Vanilla-WotlK Talents or MoP-onward Talents?

[ellieg]

going from 1 crit out of 20 to 2 crits out of 20 is not.

When you crit, you get vengeance. Vengeance is 8 seconds. Doubling the crit chance more than doubles your vengeance up time. You notice having vengeance up much more. Seal of command, about 7 ppm, gives an extra "swing". You start noticing that attack crit more and going from 5 to 10% crit quadruples the chance of getting the auto attack crit SoC crit combo.

Doubling the crit is very noticeable. You can ignore it tho as I'm sure you will.

[Heathy]

its a weird question though really because significant portions of the old talent system was simply baked into the classes, all abilities were just inherent and every cookie cutter talent that you took anyway because you either 1) had to because it was the only real 'choice' or 2) filler talents to reach the ones you do want to flush out that particular build and reach the 31 pointers.

the latter talent trees feel skimpier less overall picks but the question doesn't really make 100% clear sense when classes just had most of the old talent system baked into them by the point that it changed after wrath. its not that one talent system was superior to another its just that, by the time the new talent system did come along it didn't really matter because nothing was ultimately lost beyond that whole picking multiple talents to reach a baseline usefulness. I don't mind these sorts of talent systems but I think they've been done better in games like diablo grim dawn poe etc at least the sense of choice and even synergy.

[arkanon]

When you crit, you get vengeance. Vengeance is 8 seconds. Doubling the crit chance more than doubles your vengeance up time. You notice having vengeance up much more. Seal of command, about 7 ppm, gives an extra "swing". You start noticing that attack crit more and going from 5 to 10% crit quadruples the chance of getting the auto attack crit SoC crit combo.

Doubling the crit is very noticeable. You can ignore it tho as I'm sure you will.

Just to be clear, you are saying if you crit once in a 1 minute fight, you get 8 seconds uptime, but if you crit twice in 1 minute, you get MORE than 16 seconds uptime?

[Lyvefire]

This question is and always was, a stupid one. Neither system actually invalidates the other so why should it need to be an arbitrary choice? Both have their strengths and nothing says they can't co-exist.

Just keep the vanilla talent trees length (change the talents around, but keep it 31 points) and just give you a choice of major 3 choice decisions every "x" levels like Mop as well. Keep the passive stuff primarily in the trees and you'd be golden.

[Rotted]

Vanilla to TBC, not wrath

I might be wrong (pretty sure I'm not though) but it was during late TBC when they did their first major talent change. Which was forcing players to finish their chosen branch before hoping into another one. Essentially it killed hybrids / fun specs

[Big Thanks]

Vanilla to TBC, not wrath

I might be wrong (pretty sure I'm not though) but it was during late TBC when they did their first major talent change. Which was forcing players to finish their chosen branch before hoping into another one. Essentially it killed hybrids / fun specs

You are wrong That was Cata
Wrath was the climax of hybrid specs.

Gems, items, glyphs and free talent distribution

[Kumorii]

Not a big fan of small number increases when it comes to talents, that's just fluff... prefer how it is now.

Note that I speak strictly of the system and not balance or what kind of talents you can pick.

[Rotted]

You are wrong That was Cata
Wrath was the climax of hybrid specs.

Gems, items, glyphs and free talent distribution

Cataclysm was the introduction of the new ( / current ) system no?

[Coldfrostzero]

This is a pretty fair comment - the old talent trees as they were would be a complete nightmare in retail - each level already lacked any real impact, outside of obtaining new abilities, so stretching it out to double the original would just be ugly, and would compound the issue.

0.2% crit - 1/20.

Well, no in Wrath they started shoring up talents like that to be 3 points so you could move around to other talents quicker or pick up something deeper in another tree. They instead added a ton of talents that did things like "your Divine Sacrifice also reduces damage taken by party or raid members by 10/20%." You'd start to see like "Improved Divine Storm - increases the healing done by 4/8/12%" or something if they had continued this into Cataclysm.

Tbh, I forgot Cataclysm had the reduced trees and only remember the MOP patch with the current talent system. Cataclysm talents was the start of the removal of
extensive choices. Blizzard always shied away from templates or mostly telling people what talents to use and hoped the community would figure it out or come up with something unique. That was always the downfall of the talent system. New players, bad players, and solo players would make really dumb choices on what talents to pick because of one specific thing they found it useful for instead of maximizing the role they were trying to perform.

In BC while leveling my paladin, I made a half ret half prot spec for early game stuff so I could solo and tank dungeons, but was a seasoned enough player to know that by 70 I wouldn't want to be something crazy like 10/25/26 and try and play end game stuff, but that's what people were doing all the way up until Cata. It made people around them miserable when they refused to redo their talent trees to the "proper" spec.

It actually amazes me how Blizzard has tried to make the talent trees idiot proof and then they add Ret Aura into the BFA as a talent. It's the single most useless talent Blizzard has ever made and people spec into it. It does 25 whole damage to something hitting you. Why the fuck does something that bad exist and why are people dumb enough to select it? Both options in that row are monumentally better.

[Big Thanks]

Cataclysm was the introduction of the new ( / current ) system no?

Cataclysm was exactly what you said to be "in the end of TBC"

You had to put all talents until you reach the end of one tree...AND THEN you could go to another one. Which killed all hybrid specs.

[Spicymemer]

A mix of both is actually the best possible system.

[Alkizon]

Shadoowpunk
Cataclysm was exactly what you said to be "in the end of TBC"

You had to put all talents until you reach the end of one tree...AND THEN you could go to another one. Which killed all hybrid specs.

I have seen this (exactly his) error at least 2 times (no one corrected it for him during first one). Too lazy to look for it in message history, but here is similar mistake about it of first ones I met in old discussions (not his)

Spicymemer
A mix of both is actually the best possible system.

Technically, this is impossible, otherwise it will turn into banal "visual" idiocy. It has already been repeatedly explained by me, that talents should overwhelmingly consist of passive modifications of existing mechanics and abilities, with rare exceptions, while tree should remain common to any representative of the class (since, again, ideally: classes aren't separated "by name", but with set of same mechanics and abilities available, that are characteristic of any of its representatives, regardless of chosen branch, that's why conditionally "in Legion area" you got 36 broken classes, instead of 12 more or less working ones). That is, “your proposition” will ultimately resemble “Cataclysm”, which isn’t a “good example” (again, as already mentioned: partially locked specializations and no gradual-level-growth of points, which is just drawback of new system, but if we exclude this, then we will trite back directly to old trees, do you understand the trick here?).

- at best, everything that comes out of it will remind you NWN-online one (which, however, still will be better than current)

MoP and partially WoD looked different (from Legion&BfA) only because visible talents(=perks, passives were mounted inside specs) almost didn't differ within class (each representative had access to almost same set of "talents=spells") and general class abilities weren't so "spec-specific-pruned" (however, process at that time was already gaining momentum). All, that Legion did, is just completed development trend and process of "expansion-locked class=spec development" came into force at first, which is called "rental power" during forum discussions now, since these mechanics in BfA almost devalued and even work of classes=specs themselves for many cases; naming is especially successful, because all this doesn't belong to characters, but placed "RNG" here and there with "RNG" access/amount/power and will cease to be useful after expansion *looking with giggling at covenants as SL perspectives*

[czarek]

TBH i really dun remember those talent trees that much to talk about :P Im playin retail and some classic atm and yeah thats huuuge difference. Its hard to say witch is better. Game versions are relly diverse and both trees fit quite well to the game specific and mechanic. Calssic is much slower and yeah talent tree is much slower (upgrade crit for about 1% or smth like that). Retail talent tree is simple and faster like the game is. New talent bring to you new skill or major passive. I would not to compare talent trees like that because games are not the same :P

[Tavin]

The current system is good, the vanilla just had a lot of options. However you never took any of the not-meta-options, because they were not useful for anything besides random gimmick bs.

[Amariw]

Mop onwards. Some classes they nail it better than others, but it always feels like an interesting choice you can make, at the very least for diff content types. In vanilla after leveling i just picked the best cookie cutter and never had reason to change much.

[hynx]

personally I'd like to see a hybrid of both. at levels 40/80/120 or 20/40/60 after the squish. like utility skills for unholy do you want to slow with death and decay? increase grip range? or have stun? do you want better anti magic shell, root breaking/movement, or an emergency heal? other older talent tree skills from the old days too though, like increase disease damage by x amount up too 5 times. death coil can heal yourself or your pet. unholy strike has a chance to proc free death coils by x% per level up to 3-5 levels that type of shit. the utility rows are interchangable at any time, the rest of the tree needs a respec cost.

[Coffer]

Not every talent point has to be exciting. Having a stepping stone to something awesome is far more motivating for me than just having juicy bits and nothing else, especially as Vanilla-Wrath leveling and Cata-BfA leveling are such wildly different beasts.

[Celestraza]

I don't mind any talent system as long as:
(1) Choices are meaningfull
(2) There is flexibility to swap

Classic has no flexibility, ergo I am not a huge fan.
Retail has no meaningfull talents, ergo I am not a huge fan.

I liked talents the most during MoP. You could swap talents at will and they were impactfull. I remember changing talents during a raid which affected my gameplay on bosses.

[Acelius]

A mix would be sweet. Classic tree but with MoP 3-style choice every 10 levels or so.

[Will]

Poor talent system? Yeah because nothing to say good like having all the fat trimmed and you just picking on the juicy pieces. Yeah...it's so exciting spending 5 points just to get a 10% damage boost to a ability

Your logic is astonishingly bad. Because it's better to go 14 levels without a new talent AT ALL, right?

Even if you cut the filler, the 'fat' so to speak, away from the classic talent system, you still have some new active abilities and fun talents mixed in there. Roughly the same amount you have with the new system. So if you think about it, the "filler 1% stuff" is actually additional on top of the fun stuff.

I'd rather level up and gain 25% more overpower crit chance, or extra combo points on crits, or reduced pushback and all those juicy things that in good old fashioned RPG-fashion give you a sense of development, rather than 'ding' and 'nothing whatsoever' for another 14 levels.

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A mix would be sweet. Classic tree but with MoP 3-style choice every 10 levels or so.

What's the point of that? They might as well bring back the major glyph system in conjunction with the old talents like they did in Wrath.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you suggesting this isnt the case for classic?

Nobody is suggesting any such thing. But, after grabbing the 'clear cut' talents, you always have a dozen points you can invest freely.

The way talents are balanced in Retail for most classes means there's very rarely any lee-way, barring a few specs. Though, this is not an issue with the new talent system itself, but rather the terrible balancing of each choice. Nonetheless, it typically boils down to a ST choice, AoE choice, and burst / bleh / situational choice.