A Fun Look to the Past - Old Blue Posts about Talent Tree Evolution

[Kralljin]

If the old system didn't have an unneeded gold sink cost you wouldn't have to complain about it.

I'd still argue that it wasn't very interesting and it just didn't feel great if you had invest talents into support talent that didn't exactly stack well.

Take Windrush Totem on Live for example, if you have multiple Shaman, you have multiple totems, which is great because they stack just fine.

If you had instead of Windrush totem a "deal x% more damage" Totem (which doesn't stack), you would have to check whether another Shaman is present, make up with him / her who select the damage totem and who doesn't.

Why is that an issue + how is that any different from today?

That a serious question?

Did you have to manage Astral Power, Soul shards (the ones that consumed for actual useable damage abilities)?
Were there any procs out to watch for?
Did you ever ask yourself: "Maybe i should play Talent X on that fight" during Classic?

Like, do really want to on record and say that you don't notice any difference between the MoP - BfA era and classic regarding (class) gameplay?

But for an example, look at Mage. If you wanted to be a Frost Mage who subs in Fire, then you could put points down the Frost tree to empower your frost spells. But you could then put some of your points into Fire, powering up your Fireball spell (Improved Fireball to reduce cast time, Flame Throwing to increase its range) and then you'd have a reason to add Fireball to your rotation.

The big question is why?

Why would you suddenly decide to, nah fuck it, i want to cast some Fireballs instead of Frostbolts?
If i have invested quite a lot of talentpoints into an ability, why would i also put talentpoints into another that directly competes with this ability?

Like, if i wanted to apply a slow, okay, reasonable argument, but then i could just use Frostbolt Rank 1 or Cone of Cold without investing 5 or more talentpoints into an ability that is due previously spent talentpoints not that useful by comparison.

It's not you suddenly get some proc that makes Frostbolt better or something, it's you suddenly going into a different direction entirely without reason.

Even if you want to argue over something like Resistance (meaning Fire Elementals), then it was simply a wise choice to move your talentpoints into that tree that avoids this issue entirely.

You essentially gimp your character for no reason, this is by no means a "raider" thing, but simply how it worked on literally any level.

Just to give an example where i am coming from, if someone plays Frost, but has Improved Blizzard selected, because he wants to do some AoE farming afterwards, that's fine to me, then he's marginally worse, but has some of them few impactful abilities in Vanilla instead to do something cool, that's fine with me.
But if i see someone that plays fire, but then suddenly puts five points into Imp. Frostbolt, (if talent inspection were a thing) i struggle to think off a rational solution.
"Because i want to" is in my opinion simply not a great explanation, one should at least put it into words what they like about it.

Things like that weren't not really great costumization, it was just a red flag for other people.

In my opinion, it would be a wiser choice to actually push forward and make clear you want some "Frostfire Mage" (if that's your fantasy) rather than ask for system that you want to use you in a way that wasn't even intended to be used that way in the first place.

You got the abilities from ALL specs could specialize.

And that's just kinda the question whether you used those abilities.
Once you're deep into Fire, you're not going to use Arcane Missiles or Arcane Blast (from TBC and onwards) outside of fringe situations, because it's just strictly worse than Fireball.

Similiar thing for hybrid, okay i got more healing spells, what now?
Are those abilities actually effective? From TBC and onwards, hardly, because as talent trees grew bigger, so did the difference between specialized abilities and non specialized.

Second, do those abilities actually support my role? If i'm a Shaman, having access to Chain Heal, Healing Rain, both lesser and greater healing wave is nice...but doesn't really help me accomplish what i want to do if i'm Ele or Enhance.
This is where it all loops back to the point that these additional barely mattered anymore if those specs did not have a lot of common ground to stand on.

[MidnyteTV]

I agree with these blue posts. Your ideas are bad and stupid. Old talents sucked. You are not getting them back on retail ever.

You want to play outdate game with outdated mechanics, classic will be soon there for you. Could you refrain from posting your horrible threads about "old good wow" and just piss off to classic forums? Thanks

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

Thank you so much.

[Selah]

It just leaves out a ton of essential parameters, in the old talent system you had more points to spent, congratz, that's the only thing that seemingly matters by your logic here.

Simply comparing the number of talent (points) really should not be the deciding factor here.

I've made a point of saying builds and specs, as far as I'm aware I've said nothing that indicates I'm talking about the number of points to spend.

Really?
Please link me those additional / optional core abilities i could talent into as hybrid dps.



Yeah, that's where you hit a fundamental issue of the old talent system.

If you made Icefury a talent in the old talent system, everybody that played Elemental had to adapt to Icefury, what if some people however didn't like Icefury?
That is a crucial flaw of the old system, Blizzard gave quite a lot of specs no alternative playstyles at all, it enforced a playstyle that you had abide to, deviation not possible.

I've merged these quotes together for one reason. They're both contradicted by the example I gave in the post you quoted. Titan's Grip wasn't a requirement when it was introduced. It was cool but it wasn't required to be viable (since that's the standard you've put forth) and warriors during that expansion had a choice.

Kinda sucks if you want a bit more complexity for your spec and Blizzard straight up tells you "Yeah, it's a simple spec, that's fine".

I mean... that's all Demon Hunters have been since they were introduced. They've intentionally built some specs to be more simple than others, that's be true through the history of the game.

That's basically 1-2 more ways than i had previously.
Ignoring additional possible utility abilities.

They've given you one to two more obvious ways, like I mentioned in the rest of the quote, even when Blizzard did that with the old system, you could work around that with the system. Often more than one way too.

Comparing a complete expansion to one that's still going doesn't work, 8.2 brings in quite a lot, with 8.3. still being on the horizon.

That's fair, the only problem here is that the only things I listed that weren't there during the launch cycle was the mage tower and the rifts. Everything else was there from the start and then expanded upon more so over the expansion.

I don't think so, because whether they would have spent an equal time developing on that is an assumption on your part.

It's also an assumption to say the current system is easier to work on. So...

The one thing we know is that they straight up said "it's too much work", considering Blizzard are the only ones that actually have some insight knowledge on that front, i would assume that there is some truth to this statement - especially because the "too much work" excuse isn't exactly a good PR move, especially because GC was, at least regarding that, an honest person.

You say it isn't a good PR move but then use that to shed a good light on Ghost Crawler. It couldn't have been that poor of a move.

Beyond that though, you and I are both just wildly speculating at this point. Neither of us know, to me it seems that rebuilding your classes several times is going to be more work than messing with trees. You disagree. That's all there really is there.

[Trbn]

I think you're the sick one if you seriously enjoyed all those buff totems post TBC.

Because after all, all of them were, due to their range limitation, inferior versions of the same buffs brought by other classes.
Wotlk Strength of the Earth Totem was just worse than Horn of Winter, period.
Same goes for Manaspring and Blessing of Wisdom.
And so forth.

Also, simply because i like one specific system, doesn't mean i enjoy literally anything, but i guess anything beyond black and white is beyond your scope.

it's not about black and white, it's about you not saying all the thruth

and when you got caught you start with this "grey" nonsence

shaman was the most pruned class in the game, probably comparable only to paladin

and you can't deny it. probably that gameplay was slow, but it wasn't similar to today arcade rythmic thing where you must press button ASAP when something got highlighted

[LionSinMaikeru]

I'd still argue that it wasn't very interesting and it just didn't feel great if you had invest talents into support talent that didn't exactly stack well.

Take Windrush Totem on Live for example, if you have multiple Shaman, you have multiple totems, which is great because they stack just fine.

If you had instead of Windrush totem a "deal x% more damage" Totem (which doesn't stack), you would have to check whether another Shaman is present, make up with him / her who select the damage totem and who doesn't.

This is something that is a problem with balancing, not the system itself. Again, if the live Windrush totem didn't stack you'd probably have the same criticism. Likewise, if the Windrush totem deal % more damage did stack, why complain?

Blizzard could have balanced these things and not fixed it.

Did you have to manage Astral Power, Soul shards (the ones that consumed for actual useable damage abilities)?

Always had to manage Soulshards, especially as a destro Warlock.

Astral Power, no, but meh. I don't care for it one way or the other.

Were there any procs out to watch for?

Yup. Nightfall as Warlock, for one.

Did you ever ask yourself: "Maybe i should play Talent X on that fight" during Classic?

Yes. I found myself theorycrafting things constantly, more-so back then than today.

Like, do really want to on record and say that you don't notice any difference between the MoP - BfA era and classic regarding (class) gameplay?

That's not what I said. I said you're always going to spam a filler spell. That's not a negative for the old system.

Why would you suddenly decide to, nah fuck it, i want to cast some Fireballs instead of Frostbolts?
If i have invested quite a lot of talentpoints into an ability, why would i also put talentpoints into another that directly competes with this ability?

Because you can? Because maybe you want to change things up a bit? Maybe you want to do something different?

There were several times I experimented with new builds to change up my playstyle. The point is that you cannot do the same today. The talents matter very little.

Like, if i wanted to apply a slow, okay, reasonable argument, but then i could just use Frostbolt Rank 1 or Cone of Cold without investing 5 or more talentpoints into an ability that is due previously spent talentpoints not that useful by comparison.

But that Frostbolt Rank 1 would deal less damage, have a less impactful slow, and longer cast time if you didn't invest those points. You were investing points to change the power and potency of spells. So if you wanted a more powerful / quicker slow - you could do that. Or if you wanted to forego that more powerful / quicker slow, you could invest more into raw power.

You had options.

It's not you suddenly get some proc that makes Frostbolt better or something, it's you suddenly going into a different direction entirely without reason.

See above.

You essentially gimp your character for no reason, this is by no means a "raider" thing, but simply how it worked on literally any level.

Again, not true at all. It's not "gimping" your character if there was a benefit. For example, if I'm a Mage you may consider it "gimping" my character if I'm not taking all DPS+ talents and instead investing some into the Frost tree. I consider it making my character more durable for solo play.

Or you may consider my Warlock "gimped" because I'm not taking all dps talents but instead choose talents that increase the amount of life I'm draining back. To me that's not gimping, that's making me have more survivability.

You cannot say it's how it worked on every level because that's a flat out lie. The only level that's moderately true on is raiding / progression. Elsewise there was no formula for what was best.

Just to give an example where i am coming from, if someone plays Frost, but has Improved Blizzard selected, because he wants to do some AoE farming afterwards, that's fine to me, then he's marginally worse, but has some of them few impactful abilities in Vanilla instead to do something cool, that's fine with me.

Which you cannot do today.

But if i see someone that plays fire, but then suddenly puts five points into Imp. Frostbolt, (if talent inspection were a thing) i struggle to think off a rational solution.
"Because i want to" is in my opinion simply not a great explanation, one should at least put it into words what they like about it.

And I have put it into words. In the example you gave, Imp. Frostbolt would allow said Mage to get off a Frostbolt at 2.5 seconds vs. 3 seconds. It may not seem like a lot of time, but that 0.5 seconds can be huge in a combat situation. Can you not seriously see how that might give said Mage a slight advantage over another Mage who didn't take that talent?

In my opinion, it would be a wiser choice to actually push forward and make clear you want some "Frostfire Mage" (if that's your fantasy) rather than ask for system that you want to use you in a way that wasn't even intended to be used that way in the first place.

That's just one example though, there are dozens.

And that's just kinda the question whether you used those abilities.
Once you're deep into Fire, you're not going to use Arcane Missiles or Arcane Blast (from TBC and onwards) outside of fringe situations, because it's just strictly worse than Fireball.

Once you're really deep into Fire? Probably not. But if you went half into Fire and half into Arcane? You could figure that out based on how you customized your character. But you should still have the option.

Similiar thing for hybrid, okay i got more healing spells, what now?
Are those abilities actually effective? From TBC and onwards, hardly, because as talent trees grew bigger, so did the difference between specialized abilities and non specialized.

Yes. I healed many dungeons as a Hybrid Disc / Holy Priest, or my Balance / Resto Druid in TBC.

[Kralljin]

shaman was the most pruned class in the game, probably comparable only to paladin

If you want to count down every single buff totem, sure.
Like if you want to have an concession on that, there, have it, now please argue over actually relevant stuff, because those buff totems lost a lot of their relevance past TBC.

Titan's Grip wasn't a requirement when it was introduced.

It absolutely was, they just slapped a malus on it because it was too OP.

It was one of those "choices" where you just gimped your character in every single situation by not taking it.

It was cool but it wasn't required to be viable (since that's the standard you've put forth) and warriors during that expansion had a choice.

They only had a choice during Cata, during Wotlk Titan's Grip was flat out better.
And it solely worked because those talents were based on their weapon type, as the choice was defined by your weapons.

Taking both talents did not yield a gain in anything but flexibility and less respec costs.

The same idea doesn't work for a regular spell, if i put Icefury into a talent tree, how do i leave people the option to not pick without extremely hampering their performance?
I would have to create an alternative talent that is somehow exclusive with Icefury, which sounds a lot like the current talent system.

Same as Divine Storm for Ret (Or literally any other core ability within a talent tree), there just was no alternative option, if you didn't take, you just made your character worse.

I mean... that's all Demon Hunters have been since they were introduced. They've intentionally built some specs to be more simple than others, that's be true through the history of the game.

And even DH's have alternate playstyles, don't they? With some being more or less complex.

They've given you one to two more obvious ways, like I mentioned in the rest of the quote, even when Blizzard did that with the old system, you could work around that with the system. Often more than one way too.

Again, please highlight to me all those alternate playstyles (actual playstyles, not just random buff passive included) in particular those Hybrid dps.
Or Healing specs outside of Priest, but like as actual healers, not people that buff others.

It's also an assumption to say the current system is easier to work on. So...

Considering they sticked with the system and doubled down in by even introducing spec specific talents (after all, in MoP all specs had one shared talent tree) i would say yes.

If it was simpler / better for them, i think they would have went back by now, the MoP Talentsystem now lasted (at least in terms of expansion count) longer than the Pre Cata Talent system.
Especially for a team that has made quite a few decisions based on the longterm sustain of the game (which ironically caused a shit ton of BfA's issues) rather than short term entertainment, in particular regarding class design.

You say it isn't a good PR move but then use that to shed a good light on Ghost Crawler. It couldn't have been that poor of a move.

Why not? Saying that your team cannot do it is usually a big concession for a company, they generally avoid saying that, rather raise "other concerns" why they're not doing it.

I take it that GC was honest by saying that, because he straight up raised development issues, rather than just leaving conveniently leaving it out by saying "you think you do, but you don't".

Take the counter example, classic servers, before the announcement in 2017, how many times has Blizzard said: "It's not financially sustainable for us".
I don't remember them saying that, ever.
Rather stuff like "You think you do but you don't" or "We don't want to split the community".

The truth came out shortly after they announced it: they found a way to get classic running on their current WoW server infrastructure, meaning in other words, if they hadn't found a solution to this technical problem, Classic would have most likely never happened as the thing would not be profitable for the company as they would have to run two MMO's simultaneously.

Blizzard was kinda misleading the community by raising strictly philosphical issues when in reality, a technical problem was the deciding factor.

[Jester Joe]

Oh, but you agree with the Blizzards quote "hybrid builds never lived up to the mythih"

Which is 100% false, as i ended up with 2100 rating with a hybrid build for pvp.
And there were different builds all over the place. Situational builds for PvP and world content.

But again, Blizzard is ignoring the importance of "player created fun"...its not that they are ignoring it...its that they TRADED "player created fun" for "game balance".

With what, a cookie cutter build made by someone who pushed higher than 2100?

How is that somehow more interesting, just because you pressed a few extra talents?

[Big Thanks]

With what, a cookie cutter build made by someone who pushed higher than 2100?

How is that somehow more interesting, just because you pressed a few extra talents?

Its "a thing" only us "snowflake customizers" understand.

Its a snowflake feeling of knowing you are different from everyone else and at the same time being useful...and sometimes even amazing!

My build was designed for 5v5 arena and 100% survival.
All gemed with stamina in all slots and a meta gem to........less time during stun? (i cant remember, it had something to do with stuns)

I was 100% survival mode...i was incredible...i was unique from everyone else...and still capable of putting up a fight.

[Jester Joe]

Its "a thing" only us "snowflake customizers" understand.

Its a snowflake feeling of knowing you are different from everyone else and at the same time being useful...and sometimes even amazing!

My build was designed for 5v5 arena and 100% survival.
All gemed with stamina in all slots and a meta gem to........less time during stun? (i cant remember, it had something to do with stuns)

I was 100% survival mode...i was incredible...i was unique from everyone else...and still capable of putting up a fight.

But you weren't anymore unique than anyone taking the same build off of a suggested guide.

If it was something that was viable it would be all over websites and people would be using it.

And if it's a matter of feeling unique, why would that suddenly change now? Hell just the other day I ran into a demo lock in an M+ who was running different talent choices than me and was still pulling his weight.
Why? Because there's only like 2 talents that are literally just "DON'T PICK THIS" level, the rest are flexible and you can pick what you like mostly. Azerite influences that of course but still.

[Big Thanks]

But you weren't anymore unique than anyone taking the same build off of a suggested guide.

If it was something that was viable it would be all over websites and people would be using it.

And if it's a matter of feeling unique, why would that suddenly change now? Hell just the other day I ran into a demo lock in an M+ who was running different talent choices than me and was still pulling his weight.
Why? Because there's only like 2 talents that are literally just "DON'T PICK THIS" level, the rest are flexible and you can pick what you like mostly. Azerite influences that of course but still.

I only play Rogue and Demon Hunter PvP in BfA.

And there is literally no choice to be had. There is (if anything) one Talent free space open for choice....MAYBE!

Edit: Compared to the uniqueness of my previous build in WotlK...which was amazing...this is nothing

[Kralljin]

Again, if the live Windrush totem didn't stack you'd probably have the same criticism.

Of course, but due the way Windrush works, that doesn't make much sense.
To draw proper comparison on live, imagine if Bloodlust / Time Warp would be a talent, how fun is that?

Likewise, if the Windrush totem deal % more damage did stack, why complain?

Blizzard could have balanced these things and not fixed it.

Sure, but then that's an open invitation for class stacking, unless the damage increase is on a <1% level.
Which is a nightmare to balance, they tried that Stormlash, it didn't exactly work out.

Always had to manage Soulshards, especially as a destro Warlock.

Kinda an "archaic" take on the resource system, not really compareable with the modern system.

Astral Power, no, but meh. I don't care for it one way or the other.

Ever tried playing Balance and "not caring" about Astral Power?
Like seriously, this response is just golden.

Yup. Nightfall as Warlock, for one.

Pretty much the only proc in the Vanilla era.

Yes. I found myself theorycrafting things constantly, more-so back then than today.

And i didn't, who's right now?
Decent talents were figured out quite quickly, stat variation wasn't much of a thing back then.

At best, figuring out the BiS List was a big deal, because it was a rubicks cube with fixed pieces before they introduced reforging.

I said you're always going to spam a filler spell. That's not a negative for the old system.

Yes, and the major difference is that for a lot caster specs, the entire rotation consisted out of said filler spell.
The world "filler" in itself already implies that you also press other buttons and only press that button inbetween, hence the name "filler spell".

Your "filler" were your "rotation".

Because you can? Because maybe you want to change things up a bit? Maybe you want to do something different?

And you can't do that on live?
I mean, if you don't care that much about performance, which you probably don't if you suddeny want to spam Frostbolts despite having lots of points in Fire, you can basically choose any talent you want.

You can even switch to an entirely different spec at will.

The talents matter very little.

[Opinion]
I think they do.

Which is, by the way, not a flaw of the system, but a flaw of its execution, which is a difference.

Again, not true at all. It's not "gimping" your character if there was a benefit. For example, if I'm a Mage you may consider it "gimping" my character if I'm not taking all DPS+ talents and instead investing some into the Frost tree. I consider it making my character more durable for solo play.

The thing was just, if you cared about durability, you can just go even further into Frost and deal more damage.
This is the point where i struggle to find objective reasons beyond "because i can".

If you want to level and go all out damage, Fire may be your spec, if you want durability, Frost is the choice.

By the time you picked up all those "durability talents" from Frost, you're already so invested into Frost that actually powerful talents outside of Imp. Fireball are already out of your reach in Fire (or you just get them once you're like 50+), while good Frost talents lie at your feet.

This is the big problem of those talent trees, they rewarded you for putting more points into a single tree.

Or you may consider my Warlock "gimped" because I'm not taking all dps talents but instead choose talents that increase the amount of life I'm draining back. To me that's not gimping, that's making me have more survivability.

The problem here is that, unless you talented your way further into Affliction, your Drain Life did like 10% more damage, without any further talent(s) supporting that, those 10% aren't improving your durability by that much.
And if you've taken Shadow Mastery, well, you're not really playing a hybrid spec anymore.

The only level that's moderately true on is raiding / progression. Elsewise there was no formula for what was best.

And what has basically become the focus of WoW since TBC?
Yes, the endgame, primarily dungeons & raids.

I've said in my first / second post in this thread, the old talent trees were quite decent for leveling, they were cool as you slowly progressed your character.
But as WoW has moved (rather early its lifespan in hindsight) towards a game focused on the endgame, those talent trees became very clunky and not flexible for a lot of classes / spec.

Even if i give those hybrid builds some legitimacy, by the time Wotlk rolled around, Blizzard cramped those talent trees so full of spec specific beneficial stuff, that the gap between someone who had certain passive talents and one who didn't grew too damn big.
(Not to mention that leveling at this point was already rather easy / fast by comparison)

Like, compare the amount of talents of the classic Fire that improved the damage of Fireball, directly or indirectly.
Classic:
-Imp Fireball
-Ignite
-Critical Mass
-Fire Power
-Imp Scorch (kinda as it increases Fire damage)

Four talents.

Now compare that to Wotlk:
https://db.rising-gods.de/?talent#oZZhbc

At least i ended up with a two digit number of talents.

My point here is, someone that attempts to go for a hybrid build, gets quite a lot of powerful talents (like Hot Streak) so late that any advantage isn't really worth getting, because they're a huge increase.
If you want the durability of Frost, you might as well start getting all those juicy frost talents, such as Brain Freeze for FoF.

This gap just grew wider with each expansion, as every newly introduced talents had to be powerful in order to avoid another TBC Destro Lock and just feel like a decent upgrade overall.

And I have put it into words. In the example you gave, Imp. Frostbolt would allow said Mage to get off a Frostbolt at 2.5 seconds vs. 3 seconds. It may not seem like a lot of time, but that 0.5 seconds can be huge in a combat situation. Can you not seriously see how that might give said Mage a slight advantage over another Mage who didn't take that talent?

In a game as slowpaced as Vanilla, yeah.

As said, if you care about the slow, it's actually 1.5 vs 1.0 sec, as you're then using the Rank 1 Version.
And even then, Cone of Cold exists, which is instant.

Once you're really deep into Fire? Probably not. But if you went half into Fire and half into Arcane? You could figure that out based on how you customized your character. But you should still have the option.

The irony about Vanilla arcane is that there was not a single talent in there that improved the damage of your Arcane Missiles.

In other words, Arcane was generally regarded as tree to dump points into after you're done with Frost / Fire.

[Selah]

It absolutely was, they just slapped a malus on it because it was too OP.

It was one of those "choices" where you just gimped your character in every single situation by not taking it.

It was better in terms of DPS, yes, it wasn't the only viable option though. You've changed the standard several times now between optimization and viability. Anytime I've pointed to something viable but not optimal you've just said it's not optimal. I don't care what the most optimal build is, reality is that there is ever only one optimal build per fight for every class. You do nothing for your argument when you swap between standards.

They only had a choice during Cata, during Wotlk Titan's Grip was flat out better.
And it solely worked because those talents were based on their weapon type, as the choice was defined by your weapons.

Taking both talents did not yield a gain in anything but flexibility and less respec costs.

Again, it was better but it wasn't the only choice, SMF was introduced as a buff to wielding 1-h weapons.

The same idea doesn't work for a regular spell, if i put Icefury into a talent tree, how do i leave people the option to not pick without extremely hampering their performance?
I would have to create an alternative talent that is somehow exclusive with Icefury, which sounds a lot like the current talent system.

Or you put point into your other trees instead of trying to create another talent. That's the whole point, you don't have to create another talent, your players then have an additional amount of points to put into another tree to either buff their current play-style or change it.

Same as Divine Storm for Ret (Or literally any other core ability within a talent tree), there just was no alternative option, if you didn't take, you just made your character worse.

You're missing how the system worked, sure you didn't have Divine Storm but you instead picked up another talent(s) in another tree that, once again, enhanced your character in another way. That was the whole point of the system. You could opt out of those features and instead pick up a few points in something else.

And even DH's have alternate playstyles, don't they? With some being more or less complex.

Right... just like all the classes through all the history of the game in both systems. Keep in mind, complexity isn't always a good thing, just like simplicity isn't a bad thing.

Again, please highlight to me all those alternate playstyles (actual playstyles, not just random buff passive included) in particular those Hybrid dps.
Or Healing specs outside of Priest, but like as actual healers, not people that buff others.

You've been given multiple examples by multiple people and just said "no" or argued about whether they're the most optimal build. Why would I continue to supply examples only to be dragged down into more arguments with fluctuating standards?

Considering they sticked with the system and doubled down in by even introducing spec specific talents (after all, in MoP all specs had one shared talent tree) i would say yes.

Blizzard hasn't dug their heels in before? Even when they've been wrong? Really?

If it was simpler / better for them, i think they would have went back by now, the MoP Talentsystem now lasted (at least in terms of expansion count) longer than the Pre Cata Talent system.
Especially for a team that has made quite a few decisions based on the longterm sustain of the game (which ironically caused a shit ton of BfA's issues) rather than short term entertainment, in particular regarding class design.

I don't think so at all. Look at the whole Classic debacle. Its a small investment that is likely going to produce large sums of money. Yet for years they fought with the community on it. Blizzard has been known for being prideful before.

Why not? Saying that your team cannot do it is usually a big concession for a company, they generally avoid saying that, rather raise "other concerns" why they're not doing it.

Because it's a shtick, an old one. Someone comes along and says some things that aren't perfect and nice and they're viewed as being "just one of us," it's a fantastic way to be seen. Politicians have used it forever now.

I take it that GC was honest by saying that, because he straight up raised development issues, rather than just leaving conveniently leaving it out by saying "you think you do, but you don't".

Even if he was... he then jumped ship and didn't see the system through and couldn't tell you about how it's been going since.

Take the counter example, classic servers, before the announcement in 2017, how many times has Blizzard said: "It's not financially sustainable for us".
I don't remember them saying that, ever.
Rather stuff like "You think you do but you don't" or

There have been reasons to be worried about a Classic server launch. That said, we have no idea what the reasons at Blizz might have been.

"We don't want to split the community".

Well, to be fair... they have been right about the split.

The truth came out shortly after they announced it: they found a way to get classic running on their current WoW server infrastructure, meaning in other words, if they hadn't found a solution to this technical problem, Classic would have most likely never happened as the thing would not be profitable for the company as they would have to run two MMO's simultaneously.

Doesn't this investment of time and money of finding a way to make it work show it was something they've wanted to do for a while? Even if they didn't give the best reasons?

Blizzard was kinda misleading the community by raising strictly philosphical issues when in reality, a technical problem was the deciding factor.

Yeah, they were very cooperate about it. They've kinda shaken the "champion of gamers" image and replaced it with a big tech look.

[Kralljin]

You do nothing for your argument when you swap between standards.

I didn't swap, at best i pointed out that thinking that just because talent variation exists, doesn't mean it's customization, let alone good one.

And if you consider Titans Grip "customization" then literally anything is customization, which i heavily disagree with because it's extremely misleading.
Costumization within a gaming setting should apply some sort of viability.

Not taking Titans Grip just gimped your character in every way possible.

Or you put point into your other trees instead of trying to create another talent. That's the whole point, you don't have to create another talent, your players then have an additional amount of points to put into another tree to either buff their current play-style or change it.

And that just never existed.

To stick with the Icefury example:

First off, Icefury needs to be buried deep down in Elemental, if it's in like Tier 3-5, it's unavoidable for obvious reasons.

Second, you then need another set of talentS to put my talentpoints into that give me some sort of reasonable compensation for not taking Icefury.
If my other two specs are a Melee and a Resto Tree, those options are not going to exist, because those talents are obviously tailored towards a Melee / Healer role.

They may have like some useful talents, but that's it.

It also can barely work due how the talent system operated, one point into a core ability held way more value than into some reduced mana cost talent, therefore, unless my tree was filled with barely useful talents, i'm not just skipping over a single talent that holds (by comparison to other talents) massive value.

You're missing how the system worked, sure you didn't have Divine Storm but you instead picked up another talent(s) in another tree that, once again, enhanced your character in another way. That was the whole point of the system. You could opt out of those features and instead pick up a few points in something else.

And was this talent even compareable with Divine storm? It wasn't.
Really, if you so deepset onto this "I can do things differently for the sake of doing it", then i'm quite frankly at a loss as.

At a certain point, one needs to draw line where accomodating a certain people holds the game back.
If someone seriously considers playing Ret paladin but enjoys the freedom of not taking Crusader strike / Divine storm, you have to ask yourself whether that's good thing.

Keep in mind, complexity isn't always a good thing, just like simplicity isn't a bad thing.

I fully agree, that's why it is good to have a talent system that accommodates this.

Do you like Talent X? No, then don't take, take an alternative and you'll still be doing reasonably well.
Do you want a bit more complex stuff? Take Talent Y.

You've been given multiple examples by multiple people and just said "no" or argued about whether they're the most optimal build.

I think you've noticed the lengths of these posts by now, sorry that i cannot discuss literally every single example in great detail, especially if its essentially always the same thing except for a different class.

Blizzard hasn't dug their heels in before? Even when they've been wrong? Really?

Which is by no means a slippery slope, right?
Because they may be wrong on X, doesn't mean it also applies to Y.

I don't think so at all. Look at the whole Classic debacle. Its a small investment that is likely going to produce large sums of money. Yet for years they fought with the community on it. Blizzard has been known for being prideful before.

I can only speak for myself, but for me, beyond the leveling phase, the talent trees are not a thing that i liked about classic.

Each to their own, but making broad statement why people will people classic (or not) is an extremely speculative discussion, especially where "It's just something different" is also an option.

Politicians have used it forever now.

I doubt GC's salary was ever dependant on how the community views him.
You may accuse the devs using political speech, which is a legit criticism, but the massive difference between politicians and game developers is the fact that the devs do not have to win an election where the playerbase can vote.

This is a fundamental error of your analogy, the people that give GC a job are not the benefactors of this statement.

Fact is, i doubt the higher ups at game companies even care whether developers interact with the playerbase, outside of (pre) scheduled PR stuff.

Doesn't this investment of time and money of finding a way to make it work show it was something they've wanted to do for a while?

They started to look at the issue again in 2016 (A.k.a. Nostalrius drama) and had a single dev, Omar Gonzalez, working on it, who basically developed a Proof of concept within a few weeks, that it is in fact doable to run some alternate version of the 1.12 data on the 7.0 WoW version.

To put simply, it was one guy who enabled Vanilla from a technical side, at least that's what i've got out of interviews, with Omar also hosting the Classic Panel, that is most likely not too far from the truth.

[Radaney]

Meanwhile.

[Zantos]

Problem is, their explanation doesn't hold weight. In practice, every single person ran a cookie cutter build and if you didn't have it, you were bad. Didn't have blessing of sanctuary as a prot paladin? Bad. Didn't have the defense mitigation as a tank? Bad.

I think the entire thing is, people wanted to be able to build how they wanted to and still be good. It just wasn't doable for them to make an actual hybrid build. You would spec a few points into a tree for 1 specific talent. The rest would go into your primary tree for its core talents. Some of these were moves. Others, required stats like +crit for a fire mage. There was rarely any actual choice in the matter because how your class played dictated which talents you took.

They just got lazy. That is all. We have the Same issue now as we did back then. Cookie cutter builds that if you don't have the best talent, you have the worst and are bad.

[Zenfoldor]

Wait, we have a choice for talents now? Actually those who use a meta still do. The choice is an illusion, but a more accurate word is chore.

Anyway, this doesn't really matter. The problem with WoW is class design(gameplay) and reward structure. If they want to see an example of good gameplay/reward structure, they need look no further than Legion.

[damonskye]

Raiding as a BM hunter, there are talents I'd love to use. But I can't. That two-pet thing on the first line? It dramatically undercuts any sort of choice I have in the matter.

I agree with others, the "choice" is entirely an illusion unless you really don't care about how well you do in groups. That is perfectly fine for solo content, though.

However, I think we're going to see some big changes. There is a lot of controversial stuff that people are going to see with the release of Classic... Although in the end I think Blizzard is going to be terribly surprised with the results (either too few players, which I think will happen, or numbers approaching the regular edition), I imagine they're going to hear about the old talent trees non-stop and somehow come to the conclusion players are happier with the older versions instead of the newer ones. So you'll see a lot of reaction to that in the next expansion.

Personally, I wish they'd just give up trying to achieve this massive "balance" they've spent over a decade being unable to achieve and just let people do what they want. This is why I loved legendaries in Legion... because they finally said, screw it, just throw fun stuff in there. We all know they want classes to achieve parity in raids, but they never do, so why do they put SO much emphasis on parity?

[Big Thanks]

Personally, I wish they'd just give up trying to achieve this massive "balance" they've spent over a decade being unable to achieve and just let people do what they want.

Never gonna happend sadly

"Fun" has no place in a world of "balance"

ESports, Dungeon invitational, World Firsts....fun is just forbidden

[damonskye]

Never gonna happend sadly

"Fun" has no place in a world of "balance"

ESports, Dungeon invitational, World Firsts....fun is just forbidden

Sadly you're right, to the detriment of the 99% of the people who play the game without esports and world firsts.

[Vynestra]

I would say there are somewhat cookie cutter builds that exist today - but not to the extend they did in the past.

There are rows where you have complete freedom, some might argue one is better than the other, I always use shimmer on my mage, but I don't have to. I could use Ice Floes if I wanted to.

Some fights I choose diff talents, based on the fight, something you'd never do with the old system, and if you did it was still a giant pain in the ass to do.

I think we are somewhat due for a giant talent overhaul in some regards, but I don't think we'll get a new system by any means.

Some rows are so close dps wise that you can pick what you prefer, not for a lot, but for some, and that's neat too.


I mean while mages mostly suck, frost does have -three- playstyles you can do, noil which is mostly the best, regular, and frozen orb. All within reasonable dps of each other with their strengths and weaknesses. The fact their dps isn't great isn't the talent tree at fault, but there is three different options for most players who aren't cutting edge.