Upcoming Class & Talent Design Changes

[Doc309]

a whiffle is a baseball sized plastic ball with holes in it.
usually used as a training precursor to an actual baseball.



Doc.

[jafager]

I think this is an outstanding change, especially the part where they issue you a set of spec-defining abilities as soon as you "graduate" at level 10. No more auto-attack levelling, or having the way you play your spec be completely different once you get some Magic Ability at level 40 or 60 or 75 or whatever (assuming it gets implemented properly, which remains to be seen).

The early concerns seem to be that it will force you into a cookie-cutter spec where you end up taking all the talents in one tree in order to make your mandatory 31 points, but I don't think that will be the case at all. They said we were looking at roughly 20 talents per tree, and I imagine that 2-3 point talents will be the norm rather than 5 point talent sinks, so that's 50 points of talents and only 31 points to spend.

They could screw it up royally and put in a lot of talents that are only good for levelling, or PvP, or talents that are just bad, or they could have a talents that are so good you'd be a fool not to take them, but if they put just a few mandatory talents in and then roll the required talents into the standard bonus for the tree, I can see a lot of room for personal preference.

[Chamenas]

Nothing can be judged until it's final

[Kyoki]

As another significant change, you will not be able to put points into a different talent tree until you have dedicated 31 talent points to your primary specialization. While leveling, this will be possible at 70

Well this sounds like complete utter crap to me. Sure we cant tell untill the talent trees are actually out but it sounds like no more hybrid leveling builds anymore.


I like and dislike the 31 talent change. It seems like getting rid of alot of the useless talents is a good idea but then when i think about how many points we spread across different trees it really makes me wonder what will happen. Can we still have a tank build with deep wounds and armored to the teeth. What about those builds which sacrificed some points in shield spec for other better talents. Will we nolonger be able to do that since we have less talent points.

They seem to be getting rid of a ton of core talents which makes me wonder what is actually going to be left in the trees when they are done.

[Darksend]

Well, I'll be making at least one new char in Cataclysm anyways for the new races, so there's certainly some investment into the new leveling system. I really don't see how this will make it more exciting, but, have there been other changes announced which will coincide to make leveling more fun?

did you not watch lores most recent video?

[Chamenas]

did you not watch lores most recent video?

Didn't know there was one, I'll look for it.

[Lore]

Cookie-cutter specs will always exist. Even the developers have been stating this. The difference is in what defines the cookie cutter build. The Cataclysm ideal is that the cookie cutter takes the utility talents that have the most benefit in Cataclysm raid encounters. For example, if there's an encounter like Bronjahm where an add spawns that needs to be killed before it reaches the boss, the Arms cookie cutter spec might include Improved Hamstring. The BM cookie cutter spec might include Envenomation so they can keep up Scorpid Venom for the armor debuff easier.

[Caric]

First thought I had ... this is a MAJOR change to be introducing this late in the development game. They have been working on this crap for how long now and all of a sudden they are starting over from scratch? Yeah I am in favor of doing it right the first time no doubt and this will likely end up being a stronger model than the previous one was. Just seems like they really should be better at this by now is all.

I imagine it is a lot easier to balance out 31 talents than 51, more variety means more chances for us nasty little players to come up with something unexpected dontcha know. The whole leveling aspect though is really irrelevant at this stage in the game. The VAST majority of leveling is experienced players leveling alts at this point. So the blacked out talent tree and the like is a non issue.

I am just waiting for them to announce that you have to use your Real Id as your title to start picking talent points

[Clementine]

Shit just got so real.

Totally looking forward to these changes.

[Chamenas]

Watched the quest video, and definitely more excited about it. Perhaps the sky isn't falling after all

But some clarifications on what I meant:

MY thought for optional talents were different playstyles within a spec. For instance, one talent might make one abiity more useful while another talent made another ability more useful and since you can't fit all of the abilities in your rotation/priority system, nor spend all your points on all the talents, you would have to choose which abilities you wanted to use. Which would mean that within each spec there were different ways you could play. That, to me, is what a "deeper" talent system is. I could just be seeing it incorrectly, but that's what I wanted to see. That's what I'm sort of thinking is being lost by not replacing "lame" talents and simply cutting them out.

But a lot of my initial thoughts have been stripped by well-reasoned arguments. So, I'll sit quiet and see what happens. There will be more and other changes to look into!

[mero12513]

I just got the very odd inclination to delete all my characters come cata and relevel them all from level 1 (guess I will just have to do it on another server or another account, o well)

I, also, have this strong urge. Leveling in Cataclysm is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated experiences I've ever had in a game.

[mavfin]

I just got the very odd inclination to delete all my characters come cata and relevel them all from level 1 (guess I will just have to do it on another server or another account, o well)

I did delete two of my (then) eight 80s to remake them in Cata...

[Nicki]

My feeling on this is a good one; it is one of the first things to make me genuinely want to play cataclysm (and i am still going to need a few more to play but it's a good start).

It still depends on implementation but provided alot of the wiffle-bat damage % talents are removed i'd be very interested...Well we will see; prehaps they can bring back an element of skill too the game instead of everyone facerolling their keyboards?

[Darksend]

GC is on a posting spree (but in a different thread)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...26290470&sid=1

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25626...-talent-trees/

[Garrek]

Ya, the "optional" was never so much about changing any core mechanics of how a class was to be played. You're still going to have plenty of talents that will be considered mandatory. The "optional" comes into play when you have to decide between two (or more) forms of utility.

Consider it like having to choose between an improved spell reflect, disarm, intervene, or heroic throw as a protection warrior. You might have enough points to completely buff up 2 of them or perhaps slightly improve all of them. Tweaking the utility of those abilities probably would never really influence the fundamental mechanics of the class, but your decisions here would potentially provide you with small perks compared to the next guy given the right situation.

The only tree that can offer the level of optional talents to allow for core mechanics differences (and probably must do that out of necessity) is the feral tree for druids. To do for all trees what the feral tree does for druids, you'd probably need to super consolidate the classes to the point that what we currently consider an affliction warlock, might actually just be a second type of shadow priest (or vice-versa) or what we currently consider a ret paladin, might just be a flavor of an arms warrior (or vice-versa).

While we're parading down wild dream lane, I might as well ask the WoW deities to do the final fantasy thing and just allow a character to "respec" into another class altogether, and going along with this change in talent trees, unify/chain the talent trees and signature abilities in a way that the secondary trees for any given tree aren't necessarily of the same current class. Imagine selecting shadow priest as your tree, and having the secondary trees of disc priest and afflic warlock or something crazy like that. That way you effectively end up with a total of two flavors for a total of 30 "classes". More if you opened up more than 2 possible "sub-trees" for each class. Totally calling this happening for patch 7.5.0.

[cwegga]

Nobody specs less than 51 points into a talent tree, and I fully expect that the new 31-point talents will be every bit as mandatory as they are now. Cutting off the other trees until you put 31 into your main tree doesn't really do anything other than keeping new players who are just leveling from creating horrible builds (which is good, but not major)

....

I'd also argue that leveling up and gaining 1% more crit from talents never really felt all that rewarding. Some talents did -- the ones that had actual impact on how your character is played -- but most did not. This change will let them make more of the talents with real impact and less filler.

While at level cap people do generally need the 31 point talent, locking out other trees until that point is quite limiting. On my shaman I leveled in a duo with a hunter all the way till 80. Even though I was Enhancement some of my early points were put into Restoration so I could heal better and the hunter's pet could tank. There was no need for me to be full Restoration spec, but being full Enhancement would have greatly limited our questing and ability to fight higher level mobs and groups. This change kills that playstyle that I enjoy.

Gaining 1% crit doesn't feel that rewarding but gaining a point to spend wherever I want to make my character better and open up new possibilities is. I hope they at least alternate talent points and new abilities so you get something every level. I will have a hard time finding motivation to finish levels where I don't get anything.

[Chamenas]

Gaining 1% crit doesn't feel that rewarding but gaining a point to spend wherever I want to make my character better and open up new possibilities is. I hope they at least alternate talent points and new abilities so you get something every level. I will have a hard time finding motivation to finish levels where I don't get anything.

It's their "plan" but they haven't really explained the implementation enough to see how it will work. It all seems to be still in their development thought process right now as opposed to actually in the Beta. So there's a lot of unknowns.

[Kawdi]

My first reaction was... why is my jaw broke..oh it hit the floor. Dayum. I can't wait to see the beta build for this. Now if i just had a beta key. I'll have to save my warlock for goblin questing/leveling and the new talent system as well.

[Kawdi]

While at level cap people do generally need the 31 point talent, locking out other trees until that point is quite limiting. On my shaman I leveled in a duo with a hunter all the way till 80. Even though I was Enhancement some of my early points were put into Restoration so I could heal better and the hunter's pet could tank. There was no need for me to be full Restoration spec, but being full Enhancement would have greatly limited our questing and ability to fight higher level mobs and groups. This change kills that playstyle that I enjoy.

From how i read any class at level 10 will be pretty good. Enhancement from that post will get things like DW and lava lash at 10. This would make them much more capable than now.

[Helgi]

This will require a LOT of work on Blizzard's part in order to correctly implement this change. But, if they can pull it off then I think it will make the talent system significantly better.