and have real choice on as when instead of "Oh, heres a build some guy worked out was the best, use this and never change it until we buff or nerf something".

Most people would just copy others and would then leave it for months and months at a time. Many, not even looking at it ever again.

Because wanted best through-put & cookie cutters gave you that & you never had to worry about another spec until the next patch or expansion.

See:

Also, I do clearly recall 3 builds being viable for JUST Unholy back in 3.3
17/0/54 [Blood Subspec without reaping, for lower geared players]
0/17/54 [Frost Subspec without reaping, for moderately-high geared players WITH Proc weapons]
14/0/57 [Blood Subspec with reaping, Moderately-High geared players without proc weapons, sometimes outperformed by 0/17/54 even without a proc weapon, however not always, nor across the board, also has built in threat reduction]

And no, changing talents between fights is not a choice. There's no, well X works, but Y would also work. It's X>Y so I'll take X, however next fight has adds so I'll be taking Y.

The old system was atrocious in every sense of the way because it was so cookie cutter. It really was. People are tired of hearing it, but anyone who played back then knows it ws true.Most people would just copy others and would then leave it for months and months at a time. Many, not even looking at it ever again.

The new system doesn't have all the fancy bells and whistles like the old system, but what it does have is more versatility. A majority of the talents in the old system were completely useless, where as most of the talents in this new system isn't.

I can confidently say that what you said is a half truth suited to your argument, as someone who DID play back then, also, I would appreciate it if you quit pretending that you speak for the community.