Dragonflight’s Talent trees are fun… but it’s getting to be too much now. And with Hero talents on the way, I’m dreading the impossibility of actually balancing all of that.
I think there’s something special about a talent tree that forces you to choose out of several options. It means players can choose between actives or passives, or choose between a short aoe stun or a longer single target stun. But now you can just choose it all. And it’s chaos.
In mythic+ it’s chaos. In PvP it’s an utter sh*tshow (see: “micro cc’ing”). I have no idea if this is an unpopular opinion or not but I really think the WoW class designers need to consolidate their ideas and trim the fat quite a bit. I would rather 10 abilities that have a lot of depth, use cases, and flexible customizability, than 30 abilities that all have their unique uses. We only have so many fingers guys.
With this immense bloat, class identity seems to be almost gone entirely. Remember when Arms warriors’ “thing” was Mortal Strike/Grievous wounds? Now like half the classes and specs have them if not more. And it’s like that for so many classes and abilities now.
Like what’s next after The War Within? MORE Hero talents? Another set of talents on top of them called “Heroic Talents”?! “Heroic-er Talents”??? The whole thing just feels like a house of cards, ready to crash and fall at a moment’s notice as class design goes from being bloated to completely over-designed.
And for those who interpret this as some kind of request for less choice, you couldn’t be more incorrect. The irony is that with having way, way too much choice, the variability (and balance issues) becomes so overwhelming that the only “good” option becomes whatever is simmed and min-maxed as the best, with small flexibility. Yes, simming has been an ever-present plague in this game for years, but the napkin math speaks for itself. What is more likely to be min-maxed into oblivion: The DF talent tree with 60+ variable points? Or the MoP tree with only 7 options? The former has so much wild variability to it, that many players will unknowingly “nerf” themselves by picking what they like instead of what has been calculated to optimization. The latter has only 21 choices, and restricts you to 7 at a time, which means that in a worst-case scenario for min-maxing, you’re likely only “incorrect” on a couple of your talent picks, and half of those picks are situational anyways, which means by design you’re supposed to be able to switch them at a moment’s notice to accommodate your current gameplay. But what this means is that currently, to play what you enjoy, often means to get left out of mythic+ groups, or get rekt in PvP. Everyone brushes this truth off until they spend 6 hours running circles in expansion capital city unable to find groups. And heck, it even means you’ll have a harder time with solo content.
In conclusion; we are experiencing an over-inflation of player power via talents. Just like the power of a single dollar, if there’s more in circulation, the singular unit is worth less; talents are no different in this context. Many players have their grievances with MoP’s talent tree. But it’s easy to forget that that expansion is also heralded as the peak of PvP, introduced challenge modes (which would eventually become mythic+), and had great raiding. Players needed to make meaningful choices with their limited 6-7 talent tiers, and couldn’t just buy one of everything from the candy store like you can now. You used to have to choose the type of CC or defensive cooldown you wanted. Or choose between making your spec’s signature ability stronger, or trading that extra power for completely new ability instead. But now you can pick all of the CC options. You can pick all of the defensives, you can pick the max level talents that make your ultimate more powerful while also choosing 3 abilities that all do the exact same thing but in slightly different ways (looking at you Survival Hunter with your 3 charges (flanking strike, harpoon, coordinated assault)).
IMO, better design would be making one ability with 3 talent options to modify it to your liking, like what Heroes of the Storm’s talents often do. And I genuinely believe having that kind of agency would enrich everyone’s gameplay. The barrier for entry would be vastly lower. The skill ceiling would remain the same. Skill would be measured not by how many automated addons you have to play your flight simulator game for you, but instead what you do with your limited but purposefully chosen skillset. One can dream right?
With that said though, I think that something like Class Skins would qualm a lot of wants and needs for player fantasy. The irony is that Blizzard seem to think we want more powers and abilities to express ourselves- but in reality, I’d wager that the above-proposed simplified talent system, paired with well-crafted class skins would adequately satiate many players’ desires.
Just my two cents
