MASSIVE changes incoming to ALL talent trees!

[Multibocks]

This thread is full of "I'm pessimistic about these changes, but will wait to see before cancelling." It's also apparently filled with Blizzard fanbois who don't like anything negative said.

Let's hope we can get back to discussing the games, whether stating optimistic or pessimistic viewpoints, and stop talking about if others have a right to have a viewpoint.

You use the "or I'm canceling" hyperbolic super knee-jerk reaction to a game change. Don't be surprised when someone has "an opinion" about it. It's new content and I'm willing to at least try before I start freaking out. Comparing this to RealID is not helpful. Changing a talent system has nothing to do with compromising peoples privacy.

Oh and I'm far from a fanbois, but that's just my opinion...

[Fat Tire]

Exactly my point. People were negative on RealID before it came out even though they hadn't seen the final implementation.

Well I was using that as an extreme example and sarcasm. I didnt care how Real ID was implemented, I was an am still against it, but I understand the point your trying to make.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Otherwise why bother reading the news release anyway if you're not going to have any reaction until the final details are known?

The "What if?" metagame is sometimes as much fun as the game itself, if less time-consuming. As for some of the general skepticism about a fundamental talent revamp, some of us remember what they did to hunter and shaman and paladin talents before they improved things in 3.0. It's not that much of a stretch to be nervous about their ability to pull off a fairly significant revamp of ALL of the talent trees at once, let alone a few at a time. [edit] Yes, I know we'll eventually get there. Please don't read any "OMG TALENTZ CHANG WIL KIL WOW" into this post.

[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.

[HPAVC]

I find this too much change at one time for blizzard to deal with in a quality way. I suspect feature creep, especially with a track record of poor beta testing on mechanics versus 'ohh shiny, lets play with toys'. If they implemented these changes outside an xpac, (where oooh shiny death knights, goblins, etc removed) and you knew people were leveling and so forth. I would have more faith.

I also hate how they announce they crap, it makes people freak out, drama everywhere, stop playing and qq like little bitches for months. The 'that epic will be worthless compared to greens in the xpac' is already here.

I think that they could be better served by presenting an array of possible talent mechanisms publicly and testing them varied degree. But making ground breaking announcements that shatter the /played of so many lifeless people (myself included) always seems to make the face occur.

I actually sense that the current tree's compared to each other don't stand up with the number of talent points allocatable. So a prot paladin might make good use of extra points as candy. Where to a warrior or rogue might be huge since they can unlock some major pieces. In the end if i want to have a Power Infusion / Misery priest build, why the fuck not?

For some classes this seems pretty bizarre, how are the tree's really that big of a difference to a hunter, rogue or a warlock. Sure at some point you unlock a new spell and that is your signature thing perhaps, but play style ... not really. Not like the three shaman / druid trees.

[Souca]

Not like the three shaman / druid trees.

Correction, four druid trees. Be curious to see how they sort out Feral. They've already admitted it will be tricky.

- Souca -