"new talents" are just conduits and former baseline abilities.

[exochaft]

It was fairly obvious what Blizz would do when they even announced that talent trees were going to be a new feature. It's their modus operandi in recent years when it comes to 'fixing' or 'adjusting' classes/specs on a fundamental level: strip everything away from the classes/specs, give it back to them in a new system with maybe a little more so the net end result doesn't change.

However, a side effect of doing things this way is that while the end result may be the same or similar, everything leading up to reaching that end result may not be. This happened in BfA after the class/spec revamp where they stripped everyone down to where you felt terrible for the start or most of the expansion depending upon what you played.

Another issue that can pop up is that bringing back old favorites may not always work, because how classes/specs operate and are balanced alongside different systems may not mesh well with old powers/abilities. Sometimes it's just a scaling issue, but sometimes it's because you needed a certain legendary for it to work well, or you had other abilities that you no longer have that made it work well, or the removal of mechanics making things shine or not feel terrible.

Ever since 9.1.5, it's been very obvious that Blizz is just throwing everything they can to keep players subbed because they're breaking out things people have been asking for back (for years in some cases) while not fundamentally changing their design philosophies that drove them to not approve of these changes players were demanding. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the talent tree ravamp wasn't originall part of DF until after the shenanigans that happened at Blizz and the PR started getting bad. I can't really blame them for trying to placate to the players, but if the correct foundation is not there everything will just be a pretty veneer over a rotting core that will fall apart eventually.

[Archy]

this expansion is low budget in every way:
1- new ugly race using human and belf assets
2- new talent tree is basically gathering legendary , sets , etc from the past
3- worst cinematic ever made (stone guy pov)
4- uninspiring login screen
5- new class with worst gameplay possible
6- the only new feature is copy paste form gw2 and will be forgotten when flying unlocked.
7- 4 new m+ dung at start and using dungs from the past

1- Great! I also don't like them and it would be annoying to know that they spend more develop time on fixing every new (and old) armor set to fit them. We have enough races already.
2- They built in an evergreen system, if they expand on it it'll be great. But you're right it would have been nice to have some new and exciting abilities.
3- Subjective, but definitive not low budget. The graphics and voice acting was (as always) superb. That story behind isn't expensive.
4- Again subjective. I think it looks great. It's art, what do you want? Also of 7 things to list, you list a login screen that you'll see for 4 seconds? Sounds like a win to me.
5- And subjective again. I hated demon hunters, but a lot of people seem to enjoy them.
6- Getting ideas from other games is great. Blizzard was known for that stuff. They never reinvented the wheel in their glory days. They just used good system and put their on spin on them. Also you do realize that you can't just log in the game and press ctrl+c and go to WoW and press ctrl+v? The budget part is the implementation, so your point is void anyways.
7- 8 dungeons from the start but only 4 in the Mythic+ rotation AND 2 more dungeons from the past that didn't use to be M+. So actually more budget than usual.

[Amariw]

Some are former conduits, some former set abilities, or previously removed abilities. Some are entirely new abilities like Demonology Warlock's pit lord and guillotine, Holy Priest's Divine Word and such.

This is to be expected. a 17+ year old game can't continually add new things, and it shouldn't always remove old things that work. Warlocks had Soulburn and Soulswap brought back, which is an amazing thing as those were good spells. The bloating of action bars was a serious issue all the way back in Mists of Pandaria, and pruning became a neccessity whether people liked it or not.

Imo, considering this, a lot of the new talent trees are rather well done. They provide option and playstyles, add some new things for every specc to be excited about, and most of all let you experience this from the get go without paying gold or silly grinds. I'd hate them to try to revmap classes every expansion, because a lot of the times they did it the result ended up being worse for little reason (mop/wod lock area into legion times come to mind). Its better to build on what works and only add when there's room.

[MoFalcon]

Sounds to me like all you whiney little crybabies should just quit playing...yep, STOP! thats the only answer.

But wait! , What would you have to cry and complain about then? Nevermind, I'm sure you play plenty of other games you get to cry about.

Blizzard has reused and reimplemented old talents, special abilities and buffs into the next patch/expansion forever. Its called keeping what people like and bringing back what people have asked for. they always have done that, hopefully they will keep doing it.

All you bitches are so toxic, I wish you would just quit a game in stead of spending your lives sticking around and complaining non-stop. STFU

[sensei-]

Sounds to me like all you whiney little crybabies should just quit playing...yep, STOP! thats the only answer.

But wait! , What would you have to cry and complain about then? Nevermind, I'm sure you play plenty of other games you get to cry about.

Blizzard has reused and reimplemented old talents, special abilities and buffs into the next patch/expansion forever. Its called keeping what people like and bringing back what people have asked for. they always have done that, hopefully they will keep doing it.

All you bitches are so toxic, I wish you would just quit a game in stead of spending your lives sticking around and complaining non-stop. STFU

I agree. I’m an OG from vanilla times and Dragonflight seems like the best expansion in recent memory. Really good stuff. Classes feel awesome. The DF zones are humongous. Rated solo queue woop woop!

[Metacrias]

I agree. I’m an OG from vanilla times and Dragonflight seems like the best expansion in recent memory. Really good stuff. Classes feel awesome. The DF zones are humongous. Rated solo queue woop woop!

I'm looking forward to it; I'm hoping it'll be as good as some are suggesting. The talent system does have some problems: some of the trees are too linear, with too few talents for meaningful choices (and many do not suffer from this); some abilities and passives are repetitive; it can feel too much like vanilla WoW's talent trees - again, only for some specs and classes.

On the positive, the success on some classes shows the promise of the new talent system which surely will be revised. Best example for me is Shadow Priest which now has access to more heals and some holy damage spells if they want - something which was taken away several expansions ago making Spriests less tanky than they ought to be - they are fixed now.

New class looks interesting and we've needed something more than melee to be added for some time. The new zones look spectacular.

Finally, remember Activision is being bought by Microsoft. WoW is prime IP and I would expect money to flow into the game - and possibly a full blown new generation WoW (also playable on XBox - clearly a goal of theirs).

[jeezusisacasual]

The problem with talent trees is more based on the community then anything else. If they balanced the game in a fashion that any group of talents were possible to clear the content then it really would be a choice or that the choice should only be cosmetic only and nothing more then that if they want to go down this path. I come from the obvious pick up and play side of modern gaming and think that gaming from earlier generations is trash currently which that might change i guess in time and this just feels like them being conservative in their approach.

No amount of hype or marketing will work for me in the slightest and i openly go against it just for the principle of it all, its why i had a car salesman almost punch me. I will reactivate my sub soon so i can get keybinds and muscle memory back to where it needs to be and judge from there but hell i might even give raiding a go around assuming its more WoTLK to Early WoD instead of Dark Souls the mmo.

[AlmightyGerkin]

Okay so I cannot be the first to realize this right?
there is absolutely nothing new about these talents, theyre all just conduits or abilities that use to be baseline that require talent points now.

We all know it has some downsides but it is far better than the 7 talents levels. It gives a bit more freedom for sacrificing damage for reduced damage taken or AoE vs ST areas. Hopefully its a system they can build upon as expansions go and not just scrap it and move onto something new like they've done with Legion - SL

[Lucetia]

The new is that they won't disappear come to the next expansion, they are now part of the classes.

That we know of yet. They could always just trash the system or remove half of it and put new things in and say "it wasn't working the way we want it to"

[Kithelle]

Okay so I cannot be the first to realize this right?
there is absolutely nothing new about these talents, theyre all just conduits or abilities that use to be baseline that require talent points now.

Welcome to the old talent trees...this is what they were but people kept crying for the old talent trees back, now that they're back people are complaining like they expected every node to be new meaningful abilities "facepalms

[Lochton]

That we know of yet. They could always just trash the system or remove half of it and put new things in and say "it wasn't working the way we want it to"

They have already disappeared from the majority of the content, all covenant abilities are now locked for Shadowlands, and half of them are not reiterated into a talent tree. So, once the next expansion comes, they are basically removed until developers decide that they need to find a way to give players Soulshapes and DoS outside of Shadowlands.

[Stickiler]

The new is that they won't disappear come to the next expansion, they are now part of the classes.

I feel like no-one remembers how it used to work, before borrowed power.

Back in the day, new expansions were always bitter-sweet, because it was a guess-game of "I wonder what I'm going to lose this time" because they would ALWAYS change up the talent trees and spells you have. With borrowed power, you KNOW what you're losing, it's all centred around the system for that expansion, and every single expansion you would keep _something_ from the borrowed power, so instead of wondering what you would lose, you would just be looking forward to what new things you would keep from the system.

[OrangeJuice]

I called it months ago when all we had was a single screenshot

[Lochton]

I feel like no-one remembers how it used to work, before borrowed power.

Back in the day, new expansions were always bitter-sweet, because it was a guess-game of "I wonder what I'm going to lose this time" because they would ALWAYS change up the talent trees and spells you have. With borrowed power, you KNOW what you're losing, it's all centred around the system for that expansion, and every single expansion you would keep _something_ from the borrowed power, so instead of wondering what you would lose, you would just be looking forward to what new things you would keep from the system.

Yup, hence I do like seeing some being put to use.. Even though... RIP Corgi Soulshape and Door of Shadows.. They were fun, but now they are restricted to Shadowlands..

[bloodmoth13]

Okay so I cannot be the first to realize this right?
there is absolutely nothing new about these talents, theyre all just conduits or abilities that use to be baseline that require talent points now.

Yes so what?
Azerite traits and conduits were cool augments attached to shitty systems, now we can pick and choose what we want and more importantly what we dont want.

Being able to exclude parts you dont like from your spec is the most important part of building your spec.

[Imnotadentist]

How is it better that we have lost a LOT of baseline abilities and now have to use talents for otherwise base abilities?

- - - Updated - - -

Yes so what?
Azerite traits and conduits were cool augments attached to shitty systems, now we can pick and choose what we want and more importantly what we dont want.

Being able to exclude parts you dont like from your spec is the most important part of building your spec.

I agree! I liked the idea of conduits and even Azertite traits, but i am NOT a fan of losing baseline abilities at all.

[FelPlague]

are you defending them doing 0 work and yet still somehow releasing super buggy patches?
Perhaps im late to the party, but how can people look at that and go "good job blizzard this is great!"
Shammys lost cloudburst totem, well spring, and wont have their extra riptide.
Priests have to talent for leap of faith...

- - - Updated - - -

I expected them to do some work.. not just destory classes in the name of a new talent system.

"doing 0 work" bro idk if you know but making all of these trees and the new abilities is not even fucking close to 0 work.

they did not destroy the classes, they are better then ever, cause we once again have true customization.

they said from day fucking 1
"do not expect a ton of new abilities, overhauling these trees will take a lot of work, so expect a lot of old and returning abilities with some new, but with the ground set it should allow us in the future to continue to add new"

The whole point is bringing back the talent trees so they are back, then we get tons of new stuff.
plus the fact we can mix many of these things that were never possible in the past is the point of new.

- - - Updated - - -

and legendary abilities from legion! lol.

Yes. This "expansion" is giving u a UI MOD that has been around 20 yrs, a old talent system brought back with nothing new in the tree and will take awhile (prolly the whole xpac) to balance right, dragonriding wooooooooooooo, crafting update that will be a token seller and the update honestly was needed several years ago, a new class that just flat out sucks atm, a new race that can only be that 1 class.

Outside of new zones, new dungeons, its pretty shit imo, which sucks because they really needed this one to be a winner after how bad BFA and SL were in general.

"Nothing new in the tree" sounds like you havent looked at the trees, cause there is fucking tons of new stuff, all of it? god no, but there is a fuck load of new talents.

Everything circled in green is brand new, choice nodes circled entirely both are new, if they are circled half, half are new.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

In names alone.. sure.. but you can get different combos in different ways.. even really bad ways.. or really good ways.. which is the difference.

[Dasn]

Okay so I cannot be the first to realize this right?
there is absolutely nothing new about these talents, theyre all just conduits or abilities that use to be baseline that require talent points now.

Yes, and? What's the problem?

[FelPlague]

Welcome to the old talent trees...this is what they were but people kept crying for the old talent trees back, now that they're back people are complaining like they expected every node to be new meaningful abilities "facepalms

I do find it funny people seem to forget how tbc/wotlk/cata talent trees worked, and hell even into the "new" talent trees.
They would try tier sets, and if they were welll liked, they became part of the base class, either baseline, or a talent.
This is always how it has worked, like people are crying that we arnt geting the same class we had a week ago WITH 50 new talent points to put in.
That would be fucking insane, they are going back to how it used to be, barebone class with a talent tree you can use to make your own class. ASNd that is a good thing, and with that of course a lot of these abilities will be old and returning.