I cry at night over talent tree absense

[tehdef]

Vanilla specs were the best. That's when there was true versatility, and class balance didn't need to go under a microscope.

Yes, because ever Priest, Paladin, Shaman, Druid were all pigeon holed into healing unless they had a super forward guild. Otherwise you got fire resist gear, and you healed. That was so fun. This is my not sarcastic face, I promise.

[Dasani]

As soon as they made it so you were locked into a single tree until you hit the bottom, then and only then could you spend the remaining handful of points into other trees, they basically removed all possibility of creative talent builds and everything became completely cookie cutter. When you have less and less and less options, there is going to be less diversity.

I like the new talent model personally since the older trees weren't really engaging in any way and you never really changed your talents for most classes because there was a clear "best" build for any given situation. In the new style, i've used tomes to swap out a few abilities here and there as needed and i've loved it.

[alduron]

After seeing 2 different assassination rogues in cata without the master poisoner talent, i lost all hope in people being able to pick decent talents on their own.

[Florena]

I liked the old talent trees when leveling up. You got to pick a new talent every level, or every other level in cata. It was neat.

But once you reach level cap I prefer the new system. The choices are more interesting at least from my perspective. Sure you have less choices, but many of the new talent decisions are more interesting choices than before.

[Brightamethyst]

If you aren't using Aspect of the ironhawk, glaive toss and Dire beast you are objectively wrong. What options are you talking about???

It's still situational though. Fighting a raid boss, yeah, those talents are best. But what about when you're not raiding? If I'm doing dailies or running a 5 man I'd rather have Spirit Bond and Thrill of the Hunt.

Having that kind of distinction and the ability to change things around on the fly is the whole point of the new system.

[Abysal]

You cry at night over a feature in a game? That's kind of sad. You may want to seek professional help.

[Adam Jensen]

Vanilla specs were the best. That's when there was true versatility, and class balance didn't need to go under a microscope.

Ah yes, Vanilla. That mythical time when WoW was perfect, classes weren't broken, PvP was balanced and talents were fun.

We have dismissed this claim.

[Dasani]

Ah yes, Vanilla. That mythical time when WoW was perfect, classes weren't broken, PvP was balanced and talents were fun.

We have dismissed this claim.

Don't forget you couldn't mount in ironforge because the entire city was classified as indoors and it was the only city with an auction house.

[Daedelus]

WOTLK + Cata - total spec changes: <10 in 4 years.
MoP - total spec changes: 2 or 3 per raid.

[Dabrix32]

I cried when people had 71 points in a single tree.

[KCguy]

The problem with the old talents was most of the talents were useless. You would choose some of the talents at the top and then everything was almost always the same when you got towards the bottom. To me, it wasn't that great at all. At least with the current system, pretty much everything is useful and you get more choice. Look up everyone's specs now and you'll almost always get something different. Many choices are picked based on your play style and what you prefer. It's great.

[skitzy129]

It's still situational though. Fighting a raid boss, yeah, those talents are best. But what about when you're not raiding? If I'm doing dailies or running a 5 man I'd rather have Spirit Bond and Thrill of the Hunt.

Having that kind of distinction and the ability to change things around on the fly is the whole point of the new system.

Even then SV should be using Thrill anyway in raiding.

[Daedelus]

I swear, I buy at least 30 per week and it's honestly annoying how often I have to keep going back to the same vendor!

Jeeves sells them. Grand Expedition Yak sells them. Loads of sources for them.

[Darkhallows]

Oh yeah. Vanilla. But what most of the people who talk about how awesome the Vanilla talent model was forget MANY things. For example: Hunters. 5% extra ranged damage. 0/5. Each point =1 level = you spend 5 levels powering up basic math. Look at all the fun we're having, kids!

Also! Survival was full of useless talents for PvE especially, like Counterattack. Counterattack worked *sort of* with the Vanilla PvP model, but no matter what, Hunters that got pulled into Melee were screwed. Disengage didn't work the way it does now, so you just had to sit there and take it, or Feign Death and hope they're idiots. Or drop a trap. Which you could only do out of combat.

Survival was a PvP only spec in Vanilla, BM was garbage, and Marks was dull. CRAZY dull. The talent trees for not just hunters all had a similar design. Arms warriors had to spend 5 points powering up individual weapon skills. "Remember how much you liked Axe specialization? Jokes on you, because the best weapon in the game right now is Asscandy. Guess you've gotta do swords, now!"

That, and I always had to spend the first 5 levels as warrior or rogue buffing flat crit % chance. Oh, and those talents that increased flat damage or just stats. (Sub Rogues had +3% agility, 0/5. Ewww....)

No thanks. The MoP talents are so much more interesting.

[Adam Jensen]

What I didn't like was the number of bloat talents that were useless, the number of boring talents that were 1% to crit or w/e, and the fact that entire specs were just bad or undesired (ret paladins, for example.) Then we had 31 point talents that were awful (Lacerate! Does less damage than Rend! Oh yeah awesome, a melee talent for a ranged class /facepalm)

Cata and Wrath were alright systems because most talents were useful and all specs were raid and/or PvP viable, but we still mostly used cookie cutter specs.

MoP's talents are all gameplay decisions and can be swapped in and out based on the situation and how I want to play.

[Rivin]

Only difference now is that the cookie cutter build is pre selected for everyone. The current system is restrictive and broken as all hell. There is not "choice" at all.

That's funny...I sure do change talents on my paladin a lot for something that has no choice.

Yes, many tiers do present a best choice for a given situation, but there's so many situations floating around that you get the opportunity to change a lot. That's a hell of a lot better than the old talent trees where once a point was spent it was never changed, because there was nothing worth changing to. And there's still plenty of tiers where there actually IS a choice.

- Do you want improved burst, or improved sustained damage?
- Do you want a passive movement speed increase, or burst movement speed on a cooldown?
- Do you want to reduce an ally's damage from one attack, or transfer part of the damage they take for a short duration to yourself?
- Do you want a passive improvement to certain abilities, or a cooldown improving several at once?

Things like these are real choices (all examples from the existing talent trees). Some choices may work better than others (based on personal preference or situational usefulness), but you're not penalized for making that choice, unlike the older talent trees, where you would have to, say, reduce your own damage to gain increased movement speed or to gain that really nice damage reduction cooldown.

[Aqua]

Boy y'know actually opening my talent/glyph tab before a boss to consider what I should be using was always something I did before.

Except... no it wasn't because like everyone else I sat on forums and search websites and just used the rough cookie cutter build the clever clogs mathletes had formulated for my class and spec.

Also if you cry at night over that I have nothing but reviled pity for you.

[Xeraxis]

Which is an all around terrible change.

The old talent system was interesting enough that you could spend hours deciding on what talent tree might work best for you. You'd realize that maybe you were having trouble generating rage, or maybe a bit more hit chance from talents instead of gear might be great help or maybe you might be able to weave slams into your rotation or more heroic strike queues that you could reduce the rage cost for.

The old system allowed you to modify your gameplay like this new one never can. Everyone loves new abilities but when that's all the new talent tree is with nothing but situational decisions that can be made for it then you know they've utterly failed at their design goal. Hell, I'd go so far as to say these new talents are a step back from the wotlk/tbc model.

If by what worked best for you you mean what gimped your throughput then yes you are correct. The old talent system had one right choice, that's it. If you tried a different build you were just gimping yourself and anyone who raided/pvp'd with you.

[Yig]

People like OP depress me.

For 8 years the talent trees offered vague choices that you never knew if they were gimping you or not, and when you did finally discover the cookie cutter spec it all became redundant. I used to set my talents maybe once or twice an expansion's life cycle.

I have NEVER enjoyed the talents or used them more than I have now. I am constantly burning through Tome of the Clear mind depending on factors.

Warrior wise, If I am soloing old raids which I do on a weekly basis, I take second wind.

If I am raiding and need competitive DPS, I take victory rush to help me pool rage for my colossus smash windows so I don't have to waste global cool downs.

If I am PVPing, I go back to second wind.

If I am soloing old content I use bladestorm for AOE trash.

If I am doing competitive DPS in a raid, I use Dragon Roar over bladestorm.

If I am pvping, I use peircing howl for snaring. If I am raiding, I use disrupting shout for the extra interrupt like in the Spirit Kings.

If I am solo'ing Onyxia, I use Storm Bolt over Bloodbath. If I am in a raid, I use blood bath for execute ticks. If I am pvping, I use Avatar.

I am constantly jumping back and forth on a daily basis this way, this is so much more interesting than the cookie cutters of old.
If you weren't using the cookie cutter, your spec was either overpowered and exploiting or you were gimping yourself.

[Granyala]

MMO Champion, proof that anything Blizz says or does becomes the word of god.

Just cause you chose cookie cutter builds doesnt mean everyone else did.

Yeah Thats why I was considered a good player, while the guy with a non cookie spec was not.
Most raiding guilds also won't try the other one out to see what he can do with "his" spec.

Also: even w/o theorycrafting, the old talent trees were pretty self explanatory. Only danger was that you skilled sth that sounded good on paper but was crap in reality.