World of Warcraft: Dragonflight - Death Knight Talents and Abilities Preview

[StillMcfuu]

There's no such thing as choice unless youre casual.

Example from Balance Tree:



If Improved Eclipse does more overall damage than Improved Moonfire/Sunfire, then you will always take Eclipse. There's no choice in the matter.

Row 3:



This is exactly what Balance has now, Force is always taken for dungeons, Nature's Balance is always taken for raids, and Warrior is ignored cause it doesn't compete in damage or utility. No choice.

If anything more committed players will be able to recognize situations where they'll want a certain talent or skill over another. You are getting hung up on the big choices - this or that talents.

There will be variety in the survivability, healing taken, etc talents.

There will always be the big right choices, but that's never changed, what changes is the little choices. You can see this in the way warrior tanks builds change and evolve as they gain gear, rogue builds change to emphasis survivability or damage, etc... that's always been the strength of these talent trees and what's missing from the current system.

If anything, casual players will most likely go cookie cutter, a few will adventure but most are going to copy the build that they were told is best.

[Groundwalker]

Dear Blizzard,

While I love the fact that you are bringing talent trees back I am underwhelmed at the fact that there are zero new max level talents in the trees that we are able to preview. Most of us now have been playing with these same talents for years now, and honestly some of them are getting quite old. In my opinion you need to look at what talents are being selected, and what talents are not. Any talent that is consistently not being selected needs to be removed and replaced. For example: The Death Knight Unholy tree: Summon Gargoyle - How many players actually select this talent? Very few I would imagine. Although you state in your talent tree design layout that your goal is to give the players freedom in their choices within the talent trees not having competitive max level talent selections will only lead to one build that everyone uses. I understand that you stated the talent system is still being worked on, but I honestly hope that you take a very hard look at max level talent choices and completely revamp them as well.

Sincerely - Ground

[Eapoe]

As suspected, they're basically taking classes that have been in the same dumbed down state since Legion and locking your baseline abilities behind talent "choices". This is just comical.

Well, this is how the old talent system was, as well. What’s comical is that people have been telling others this for years, and that the current system is basically just a streamlined version of what the old talent system was.
We even have Classic servers to prove it.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Well, this is how the old talent system was, as well. What’s comical is that people have been telling others this for years, and that the current system is basically just a streamlined version of what the old talent system was.
We even have Classic servers to prove it.

The new trees are actually way more atrocious than the old ones, because practically every ability besides the absolute basics is now a talent. And while that is not as bad in the class tree, the spec tree on the other hand has some really asinine placements for skills. The sad part is we get probably somewhere between 80%~120% of the old system out of this new system, depending on spec and how lucky you are. But we don't get anything new at all by design and that is just sad.

[Eapoe]

The new trees are actually way more atrocious than the old ones, because practically every ability besides the absolute basics is now a talent. And while that is not as bad in the class tree, the spec tree on the other hand has some really asinine placements for skills. The sad part is we get probably somewhere between 80%~120% of the old system out of this new system, depending on spec and how lucky you are. But we don't get anything new at all by design and that is just sad.

Yeah, but that’s pretty much what the old ones were. Blizzard even stated that this new tree system is supposed to last a while, so it’s obvious they would put more stuff into it than the old ones.
Also, there are some new things, such as Covenant abilities, and potentially some legendary item affects that will be in other class trees.
People wanted the talent tree system back and just never took 2 extra seconds to think of what that would be like. Now, we have the answer.
Do I think interrupts and CC should be on it? Absolutely not. I’m not surprised they are though, especially when, as stated, Blizzard is trying to make a system that stays relevant over many xpacs.
Right now, I play Hunter (might swap to Evoker, but still waiting on that one), and I can’t tell you how much I’m not going to like having to talent into Traps, Counter Shot, and other crap. On the other hand, it will be nice that with organized groups I might have those talent points free for other things, as Tar Trap and Flare are very niche and almost never used.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and they will actually be more open to feedback (like they said they have been since the lawsuit started, and seem to be) and take things like the Interrupts and CC off of the tree and just make those choices improved forms of them. Something like removing a GCD, or granting some kind of resource or power gain when used.

[Celement]

The new trees are actually way more atrocious than the old ones, because practically every ability besides the absolute basics is now a talent. And while that is not as bad in the class tree, the spec tree on the other hand has some really asinine placements for skills. The sad part is we get probably somewhere between 80%~120% of the old system out of this new system, depending on spec and how lucky you are. But we don't get anything new at all by design and that is just sad.

You are only still hurt because you hang onto hope.

I accepted long ago that any derpy system they make I'm just feeding into a sim.

We are at the point where players dont really want talent trees they want functional balanced classes. In all honesty talents should exist in this game anymore. Each class should just be given a balanced kit.

[Nerovar]

Well, this is how the old talent system was, as well. What’s comical is that people have been telling others this for years, and that the current system is basically just a streamlined version of what the old talent system was.
We even have Classic servers to prove it.

Nah, it's nothing like the old talent system. WotLK gave you like 4 active abilities from your talents on top of a very much functional core of baseline abilities that stayed the same across all specs. Most of the talents modified your existing abilities.

With this talent system you have to spend your talents to get the most basic abilities like def cds, cc or even rotational abilities. So more than half of your talent points are already wasted in order to get stuff that would have simply been baseline with the older systems. It's pure illusion of choice.

[Eapoe]

Nah, it's nothing like the old talent system. WotLK gave you like 4 active abilities from your talents on top of a very much functional core of baseline abilities that stayed the same across all specs. Most of the talents modified your existing abilities.

With this talent system you have to spend your talents to get the most basic abilities like def cds, cc or even rotational abilities. So more than half of your talent points are already wasted in order to get stuff that would have simply been baseline with the older systems. It's pure illusion of choice.

https://wotlkdb.com/?talent

Just for a point of reference. Almost every spec specific ability is in the tree. The only reason there aren’t more abilities from then, like we have now, is because all the specs shared abilities between them. Also, they are now having to include abilities from the current talent system.
The new trees are separating them; however, as shown between the Druid and DK preview, certain abilities are going to be given baseline to specific specs.

[Slybak]

I think what pisses me off the most is how Blizzard keeps just taking everything that is baseline (such as interrupt and the most basic defensive cooldowns) and tossing them into that talent tree on the excuse of "ChOiCeS mAtTeR!!" instead of actually giving us new choices to make.

The tree does provide more interesting choices than the current system but because not all classes have the innate hybridity of Druids you can't really use Druids as a template for building trees for each class. As an aside, this was one of the big problems with the trees in Vanilla when each tree was bound to one of the three specific spell schools for each class; it worked reasonably well for for some but not so well for others.

The basic dilemma is they want to go back to a system where you get 1 talent per level (alternating between class and spec) starting at level 10, but there's just not a whole lot of wild stuff you can do between levels 10 and 25 so the easier alternative is to use those levels to build out the core kit and give some slight flexibility as to what that core kit includes.

This is even more glaring in the Spec trees. You need to spend 8 points to reach Row 5 and in the Frost Tree there are only 11 possible places to put points in Rows 1-4. There aren't gonna be any Frost DK's running without Howling Blast, not because it would be dumb to do that but because unless you stop spending points entirely its literally impossible to not have it.

[Ielenia]

The tree does provide more interesting choices than the current system

You completely missed my point, here.

"More choices" is not where I have an issue.

[Nerovar]

https://wotlkdb.com/?talent

Just for a point of reference. Almost every spec specific ability is in the tree. The only reason there aren’t more abilities from then, like we have now, is because all the specs shared abilities between them. Also, they are now having to include abilities from the current talent system.
The new trees are separating them; however, as shown between the Druid and DK preview, certain abilities are going to be given baseline to specific specs.

So they are nothing like the old trees just like I said.

The old talent system gave you a class with baseline rotational abilities, CC, def cds etc. and then gave you 71 talent points to customize that toolkit mostly with passive effects.

This talent system gives you almost nothing baseline and you have 61 talent points to somehow stitch together a working spec. Really not comparable.

And let us not pretend that this anything else than Blizzard being lazy. They're selling you more or less the same class gameplay for the 4th expansion in a row now. There haven't been any new abilities (apart from the odd covenant ability that will survive Shadowlands) in 6 years and for the vast majority of players these ""new"" talent trees will have close to 0 impact on their gameplay.

[Slybak]

You completely missed my point, here.

"More choices" is not where I have an issue.

Well what is the issue? Because the basic paradox is that there's no way to both give people way more talent points in order to open up new kit options and at the same time either making some current baseline abilities into talents or creating unsustainable ability bloat with all completely new stuff. It's a tradeoff that has to be navigated on a case by case basis.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Well what is the issue? Because the basic paradox is that there's no way to both give people way more talent points in order to open up new kit options and at the same time either making some current baseline abilities into talents or creating unsustainable ability bloat with all completely new stuff. It's a tradeoff that has to be navigated on a case by case basis.

That is complete nonsense. Nothing about new talents requires them to be all active skills. This is just Blizzard wanting to merge all current character progression systems into one new system, which is at best folly, in reality utter lunacy. There should also be way more talents that actively modify abilities in significant ways, instead of just giving them in the first place or tacking on pointless number increases to make the work at all.

[Slybak]

Nothing about new talents requires them to be all active skills.

It's not just bloat in terms of active skills, but in level appropriate talents. As I said, the core of this problem is that they want players to be rewarded with some character-changing thing every time they level up starting at 10 but there's not a whole lot of potential variety to be created at low levels.

And so the practical way to look at the new system is as if Rows 1 - 5 weren't there, most of their content was baseline because you'll be getting most of it anyway, and you start making actual choices starting around level 30 with more variety opening up when you cap. Is it ideal? No. Frankly I think it would be more intuitive if they actually did just cut off the first few rows, made most of it baseline, and you started getting talents at level 30.

But is it better than having a few core customization options and just laying clunky, kludgy, borrowed power systems on top of it? Yes. Because at the very least its something that can be built upon instead of wasting time literally redesigning like two thirds of the game systems every expansion.

This is just Blizzard wanting to merge all current character progression systems into one new system, which is at best folly, in reality utter lunacy.

We've had three expansions now where multiple, interlocking, and disposable progression systems have been used to pave over a moribund talent system and the almost universal consensus is that the game has become worse for it. Adding complexity to a system doesn't automatically make something better; in fact it often makes it worse.

[uuuhname]

hope they put less spells behind a talent gate than they have currently. that's about the only complaint I have though.

[Eapoe]

So they are nothing like the old trees just like I said.

The old talent system gave you a class with baseline rotational abilities, CC, def cds etc. and then gave you 71 talent points to customize that toolkit mostly with passive effects.

This talent system gives you almost nothing baseline and you have 61 talent points to somehow stitch together a working spec. Really not comparable.

And let us not pretend that this anything else than Blizzard being lazy. They're selling you more or less the same class gameplay for the 4th expansion in a row now. There haven't been any new abilities (apart from the odd covenant ability that will survive Shadowlands) in 6 years and for the vast majority of players these ""new"" talent trees will have close to 0 impact on their gameplay.

Lol. You’re trying so hard. Did you even bother looking at what I linked you, or are you ignoring it so you can cling to your point?
There are baseline abilities shared between specs, something that was just like the old talent system, and even the current talent system in some regards, with the core spec abilities now baked into the spec trees. Exactly like we had before the talent tree system was done away with and made streamlined with what we have now.
The simple truth is, if the old talent tree system had never gone away then this is probably pretty close to what the system would have evolved to look like over time. Possibly with the exception of interrupts and CCs.
Also, you bring up passives, so let’s look at them. For Death Knights class tree alone (not looking at specs), there are roughly 42 places to talent into, with 23 of those being passives. Some with multiple points that can be placed. The remaining 19 aren’t even something that every spec needs, wants, or even uses, and some are granted baseline for a specific spec.

Did I ever make a statement concerning Blizzard’s design philosophy, laziness, or what I think about either of those in any way? No. So why bring it up?
Hell, I even stated that people have said this is what we will get if Blizzard brings back a talent tree system like what we used to have.
I even stated I don’t think interrupts and CCs should be on there, which should show I don’t agree with everything Blizzard does, but unfortunately they are.
At the end of the day, this incoming tree system is pretty close to how the old tree system works, and is pretty accurate to what we’d probably have after all the changes thru the years.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd much rather have robust talent wheels like Path of Exile that encourage experimentation and offer more than one valid path to strong dps/healing/mitigation. Heck, I'd even take the rune customization system from D3 since each one shone under different circumstances.

Anything but this regurgitated tree system that only ever results in mandatory cookie-cutter builds.

Well, not really. Any high GRift running D3 player is going to go for, and follow, a pretty standard cookie cutter build for running high ones.
The only variety is whether you would run solo or with a comp. Even then, you still had a standard build that works best for each type of solo/team play, just like any WoW player doing high end content will follow a cookie cutter build with talents.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

personally I'm against classes having too much utility because it strips them of identity when everyone can do everything.

I think there's something to this! But the issue is that it's very unevenly divided and they don't seem to have an accurate internal measure of how good stuff is. Like there are specs with a bunch of theoretically utility that is barely relevant in practice, and then there are specs with multiple must-have things in small group content (like hunters with soothe and lust)!

Truly vital stuff just needs to be more evenly distributed somehow.

[SNES-1990]

You have to pick between Howling Blast and Obliterate? What a fucking joke.

[PenguinChan]

Being forced to make hard decisions or choices depending on the content you’re doing / who you’re with is great. These complaints about having to pick up everything to be exactly how they are now are baffling. Great! You play like you have been. But that’s not the required path anymore which seems to upset some people.

Plus, forcing hard utility choices on classes vs giving them it baseline / easy choices will create diversity in how a class performs to its strengths and weaknesses — but allowing you to fill those holes or weaknesses with a vital talent choice if you so wish. Tbh I like that. Now how it performs in actual practice / gameplay is entirely different and we will see that with Alpha / Beta gameplay.

[plz delete account]

Some are from WC2, so 25.

shouldn't that bear nearly 30 now?