MASSIVE changes incoming to ALL talent trees!

[coglistings]

I prefer the sitting in a cave ideology above all else. Besides. I got toons to still lvl

[gunsun]

Talents would be reworked one way or another. Especially with new spells being added through 81-85. And Blizzard has to address the issue of some classes unlocking overpowered hybrid specs if they just give people x more points to spend.

So, really, if it wasn't this tactic to balance things they would just move the more powerful midtree talents up the tree to force you to pick only one powerful talent to unlock. Either way the trees change and your locked into a primary tree.

Either solution, and I'm sure there are others, give you the illusion of choice just like we have the illusion of choice now. The most important choice is the tree you pick as primary, after that you don't get to make many more meaningful choices.

I'm talking game-play-changing choices, 20% more damage/healing output type choices. My elemental shaman lava burst is a world apart from my resto shaman lava burst, that's a product of the tree choice and you need the upper tier talents to pull it off, so the hybrid specs, and I've tried dozens, don't get the job done. For me, experimenting with hyrbid specs that were broken just opened my eyes to how little choices I currently have.

I've given up trying to find new talent combinations on my alts. I do my homework, look at the spreadsheets and the optimal builds, and cut and paste. It is far simpler than wasting tons of gold respecting and tons of time at target dummies watching my "awesome" new idea crash and burn.

I've probably wasted 3 weeks of game play thinking something like, "this would never work on just one toon but what if I had 5 doing it at the same time, shouldn't that make the hybrid spec over powered?" And the answer: "nope."

I'm assuming the the expansion will be more of the same. Blizzard designs elemental shaman to be only so productive, and you have to unlock the best talents to meet those design goals. When people find a loophole Blizzard patches it up.

End of the day, I want to see the new system first.

I'm guessing it will be functionally equivalent to what we have now, but who knows, maybe there will be 2-3 xx/0/0 specs. The dps and tank toons can choose to be aoe or single targets depending on cc design choices. You could only unlock one area within the tree, not two, based on linked talents and no longer need a secondary tree with 10 filler points to unlock that one useful 11 point ability.

That would be really interesting, 2 meaningful tank builds in one tree . . . but I doubt they want to deal with that degree of customization.