Talent trees.

[zorkuus]

Nowadays you still just Google what "talents" are the strongest

The difference is now I change my talents very often.

[Roamingstorm]

I didn't care for them, and it was annoying every time playing Elemental that I had to change 1 or 2 talents every time I wanted to PvP. It gave you the ability of choice, but with no actual choice since mainly a majority always went with what was optimal for what situation you were going into PvP/PvE wise.

I will say that there needs to be more done to make talent choices feel more difficult and interesting, rather then bland, for example Shaman's Lv45 talent tier is just very lackluster, which it should feel exciting, not boring.

[Khorm]

The difference is now I change my talents very often.

They don't understand because they don't go past LFR so their performance is not noted at all.

[Julian Rayne]

I miss the artwork behind the talents.

On that note, does anyone have a link to a WotLK talent calculator? I want to remind myself how Death knight's managed to tank and dps with all three specs.

[Roamingstorm]

I miss the artwork behind the talents.

On that note, does anyone have a link to a WotLK talent calculator? I want to remind myself how Death knight's managed to tank and dps with all three specs.

This was one thing that really killed it for me. I enjoyed Frost tanking, and was never a fan of Blood at all. Just the concept of it never attracted me. Made me sad they went away from the design.

[Mrbleedinggums]

The talent tree is a fundamental part of an MMORPG. I miss that. In 10 years I think MMORPG's will be gone, and all we'll have are MMOG's.

There are no talent trees anymore, it's just passive and ability choices.

The lame Blizzard excuses people are parroting in this thread also apply to the new system as well. Nowadays you still just Google what "talents" are the strongest, and which ones don't matter.

How many classes have the dreaded pvp row? I don't give a shit about pvp.

If you're that bad of a player that you can't ever find a pve use for "pvp only" talents, you should probably either reroll or just play a different game. It's not meant as a personal attack, it's a general statement towards anyone with that mindset.

[melodramocracy]

This isn't a talent tree, it's an extended glyph system. In fact, I'm sort of surprised they even have glyphs any longer, as they could all be worked into a larger tree, giving players far more frequent options as they level. (oh, that's right... I mean, as they skip all but 10 of them).

I'd say that talent trees were ruined during Cata, but to be fair this game has never had a really good talent system to begin with.

[Deleted]

I miss them. Even though they were mostly boring passives and every sane player used the same ony 1 good way, the shape and amounts made it look more interesting. If they would combine the current one with the old Old interface/composition with the new more interesting talents.

[Denkou]

Talent trees were never a fun part of the game. The new version, while lacking excitement, provides a ton more customization in fewer slots.

Please don't use the word "never" like that when you're talking about something completely subjective - in this case, "fun". While the new talent system allows for greater flexibility and is more efficient overall when you're talking about pure utility and usefulness, the old trees were a lot more "fun" to me because it had a lot of quirky talents for me to pick from and play around with.

One talent that I was just thinking about today was a talent called "Rude Interruption". I believe it was in the Fury tree for Warriors, and it improved your damage dealt by a small percentage (5 or 10% or something, I forget) for a short amount of time after you successfully interrupt an enemy spellcast. It's little things like that that I miss, and that I consider "fun".

[Debased]

Talent trees were never a fun part of the game. The new version, while lacking excitement, provides a ton more customization in fewer slots.

This. Yeah you could f- around once in a while and make a fun hybrid spec but it was never practical for anything ever. While the new system isn't great at least it feels like the choices all impact gameplay even if some classes still have cookie cutter builds. I for one wouldn't mind seeing an additional talent tree added for passive benefits. Like 25 points at 100 and you can add little tweaks here and there to further compliment your playstyle.

[brutallord]

I miss spec talent tree background more

[Rioo]

The cataclysm talent tree had plenty of choice, at least for feral during progression. There were plenty of times when I specced into bear talents sacrificing cat utility spells instead, making me able to solo soak shards on Baleroc, taking the odd stack on Twin Drakes allowing the warrior to solo tank them, tanking Nefarion P1, tanking the Amalgamation on Spine and so on. Everything in 'cutting edge' heroic progression.

Besides, most talent tiers have an optimal choice now anyways, or just don't matter because CC isn't needed on most fights. I don't know which system I like the most, but it sure was fun with some more choice back then, allowing for some more fun boss tactics.

[DrIvoRobotnik]

In the name of removing the cursed Cookie cutter builds they, enforced them... hmm. But yea, I loved the old ones. These new talent trees and forced spells attached to specs are boring as... well, I cant really think of something as boring. Paint drying on grass?

[Sassafrass]

You only had customization if you were content in performing sub-optimally.

97% of the playerbase never raided, did they care about sub-optimal performance?
And at least we were given that choice.

It seemed like they gave you more customization.. But realistically you googled the best talents for the current patch and specced your points into those. For 95% of the playerbase atleast. There wasn't really any thought to it.

Actually, most still do that. There will always be cookie-cutter builds, don't kid yourself.
Hell, Blizzard themselves force some classes into certain talent trees because of how bad they are (looking at you, Rogues)

[Awbee]

Yes, I miss them immensely, and without them the WoW experience got significantly less enjoyable for me.


Why?

I don't see the main job of talent trees to bring "choice and differentiation" for characters, although that would be great, and would be their second most important job in my eyes. In this job, the Wrath talent trees weren't great, but they also weren't as terrible as most people love to claim.


I see the main job of talent trees as letting me feel my character grow. It's something for leveling, not for end game. During leveling, I want to feel my character grow stronger, I want a visceral experience of her learning new things, and being able to select which she learns first, which I find most useful first, and so on.
This is why I loved being able to select a talent point every level. I loved selecting passive talents, cause it means my character just grew in power. And I loved going to the trainer to learn a new ability.


I had hopes for the "leveling perks" in WoD. But the fact that we get them randomly, without being able to influence which one we want to get, ruins the entire concept for me. There is no fun in getting random stuff. Fun, for me at least, is looking at a bunch of talents and going "ooooh which one do I want now? What have I had trouble with in the past (mana reg, or survivability, or insufficient damage, etc)? What do I want to improve? What will my character benefit most from right now? What will enhance my playstyle the most?"

That's the feeling I have when I get a new talent point in Skyrim, for example. Ooooh, do I want to improve my sword fighting? Or my defense? Or my alchemy to make better potions? Or ...?
That game's talent sytem is pretty revered for being great, and I would love to see something like that in WoW some day. It would greatly help the game in my opinion, taking the leveling experience from a superficial to a much more immersed level.

[IdiotCheck]

That's the feeling I have when I get a new talent point in Skyrim, for example. Ooooh, do I want to improve my sword fighting? Or my defense? Or my alchemy to make better potions? Or ...?
That game's talent sytem is pretty revered for being great, and I would love to see something like that in WoW some day. It would greatly help the game in my opinion, taking the leveling experience from a superficial to a much more immersed level.

The thing is, a lot of them really weren't optional. "Oh, +1% to crit that stacks up to 5 and crit is really good for my spec? Guess I have to take that."

The talents now, theres more of a "well these are the situations I'm going to be faced with, what is better for handling them?" For instance, the bottom tier (level 15) is pretty much all movement based. As a paladin you get the option of a 70% increase for 10 seconds on a 45 second cooldown, a 45% increase for 3 seconds that is based on judgements cooldown, or a 15% permanent increase with a 5% increase (up to 3 stacks) for every holy power you have.

So basically it comes down to the fight and what spec you are. As a holy paladin, I normally go with the 70% increase as I don't need to move to often but when I do I need to high tail it. However, every once in a while it may be beneficial to go with the 15% increase that can be increased based on holy power. Now you may pick your talents and stick with them for the most part, but there will still come some times where you may need to switch it up. With the old system once you picked your talents you stuck with them, unless you messed up.

[Awbee]

The thing is, a lot of them really weren't optional. "Oh, +1% to crit that stacks up to 5 and crit is really good for my spec? Guess I have to take that."

The talents now, theres more of a "well these are the situations I'm going to be faced with, what is better for handling them?" For instance, the bottom tier (level 15) is pretty much all movement based. As a paladin you get the option of a 70% increase for 10 seconds on a 45 second cooldown, a 45% increase for 3 seconds that is based on judgements cooldown, or a 15% permanent increase with a 5% increase (up to 3 stacks) for every holy power you have.

So basically it comes down to the fight and what spec you are. As a holy paladin, I normally go with the 70% increase as I don't need to move to often but when I do I need to high tail it. However, every once in a while it may be beneficial to go with the 15% increase that can be increased based on holy power. Now you may pick your talents and stick with them for the most part, but there will still come some times where you may need to switch it up. With the old system once you picked your talents you stuck with them, unless you messed up.

Different preferences, I guess. I hate changing talents, and pretty much never do it. I tremendously dislike it when I feel forced to change talents to perform well. To me, RP-wise, my character learns something, and then this is what they know. They don't just go around un-learning and re-learning and un-learning and re-learning. Feels bad to me. Sort of like I wouldn't want to have to re-spec from Enhancer to Ele every other fight.

Another thing that you mention -- that movement tier. I dislike the whole concept of that: everyone gets one movement talent. You can't have no movement talent. You can't have two or all of them. That is SO boring, in my opinion. You can't make a character that focuses on movement, and you can't make a character that, for example, favors self-healing or raw damage over movement. No, everyone gets their one movement talent, and that's it. Blegh.

In Wrath, there were a couple of movement talents for Ret Paladin, and I remember that most of them were kind of optional. There was that "Run fast to your target after you cast Judgement on them" talent, and wasn't that extra flight speed thing a talent as well? Stuff like that. You could also go without those and instead pick up an additional CC or interrupt. Or you could take all of those for extra utility and movement, and forego a little bit of damage. To me, that was a lot more choice than this, in my opinion, extremely trite "everyone gets one movement talent, everyone gets one CC talent, everyone gets one damage talent" ... thing we have going on since MoP.

[Lochton]

I miss the feeling of setting up and making the choices. I am talking about the multi-point tree we had, where you could even choose if you wanted to main this way and increase the power of it. Miss the part where you stood for the planning and setting. I don't miss the actual figuring out though, took time... (and deaths, hehe).

In a way, I like the new system, it is just a little too simple for me. Looks like something for a MOBA game, easy pick talents.

[Tuor]

One of the reasons i've quited WoW.

I can't even call these ''wanna be talents'' as talents, just because they aren't talents, they are perks.

[Raiju]

People can argue they weren't optional, but either we say the current talents aren't optional either or the previous ones did have some optional talents, there is no winning that argument.

On top of that, people can argue they didn't get any enjoyment out of them and it's an illusion of choice - but these are contradictory. Especially so for new players, the old talent tree was more immersive, and it's the reason even RPG's releasing this year use that system rather than the simplified talent system WoW implemented.