I’ve been reading through posts here, specifically about hero talents. It’s been on my mind since they were revealed. The impression it has left on the community varies wildly. There is a lot of speculation, as well as pessimism, optimism, and conflicted feelings. It is clearly intended to elevate existing class/spec identity to another level. It seems though that much has been left to our imagination. Because there is little else to go on, a majority of the discussions I’ve seen revolve around the names. I’ve seen a lot of support for Blademaster over Slayer. I’m also in that camp.
Personally, I am very optimistic about this system and see only upsides. Hopefully the criticisms here are read as coming from someone who is passionate about how hero talents can enhance the RPG element of WoW.
I’ve also seen some really good and insightful takes that I’d like to highlight before expressing my feedback.
The first is a summary of the us/pt community’s feedback.
This serves as a perfect summary for the us/en community, from what I’ve read. The overall desire here for the hero system is that it is more than “another layer of generic passives.”
The second is a post from a player who said it really well,
This is honestly how I feel now, having digested the information more. The top node for Keeper of the Grove is a modest passive that provides 3% increase to damage and healing. Compare this to how specialization trees are presented. 35 of 39 specs start with a new or transformed ability. Only 4 start with a passive (Balance, Discipline, Outlaw, Subtlety) – but those passives have significant gameplay impact. It’s clear from the top node in each spec what the player is choosing. Yes, the name Keeper of the Grove and the top node being about treants implies an identity about treants. But our imagination is not sated by a talent like Harmony of the Grove. Do treants become permanent in later talents? Are they transformed into heroic treants? Will my gameplay feel bad when they’re not around? It needs to be clearer what is heroic about these talents from the top node.
The solution does not have to be class/spec redefining or completely transformative. There are past examples to draw upon. I hesitate to use Shadowlands, but take Venthyr warrior for example. This choice transforms Execute into Condemn, making it usable on targets > 80% hp and makes that target do less damage to the warrior. Something like that may be too much power for one talent point, even for a hero tree. But, it makes it obvious what the benefit is of this choice.
Also, for Keeper of the Grove to be a thing, treants would need to be baseline for Balance and Restoration. Right now, they are opt-in talents in each spec. A player choosing Keeper of the Grove without talenting treants would be missing out on this critical aspect of the hero.
This leads into a discussion that I saw come up a lot about existing talents and what role they play within hero trees. Dark Ranger was used a lot as the center of this point. Most of us associate Dark Ranger with spells like Black Arrow and Wailing Arrow. But, Black Arrow isn’t a thing anymore and it seems like Marksman already has exclusive access to Wailing Arrow. Dark Ranger appears to be a MM/SV hybrid, but SV’s existing kit does not seem to have any Dark Ranger stuff.
To cut to the chase, the introduction of hero talents seems like a great opportunity to make leaner specialization and/or class talent trees – moving abilities that have a special theme out of class or spec trees and into hero trees. Moving Wailing Arrow out of MM and into Dark Ranger would make MM leaner and Dark Ranger more thematic. I’ve read quite a few apprehensive posts that hero talents will simply add more stuff to their class, diluting and diverging from the core fantasy. Some also fear that this change will inevitably introduce bloat. This is a fantastic opportunity to give everyone what they want. Use hero talents to give us those special themed abilities and class fantasies, while addressing bloat within class/spec.
There were also a few posts about how some specs actually need more buttons. I think hero talents can be a vehicle to achieve this, as well. The overall sentiment that I’ve read has been regardless of what hero choice is made, playing the class should feel less clunky.
Another criticism I saw brought up was that some hero choices seem like an illusion of choice. Mage was brought up quite a bit for this. If you’re a Fire mage and you want more fire, Sunfury seems like the only choice. And, it comes with a catch too. As far as we know, the rule is that hero choices are shared with another spec (referred as hybrid or dual-spec). So if I choose Sunfury as a Fire mage who just wants more fire, does this mean I have to use Arcane in my rotation now? I understand why the hero choices are shared between two specs. But, specifically for mage – where there is basically no interaction between the specs – this constraint to the hero system seems overly detrimental to the fantasy of each spec. Adding Arcane or Frost spells to a Fire mage is a major departure from the existing Fire mage fantasy. I’ve seen some discussion around this point, wondering what hero options could be without this sort of hybrid constraint. That being said, I’m not advocating for an “either no hybrid or only hybrid” solution here. I think offering a hero choice to more than one spec is appropriate, in some cases. But as a constraint on the whole system, it seems that this will inevitably miss the mark for some class fantasies. Additionally, this isn’t to say that mixing specs shouldn’t be done. I am excited at the prospect that the Frostfire hero brings back Frostfire Bolt. But, I would only choose it as Frost mage.
To wrap up, this system seems very flexible and capable of providing unique and interesting class fantasies. The summary of my feedback is that there appear to be some detrimental constraints surrounding the hero system. Without more details, we are just speculating. I am genuinely excited and can’t wait for more details closer to Tdub.
Cheers!