I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of the old talents coming back.

[Lathspell]

It is all the same stuff we already had just reshuffled around and presented to us in a way that makes us think we can design our characters in a more RPG sense.

RPG designing your character is not "Do I want X% more damage here or here?" that is essentially mathematical progression of your character, RPG designing your character means... "Do I want to use ice spells more than fire spells?" "Can I fight with a spear instead of a sword?"

End of the day, all this talent system is doing is letting players crunch in numbers and press buttons that were originally an automated task within the current talent system.

but I do think it will be refreshing if they let us create trybrid characters again picking abilities from all 3 specs of our class (doubtful!)

So you are saying it was possible to get Empower Rune Weapon as Blood in shadowlands? It was not. There are many more options with the new trees than we have now.

[Nymrohd]

What annoys me is that when this was presented they said it would have little throughput in the main tree and little utility in the spec tree. And it has a ton of both.

[Aydinx2]

Honestly the tankadin tree is one of the few were almost every talent is worthwhile. Having to choose between Holy Shield and Blessed Hammer or First Avenger and Crusader's Judgment makes me sad I hope I can at least have both of the first two in the new tree.

That means that row is designed well. You're supposed to have feelings over needing to choose.
And since the spec works perfectly fine with only one of the options, it's a good talent row decision.

[Nymrohd]

So you are saying it was possible to get Empower Rune Weapon as Blood in shadowlands? It was not. There are many more options with the new trees than we have now.

I mean can you get that without sacrificing a good part of your actual spec's abilities though?

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That means that row is designed well. You're supposed to have feelings over needing to choose.
And since the spec works perfectly fine with only one of the options, it's a good talent row decision.

Oh yeah, I don't disagree with that. Tankadins have a decent tree and I switch talents around depending on what I'm doing already which should be the goal of a good design. Was just saying it's possible we might get two of the same row in the new tree.
The spec trees are not really that bad. I wish they did not have that much utility in them but they seem much better than the class trees.

[Bloodbayne]

So glad the brain dead talents are going away. Might filter out these types of players too. Maybe get back that 12.6 million subs they had? Who knows. Good riddance.

[exjay]

For those that prefer the MoP style talents, do you then want them to continue to keep borrowed powers? I have not seen this mentioned, but the main reason for this new tree is to allow further additions to it for future expansions and not having our spells taken away. The sense of progression while leveling id say is more a nice perk.

However they haven’t included any new spells that were accustomed via borrowers power, which is a bit disappointing.

[Hctaz]

One big thing that frustrated me was the arbitrary restrictions on being able to go further in the tree until after you've spent 8 and 20 points into the tree on the whole. It didn't change or stop any builds for me, it just irritated me. That restriction serves no purpose, the big restriction that makes the builds unique is the fact that you have to follow paths.

This is probably for balancing reasons more than anything. It's just so you can't beeline down to all the strongest nodes or whatever.

[Myradin]

I seriously weary of this new talent system after seeing it, it feels like they are stripping baseline abilities of what we currently have and giving you it back as a talent "choice" it would not surprise me if the added stats are not being treated the same like removing 6% damage of said ability from the base only to give you it back through a talent giving you the illusion of choice.

The old talent trees were effectively packed into classes when they turned to the MoP system. So it makes sense returning talent trees would take these buffs and turn them back into talents.

[Skayth]

Lmao. Fucking knew it. What I afraid was gonna happen is happening.

Legit they are doing status quo of powers currently available in some sort of way and adding them as talents. Nothing new is coming, at least in terms of end tier talents at least from what it looks like.

Of course some classes may get some differences, but I fully suspect legendary procs and tiers to be fully baked in, and almost nothing new to stand out beyond "customization" but even that doesn't seem likely, at least with how the rows seem configured.

Ah well. Still better than the current talents system. But i wonder how they will do my class (dh) with already bare bones? Demons bite and chaos strike only? Lol.

[Elbob]

Lmao. Fucking knew it. What I afraid was gonna happen is happening.

Legit they are doing status quo of powers currently available in some sort of way and adding them as talents. Nothing new is coming, at least in terms of end tier talents at least from what it looks like.

Of course some classes may get some differences, but I fully suspect legendary procs and tiers to be fully baked in, and almost nothing new to stand out beyond "customization" but even that doesn't seem likely, at least with how the rows seem configured.

Ah well. Still better than the current talents system. But i wonder how they will do my class (dh) with already bare bones? Demons bite and chaos strike only? Lol.

This is supposed to be a redo of the current system so of course many of our current abilities are going to be in the new tree. You wanted a huge new talent tree on top of all the stuff we have currently? You want to track like 10 offensive and 10 defensive cds per class?

And there are some new things in the talents along with countless other combinations of existing powers we couldn't have before.

[Skayth]

This is supposed to be a redo of the current system so of course many of our current abilities are going to be in the new tree. You wanted a huge new talent tree on top of all the stuff we have currently? You want to track like 10 offensive and 10 defensive cds per class?

And there are some new things in the talents along with countless other combinations of existing powers we couldn't have before.

No, I wanted something new. I've legit been playing the same damn spec since legion. Almost the same powers and legendaries since it. And from the looks of, the same spec till end of dragon flight.

What do think should have happened? Basically the same damn thing, but another row ontop of it like what happened with vanilla into tbc then into wotlk and finally cata. The same end talents have been basically the same since legion. It's not fun to see that my end goal is the same as before.

Where is the increase or feel of character progression? There isnt. When my warlock went from sacing a demon into having a felguard? That was fun as hell. Oh damn then it gained metamorphosis. See? There is power progression.

What has my dh been doing since legion? Using and abusing demonic. Not very fun.

[GMZohar1]

The argument of "the new trees will just be cookie cutter" is not a valid argument.. Since the current trees also have cookie cutter, no matter what talent system you bring out they will all be cookie cutter..

What these new trees will do is allow me to be a hybrid spec.. So if Arcane spec with points in Fire is the cookie cutter than ill be that if its Arcane/Frost then ill be that. Where as current trees if I am Arcane spec then I am just Arcane spec.. Hybrid specs don't exist currently.

So yes, cookie cutter will always exist but at least I will be Arcane/Fire or Arcane/Frost instead of just Arcane, so boring

[Kalisandra]

I was hoping maybe they'd mix it up a bit but no, these basically watered down classic talents. Basically spending points to get what we got passively in the past.

I'm not sure how they're 'watered down' compared to classic talents, which tended to hand out +1 or +2% bonuses per level, or require five point investments to actually have a talent working fully. This version tends to be much stronger, though it would be nice if all the +X talents were changed to 'does something more than the baseline' or even just (in the case of hots/dots) longer durations - stuff that changes gameplay in a way that slightly bigger numbers don't.

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So once everything is mathed out for PvE it'll just become this annoying task of swapping talents from encounter to encounter and the min/max people will need a Weakaura or spreadsheet to remember their layouts from boss to boss.

They're including a talent build save function, so you'll be able to simply load in the build for that fight if that's how you roll.

[Gumble]

The trees they've shown are just what we have now, but you have to talent into it to get back to "mostly" the level you're at now. I can't say I'm against the idea of the talent trees as they have shown them, but having to pad them out with our base spells and filler talents so that we can only get back to the state we are in now makes it feel disingenious.

I would have rather kept the talent system we had, added 2 more rows onto it and given us some choice there along with buffing talents that sucked to make them actual choices too. As it stands, as a long time druid, most of the "choices" talents aren't choices at all, as one of the talents is MASSIVELY better in every situation.

The only difference between these trees and what we have now is that you have to play a little numbers game to optimize your selection and not "pick wrong".


I would have MUCH prefered talent trees where you have

A) Base kit for a spec - Take Bear for example, give me all the base druid and bear spells.
B) Talent tree that allows me a reduced amount of options for "druid" spec, but allows me to select what sort of support and hybrid-esqe I want.
C) Bigger talent tree for spec that allows me to specialize heavily into a type of BEAR. Do you want a rot bear that gets lacerate back, is able to use Sunfire in form, and is able to specialize into bleeds and dots in a really fun way? FINE, you can do that, but you have to give up specializing into things like Mangle spam, Beserk, Swipe, etc.... make it a trade off where you can play a spec in a certain way and feel DIFFERENT than OTHER BEARS.



Not my spec, but definitely one of the specs I think could use this the most is Unholy. I love their shadow dot and disease theme, but I don't care for the pets. Some people love the pets, and the dots are just there to get pets out. Allow Unholy players to focus on dots to the exclusion of pets, or pets to the exclusion of dots, or make a mixed bag of the two that isn't as powerful in each but is versatile. The fact that I don't see Superstrain in the talent trees for DKs (especially Unholy) makes me not care to play that class. I love being able to throw 3 dots up on everything. Give me a spec that can also amp those dots up, spend RP on Unholy Blight to become a walking Pestilience? Hell yea that would be awesome.

Instead, the talent tree shown is just what you have now, but you have to spec to get back most of it. No real change, just the option to pick poorly now.


Boring

[ChairmanKaga]

but having to pad them out with our base spells and filler talents so that we can only get back to the state we are in now makes it feel disingenious.

Did people actually think the trees were not going to work that way? i.e. Your max level toon would be the same as now and then the talent tree would dump a bunch of spell options/talent options on top of that kit. Why would anyone think that?

[Dorothyjean]

I'm not sure how they're 'watered down' compared to classic talents, which tended to hand out +1 or +2% bonuses per level, or require five point investments to actually have a talent working fully. This version tends to be much stronger, though it would be nice if all the +X talents were changed to 'does something more than the baseline' or even just (in the case of hots/dots) longer durations - stuff that changes gameplay in a way that slightly bigger numbers don't.

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They're including a talent build save function, so you'll be able to simply load in the build for that fight if that's how you roll.

I hope so... I really don't want to be snappin' pics of crap to remember or something.

[Gumble]

Did people actually think the trees were not going to work that way? i.e. Your max level toon would be the same as now and then the talent tree would dump a bunch of spell options/talent options on top of that kit. Why would anyone think that?

Because the game used to progress. You used to get stronger as you leveled and have more options. Then borrowed power became the thing for the past 3 expacs and people left the game.

Ion said no more borrowed power and we are going to make talent trees and add to them.

We are going from 60-70 to end up in the same state we are in right now. That isn't progress. That is effectively borrowed power again for another expansion. The talent trees give them the option of expanding from there, but as they are now, they ARE NOT ANYTHING DIFFEERNT THAN THE BORROWED POWER SYSTEMS WE DID NOT LIKE.

Your Druid will lose power in the prepatch and have to regain it leveling from 60-70 and end up exactly back where he was. That is the borrowed power system.

Ion said they were going away from that, yet here it is, on full display, no change. You will not be any stronger with any more options at 70 than you were at 60.


Another filler expansion, expect the playerbase to dip well below the 1 million it apparently floats around nowadays.

[Aleksej89]

Perhaps one role classes such as rogues will love this system but hybrids such as druids are severely screwed over.

Resto druids have to burn all 31 general talent points getting the healer/caster related general talents.
There is absolutely no room for any kind of "creativity" or improvisation since blizzard made general talents very relevant to resto role performance.

Some of the feral or guardian general talents may look potentially useful but there is nowhere near enough points to put them in a build when all 31 points are already dedicated to very important role performance talents.
Another problem is there is so much clutter in the general talent tree that to reach a talent on the other side of the tree you have to give up on ~7 useful talents and take 6 potentially useless talents just to reach that 1 "creative use" talent on the other side of the general talent tree.

Perhaps if you are boosting your lvl 10 friends in the wailing caverns you can toy around with the gimmick talent builds but for any kind of difficult content there is no room for creativity in the druid general talents (healer pov).

[Gumble]

Alek, you do point out something I'll be curious about..... non-hybrids will likely find it easier to branch out and take things that aren't as limiting.

I'll be curious to see what they do with Rogues/Mages/Warlocks/Hunters. Those classes may get alot more out of this type of tree than others.

Also Demon Hunters and Evokers..... Will their trees be really small or will it be super easy for a 2 spec class to take everything they need and get some of the other spec? For Demon Huntes especially, its not like they have very many base spells to move to the trees.... they can't even fill 2 bars as it is.

[Elbob]

Perhaps one role classes such as rogues will love this system but hybrids such as druids are severely screwed over.

Resto druids have to burn all 31 general talent points getting the healer/caster related general talents.
There is absolutely no room for any kind of "creativity" or improvisation since blizzard made general talents very relevant to resto role performance.

Some of the feral or guardian general talents may look potentially useful but there is nowhere near enough points to put them in a build when all 31 points are already dedicated to very important role performance talents.
Another problem is there is so much clutter in the general talent tree that to reach a talent on the other side of the tree you have to give up on ~7 useful talents and take 6 potentially useless talents just to reach that 1 "creative use" talent on the other side of the general talent tree.

Perhaps if you are boosting your lvl 10 friends in the wailing caverns you can toy around with the gimmick talent builds but for any kind of difficult content there is no room for creativity in the druid general talents (healer pov).

are you counting hotw/imp SR and renewal as core caster/healer abilities? cause running through the tree i keep finding pts to spend in things like imp sunfire, astral influence or if you dont want those 2 you can even get all the resto stuff while grabbing skull bash



that even has 4 pts left over for playing around and you get skull bash so im really confused by your post as a resto druid. Obviously you could drop the interrupt and get base movespeed which would also be nice, or spend more pts at the bottom for hotw to dps more along with more moonkin baseline things like aoe sunfire. Feels like a lot of options to me