Good info. I would like to add something to the customization issue... Glyphs. Major, medium, and minor. That in itself could add a lot to changing a player's style.
Even once the talents trees are decided, I am pretty excited to see just what all can be done from new and changed glyphs.
Frozen orange juice. Must. Buy.
I am really interested to find out how the redefined talent system will affect leveling new characters - in particular the classes where each tree plays a completely different "role" like pallys and druids. Leveling in Cata may require a lot more group interaction for those of us drawn to tank and healing specs. I am looking forward to seeing how it all works out =).
Really when you look at this, they're giving us more choice. Like Lore pointed out, what's the point of the Red Button of Noob, except to point out that someone is a Noob. What better way to turn off new players to the game!
So, they cut out a lot of the chaff from the talents; stuff that no one ever takes, or just take really to get to the next juicy ability they want. They should (and sounds like they are) recognizing that WOW is about min-maxing, and anything that doesn't benefit your chosen role is always going to lose out over something that does. For example:
Talent A gives you +10% healing.
Talent B gives you more movement speed.
No healer will take Talent B. If the disparity is big enough, not even pvpers will take talent B.
Instead, they just give everyone talent A, and give you the choice between B and C:
Talent B gives you more movement speed
Talent C reduces spell damage taken or something else that's cool but doesn't directly affect what you're min-maxing.
That's a real choice for a min-maxxer. Its sort of like how the glyph system works now for certain classes - your first glyph or two are pretty much required, but the 3rd glyph can be switched out from fight to fight as necessary since there's no clear min-max winner, or that winner may be different from fight to fight.
Just read in a blog that the 31 pt talent trees are up on the beta. Not sure if the beta servers are up yet but they went under for maintenance and people are getting the patch for it. WTB beta invite....NOW.
*Pushes red button behind Mimiron*
From the information you've given Lore, I think I like these changes. Personally, I find the current talent trees overwhelming. There's too many options to choose from, and I'm always afraid that I've chosen "bad" talents and thus am always finding myself looking up "cookie-cutter" talent builds on the internet.
Also, to add to what Scottpoet said, I'd like to know more about the new tier of glyphs. From what I hear of these I, too, think that it is a very necessary upgrade.
With these changes, I sure hope for example with warriors, they put deflection (5% chance to parry) into the prot tree rather than the arms tree, and the same with other talents for other classes. Hopefully with this, they will only put general talents or talents specifically for that tree in the tree. For example, there are loads of talents for feral druids in restoration. I hope they change it so that everything for feral druids is in feral, and everything for resto druids are in resto. Ofc should leave those things that are good for both or all three there (like armoured to the teeth for warriors).
Arms DPS main spec // Prot warrior tank off-spec
No black screen where i have to pause it this time?
#2 Soul brother
For once you are not entirely accurate, Lore.
There is in fact a few effective specs that does not fill one single tree completely with 51 points. Take the "Shockadin" for example: Fill Holy until you get Holy shock and the rest in retribution. This is still a fairly popular pvp build.
The old UA tanking build for Warriors is another example, though it's effectiveness has declined.
There are also certain warlock Demonology/destruction hybrid builds.
Such builds are being removed, for sure. Not that I say it is a bad idea, because there are many more hybrid builds, that are just terrible.
"You pull it, you tank it" -Ajire
Armory: Ajire@Scarshield Legion.EU
I believe they've already said that they don't like when people do hybrid trees for PvP, just to pick up all of the PvP talents, which is the whole reason they eliminated the duration reduction talents in the first place.Originally Posted by Ajire
There are a couple of situations I know of where players will take half of one tree and half of another in legitimate ways (ie: not niche PvP trees). The two I can think of off the top of my head are the AP+10% and Improved Icy Talents Blood/Frost hybrid for DK, and the Demo/Destruction setup.
But again, they call these failures on their part and want to get rid of them anyway.
The Felguard/Ruin spec for warlocks was a hybrid, and while it *could* be used for PvP, by picking up the PvP talents, it was actually a really good raiding spec for a long while--without the PvP talents.
Orange Juice from concentrate? Disgusting!
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The issue I have with the limitations involved with the proposed talent tree changes is that I want to be able to customize a toon and play in a fashion that suits me. Not every spec, and not every player has the same game goals as the herd. What is the harm in offering lots of options so players can define for themselves what role they wish to play?
A perfect example is my off spec on my DK. It’s a farming spec, it has points in Unholy for a faster mount and a permanent pet, then finishes out with 41 points in Blood to get a wide selection of self healing abilities. The finial spec is not a DPS topper nor a PvP power house but it is a spec that I enjoy for periods of time during my game experience.
I am not a very good solo player, so while leveling a shaman I choose enhancement, but with a twist. Are you sitting down? I skipped dual wielding… and complimented my shield wearing shaman with some of the more defensive minded talents available. So no not everyone sees the game as press the Green button win, press the Red button fail.
It’s my time, it’s my subscription fee. Please allow me to continue to choose the way I play this game. Whatever consequences my choices has to how I fit into the community is my issue to resolve.
-Joel
I've never understood the "I'll spec/play badly if I want to. it's my $$" argument. It's like paying to go to a water park and trying to "climb" the water slide, going jogging with dive flippers, or trying to play golf by holding the club end and hitting the ball with the shaft. Sure, you can, but why when there are "accepted" ways of playing that just work better, even though they may not be intuative to you at first. Learning the "proper" way will always yield better results in the end.
the problem with the "i want to spec how I want" thing is that it doesn't, it allows bad players to spec poorly, and it restricts blizzard in talent creation because if they put anything halfway decent too early in the trees, min/max players will create specs that dip into all the trees it wants to create some sort of "uber" spec. It's why so many talents in WOTLK got pushed down or rearranged because it made things too good for people who used half/half specs for pvp, or for gimmick overpowered pve specs. While "keeping your options" is a grandiose idea, in the large scheme of things it just restricts people from being able to just spec a certain way and move on, without blizzard worrying about rebalancing everything everytime someone comes up with a dumb spec that proves overpowered.
You'll want your 31 point talent, that's all blizzard is saying/doing here. GET IT.
The major issue with this is that in order to facilitate your "I want to hit the big red button if I damn well please" mentality Blizzard has to give the rest of us a sub-par game experience. That's not worth it and I'd rather they deliver a clean, effective, and more balanced experience to everyone else who doesn't have any interest in the big red button. Ultimately what people have to reconcile is that making design sacrifices that make the game worse for the majority to facilitate the freedom for the minority is just a poor decision. It's the real world equivalent of the traffic authority saying "We're going to put up 1-way signs on this road but we're not REALLY going to make it illegal to drive the other way. If people want to drive the wrong way down that road and kill themselves then that's their right ... it's their lives to do with as they please!"
I applaud Blizzard for making this choice as it should in fact improve the experience of most of us including the new-comers who have no experience with the past system at the cost of very few. Honestly the fact that people will learn now not only how to play their class but how to play their spec is a very welcome change. I still shudder when I think of running into the net-new max-level players using insane specs and doing things like speccing mostly fury and using a shield because it "protects me better in melee" or whatever. I know blizzard can't teach players to be good but they can at least lead them somewhat down the right path.
It’s simple really, there isn’t just one way to play this game. You have your way of playing that is fun and exciting to you, believe it or not that will be different for other people. So what is accepted by the majority to be the best in one area will fail in another area. By having more choices it allows people the freedom to play in a way that is enjoyable to them.
Bad players are going to be bad players no matter what you do. And while the number of choices may be reduced in a 31 point tree it only makes the choices that much more impactful.
WoW is a living program that is continually changed to bring new and interesting content. IMHO, while they try their best, there is no way for the developers to account for every aspect of the game to make a truly balanced game, and if even if they did, the next mechanic will come out four months later that will spoil the balance somehow, somewhere.
Obviously it is still really early but I am not too thrilled with feral tree. There really aren't the choices that blizzard has stated we will have.
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