Should we give Talent Swapping a cooldown as well?

[Sabetha-turalyon (Sabetha)]

@Keldar-sargeras

So essentially, you’re saying that we have talents because we had talents?

It actually does feel this way at times. I think at this point we’ve got 1 of 2 problems:

1. In the old talent system, you got everything you needed but 90% of your points were decided for you so it felt a bit like “What’s the point?”.
2. In the new talent system, Blizzard either can’t or wont balance talents to be competitive with each other in any given content, so 90% of your points are decided for you and it feels a bit like “What’s the point?”.

There is a system that could work where talents are designed less about catering yourself to a content type and more about a playstyle, so we’d see more things like Gladiator Stance or Surrender to Madness that change how you play your character.

However that is reliant on Blizzard being able to balance talents to be competitive with each other, otherwise we end up right back at #2.

If Blizzard either can’t or wont do that, talents will always pose one of those two problems.

[Æither-bleeding-hollow]

@Argorwal-ysera

I don’t want a cooldown on talents, just pointing out that when most people say they moved some baseline skills into talents they conveniently leave out how they moved the majority of key talents into baseline skills.

That’s looking at it in a different way than I presented it though. You’re talking about the “key talents” typically used in all situations. I’m talking about the abilities that are supposed to be used to handle x, y, z scenarios which is why they were taken from the spellbook and moved into talents so we swap around a bunch.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

@Argorwal-ysera

I don’t want a cooldown on talents, just pointing out that when most people say they moved some baseline skills into talents they conveniently leave out how they moved the majority of key talents into baseline skills.

That’s looking at it in a different way than I presented it though. You’re talking about the “key talents” typically used in all situations. I’m talking about the abilities that are supposed to be used to handle x, y, z scenarios which is why they were taken from the spellbook and moved into talents so we swap around a bunch.

I’m looking at the fire mage talents and I can only find 1 ability (mirror image) that went from a baseline class ability to a talent.

Blast wave and living bomb were always talents.

Pretty much all the rest are new and didn’t exist in the vanilla - Cata talent tree days.

I’m actually not 100% sure about ring of frost, that may have been baseline in Cata I can’t remember. That would be 2.

Which ones were baseline skills that got moved to talents to make us choose? Maybe your memory is better than mine.

Pyroblast, dragons breath, combustion, and ignite were talents that got moved to baseline abilities.

[Æither-bleeding-hollow]

@Argorwal-ysera

Which ones were baseline skills that got moved to talents to make us choose? Maybe your memory is better than mine.

Are you just considering damaging abilities? Because things like mobility and CC were the biggest changes when it came to the talent trees. Warlocks are a good testament to that.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

@Argorwal-ysera

Which ones were baseline skills that got moved to talents to make us choose? Maybe your memory is better than mine.

Are you just considering damaging abilities? Because things like mobility and CC were the biggest changes when it came to the talent trees. Warlocks are a good testament to that.

I’m considering everything. I went through fire mage since you were posting on a mage and fire is the most popular spec. I found 1 (mirror image), maybe 2 (Ring of frost) out of the 21 talents.

Are there more you can point me to for them?

[Waidmann-gilneas (Waidmann)]

@Keldar-sargeras

the question is, then, if players should have the power to specialize at all?

We already do it’s called picking a spec . Spec is just an abriviation of specialization . Talents just give us option on how we choose to specialize.

[Æither-bleeding-hollow]

@Argorwal-ysera

Are there more you can point me to for them?

off the top of my head for destruction warlocks,

burning rush and dark pact being on the same row (mobility vs defensive)
fnb and cataclysm being on the same row (sustain aoe vs burst aoe)
demonic circle and mortal coil being on the same row (mobility vs cc)

and remember it isn’t just that they move them into talents, it’s that they also make them compete with each other so even if both were talents already, you can only select the 1 if they are in the same row which halves access to competing talents

[Waidmann-gilneas (Waidmann)]

@Astroworld-turalyon

Blizzard clearly has a vision.

Stevie Wonder has better vision

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

@Argorwal-ysera

Are there more you can point me to for them?

off the top of my head for destruction warlocks,

burning rush and dark pact being on the same row (mobility vs defensive)
fnb and cataclysm being on the same row (sustain aoe vs burst aoe)
demonic circle and mortal coil being on the same row (mobility vs cc)

and remember it isn’t just that they move them into talents, it’s that they also make them compete with each other so even if both were talents already, you can only select the 1 if they are in the same row which halves access to competing talents

I was taking about fire mage, but I see we’ve deflected to a new class/spec.

Most of these talents didn’t exist at all prior to the revamp so they aren’t baseline abilities now moved into talents.

Shadow burn and soul fire were always talents.

I see 3 that were old baseline abilities that are now talents for destro.

Dark Soul: Instability (use to just be dark soul)

Mortal coil and demonic circle.

Mortal coil & demonic circle were both baseline and now you pick one. Ok, so 1 row out of 7 and just on this class.

Is this what all the fuss is about? 2 talents out of 21 for a class? And in SL demonic circle is back to baseline? And we had to get shifted classes to a specific one?

Chaos bolt, havoc, and shadow fury were all talents that are now baseline.

[Keldar-sargeras (Keldar)]

And now that we’ve essentially baked the whole specialization process into a single click, is the talent system moot?

[Æither-bleeding-hollow]

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

and remember it isn’t just that they move them into talents, it’s that they also make them compete with each other so even if both were talents already, you can only select the 1 if they are in the same row which halves access to competing talents

you’re intentionally ignoring this point. the competing talents are still taken away from us when they weren’t prior to the revamped talent trees.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

and remember it isn’t just that they move them into talents, it’s that they also make them compete with each other so even if both were talents already, you can only select the 1 if they are in the same row which halves access to competing talents

you’re intentionally ignoring this point. the competing talents are still taken away from us when they weren’t prior to the revamped talent trees.

Almost all of these talents never existed prior to the revamp.

How is that “taking away from us” again?

[Waidmann-gilneas (Waidmann)]

No it is not .The talents are a part of how we specialize our toons .

[Æither-bleeding-hollow]

@Argorwal-ysera

Almost all of these talents never existed prior to the revamp.

So the when they were baseline abilities?

[Æither-bleeding-hollow]

Mists of Pandaria Talent Trees and New Spells Introduced

should help you out. it even tells you which ones are “new” so you can accurately know which one was actually new and not just guesswork!

[Rûth-hyjal]

@Silverleigh-drakthul

Being able to freely swap back and forth between specs has never made in-game sense to me to begin with. Throws the RP aspect right out the window while catering to the min/maxers.

But I do not see how a cooldown would mitigate this

I wholeheartedly agree on both counts. They did away with the old talent trees because “they’re mostly just stat buffs, which doesn’t feel super impactful”, but then made them all class-altering choices, which instantly means you need to be able to swap them out in order to be optimal.

Frankly, I’d rather have the stat buffs back. First, it gives more agency in your secondary stats, especially if it were like Corruption stat buffs where picking +crit opened up +crit damage. Have a few actives throughout the tree, but make them all the mobility/utility/survival choices. Make these changeable once per week, or with a Seal of Fate. Maybe a high-tier choice that turns the lower-tier flat buffs into percentage buffs or something.

Then, for the kind of talent choices that let you optimize between PvE and PvP or single-target and AoE, have maybe 2 “sub-spec” choices at 30 and 50. Have it be on the spec screen, beside the list of abilities. When you hit 30, another column of abilities appears on the right, and you can choose any one to supplement your specialty. Let these be swappable at will to fulfill the high-end optimization choice.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Æither-bleeding-hollow

@Argorwal-ysera

Almost all of these talents never existed prior to the revamp.

So the when they were baseline abilities?

They never were, that is kind of my point?

Almost all of these are new abilities since MoP or are the same in name alone.

[Keldar-sargeras (Keldar)]

But do you actually specialize, if there is the ability and expectation to use the talents you’re using based on your current activity?

Or are you simply choosing to be optimal or not?

[Sabetha-turalyon (Sabetha)]

Speaking as a Prot Paladin there’s quite a few things that are competing talents I used to be able to pick up in the trees.

That said they’ve done a lot of rebranding, so sometimes the ability doesn’t have the same name or has a slightly different effect.

For example Improved Hammer of Justice is now Fist of Justice and rather than be a static cooldown reduction, it takes a few seconds off on ability use. The effects are functionally the same thing more or less, though(cooldown reduction on Hammer of Justice).

[Keldar-sargeras (Keldar)]

Nothing wrong with that - but it’s hardly specialization if there is nothing “special” about your choices. You are always at 100% of your class’ capability. Rendering your talent choice moot as they’re not truly choices.