Such as? Because I’m seeing a very clearly defined path for shadow in the class tree, and while there’s a handful of paths in the spec tree, they certainly don’t allow you to pick up much utility at all considering how expensive our capstones are to get to.
I don’t understand this take. The trees are supposed to offer a variety of options and the shaman tree does that in spades while still maintaining the core elements of what makes shaman shaman. You have multiple options for movement, different utilities such as roots/stuns/party speed ups/off healing, and the spec trees offer plenty of different paths and choices to play with for damage.
I’ve been playing with the shaman tree for the last day or so and I’m still looking at it going “this could be an interesting path, I wonder if this would work”, there’s none of that in the priest tree, and there’s not a lot of that in the spec trees either.
I got the same reaction as Caithyra. I would compare it to the choice in your supermarket… imagine getting some peanut butter, or jam or something that has rows and rows of different brand/types of the stuff… at some point you have too much choice and unless you know what you want as you always picked it, all that choices just seems daunting/overwhelming and it actually often leads to making no choice. Where as having a few choices, its a lot easier to decide and make the choice you want.
The Paradox Of Choice shows you how today’s vast amount of choice makes you frustrated, less likely to choose, more likely to mess up, and less happy overall, before giving you concrete strategies and tips to ease the burden of decision-making
The more options you have, the harder it gets to decide, and to decide well.
The more options you have, the less happy you will be, no matter what you decide on.
Good enough is the best – become a satisficer.
So these “web” talent trees really fits the mold of the Paradox of Choice and are just not that receptive to the human psyche.
I’d argue though, that the “tree” in PoE is overwhelming to new players but there are so many ways to build a spec that it remains fun even in the face of a plethora of nodes to choose from.
I think the “shotgun Web” style approach that you see in the Shaman and Evoker Devastation trees (as well as Shadows bottom tier) fits this Paradox of Choice model and I don’t think that is the best way to structure the trees.
We want choice, but it needs to remain meaningful but not overwhelming.
With Path of Exile, you have choices, but they are often structured in many branches with only a small handful of choices. So those branches limit / funnel your choices so you don’t feel like you have a higher chance to make a bad / wrong choice.
I don’t really agree that the shaman tree is that overwhelming. It’s a lot of options, but they aren’t very complicated options. You aren’t committed to one talent set up, and you have the flexibility to adjust to the content you’re doing, which is excellent for players who want to really be able to specialize to whatever content they are doing. And for players who aren’t that interested in making a handful of different trees just for different dungeons or raid style encounters, they can find a nice catch all version of their tree and stick with it.
Meanwhile, the entire priest tree has literally zero variety at the bottom of the tree. It’s 4 separate straight line capstones that have no synergy with each other. Even if you added more links the bottom of the tree is so clearly one dimensional, it’s not a good look imo.
The bottom of the shadow tree is also bad, but I’d argue it’s not because of the amount of choice but simply because of the bloated amount of points anything requires. The set up feels wrong, like having the apparitions idol on the opposite side of the tree to the apparitions nodes, and all the capstones are just “what passive damage increase do you want” idk.
I’d rather have the problem of too much choice than not enough.
It’s one of the things my friends repeatedly cite that they truly enjoy about PoE, and I don’t think even the web trees we are seeing in WoW come close to being in anyway difficult to understand. It doesn’t feel like you can do many of the other trees “wrong” even if you aren’t doing the most optimal version of the tree.
You can easily do the priest tree and especially shadow “wrong” and that’s a problem.
EDIT Like choosing StM…dear god get rid of this talent blizzard, it has no place in the game anymore.
This is true of Shaman, too. And in fact, I’d say it’s pretty true of every class.
The tier 3 talents are where things get interesting for every class - and they’re also the spot where every class has to legitimately make a choice, because you simply don’t have enough points to get everything. Wheras T1/T2 talents in almost every tree are either A.) stuff you already have, or B.) random passive bonuses that you can take or leave without real detriment to yourself, unless they block a T3 path.
And in Shaman’s case specifically the general class tree capstones are all kinda not good. I guess Resto can take Ancestral, but everything else there is a pretty mediocre benefit for the investment.
Shaman tree’s have actual branching options, you can move from one section of tier 2 into different parts of tier 3. There’s merit and options to the capstones and there’s merit to not taking one at all and just picking up more utility and movement.
That’s significantly different than the priest tree where you have 2 entirely non functioning sections of the tree for shadow, and literally 4 straight lines at the bottom of the tree.
Making decisions is kind of the point I’m getting at. You don’t get to make decisions in the priest tree. You pick a line and you follow that line, and again, half the capstones are barely functional depending on what spec you’re playing.
I disagree they aren’t good, but that’s kind of the beauty of the bottom of their tree compared to ours, you can move around and take things like thunderstorm, lightning lasso, mana spring, call of the elements, grab stoneskin as a DPS. Meanwhile priest choices might as well be predetermined.
You absolutely do in the early tiers. I think the exception to this is the actually Holy spec tree - which is a problem mostly because it just doesn’t have enough talents. The first 2 tiers only have 23 points you CAN take, and you need 20 to get to Tier 3. So you’re just… getting everything. That tree feels extremely wonky.
But I don’t plan on taking any capstones on Holy. I have 2 builds on Disc that take totally different capstones. Shadow is held hostage by a general class tree that is shared by 2 healers - so I definitely agree there. I also think Shadow’s tree layout is funky, and the talent design for shadow OVERALL is just not great. It pumps, but it also generates a billion insanity it can’t even possibly dump. I just don’t think the problems Shadow or holy have are LAYOUT related.
Whether the talents are a line or a grid - you get get a similar amount of them. And again, a lot of Shaman’s T1/2 are things it already has that they will mostly want to take again. Does it FEEL better to have more of a grid layout where you can go any direction? Possibly. Is it actually better in reality? I seriously don’t think it’s as big a difference as you’re making it out, personally.
I mean… Shaman managed to make a melee dps, a ranged dps, and a healer coexist on the same tree. It’s not an issue of roles, it’s an issue of themes.
It’s hard to say when the tree is as poor as it is, would taking every utility spell off the shadow tree fix the pathing issues? That’s 10 points so it’s really hard to even envision the tree at that point.
I think the “You can have one idol but not both” design of the bottom 3rd is really bad as well, especially seeing the relative power level and fun factor of those things compared to the shiny toys other specs are getting to have multiples of. A passive corruption from 8.3, mindbender gives a damage buff, spawn a thing when 50 apparitions proc, and literally the most boring dps legendary we already have. Honestly doesn’t feel like something that should be that restricted.
You’re bound to specific sides of the tree based on which capstone you want because there’s no easy way to move from each side of the tree (or literally no way to move from side to side in T3)
Shadow is bad, but the class tree has issues as well. Doesn’t matter if it pumps, numbers aren’t important right now.
I mean, in one version I can move around and try out different builds or take the things I think are most functional. In the other version I MUST take whatever is in line, conversely, if I want something that’s in a line, I can’t adjust that line if I like another capstone better. There’s no flexibility in the trees, and it’s both related to the fact that we have diametrically opposed class design, and the current layout of the class tree.
To me, a good class tree should have reasons for all 3 specs to visit all 3 sides of the tree, and arguably even go deep into any side. Shaman’s does that by making alternate paths to utility that avoids healing / damage / melee stuff if it’s not needed, and by having relevant utility all over the tree. Priest’s doesn’t.
I’d also like to just add that the shaman tree has only 3 “dead ends” in the entire thing. Dead ends being nodes that don’t lead down the tree in any way and aren’t capstones.
Priest has…13, so if you do want to try to invest through the tree in a way that gets things from all 3 sides, you often find yourself over investing in one side in points that don’t help you travel anywhere, then struggling to have the points to put in other places. (This is purely a pathing concern, I’m well aware that right now few specs have any desire to really do this at all even if they could.)
Well yes, I do agree with this. But I think even mechanically - healers appreciate DPS talents, in general. I don’t think many Ele/Enh shamans are going to be pulling from the left side of Shaman’s tree outside maybe dip in for totemic - and otherwise stay away entirely. Along with that, Ele and Enhance do share quite a bit of spells due to the SL rework of Enh.
I don’t think we can make the same statement about Holy, for example. Holy’s absolutely OK with getting a Mindbender, mind blast, even SW:D CDs for sniping in M+ or breaking a poly PvP. They don’t benefit from theming - but they absolutely benefit mechanically from these spells.
If a rework was not in the cards for this expansion’s timeline, I’m not sure how they possibly could have made a Spriest want to take anything from holy without just outright removing Shadowform and making Smite damage relevant? Or maybe making penance part of the class tree, I suppose. But Shadow really lacks anything to support the damage the rest of the class has - except for PI or Mindgames, which Blizzard shoved in the middle.
The only place I could see a legitimate reason for Spriest to touch the holy side of the tree would be for PvP kicks. But even then leaving shadowform is a bit strange, and they’re already getting the MB shield and resets - so there’s no way the healing keeps up with just… sitting in shadow.
So it goes deeper than just the theming here, IMO.
I don’t necessarily disagree that the Shadow tree itself has problems, though. I guess when I said Layout - I meant the linear nature. I think there’s absolutely a shadow tree that could exist in which the tree was mostly linear (as opposed to a grid-like structure of the Shaman tree) but still choices felt pretty meaningful. Disc is an example of that.
I can absolutely see dps shamans grabbing the stuff towards the left / middle left side of the tree. That’s the thing, if you want the things over there you don’t have to go down the one outside path that contains only healing buffs, there’s utility stuff and ways to get at it from the more dps centric sides of the tree that you’ve already deeply invested into.
I was talking about the far left side (so, the healing side). The left-middle is almost entirely class utility that Shammy had before. So I expect they’ll hit a few of those things.
But I’m begging the question of what possibly could have even been included in Priest’s tree utility-wise that isn’t already there? I mean, you could remove all of Shadow’s utility and throw it there, sure. If you removed SFP and put dispersion there instead, that’s GREAT for healing priests who just totally lack a defensive. But it doesn’t really benefit Shadow itself much.
Leap of Faith, Shackle, MC and MD are already there, PI’s already there. Maybe an improved fort? But I don’t see any case in which you wouldn’t just take that every time. I struggle to even think of historical utility they could have thrown in the general tree that Shadow might want. It’s not like they could bring Divine Spirit back.
If we ignore utility - the healer specs just don’t offer damage, which is the only other thing Shadow would want.
Honestly I don’t think there’s an answer to that question. Shadow doesn’t feel like a priest spec, it feels like a sub class all of its own. Unless they’re willing to solve that problem I think the design direction they’re going with for this expansion is just going to hamstring shadow without any benefit.
This too, not every problem the trees have is a problem with the trees themselves (Though many are), some are problems with the class as a whole that are exacerbated by the trees.
Being able to take all of our cc options instead of having to pick between them.
I’m a off-meta player so what I like and find fun most probably won’t care for. Despite this, even meta players seem to be raving about how good of a spot shadow is in.
You are aren’t forced to get capstones and there’s plenty of times (depending on factors) that putting that point can help elsewhere instead.
All this is gonna come down to each player and how they care to build.