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First off, I don't have any problem with the concept of the new Talent trees where we only have 6 meaningful choices. I agree with Blizard that the 'choices' offered by the old talent trees were virtually non-existant at best, traps for uninformed players at worst. I think distilling the choices down to a few meaningful ones is a good direction, and Bliz should stick with it.
What I don't like the more I look at the Talent Trees however, is only having one tree per class, rather then a talent tree for each spec. This is creating a host of problems: Example: Priest Tree - The Healer vs DPS talents. Look at the End tier of the Priest tree, Vow of Unity. It creates a link with a target that causes all healing you do to that target to also heal you for 20%. How in the hell is a Shadowpriest supposed to look at this talent as any sort of Viable option? Example: Rogue Tree - what happened to Subtlety? Subtelty is the 'stealth focused' Rogue Tree. It's supposed to be it's difining trait. yet look at everything that make subtle rogues subtle, and almost all of them have been moved to talent choices. Nightstalker, Shadowstep, and Shadowdance are what defines a rogue as stealth focused now, not anything the subtlety tree. The only remnant of subtletly left to sub spec is a 10% damage bonus for a couple sec when you break stealth. The Mastery - Executioner - certainly screams assassination to me far more then subtlety. Example: Mage Tree - LOL Bombs There is no choice here. Even if you strip out all the passive damage bonuses from being a spec, you still have too much synergy between each spec and it's given bomb. Ignite Mechanics are still going to make all fire mages want living bomb. The Arcane Torrents buff from casting Arcane Blast is still going to force Arcane Mages into Arcane Bomb. Shatter mechanics are going to make Frost Mages go Frost Bomb. And even if you strip all this out, you'll still run into theme consistancy. Most of the people who pick Frost spec are going to want to cast frost spells, ergo, even if you balance all bombs to be equal - all things being equal, the people who want to play frost mages will probably want frost bombs - it just goes with the theme. Example: Warlock Tree - Spec Scaling dictating talent choice Lets look at the Tier 1 talent Soul Leach: Your core nuke spells (Shadowbolt, Incinerate, Malefic Grasp) heals you for 15% of the damage you deal. Well lets see, Destro Locks are all about big nukes, while Affliction probably has a stronger pet contribution and much much stronger dots.... Malefic Grasp, if balanced right, should be downright anemic compared the Incinerate. And yet both are getting the same % of health returns. This means Soul Leach is a *much* stronger talent for a Destro Lock then an Affliction Lock - again, your choice is being made by your Spec. Example: Druid Tree - OMG WORDS and missed Opportunities Look at the description of each Druid Talent, JEEBUS it's like a mini encyclopedia! In trying to make every talent do something for every druids spec and all the different roles they play and all the different ways of doing those roles, you are making freaking nightmarish abominations of talent descriptors. And you are missing out on such opportunities. What if there was a talent to let Tree Druids choose between a permenant Tree of Life form and a cooldown based Tree of Life form? Well - can't do that, because how do you adapt that talent choice to a Bear Druid? Obviously you're not going to offer Cooldown bear vs passive Bear, if you tank, you need to be a bear, some old guy in leather robes doing most of his tanking except when he's blowing cooldowns will look silly. I think the new talent system could be greatly improved if each spec had its own talent grid to pick from. And this is imporant, NOT EVERY TALENT NEEDS TO BE UNIQUE. It's ok if the same talent appears in the trees of multiple specs. Dark Regeneration is a great universal talent that any warlock could appreciate - so go ahead and put it in all 3 warlock spec trees. You can even copy entire Tiers. The lv75 Tier of the DK tree is a perfect example (Blood Tap vs Runic empowerment vs Runic Corruption) - that is a choice that does make sense to every DK spec and could be presented across all 3 specs. You can even mix it up a bit. For example, what if you offered Grimoire of Service and Grimoire of Supremacy to all 3 warlock specs, but only Aff and Destro got offered Grimoire of Sacrifice while Demo got a different 3rd talent (Demo should NOT be playing petless)? I think by unchaining yourself from only having one tree for each class, you could really improve this system. |
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This is a good post and you raise some good points.
The general spirit of your post is that Blizzard is somewhat defeating the purpose of this talent overhaul. Their idea is to make it so you have 6 real choices to make with none of them being obvious (a.k.a. cookie cutter). They need to be careful not to make your talent choices dependent on your spec. The mage bomb tier looks like the biggest violator. And man some of those druid talents ARE long. |
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A dedicated talent grid per spec instead of per class would go a long way in rectifying what, in my opinion, is a terrible development in talent design to begin with. I won't argue that point at all, but I do concur that having a dedicated spread per spec would be a great thing.
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I agree with this post. It should be more suited towards each spec and not as a general. It seems very watered down to mere basics.
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I feel the same way abut many of the talent tiers.
I really like what they're trying to do and fully support it, but like you said, many of the talents seem too spec dependent to be real choices. Why would a frost DK not take chillbains for example? Making a separate tree for each spec though might not be practical. Yes you can share some talents between specs, but even then you're talking a LOT of talents to try and balance. At the very least, hopefully they can fix the trees to make the talents not be too spec specific. |
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I agree 100%.
As a resto druid, I do not want talent choices that make me a better bear or cat or balance druid. I want talents that allow me to perform my chosen role, healing, to be more effective. While the trees we've seen so far don't do a very good job of it, I think the single tree per class concept ~could~ work for pure classes, but for any hybrid class it waters things down to try and balance between the specs, and as a result leads to uninteresting choices at multiple points in the tree. I like the idea of having certain talents more class oriented, things like Incarnation are useful to any druid spec. Things like Ursol's Vortex however, are not helpful to restos or balance, Displacer beast isn't optimal for non-cats, but it's the best option for trees and boomkin. When I look at the druid tree, I feel that I could randomly place my talents and it wouldn't make a significant impact on my ability to heal. That doesn't say meaningful, or more choices, to me. It says more of the same, and just as meaningless as the current system. |
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Edited by Rehlya on 1/26/12 4:14 AM (PST)
Example: Mage Tree - LOL Bombs just a reminder, the whole mage bomb deal was asked for by most of the mages whining for their tree because they wanted talent choices that fit the "theme" of their spec. so don't blame blizz on that one, blame all the people whining. and no I'm not saying the mage tree was fine, and it still isn't.'
Displacer Beast is basically Vanish. which means it should drop threat, and save the druid from adds/a boss chasing them, and have strong PVP use for all specs. Ursol's Vortex is similar, group up the enemies and move away from them, they can't follow you. or it groups them up so your group can AoE without fear of the tank losing 1 or 2 of the mobs. And then you have the PVP use. vortex next to a cliff then hit typhoon? To put it simply, there are situations, as a balance druid, that I would LOVE to have Ursol's Vortex now, basically any boss fight that has adds that want to be AoEd down. and, as far as the OP's opinion on the whole fact of there only being one tree per class- think of it from a balance point of view. All characters of a class have access to the same talent toolkit. This makes for less optional abilities to balance, as well as more input as to what works, what doesn't work, what needs tweaking, etc.. Sure in some cases it may seem like certain talents are useless to a particular spec(such as Vow of Unity for a shadow priest, as was mentioned), but think about it, there's more than one effect on that. it could be used to save an arena partner in PVP. It could be used to reduce incoming damage on a tank in a raid to make it easier on the healers(lets use a big hit attack such as Decimation Blade as an example here). Just because it doesn't affect your damage as shadow, doesn't mean the utility is useless. |
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Displacer Beast is basically Vanish. which means it should drop threat, and save the druid from adds/a boss chasing them, and have strong PVP use for all specs. If I am vanishing, then I'm not healing. And if a resto pulls aggro, the tank is not doing his job. With Vortex, there is not sufficient information. We don't know that the druid can move away and the mobs don't follow. Based on the information available though, that it "draws enemies to the druids location" there is no indication that it is set and forget. Even if it is, the time spent moving away is time spent not healing or DPSing. That is a big problem right now, we don't know anything about how most of these things actually work. But based on the available information, a single tree for a class with 4 specs will not provide meaningful choices for all four specs. |
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Example: Mage Tree - LOL Bombs All easily fixable. (Ignite isn't actually a problem -- Combustion and Inferno Blast are. But, still, fixable.) And even if you strip all this out, you'll still run into theme consistancy. Most of the people who pick Frost spec are going to want to cast frost spells, ergo, even if you balance all bombs to be equal - all things being equal, the people who want to play frost mages will probably want frost bombs - it just goes with the theme. And that's not actually a problem. If someone wants to make their choice based on theme rather than on spell mechanics, that's fine. The system isn't forcing that choice, it's allowing it. It also allows elementalists to go cross-school, and allows pragmatists to choose based purely on the mechanical differences. It's important to ensure that the mechanical differences are actually important and interesting without making one bomb clearly superior to another, but assuming they do so, the tier works well. |
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I have to agree - there isn't much 'choice' available unless you want to go sub-optimal. Which is basically what we have now.
Maybe they should just have your choice boil down to logging in, picking a marksman hunter, and just autolevel as you go up. One choice, and its all done automatically for you! Sounds really fun doesn't it.... |
85 Draenei Shaman
2720
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There's another element as to why the talent grids have to be per-class instead of per-spec.
When it comes to the DPS specs, one of the biggest problems Blizzard has had to contend with is one spec out of the three dominating DPS meters or arena compositions. The number of variables in balancing those specs against each other (both within the spec and against other DPS classes) is pretty high because of varying talent compositions. By stripping out the talents, they have a circumstance where many of those variables are gone. People should be able to choose the spec that matches the flavor of the class they enjoy most, the talent choices will focus on utility and survivability options, and balancing those specs simply by tweaking mastery values or some other spec-specific mechanic will be the method for bringing the DPS specs into line. When it comes to abilities that specs can't use (Shadowpriest + Vow of Unity) that's something that I hope gets addressed as they iterate on the calculator. Ultimately, though, every spec should have at least two logical choices in each tier. Keep in mind that certain talents might not be useful in every circumstance, and we should all be prepared to look at a fight's mechanics and say "I wonder if this ability would be more useful in this fight..." |
Displacer Beast is basically Vanish. which means it should drop threat, and save the druid from adds/a boss chasing them, and have strong PVP use for all specs. Not all talents are meant to be useful to all specs in both PvE and PvP. However, if you cannot see the clear use of every single druid talent to every single druid spec in one or the other you're just plain doing it wrong. Amazing PvP talent for all specs is amazing... You're right - for raid healing, I'd take the 10% movement speed at all times personally. Ursol's vortex may be nearly usless for resto PvE, but it's definitely going to be my talent of choice for arena (probably not BG's though). Personally, I think the druid and the warlock trees are the best so far - very little has to change. The mage tree is probably the worst in terms of having clearly superior choices (cold snap as a frost make is pretty much... yea...) - but none of the trees are done yet. Sure, soul leech for warlocks may seem superior for raiding as destro - but really, it's a top-off talent. It will provide enough healing to top off incidental damage to all three specs, but not enough to really supply any meaningful healing to any of them. Harvest of life could potentially provide the most healing over time, but it's incredibly situational (you need to be AoE'ing AND need heals - which should be pretty rare outside of leveling). Dark Regeneration, in a raid setting, could absolutely save your life - something soul leech would do very, very infrequently if at all. I don't see any of these as a "clear choice for one spec" - I see them as choices for different situations. The point isn't to make it so that there is no clear advantage in any situation (endgame raiding on a patchwerk fight as destro is a very specific situation) - it's to make it so there is no clear advantage based on spec. They aren't done yet, and it probably won't be done at launch for every class either - but they are way, way closer to this goal than they ever were to achieving the original talent tree design. The goal is to make you wish you had "x" talent on boss "A" but "y" talent on boss "B" - and I think they're nailing it with most classes so far. I definitely agree with the O.P. though - it still needs some work. I just disagree with the notion in this thread that there should be no clear choices in specific situations. |
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Part of the reason they're all shared is because they're active abilities or effects, for the most part. If they were passive buffs, it would be much easier to fill every spec with meaningless fluff talents... which Blizzard does not want to do, and for good reason.
You're talking about tripling the amount of talents designed. Triple. 18 per class means 198 talents in total. Per spec would be 612 (Druids have 4). So you want Blizzard to design 612 new active, meaningful talents for MoP... and somehow make sure they're all useful and balanced. Yeah. Good luck with that. In addition, you're forgetting that part of the reason Blizzard did this is to increase diversity in specs, and allow, say, a Combat Rogue to get Shadowstep, and thus not make it so that certain specs are automatically "The PvP spec." I'd much rather have the new system than one where, as usual, I know exactly what every spec will have as soon as I see them, because they're limited in their choice of talents. |
Community Manager
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One of the problems we're specifically trying to address with the new talent system is getting back a little to the sense that there are 10 classes in the game (soon 11) instead of 30 (soon 34). A common complaint we saw about the Cataclysm talent design was that hybridization was greatly downplayed. Now it’s easy to dismiss going down two trees as never really having worked out, but it’s clear that many players are in love with the idea of doing so.
We also just want to keep the total number of talents under control, since the intent is that they have pretty big effects. If you're facing a Frost mage in PvP in Mists of Pandaria, you’ll have even less of an idea of what is in their toolbox than you do today. If you're a raid leader, you won’t be so certain what abilities your Discipline priest has to deal with the upcoming boss. A little of that keeps gameplay feeling fresh, but too much of it can be overwhelming. If each of the three mage specs, for example, had different talent choices, then we would have 612 total talents in the game instead of 198. Even 198 is a lot to learn. We also have the suspicion that coming up with 612 really awesome talents will be much more challenging. One of our design philosophies is concentrated coolness: have a few awesome things instead of a lot of mediocre things. Now in some ways we are strengthening the concept of a spec by really pushing rotations and some other signature spells to specific specs. Immolate is Destruction only. Backstab is Subtlety only. Given that, talents are a great vehicle to make sure that your character still feels like a warlock or a rogue at the end of the day. We really want to avoid talent synergies where only one talent on a tier makes sense for your character. This would be the case if say Fire mages did bonus damage with only Fire spells, or there was one healing talent on a tier competing against two DPS talents for your priest. Please continue to bring up concerns you have in this regard (though not necessarily all in this thread) and we will try to address them. |
#14
1/26/2012
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Zarhym, Please... Address the resto druid talent tree. Blizzard stated there would be resto buffs, but from what I can see so far it will completely end up nerfing the class. For example... They are taking Barkskin and making it a 2 minute CD and making it usable on a teammate (ironbark). The problem is Druid survivability in PVP.
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Personally, I'm found of the 31 separate class effect of the current system. I have faith that things will be great in MoP none the less.
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I love idea the idea of the new talent trees, and encourage them to be maintained, but the OP makes a solid point and I wonder if the talent trees should have been an external element added to the game, while maintaining something of the old system.
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And please dont let anyone try to tell you different. |
85 Gnome Priest
3700
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You're talking about tripling the amount of talents designed. Not necessarily. As the OP mentioned, talents that appear in multiple trees wouldn't be a bad thing. And honestly the problem is mostly limited to a handful of specific tiers. So maybe double? Tops? Probably less. There are some legitimately good tiers right now that can work with some tweaking. Honestly, I'd take the Druid approach (as wonky as some of them are) to some of these and have some talents that grants specific effects based on spec. It's a system that can work, it's just that Druids have some weird special cases. Especially Wild Charge, good grief. It can easily be applied to the Mage tree and probably Priests too. |
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Agree with the OP, especially on the classes I am most familiar with (Rogue and Priest). Subtlety feels simply gutted; I'm not sure what is even going on with Discipline but I'm worried about that too.
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