If Blizzard had reverted to the old talent system

[Airwaves]

Why? I swear none of you people actually played with the old trees. There wasn't any choice, just the illusion of choice. If you didn't pick the best path you were laughed out of a group.

[Wildberry]

With old talent system you would go one top build and that's it. You do have actually a choice now.

During 3.3 alone, Unholy DKs had 3 different builds. PvP expanded things even more.

Nevermind the fact that there's still a "best talent setup for Boss X" etc.

The "More choice" argument in favor of the new talent trees has always been one of the most fantastically idiotic lines of reasoning in this game's history. At best, players have as much choice with the new talent trees, with more frequent inconveniences with regard to switching.

But even if we take this (bad) argument at face value, an "Engaging Class with depth, but minimal talent choices" is still a much better option than a "Gutted, stale class with no depth, but a plethora of SUPER INTERESTING CHOICES TO MAKE"

[Alkizon]

So basically if they just nerf all core abilities by 25% and you have to click some talents 5 times to get that 25% back? Yeah sounds very fun and interesting to click talents to get into same position we are now.

90% of old talents are already baked to the game system. The outcome would be same but the only difference is you would have to click some talents for artificial glory.

Not really. It's equivalent to great all "specs" nerf, puting total set of compensations from all "specs" in front of you and make you choose each level step by step (limiting you in number of possible "improvements"), which part (how much, size, degree) of them you want to get at this level. But problem is that this will require different classes design, solid one, but not the kind of nonsense that is now. It's 1 f* class, not "many separate ones".

[rrayy]

Incorrect, you could customize to your heart's content and do whatever you wanted.

Wrong. You went to Elitist Jerks to get the cookie cutter build or be laughed at and not invited to raids. You are living in a fantasy land.

[Ryzek]

I enjoy the current system more but I would not have a problem if they went to the old talent system again. *Shrug*

[rrayy]

You're acting like that would be a bad thing. More options are good. More choices are good. More ability to customize and make your character your own is GOOD. It really boggles my mind when people celebrate less customization and less choices.

Won't matter because there will be the cookie cutter you must use to get into raids. It's illusion of choice. There will NEVER be real choice.

[Kumorii]

New system has no choice what are u on about? literally only the bottom of the barrel thinks theres a choice, mythic raiding? check warcraft logs and copy paste, M+ check IO leader boards and copy paste.

For the most part the correct choice is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain so u dont even need to copy, one talent is 10x better than the other, then its not a choice, just like your autism wasn't a choice.

Same was in vanilla, copy paste the best build. Also, I switch talents from encounter to encounter... I didn't do that in vanilla as a mage, only between PVE and PVP it differed.

[Scorched2Black]

wouldn't matter. there were builds you "had" to take to play optimally, it was an illusion of choice and it's why they got rid of it in the first place. you think you had choices but there were the same 2 or 3 builds for every class and that's just what you put points in and dealt with it.

if anything i switch my talents more frequently now depending on what i'm doing, in RBGs i switch every match based on the enemy comp

[Airlick]

Choice never really existed. You could have your snowflake shit builds in the first three expansions, just like you can have your snowflake shit builds in the ones that followed. Trust me, lots of Todd's and Timmy's exist today who take really shitty "unique" builds, just like you had renegades in the first three expansions opt to take 1% less crit, so they could reduce their threat by 4% as some sort of fucking trail blazer. There have always been PvP and PvE variants in regards to builds for the entirety of this games life span, and is hasn't changed from Vanilla-BFA, only the presentation has changed.

This is ONLY true for raids and more competitive PvP. Yes, in order to do top content you pretty much had to follow cookie cutter builds, with minimal variations based on your own playstyle, but a lot of talents were too good to skip or just had to be filled to reach a break point. But if you were playing casually or levelling, then by all means you could pick talents on your own, and aside of the many obvious choices, there WERE a lot of optional picks that enhanced your own playstyle. That's just the thing with the old talent system - it had different talents for different types of content that you did. 5% crit won't help you nearly as much during levelling a mage as freeze on Frostbolt will. This isn't a talent that you'll pick for raiding, but it definitely is one to pick during levelling. I won't even get started on levelling a priest, for example, that was easier to do as holy mixed with shadow than pure shadow...

Meaning, you DO have choices with old talent system, and those choices depend on the type of content that you want to do.

[VladimirM]

No offense to OP, but after 2 days of original talents, nobody would even think about them and that's it.

[LionSinMaikeru]

Wrong. You went to Elitist Jerks to get the cookie cutter build or be laughed at and not invited to raids. You are living in a fantasy land.

Today I learned raids were the only thing to do in World of Warcraft.

1. Raids weren't the only thing to do there were several paths of progression that had nothing do with raiding and you could use a unique talent pool for them, 2. having the "optimal" talent build was only important if you were aiming for progression or world's first. I was in a guild and we raided and I had my own talent spec and we progressed. Did we do content as soon as it came out? No. But neither did a lot of people. Only 1% of people in Vanilla did Naxx, less than 1% did Sunwell when it was relevant, etc. And higher percentages than that looked up their talents on ElitistJerks or w/e...so obviously it didn't matter as much as people said it did.

- - - Updated - - -

Won't matter because there will be the cookie cutter you must use to get into raids. It's illusion of choice. There will NEVER be real choice.

Stop spewing Blizzard rhetoric. The current system is more of an illusion of choice than the old one was. Again, that's not true and stop perpetuating it. If someone cared about your spec and would deny you entry to a raid, yet weren't in the top % of guilds, they're elitist wannabes. And I didn't play with them. And I still had fun and progressed. Furthermore in today's game the spec would matter even less as a point of raid entry because of LFR.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think the new system is better but I wish it would grow. Just feels so stagnate being nearly the same thing for almost 3 expansions. Sure a few modifications and changes have happened but in essence I am where I was 3 expansions ago. That sucks in my opinion. Notch the choices out to 4 per-row. Give us an extra row. Give us something besides removing some to add others. Just so dry at this point.

[Alkizon]

No offense to OP, but after 2 days of original talents, nobody would even think about them and that's it.

In fact, discussions of optimal builds occupied megabytes of text back then on forums... and how is that now?

[lanesia24]

Maybe in PvE but PvP there were tons of different builds you could play and that I did play on my paladin and warrior.

As someone who did the top end content in the game there weren't tons of different viable builds.

[mostvp71]

As someone who did the top end content in the game there weren't tons of different viable builds.

Notice how I said, PvP not PvE I did high end arenas in WoTLK.

[rrayy]

Stop spewing Blizzard rhetoric. The current system is more of an illusion of choice than the old one was. Again, that's not true and stop perpetuating it. If someone cared about your spec and would deny you entry to a raid, yet weren't in the top % of guilds, they're elitist wannabes. And I didn't play with them. And I still had fun and progressed. Furthermore in today's game the spec would matter even less as a point of raid entry because of LFR.

IT's not Blizzard rhetoric. It's absolutely what happened and players were saying it well before Blizzard did. There was NEVER real choice in the old trees. You went to elitist jerks to get the cookie cutter build or you were considered a gimp. The only one perpetrating something here is you and you are perpetrating a fantasy land.

You are the one who needs to stop.

[LionSinMaikeru]

IT's not Blizzard rhetoric.

Yes it is.

It's absolutely what happened and players were saying it well before Blizzard did.

Not true.

There was NEVER real choice in the old trees.

Yes there was, I've explained this already.

You went to elitist jerks to get the cookie cutter build or you were considered a gimp.

No you didn't. And the only ones who held that belief were tryhards or top % raiders. And considering that only 1% of people made it to Naxx in Vanilla and (IIRC) less than that for Sunwell when it first came out, that means a majority of the naysayers were tryhards and their opinions irrelevant.

The only one perpetrating something here is you and you are perpetrating a fantasy land.

You're projecting.

You are the one who needs to stop.

Stop telling the truth? Never.

[Baine]

New talents tree hands down

[Azerate]

No thanks. I hated the old trees.

Lots of "illusion of choice", "useless abilities" and talents that give you +1 str (and have 1/2/3 stages).

People always claim "but there were niche specs where you could own people as a spell dmg rogue" etc. Yeah - 1 in 500,000 people maybe did that once in a while, but everyone used the same build copied from the on line guides anyway, let's not kid ourselves.

The current talent tree system is simpler (and that is not a bad thing), more transparent and offers clear choices between 3 things in each tier. I never changed talents around in Wotlk, never really experimented, but this current system has actually made me switch my spec between dungeons/raids/open world quite often. It's just way approachable with less noise.