Talent Trees - The real bloat

Community General Discussion
41

“Illusion of choice” is one of the most overused terms in the WoW player lexicon, right up there with the term toxic and “top 1%.” Every time a choice has been offered, there was no illusion. Players absolutely were free to take any of the choices that fit within the structure of the system in question. The fact that you and much of the player base views anything that’s not the mathematically optimal selection as being an invalid selection does not actually make those choices somehow non-existent.

But even setting that aside, I have used every talent in my spec tree in progression content this expansion at various times. There has never been another time in the history of WoW where this has been true. Yes, there definitely are a set of core talents I always use, and there probably is room for some pruning. But there isn’t a completely useless talent in my entire spec tree, which is honestly pretty impressive.

So now instead of being able to tailor my talent choices based on any number of factors, I’m limited to a couple archetypes that doesn’t actually fit the bill? How is the any better than the MoP - SL system where there were talents I literally did not select for 4 whole expansions?

For each player in each piece of content, there is an optimal choice. But there are players who will perform better with talent A even if a sim (and thus online guides) indicate talent B is better. Having the ability to choose talent A for those who prefer or would even perform better with it is better than option B being mandatory for everyone.

Every druid spec had 4 performance node, 2 utility nodes, and 1 affinity node. For 4 straight expansions, my spec was hard locked into 1 performance node that outperformed everything else in all PvE content, 2 performance nodes were locked based on whether it was ST or AOE, and was hard locked on my affinity.

Meanwhile I have used literally every talent node in my spec tree for progression content during TWW. Perhaps that’s unique to feral druid, but there’s absolutely no argument for my spec in PvE that the MoP talent system offered just as much choice as TWW for someone looking for their best performance.

There is not a chance in the world that you will get me to agree that the game isn’t better when I can turn 45 minutes of time before work when none of my friends or guildies are online into genuine progression for my main 12 weeks into the season than when raiding was the only game in town for PvE progression. You’re welcome to your opinion on the subject, but if you actually think it fits the description of “fact,” you need to look up the definition of the word.

Further, there has never been a time when Blizzard has treated 5 man content with more prestige than whatever the highest level of raid content is. No matter what metric you want to use, outside of the quantity of pretty good gear you can farm, raid has always been treated better than any 5-man content you want.

Can’t get legendary items in M+ (outside of Legion when literally every kill could drop a legendary). Can’t get tier set drops outside raid. During the time when tier sets weren’t in the game, the current gear-oriented borrowed power system only came from raid. There is a higher percentage of BIS trinkets from raid than M+ for most specs.

The primary mechanic for feral druid is genuinely unplayable without an addon or WeakAura.

42

First time I have ever used it. But I’ll bite. Do you manually set your entire tree without the assistance of logs, addons, or websites?

43

This is a completely invalid question because of the exclusion of logs and addons. I care about my performance in game, I’m not going to run with talents that reduce my damage intentionally unless there is a clear reason specific to the fight or group I’m in to do so. In order to do this, I need to know how my talent choices do perform.

But for my druid specifically, I rarely use guides to set my talent builds. I run my own builds based on what I think will work best, try it out, then make changes and see the result. Sometimes this results in me running what an online guide suggests; other times it does not.

The reason I reject the notion of “illusion of choice” for myself is because my results are specific to my character, the way I play, and what I am prioritizing. There are times when my performance is lower when running a technically optimal build if I’m not able or willing to play a way to maximize that build. There are times when I adapt to what the group around me is best at, even if that technically will reduce my overall output (for instance, if I’m running a key with 2 DPS that are ST specialists already, I might opt for Wildstalker and Adaptive/Endless Swarm for higher overall AOE (and worse ST). For as performance-oriented as I want to play, I frequently swap some portion of talents around based on what will allow me to perform best for what I’m trying to do; no other iteration of talents or borrowed power let me do so as there was nowhere near as competitive of options to choose from.

But even more generally than just me, reducing any options the player has to there only being a single right answer is a massive generalization about player desires and ability that is clearly not correct. Not everyone cares about max performance. Not everyone can even achieve max performance. Not everyone is unable to realize when their group’s success would be greater deviating away from an optimal set of talents based on what some guide writer says.

For the players in which the above criteria all hold true, there will never be a choice in any game that offers options; there will always be an optimal answer to every decision. But when any of those assumptions do not hold true, there is no illusion of choice; the choice truly does exist, even if you would only choose the optimal path. Though I have a sneaky suspicious you know this to be true, else you likely wouldn’t have tried to constrict my response to your question so tightly such that it was essentially guaranteed to demonstrate your point.

44

I was proving a point. You used a site to make a build that “should” maximize your performance. That site was built testing possible combinations. If Blizz removed combinations and made the optimal choice a baseline, we would not need to consult a site who did the work for us to maximize our performance. It would be max by default. We would simply need to know how to use it effectively.

45

I always pick my own first before checking any site, because I know what actions i take the most often depending on my play style for a number of toons. Yet, I do understand some folks just want to go play and not have to research so many choices. I prefer to have the choices, and I believe it makes a difference to how I specifically play and why I may do more damage due to my choices

46

A lot of the talents are an illusion of choice, but it’s still a nice illusion. One that a lot of people complain about when it’s not there, which is why they brought it back in the first place.

There’s pretty much no way to do talents so that there isn’t a mathematically correct choice we’re all expected to switch to between boss fights or dungeons. It’s either that, talents have no impact on anything meaningful, or there just aren’t any talents. Personally, I think the illusion of choice is the best option.

Though they could drop the stuff that isn’t even an illusion. The tops of most spec trees have some talents you’re forced to put points into, and stuff like ret paladin hero talents flat out don’t function without Wake of Ashes. The whole spec is built around what is an “optional” talent.

Which is… certainly a design choice that they made.

1 Like
47

No, I used my own data collection and made the decision what works for me. There are times when I am not able (or willing) to make optimal use out of talent X, so talent Y performs better for me.

Which then makes it such that I will perform worse if that “optimal” option involves talent X, with talent Y removed from the game. You’re literally advocating for the actual removal of choices based on a shoddy premise you’ve tried to assert is fact.

But all of this is a deflection away from your original point. That being that talents are an “illusion of choice”. For any player who isn’t worried about max performance, realizes their max performance involves a play style that differs from the optimal direction, or who knows their spec/group/fight well enough to realize their team’s chances go up if they divert from that optimal setup, the choice is real, not an illusion.

48

It’s not just me.

49

To be fair illusion of choice is being used in a weird way here.

Cause even if you dropped the flavour and just gave us the raw numbers: “Do you want +10% damage or +15% damage?” somebody could come along and tell us they chose the 10% damage for whatever reason.

So it’s technically a choice, it’s just one with a mathematically superior answer. Once you add in the flavour, some people who aren’t pushing higher end content may opt for the lower numbers because they find a certain flavour to be more enjoyable.

I know I have a “holy DPS” priest, but I don’t do anything high end on it. Even doing T8 delves on it is a bit of a stretch.

but once you do go into high end content, the multiplayer nature of the game is gonna make most groups expect something more optimized which brings us back to cookie cutter builds.

Of course, “just give us what you know we’re gonna take” is what they did with talent rows and those weren’t any better.

50

I never said it was, in fact me mentioning how it’s overused basically indicates it’s not. But it’s your thread, so I was responding to you as a result. The “illusion of choice” requires certain assumptions that while they will apply for many members of the WoW community, do not hold true for everyone. And when they aren’t true, the talents are not an illusion of choice.

51

Did you just discover math today? Of course in a particular situation there is an optimal choice, but talent trees let people actually pick and choose what they want. Not every possible build is created equal nor should be, but being able take more passives or more actives as desired makes these far and away better than the MoP ones, and they actually have some measure of thought put into them unlike the originals with actually dead spells as deep talent choices.

52

I love the current talent trees.

If you feel like you have no choice, it must be because you play a particular competitive niche within the game, in which case you will never have a choice:

You will always be told how to gear, which enchants to use, which gems to socket, which talents to take, which mods to use, and those mods will tell you how to play. It will always be this way for high level raiders or pvpers or mythic+. If that’s what you enjoy, then that’s great, but don’t complain about systems or lack of choice.