Anyone else completely overwhelmed by new talents?

[Feeline10]

I haven't read anything except the OP headline (I will backread) -- but I felt like saying this: I initially felt extremely overwhelmed, however, I then started from scratch on each side and tried to take in the different talents and their values. It turns out to be quite fun, actually.

In addition, I would recommend this addon: Talent Tree Tweaker / Previewer, it allows you to mess with all specs from your own talent tree, save them, export them, import them.. quite a cool bit of functionality actually. It also shows which talents cause you to "go back" and which ones you can remove / de-select and not have it "restart" the previous tier. I hope that makes sense.

Check it out: https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addon...nt-tree-tweaks

(I have zero affiliation with any add-ons or their authors, just linking this because it helped me)

[TENTACLELUVR]

This isn't true. If you can't access them it's because you prioritize another.

Right, and DPS players will always prioritize DPS over utility. Mage's Spellsteal for example, being in the direct, lowest-point path to Mirror Image, is easier to access than Shaman's Purge. It requires Frost Shock (or Focused Insight) + Purge which is a lower DPS pathway than Maelstrom Weapon + Flurry. Everything competes with everything, whereas the old talent grid the competition was between abilities in the same row.

[Loveliest]

I cba really. If you read the tree they sau this thing does X. And then it does not. Most of my tree is bugged, it doesn't even matter.

[Feeline10]

I'm not overwhelmed by it, but while doing my pre-launch prepping (sorting banks, adjusting to new UI, etc) I find myself often annoyed that I have to search for certain abilities inside those trees. Especially if it's a mutually exclusive with another. That's not very noticiable for one spec, but if you have multiple chars with multiple specs it becomes quite annoying - especially if you don't know if they skill/talent even still exists.. and then there are those skills that moved into the general tree for no reason (meteor).

You know that there is an incredibly intelligent search function, right? What I mean is.. beyond "Missing from action bar" and then the blue finger, I'm talking about searching for the word "circle" in the Holy Priest trees. It will give you anything related to "Circle of healing" -- from the beginning to the end. And if you're missing something from the specs or talents, button-wise, that's now highlighted as well.

It's never been easier.

- - - Updated - - -

How does Blizzard keep anyone happy?

When it was 7 talents, people whined so hard. Now that's there's bigger talent trees, people whine so hard.

Lots of folks need to step away from their computers.. in general.

[shanthi]

Right, and DPS players will always prioritize DPS over utility. Mage's Spellsteal for example, being in the direct, lowest-point path to Mirror Image, is easier to access than Shaman's Purge. It requires Frost Shock (or Focused Insight) + Purge which is a lower DPS pathway than Maelstrom Weapon + Flurry. Everything competes with everything, whereas the old talent grid the competition was between abilities in the same row.

I mean, it really depends on the player and the expectations of the group. If a group I'm in needs some utility, I'm not going take a minor DPS increase over that utility (and it will be a minor DPS increase--you can choose which point to take away from DPS and you'd obviously take it from a lower-DPS node). If you're in a group that's trying to do hard content, then you work with them over what utility/DPS choices you should be making. The idea that everyone is just going to ignore utility for every last DPS talent isn't correct.

Everything competes with everything, whereas the old talent grid the competition was between abilities in the same row.

Which is more flexible. As I mentioned in another post, some content (like a raid encounter) may not need an interrupt. It's cool that you can drop unneeded utility for whatever else you might want.

[Feeline10]

From an outsider's perspective, this looks like gaslighting, lmao.

Blizzard took a core skill and turned it into a talent, meaning every time you want it you have to spec into it, adding extra hassle just to have the talent. But somehow they've convinced gamers like this person that it adds depth to the game?

Hello -- just because you have Multishot on your bars doesn't mean you HAVE to use it in every single encounter. Taking normal baseline skills out of the core set of skills and locking it behind a skill point doesn't add depth to the game; it just adds hassle.

This is really absurd to me.

Last night in Torghast on my Holy Priest, I didn't need to take Improved Mass Dispell - I could put more focus on damage. Then, right after, when I did a key -- I clicked a button and all my talents and action bars went back to exactly what they were.

It's awesome to not need / have / take Shackle Undead unless I want to. I could put it into a more damaged focused build.

How is this a problem, again?

[Lodreh]

Yes, it can be overwhelming... my advice is to just read all of the talents first... note the 2-3 must haves and plan your talent routes to grab those. Will it be optimal? Who cares you are using the abilities you find fun that's what matters. If you are more about preformance... there are builds that have been shared for raiding/ mythic+/ PvP... chose the loadout and just ignore the choices. Either way don't let this one system impede your enjoyment of the game.

[Feeline10]

You don't see how for some people it can be overwhelming to have to read through 50+ nodes, understand them and then apply them to their playstyle?

Unless you are already well versed in a class/spec, and already know which abilities take priority and which are dead then it's a huge amount of information that you have to sift through.

This game is almost 20 years old. That is a fact. If you're not currently playing, there's going to be an extraordinary barrier / gateway to entry. From the outside looking in, expansions, classes, specs, raids, dungeons, this that the other thing -- it's all a lot to take in. It doesn't matter how good the tutorials are or what kind of beginning experience that gets provided. If someone wants to get into this game, they're going to have to invest a bit of time into the basics.

I've never played Destiny 1 or Destiny 2. I suspect if I installed it, I'd have to do a fair bit of researching on all sorts of things.

[Lolites]

Imo, they should create an option to choose wether you want to have it prechosen or blank.

they have that...

[Feeline10]

this, on my main its no issue, on alts i play rarely its a bit confusing

There's been nothing more fun than specc'ing down my talent trees on my Rogue as I level him up which I haven't really played since WOTLK.

All games are pretty confusing to outsiders... now insert the worlds biggest MMO for the last 20 years. Blizzard is "winning" just by us having this discussion. By folks having to use IcyVeins. By researching what MindGames is.

Just saying.

[TENTACLELUVR]

I mean, it really depends on the player and the expectations of the group. If a group I'm in needs some utility, I'm not going take a minor DPS increase over that utility (and it will be a minor DPS increase--you can choose which point to take away from DPS and you'd obviously take it from a lower-DPS node). If you're in a group that's trying to do hard content, then you work with them over what utility/DPS choices you should be making. The idea that everyone is just going to ignore utility for every last DPS talent isn't correct.

For sure, it depends on the group. My main points are 1) the default is max DPS (as it always has been - doubly so for PUGs) and 2) the group optimizations we are talking about are more complex than they ever have been. (See my Mage/Shaman example, feel free to give other examples of the investment required to get interrupts/hard CCs/dispels)

About the group optimization: if we totally ignore the above-mentioned investment to get utility, since the talents are %-based DPS increases, the best call is to have your lowest-DPS players spec out of their DPS talents and into utility, leaving the high-tier DPS to focus solely on DPS. I don't see that going over well.

Which is more flexible. As I mentioned in another post, some content (like a raid encounter) may not need an interrupt. It's cool that you can drop unneeded utility for whatever else you might want.

It's more flexible for the player but less flexible for groups. I don't find the idea of removing buttons from my kit (which I may or may not need dependent on the skill of the others in my group) to increase my DPS by 1% each to be cool. Maybe if I was choosing between Mass Poly or something that changes the kit e.g. bonus Missiles procs I would feel differently.

[Lazerbrain]

I love the new talent system, I wish it had even more talents and meaningful choices for you all to argue over, the more variety a singel class can wield, the better.

Most of you act like its not a roleplaying game your playing.

Use the talents to make a fun build that suits your characters "lore", your gonna clear all the dungeons even if your running a sub par build, so remember its a game meant to be roleplayed, its in the title mmo"rpg", min/maxing is like chasing a carrot on a stick, sure you push that dmg meter a little bit higher than people around you, and no one remembered your name anyways..

I would say that most people who play games are not there to compete with you, they are there to have a good time.

When I was younger, like back when wow vanilla was around, I took games more seriously sure, but to be frank, a game is a game, its not serious even if we sometimes take games seriously.

Sorry for rant. hahahaha

[Season2mask]

You sound so stressed out about learning stuff about your class. Find a training dummy, pick some talents and play around with them. Leave combat, pick other talents and try them out.

TBH this is a prime example of why WoW started making those changes to prune classes, simplify talent trees. The devs had to make a game for players who were unwilling to spend any time learning something.

If you cant handle something new then stick to classic. Watch out for the first boss in Ulduar, you might have to read some abilities of the vehicles

Can I ask what age you are?

[erifwodahs]

The difference is before it was a case of bad players being bad; now these talent changes will enable these people to have an excuse

"I don't need to take an interrupt because X player is doing it"
"I wanted X talent so I skipped my CC"

Before this argument couldn't work and these players would be promptly replaced - now people can actually get away with being a pox on the game and that is not a good thing

Man, you are so full of shit, talking some hypotheticals and made up scenarios - you sound like you are simultaneously play with really bad players but at the same time good enough to use their utility. Bad players won't use it no matter if they have a choice to take it or not and they don't need excuse.
Does an option not to take it somehow remove your option not to play with them? I really think that you just make shit up to be mad about which will have no impact. You not playing RoP has way bigger impact on encounters/dungeons where interrupting is useless - should you be kicked? And yes, there are ton of fights where interrupts are useless or where you only need 3 people to cover it, there are also dungeons like Iron Docks and Grimrail Depo where interrupts can be covered by a tank and one melee if not by just tank alone. Most people will have it by default.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I'll preface by saying I'm not really into creating builds and messing about with stats and all that stuff but I'm very grateful to people that are.

The talents in Dragonflight just completely overwhelm me. I don't even know where to begin (and I'm aware there's a starter build ready for me) There are SO many choices. How does one even keep track of what they need to do?

In my mind it's like, 'Okay, so I now need to spend a talent on Rampage, an ability a previously core ability, but to do that I need to spend this much, but if I do, will I be able to get this spell later on down the line? I'd like this talent, but does it fit well with this one? Oh, I've spent too much somewhere, need to backtrack and redo all these talents. Wait, where was I?'

Is there a way to go about thinking about the choices in a better way?

Don't stress too much; you can make this as simple or nuanced as you care to take on. You can also start slow and get more fancy as you go.

~ Simplest Option: Use the default "Starter Build" provided by Blizz. It favors passives that don't require a lot of spec knowledge, letting you just game and have fun.
~ Step Up: Use builds from 3rd party guides tailored to the content you play most. Quick search will turn up builds just for raids, just for M+, etc.
~ Now You Get It: Eventually you will know the trees well enough, and know what you like, to experiment on your own. And after all, any talents you pick will be fine while we're leveling, so why not play around with different ones?

[chiddie]

I feel for the op, but usually customization comes at the price of a little more complexity.

The new trees are of course way more “overwhelming” than the old 6/7 rows of 3 choices each, but they are more flexible and allow more freedom of choice.

The idea behind is good. OF COURSE given that the game has 900 classes and 9000 specs not all trees are well shaped at the moment, but the concept per se is fine.

If you take your time reading what do things do, you’ll eventually take the grasp of it. Also respecs are totally free of charge so you can try everything you want. Some paths will be more efficient than others, but this is just unavoidable when we talk about numbers.

Just play with the points and try out stuff against mobs. It’s probably less efficient but kinda fun anyways.

[Zka]

Original talent trees: new talent point every level, but half the tree is meaningless placeholder. Some of the rest are absolutely must have and leave 5-10 points to decide about.

MoP talent trees: way too simple, most of the time there is no real choice at all. You can/have to flip a few points around depending on the content you run.

Current talent trees: lots of meaningful choices, most of the points HAVE TO go to the cookie cutter spec, some leftover points you can decide about. Different playstyles require very different talents.

Overall, the current iteration is a good mix between cookie cutter and freedom to decide.

[Aesahaettr]

I'm not really a fan of them. They're too bloated and messy, and swapping a talent means faffing around trying to reallocate points because divergent paths require different numbers of points. I also don't like the way they diverge and remerge in fairly arbitrary ways. I also think having a class tree is utterly redundant, and should just be baseline stuff.

I'm not really a fan of talent trees generally. I'm not really a fan of having to learn new metas either. If I need to spend too much time reading about shit it puts me off. I need to feel invested in something before in spend time reading about. And right now I don't feel that invested in WoW.

I'm glad some people like them but I've been around since late Vanilla and this is my least favourite talent system.

[Biomega]

They definitely FEEL like a failure to me, whether or not they really are is probably too early to tell.

I like making meaningful choices, and I like customization; what I don't like is making choices that feel like non-choices, because they're made for me. The way that the progressive point tree means you have to spend points into boring, automatic nodes to get where you want makes you wonder why those are even there. I'd prefer less points but more meaningful choices. The way it stands right now most specs won't really have distinct "builds" outside of the old and usual "pick A for single target, pick B for AoE" kind of "choice" that we've had most of the time. Those are usually only found in the Blizzard-premade "easy mode" talents like Single-Minded Fury and Demon Blades that are intentionally lower performance in return for a simplified playstyle. That doesn't feel great.

Especially let down by the class tree, where I feel they could have done a lot more to distinguish identity based on player choices. Instead we're back to reverse pathing (i.e. pick the capstone, see how you best get there) and meaningless filler in the style of "+1% stamina". That's not what good choices should look like.

Maybe the game is simply too old to be reformed on that level. Could well be I'm just expecting too much. But what they made is not tickling me, that's for sure. Maybe not a bad thing, and I simply need to move on and stop hoping I'll ever want to come back to WoW.

[Baraden]

I can't be bothered to individually reply to everyone going on at me because you're all missing the same fundamental point

These new talent trees are forcing players to make decisions and compromises before they didn't have to before - you objectively have less freedom and choice than before if you want to be an effective and versatile player; people can cope and say "bUt YoU dOn'T nEeD aN iNtErRuPt" - no, if you're not a shit or lazy player - yes you do

You quite literally have less than 5 abilities on some classes before any talents - how is that acceptable?