6 years of vanilla talent system vs 8 years of current talent system

[Lightforged]

I liked how you felt like you could customize your class (even if all you wound up doing was copy/pasting the cookie cutter builds when doing "real" content).

I also like how the new system is simpler and has more active abilities (even if all you wound up doing was copy/pasting the cookie cutter builds when doing "real" content).

I still think a hybrid of the two would work best. Lots of small talents you earn very often and big, chunky capstone talents every 15 or so levels. Basically look at the Legion's Artifact Weapon Traits as a guide but design it so that people are actively making choices as they level up.

So lets say there is a big, chunky talent every 15 levels. Between those 15 levels, you could have four opportunities for minor improvements. As an example:

15: Firestarter | Pyromaniac | Searing Touch
18: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
21: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
24: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
27: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
30: Blazing Soul | Shimmer | Blast Wave
33: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
36: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
39: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
42: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
45: Incanter's Flow | Mirror Image | Rune of Power

[shaunika123]

You mean holy paladins, resto shaman, and resto druid? They are still around.

no I mean elemental mage, harp rogue, dreamstate druid, muti prep rogue, SL/SL warlock, etc...

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That was a hybrid, that die not run any dots, you are confusing the hybrid you just messaged with actual affliction.

it had 30 points in affliction out of 51

I didnt say dot spec, but it was affliction

but fine, even if I give you that it's hybrid (which it can be considered I guess)
it's still just one of many different viable specs warlocks had.

and yeah you couldnt really play dots in raids I give you that

[Augrelle]

I liked how you felt like you could customize your class (even if all you wound up doing was copy/pasting the cookie cutter builds when doing "real" content).

I also like how the new system is simpler and has more active abilities (even if all you wound up doing was copy/pasting the cookie cutter builds when doing "real" content).

I still think a hybrid of the two would work best. Lots of small talents you earn very often and big, chunky capstone talents every 15 or so levels. Basically look at the Legion's Artifact Weapon Traits as a guide but design it so that people are actively making choices as they level up.

So lets say there is a big, chunky talent every 15 levels. Between those 15 levels, you could have four opportunities for minor improvements. As an example:

15: Firestarter | Pyromaniac | Searing Touch
18: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
21: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
24: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
27: Increase Fireball damage by 0.5% | Increase Ignite Damage by 0.5% | Reduce Fireball's casting time by 0.5%
30: Blazing Soul | Shimmer | Blast Wave
33: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
36: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
39: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
42: Increase Haste by 0.5% | Increase Crit by 0.5% | Increase duration of Combustion by 0.5%
45: Incanter's Flow | Mirror Image | Rune of Power

I was actually just going to come on and suggest this.

Basically have passives in-between talent tiers. As we level, we can choose the passives when we level.

[Aresk]

The old talent system was an easy way to reward level increases: gain a point, throw it somewhere. The last two expansions didn't reward leveling at all. My lvl 100 character has as many abilities and options as my level 120. I think that's the real problem, and talents would be a way to address it, but they were just horrendous for new player experience. Today's not much better with ilvl (Sim gear to truly understand the changes, higher ilvl isn't always an upgrade due to Azerite traits), but there were just so many trap talents before. I miss the customization but don't miss the complexity.

[toffmcsoft]

The only talent system strongly beats anything we have today.
The only downside of the old system was paying gold to respec.

Used to run a rogue spec that was 21/13/17 or something close to it.
Most fun I've had in the game.

[Alanar]

Yup tody talents are so prochoice, like Frost DK only having BOS build ( breath of Sindra ) yup, no presence at all, 1 type of rune and so on... Miss the old system, you still could get new spells in it.

Lats go one step further, remove spec altogether, and just make one giant tree!

PvP will be unbalanced forever, but imagen that, ONE BIG FUCKIGN TALENT TREE that has all your specs in it,

Now That's what I would call fun.

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wow and now its so much better?

1. you need to change on they fly your talent to fight a specific boss
2. you mostly swap 1-2 talents that's it , everything else is just shit for you ( speaking from frost DK spec )
3. There is NO choice now what so EVER, i can't run anything if I want to be good at all, even wors I need specific azurite traits... NO, today's system is not better
4. it is boring to lvl, each 15 lvl you pick one THING, that's it ...
5. B O R I N G

Wasnt talking aboit current talent system at all.. both have their flaws, bit saying you had so much choice is all mirror and smoke which the designers did a good job on it seems.

[Deleted]

Yeah, keep saying that to yourself.

oh look 5% crit
oh look 5% dodge
oh look 5% hit
oh look 5% ah who fucking gives a shit

they were BORING

[sam86]

FYI - that alone illustrates issues @Blizzard

WOTLK BM/MM hyprid with readiness was very OP. It was one of the reason they stopped hybrids in wotlk.

Later, a few xpac later, can't remember which one, they gave readiness to BM hunters again.

and it now no longer in the game cause of how op it was.

It was meant for MM hunters....and they sure need it now.

i did say that the old system created many broken talents that were nightmare to balance, u confirming what i'm saying
And u think readness was OP? try the sub built that literally gave u infinity combo points in raids, yeah u don't take most dmg talents, but u literally spam non stop finishing moves 5 points
or pvp against a full protection paladin that has very strong healing

[kail]

I certainly miss the old system and appreciated the different specs that were viable (yes some classes had more than 3 viable specs). The only problem I see now is the 120 points we and Blizz now have to manage. That and there are systems in place that identify the player as a dps/tank/healer based on the spec, harder to do that with a talent build.

[Verdugo]

It was shit but I still prefered it over long gaps where you gain nothing while leveling and abilities that were moved to the talent tree where they cannot compete with other choices (so basicaly removed).

[Worgoblin]

I prefer the Vanilla talent system. I ran a hybrid spec on my Hunter that I really enjoyed in PvP. Never met anyone who had my exact spec. There are way more interesting choices to be made with the old system.

[Jingoism]

Apples and oranges again. I also liked the illusion of choice during the early years of cookie cutter specs.

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1% more crit and that 5 times, wow. So great. 3 core talents that actually change your playstyle while the rest is just minimalistic performance tuning. It was 90% placebo and you just won't admit it.

dunno, improved wingclip was pretty tight. There were more interesting talents than you're willing to give credit and alot more spec diversity than we have today for obvious reasons. But I know how much you people hate actual diversity. lul

[schwank05]

I would go back to BC/Wrath in a heart beat with game design and class design. Everything felt more involved back then you have the weird ass Duel weild Unholy spec for Dk's Rogues hopping around several trees to grab talents and sacrifice one thing to gain the other. Now you go on Icy-Veins look what is best and never change again.

[Banard]

i did say that the old system created many broken talents that were nightmare to balance, u confirming what i'm saying
And u think readness was OP? try the sub built that literally gave u infinity combo points in raids, yeah u don't take most dmg talents, but u literally spam non stop finishing moves 5 points
or pvp against a full protection paladin that has very strong healing

Sorry, what i am trying to say is, the hybrid was OP, blizzard removed, forgot it was OP and provided it back under the new system. Then finally removed the talent from the game all together when 1 of the 3 spec was build around it. See the issue?

[EyelessCrow]

I would go back to BC/Wrath in a heart beat with game design and class design. Everything felt more involved back then you have the weird ass Duel weild Unholy spec for Dk's Rogues hopping around several trees to grab talents and sacrifice one thing to gain the other. Now you go on Icy-Veins look what is best and never change again.

You found cookie cutter specs back then as well...I don't see your point. That system just had an illusion of choice, you have more choice now than you did then. Though that's mainly because they want you to make a choice between single target and AOE.

[Deleted]

Omg, not the white knights again. Imo old system was better and it wasnt just 1% to wand or something like that and there was multiple builds good for many things and you felt like you are progressing constantly during leveling which is not the case anymore. I was playing hybrid bearcat thru tbc, wotlk putting some good dps parses in wotlk as OT and it was not cookiecuter build at all. New system is very boring... most talents are never even competive with each other. Is this better? I dont think so.

[Banard]

Do you only do one type of content? I change talents daily, though I do BGs, Arenas, WQs, Duels, Dungeons and Raiding. And all of them kinda got their own setup.

I do everything. I only have 1 build. Everything else is pointless. And i lied and I forgot i change 1 utility once. All of legion 0 changes.

For the most part I am under the impression people change utility spells. It is time the just get rid of it all and bake it all in or remove it and adjust numbers accordingly.

[Travace]

Talents, for the most part, are not worth mentioning anymore.
Even if we had the old style back, people would just look up what the best set up was and never think about it again.
If anything we have more optional talents now then we did back then, back then we took whatever ElistsJerks said was the best set up as holy writ and never deviated.
I played in Vanilla but didnt Raid until BC, so maybe in Vanilla there was less concrete choices but I distinctly remember following a guide in BC on how to talent for my class.

[Deleted]

Talents, for the most part, are not worth mentioning anymore.
Even if we had the old style back, people would just look up what the best set up was and never think about it again.
If anything we have more optional talents now then we did back then, back then we took whatever ElistsJerks said was the best set up as holy writ and never deviated.
I played in Vanilla but didnt Raid until BC, so maybe in Vanilla there was less concrete choices but I distinctly remember following a guide in BC on how to talent for my class.

Cookie cutter only exists in PvE.

There is no such thing as cookie cutter in PvP and World content.

In WotlK tons of hybrid specs existed both in PvP and world content.
This means 100% the old system was better for customization.

It was a paradise for "customization nerds"

[Thetruth1400]

[QUOTE=shaunika123;50158195
the fact that hybrids are gone is a huge blow to diversity tbh[/QUOTE]

Agreed. When they changed the talent trees to what they have today, they basically changed the definition of Hybrid from "Someone who can do multiple roles at the same time but slightly reduced effectiveness to "Someone who has multiple talent trees with different roles."

Essentially today, Rogue, Mage, Hunter, and Warlock are the only "pure" classes and everything else is a weak form of hybrid. As a DPS with a heal spec, it's just not the same as it used to be. Back in the day, if the healer died, I could switch from DPSing to healing on the fly and potentially ride out the rest of the encounter saving a wipe. Now, if the healer goes down, I've got maybe 5 heals to cast before I'm OOM and chances are things are over.

I much preferred the older system, even if people complained, "But cookie cutter builds!" 1) So what? It's no different than it is today. 2) I'd rather feel like a class again, not just a spec. By that I mean, if I'm sitting as a dps, I still want heals on my bar and a resource bar that actually makes sense so I can flex fill as needed. I'm tired of feeling like a watered down version of my class because I chose one spec over the other.

The way the game is designed currently, they might as well just do away with specs entirely and just boil the game down to 12 classes only able to fill one role, because that's what it feels like we are with the current spec system.