Talents as they are in retail, are designed to be a semi mico managed customization option. They are not designed to be a macro customization option like covenants
Ultimately what it comes down to is choice. There have been several choices that have been removed already, and this is just one more example of the removal of choice and player agency. It might be good or bad for the game, but it still feels like I have no choice. No options. The more that happens, the less enjoyable the game becomes to me. How would you feel if the government decided to start taking away choices from you? You might think that’s a silly comparison, but some of us spend more of our free time in this world than the real one.
1 Like
And is that a good design?
Yeah rebranding is really common. The old destro talent fire and brimstone is a completely different ability than the current fire and brimstone. They’ve done that a lot over the years.
Isn’t it in our nature to give 100% in what we do or at least strive for it ?
How many times in our lives have we done something more then once and not always the same way twice . As our experience grows we learn that when you do this activity this skill that you have learned works better but in other activities another skill works better but both skills could be used for both activities.
1 Like
Did you actually read your link? The new talent tab is just deltas from the Blizzcon version to then.
The new spells are a lot of updates to show equivalent spells in other specializations along with a few new spells.
It doesn’t cover the new talents at all other than the deltas from Blizzcon.
It’s not “completely” different from the MoP revamp. It went from being a toggle ability that most single target spells worked on to just incinerate. It’s still a cleave ability, it’s just more watered down now. And since it’s worse than cataclysm, we never take it. So it went from being something we used to something we never have anymore because of what it competes with.
The original iteration before the MoP revamp is basically just what Internal Combustion is now… which is also a talent we have to pick competing with Shadowburn (another old ability of ours moved to the talent tree) and Reverse Entropy.
1 Like
i dont get this pressure people speak of when talking about this stuff. if you dont like the pressure, then play with different people? i’ve not once been pressured to do anything in this game. not once. maybe its a horde thing? is it a mythic raid and plus 20 dungeon thing? i fee like if you’re doing that level of content you will not feel the pressure to change, but rather want to change so you can be optimal.
if i were in a guild running heroic nyalotha and people start telling me i should use x,y,z talents then there will be two outcomes. 1. i will swap because i want to optimize my toon. 2. i leave the guild and find another. its that ez.
its much more fun to have the freedom to swap stuff around than to be restricted. i think its healthy to freely swap. no aggravation comes with being able to swap talents, essences, etc.
2 Likes
If you just had both, but they shared a cooldown, it would be functionally the same thing. “You have access to two mass CC abilities, but can only use one of them at a time.” They could even give them a shared name prefix, like “Nature’s Power: Typhoon” to drive the point home.
But Blizz isn’t very good at systemic solutions like this. Just look at the GCD and potion changes, when they already have the answer in-game in the form of the 20-second trinket cooldown.
1 Like
Pressure need not be external.
Sometimes they’re a completely different ability and sometimes it’s almost the same ability just under a new name.
Aegis of Light is remarkably similar to the Cataclysm talent Divine Guardian.
There’s also a number of abilities that have just been removed entirely. I no longer have Holy Wrath, which was a very nice situational AoE stun for when there was undead or demons around.
Most of my buffs are gone too, and Shadowlands only is returning a couple of my auras. Even in that they took an existing Retribution passive that has no business being an aura and turned it into the new Retribution Aura rather than just giving me the old thorns aura.
I’m not gonna go and measure to see if it’s literally the majority of our talents/abilities, but it does feel like we got heavily cut down only to be compensated for that via talents and other systems where the choices were competing with each other.
3 Likes
fair point but im not sure your internal struggles should affect a game in which millions of people play it.
1 Like
I’m just saying that it shouldn’t exist. It’s a symptom of bad design, or at the very least archaic design that needs to be rethought. The “talents” concept is a completely different system relative to its original vision, and its current form was implemented during an incredibly different mechanical era.
It’s time to rethink the system.
i gotcha. i like the current system tbh. i dont agree with your thoughts to rework the system, but i do understand your point.
1 Like
Adding a cooldown was just an errant thought given that it seems to be Blizzard’s current solution to add a bit of significance to a similar system. I’m open to any others.
1 Like
It’s not Sunday.
1 Like
For what it’s worth, there’s actually been a great deal of constructive discussion to be had here.
None of what you said is choice though. You take the correct talents or you’re wrong. There’s no choosing. There’s right and there’s wrong.
We left the old talent trees behind because of this, but the talent rows have done nothing to alleviate this. The closest we’ve ever come to the MoP talent rows providing ACTUAL customization was Prot Warrior and Shadow Priest in WoD, being Gladiator stance and Clarity of Power. And again with Slice and Dice vs Roll the Bones for Outlaw Rogue. But that wasn’t balanced so you still weren’t allowed to take it in max level content.
Anyhow, these ‘choices’ are meaningless. They could all be baked into the spec baseline and nothing would change. It’s arbitrary post combat toggling that becomes MANDATORY for top end content. It becomes a form of filing out taxes.
And Warlock tanks! I had a ton of fun with that for a patch.
2 Likes
Apologies. I didn’t follow Warlocks then.