The Weekly Marmot -- Cataclysm Talent Revamp

[jvoodoochild]

The limitations that I alluded to are “Must spend 31 in your main tree” and “at max level there will only be 10 points that can be spent in another tree”

Is it a sub-par game experience for you to allow me to min/max farming talents that can and are in different trees? I know that farming is a minority of game time activity, but I’m not asking for a whole tree that specializes in farming.

…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

To me I see the changes doing the opposite of what you state will happen. I remember when I first picked up the game seeing Shadow Form in the cities and thinking "That’s cool, I want that". In order to do that I had to level in shadow in order to earn that ability. Which player will know more about their class? A player who gets Shadow Form at level 10 then is slowly introduced to the rest of the shadow arsenal, or a player who had to rely on those basic shadow spells in order to progress in level for the prize of completing the synergy of a spec arch type?

[acidhak]

Mostly I think lore is spot on, and his epic euphemisms continue to make my lol.

One tree that I can see having trouble during leveling (this of course without seeing the changes to the trees) is a holy priest. When I leveled mine I first went down the disc tree to get meditation than switched back to the holy tree. Mana issues for holy are pretty severe in the lower levels and with the faceroll people out there I can see holy being unworkable until you get to be ~70-75.

Then again who knows what we are up against until we see it so this may all be negated by the changes.

I personally think that it would be more interesting to concentrate the trees and still allow people to put points in any tree. The different combinations of crazy OP specs would be fun to watch unravel. EPIC THEORYCRAFTING!

[Knighterrant81]

I read somewhere once that choice in game can be cultural - so perhaps, a culture like ours that prizes individuality strongly reinforces behavior like creating strange, unique specs, simply to be unique and contrarian.

Some people are just uncomfortable with being a, say, Protection Warrior, when that doesn't really make them unique, it just makes them one of a large group of people in the game. I know, when I first started WOW, I was one of them. Coming from a tabletop world, it is very easy to be the only character of a particular "splat" (in wow terms, splat would be your Class and your Talent Tree, D&D, Class and Alignment, and so forth) or combinations of splats in your troupe. Some people play tabletops so that they can be unique characters, and they come to WOW with that attitude. Although it doesn't necessarily have to come from just former tabletop RPG players, I think this is the sentiment that causes people to look up and pick the craziest, oddball, unsupported specs, just because they can guarantee that NO ONE else takes their spec. They hit the Big Red Button, just so they aren't just another Green Button Pusher.

For example, Paladins, over the course of Wrath, have had the most trouble with this. Rogues have skipped their 51pt talent in PVP, but that was pretty much the way Blizzard was supporting Rogue PVP (because Hunger for Blood was just too much damage to allow them to take Prep, Rouges can't survive in PVP without Prep, and Shadowstep couldn't cut it in Wrath of the Burst King) and muti/prep doesn't really fit what we're talking about here. We saw Holy/Ret, which was OP but made sense, and Prot/Holy, which was obviously an unintended consequence of Paladin design. Blizzard has spent pretty much all of Wrath just trying to fix tiny things they overlooked in the Paladin class overhaul (putting Repentance in reach of Holy Hybrids, allowing Prot to convert Stam to Spellpower, poor tanking performance around about early Ulduar, the massive burst of 3.0 Ret combined with defensive cooldowns) that people exploited. That was design time that was basically wasted because they were going back and fixing what they'd already tried to fix. The end result is, once again it looks like they're dumping the entire Paladin design in Cataclysm. (personally, I think they need to move more of the trainable defensive cooldowns into the talent trees, but that's another topic)

The new talent system creates concentrated coolness. You have fewer choices, yes. But those choices are (hopefully) much more meaningful. And it also allows Blizzard to more easily predict and balance for player choices. Sure, maybe you can't get your Shockadin, but Blizzard (and the rest of the WOW playerbase) doesn't have to worry about waking up on patch day to discover that suddenly Paladins are doing disgusting amounts of ranged DPS (or, to be fair, absolutely terrible melee DPS) or something. That means more design time into improving the game, and less design time into fixing outliers.

As for uniqueness, thats something you'll have to get over in an MMO. Find the "splat" you like to play, and try not to worry about how many other people play your spec. You'll be a better player, and a happier one. There's a reason there's cookie cutter specs after all: they're pretty much just better. They're just trying to make it so you can get the cookie cutter spec, and then have a few talents left over that you can spend how you like, and be your own unique snowflake.

You aren't unique for hitting the Red Button, just being contrarian. Blizzard is better off building the game for the 99% of other people who just want to hit the Green Button without having to get an advanced degree in their class.

[Dedic]

@Akeber

Just because someone doesn't conform to the accepted ways doesn't make them wrong.

I don't know how I feel about the new trees but if they are removing freedom from the player then I can respect those who take exception to it.

[hageos]

i just looked at the new talent calculators and i got to say i dont like the fact that a ret pally cant use divine sacrifice . before i stopped playing wow i downed the lich king and one of the main strategies in the guild i was in was that all paladins had to have divine sacrifice if not gaurdian . and we used it constantly . the guild downd him in 25 man @ 10% and i downd him at 15 % . this is my toon http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...e+Co&cn=Hageos and yes i know i dont have the most 1337 gear but i was pulling 9k dps for a ret paladin and for the gear i had on and for the spec i used . it was tailored to the paladin tank that specced deep into ret so i could get divine gaurdian with hte least amount of dps talents taken away . ret is also my offspec , i was mainly a tank with full sanctified gear and 3 heroic pieces when i stopped at 15% . although i do like that paladins seem to be getting more dps related talents i dont like the fact divine sacrifice will not be an option as its served me so well in the past

[Bashal]

Some people are just uncomfortable with being a, say, Protection Warrior, when that doesn't really make them unique, it just makes them one of a large group of people in the game....

That kind of contrarian attitude that you describe may very well be true, but I think new players have a much simpler explanation for their odd builds (the same reason my first toon had an odd spec). It goes something like this:

Hey, what's this flashing button? Talents? That's new. Ok, it says I have one point to spend. Oh look, three trees...hmmm...there doesn't seem to be anywhere good to spend this one talent point. +1% crit, +1% dodge, or -1 rage on my heroic strike... wow, these all suck. Hmm.. some nice stuff waaay down at the bottom. Jeez, that'll take forever! I want something useful now, and these are all crap.

Well... I get hit a lot, so I'll take the dodge. I guess in four more levels, with +5% dodge, that might make some noticeable difference.

/shrug.

And thus, a noob is born.

[Akeber]

Just because someone doesn't conform to the accepted ways doesn't make them wrong.

Trying to fit a square peg in a round hole may not be "wrong", but it certainly isn't right.

[jvoodoochild]

Trying to fit a square peg in a round hole may not be "wrong", but it certainly isn't right.

Nor is thinking that there isn’t a square hole.

Say a guild wants the scorch debuff in their 25s. Is it Blizzard’s intent to limit player innovation to say the fire tree is a DPS tree with some tricks, so work within that tree exclusively? Is it “wrong” or a “sub-par” game experience to say to your guildies, hey you stick to straight boss DPS, and I’ll support you with buffs from my tree, control (polymorph) from your tree, and I may even throw some points into frost for some trash aoe goodness?

It’s a HUGE game, and not every situation is going to be solved with a simulator build based on perfect conditions.

[Skirataado]

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.

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.

Most of what Lore says is reasonable and helpful, however in the case of builds with less than 51, not exactly the case. A blanket statement like "right now no one really spends less than 51 point in their given tree," and saying something is as binary as a green and red button is suprisingly closeminded. Two such builds i've enjoyed using for my prot warrior are the Unrelenting Assualt build and a lesser known DW+ImpCleave build (15/14/43). I'm not saying the changes are bad or that the game will be less fun without the option to make these builds, just that this assumption wasn't the best one.

[Kazeyonoma]

Imp Cleave is 100% terrible if you're giving up shockwave,sword and board, damage shield, and 2/3 critical block. I'm sorry, that just doesn't make sense at all, to sacrifice those 3.66 talents, to do 266 more cleave damage... These are EXACTLY the types of builds blizzard wants to avoid happening because they aren't well thought out. Yes you get a little more cleave damage, yes you even glyphed for cleave for an extra target, you glyphed for lower rage cost thunderclap (which i don't really understand since if you're aoe tanking, you have plenty of rage to tclap on it's 6 second coolddown), and you glyphed for sunder armor. But a few things. Damage shield in that duration coupled with 3/3 critical block will likely generate more threat across multiple targets anyways, having sword and board increases your critical strike chance of devastate by 15% something that you'll be spamming since you glyphed for sunder armor, and lastly, not having free shield slams + shockwave doesn't make any sence at all. Shockwave + Tclap combined together is possibly the highest front loaded aoe threat combo of any of the 4 tanks, yet you're giving up the main component of it. Combine that with the fact that during the stun, you can shield slam 1 target for massive burst of threat, then cycle through the rest with devastate, (which if glyphed generates 5%*AP more threat, that you're giving up), ALL while cleaving would be more beneficial to you then this pseudo cleave spam spec you've created.

[Dedic]

Trying to fit a square peg in a round hole may not be "wrong", but it certainly isn't right.

I find your analogy to be less than adequate. As jvoodoo has already explained why, I will just leave it at this: the game is called "World of Warcraft", not "World of Pegs and Holes".

[Knighterrant81]

As Kaze has pointed out, there is a right and a wrong answer to specs. That's why there are cookie cutter specs. Someone has spent way more time than you have thinking about your talents, and has figured out the best way to spec (or at least can argue why on just about every point).

With talents, you really have to consider your goal with your spec. It could vary depending on what you are doing. You could be solo leveling, leveling through dungeons, leveling through pvp, you could be raiding, you could be doing heroics, you could be doing bg pvp or arena pvp. Heck, you could even be a Hunter soloing old content; each situation calls for different sets of abilities.

Regardless, there is always a right answer. At the very least, if you get out there in the real Azeroth, and find that something you researched isn't working as well as you though it would, you experiment for yourself. But if someone who's put in a lot of time and effort into testing talents says something, you might want to examine *your playstyle* instead of *their posted spec*. I'm doing this right now with my new Hunter. I put all my talents into pet survivability. Turns out, I pull aggro off my pet. Guess I should have put some pet damage talents in there too! I thought the posted spec looked funny. Turns out it was a good idea after all. (I still don't get why people take imp. Revive Pet though, maybe my pet will die all the time now that I'm dumping survivability talents o.O).

Take leveling. When leveling, your goal (one can assume) is to level as quickly as possible. You will take talents that reduce downtime. That means, talents that increase survivability, increase burst damage (as opposed to sustained damage that is more important for long encounters instead of going from mob to mob). Movement speed, resource return, and flat modifiers will all increase your leveling speed. Whatever gives you the most efficient leveling speed is the right answer. You can quibble in places, but generally the right answer will be clear, or made clear through testing.

Now, that doesn't mean you can't pick up whatever talent you like. But don't expect to be the most efficient leveler. Similarly, you won't be as good as you could be at BGs, 5 mans, or the like - and you most likely will be sat during raids because you fall behind due to your refusal to respec (which your raid leaders/officiers/class-mates harp on you for daily). You will also be mercilessly slaughtered in arenas.

If you like to play like that, fine. Most of us don't. We want to get to the next goal, be the best we can be at our toons. Don't complain when Blizzard decides that having to do hours of research after every patch to find the right answer isn't the way they want people to play the game.

Now what is interesting is the new philosophy on utility talents. This provides much more "quibble room". If the choice is between utility and utility, there will be multiple right answers, and my right answer will be different from your right answer. Thus, we will have interesting choices without potential pitfalls for new players.

[jvoodoochild]

The cookie cutter spec on EJ for arc mages does not include Slow. Congrats you’ve just failed several boss fights where the spell is invaluable. Now before the wipe the cookie cutter spec did more DPS than the clear with Slow, but you can’t cash in meters at the gear vender.

All cookie cutter specs do is give the highest possible DPS, HPS/M, or TPS under ideal circumstances. Someone please refute that statement. The game is composed of nothing but un-ideal circumstances. Because of that, I rather play with someone who thinks for themselves than a drone. But that’s just me.

Please read the related Blue posts. The talent changes where meant to bring more cool and more impactful talents than what is seen today. The intent is NOT (as people have stated in this post) to make it harder for a newb to pick a “bad” spec, nor is it meant to take out the need for heavy number crunching to obtain the “best” DPS

IMHO forcing everyone (when they didn’t before) to pick talents from level 15 to 69 in one tree exclusively is not a positive step. It stifles creativity which just so happens to be one of the things I enjoy the most in the game.

-Joel

[Bashal]

It stifles creativity which just so happens to be one of the things I enjoy the most in the game.

There are lots of ways to be creative in the game. While there's room for creativity in a spec, you can really only carry that so far before a spec, while original, isn't really of much benefit regardless of the situation you find yourself in.

People shouldn't chase after being a special snowflake just for the sake of being a snowflake. Snowflakes melt.

[harrythered]

A good and positive outlook on a pretty poor talent overhaul :P Unfortunately we will see much more 'cookie cutter' talent builds due to less talents available and again some pretty awful choices left..on a pale horse?.. just no.....
Blizzard forced people into 'cookie cutter' builds due to some pretty poor options within the talent tree and this seems like an easy way out.....I have tried the beta tree's on wowhead and find myself taking talents I don't want/need or are just useless to get the '31' talent.
It is a big change to the game Cataclysm and maybe it would have been better to concentrate on making one thing really good instead of several things not bad.

[Stoutale]

I feel that they have taken the craft out of my war.

(on that note, I honestly think I might be dropping all of my points into my Protection Warrior talent tree at this point, maybe they should give us at least 3 resets to use within a month after it resets)

[Bashal]

Blizzard forced people into 'cookie cutter' builds due to some pretty poor options within the talent tree and this seems like an easy way out.....

As long as there are talents which boost PvE or PvP performance, there will be cookie-cutter. There will always be something that is "best" mathematically on some spreadsheet somewhere. The only way they can eliminate that is if all talents had little effect on PvP and PvE play.

...in other words, a bunch of talents nobody wants. :P

I'm not saying they got all of the optional talents right in these new trees, some people feel their class has bad options, and I'm not going to argue that. But I think the biggest issue Blizzard had was balancing specs. The more points people got, and the deeper the trees went, the more possible combinations of talent point investment was were to worry about.

They had to make a change like this, imo, because the trees were getting too messy, and there were too many people looking for (and finding) spec loopholes.