The Hero talents are a good idea, but the execution is a failure

Community General Discussion
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Forcing each spec to only have two of three possible options, and then the balancing of each of these spec-hero pairings, it’s just sadly been a bad execution across the board.

Here’s a good example. I often main my hunter, and I enjoy questing and running around in the world as BM, just for the balance of it. I really enjoy the visuals of sentinel, and my second favorite visual is dark ranger. Pack leader is not visually appealing to me at all. So of course, what’s the best hero option for BM? Pack Leader. And Sentinel isn’t even a choice.

On top of this, the most ‘survivable’ option is Dark Ranger, due to being able to have cross benefit for SOTF and Exhilaration, effectively allowing three heals. But again, pack leader is what is by far the stronger spec. And ironically, survival can’t even take DR.

It’s fun to offer a variety of visual enhancements, and it’s fun to have some variety of character progression and growth in terms of playstyle. What isn’t fun? Being shoehorned into two choices, and only one of these being truly viable. Instead of saying “wow, my character now looks fun to play and I enjoy this new playstyle” it’s “this is lame, but I’m the opposite of competitive if I don’t take it”.

I’m sure there are folks that will be like “just spec for the meta and stop crying about it” because a lot of folks truly don’t care how their character plays or looks or feels, but the entire point of hero talent flavor is “flavor”.

On my rogue, I love having Trickster, among other things I get a nice 60 minute TOTT buff I can use in delves. Kind of trivializes things. But again, then you are stuck. On my DK, I love fighting while mounted, and bringing along all of the horsebros.

Only one hero spec. For each class, the choice options are just so MEH. And yes, it’s an RPG, I know, choices need to be made, but when you have a class for example, that’s one DPS, one tank, one heal, then choices aren’t really there for you. Hop on your monk, if you want to play DPS, then Master of Harmony simply isn’t a choice. Brew? Forget celestials. Or if you are a Blood Dk… no horsebros for you.

This feels like such a common Blizzard thing to do. Create this really interesting idea, and then massively fork it up in the execution. On my hunter, let me pick the visual that fits how I want to play. Then make the hero talents that affect actual gameplay be distinct from that. On my DK, let me have horsebros. etc.

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The thing that always gets forgotten or ignored when people trot this line out is that an MMORPG fundamentally has a different relationship with player choice than a single player or even small group multiplayer RPG does, as the sheer number of people involved in an MMO dramatically increases the social pressure toward optimization.

Suboptimal choices for the sake of personal preference or character building in a single player game is solely impactful on that player’s experience, and how much unnecessarily harder that makes the game affects no one but them.

In an MMO, your suboptimal choices are holding back not only you, but also anyone you play with. This creates immense social pressure to conform to optimal character building, even when the actual performance difference is relatively minor. Nevermind when the spec barely functions if deviating too far off the meta because most of the “options” in your talent tree are actually just flat-out required.

This is the same conflict between the desire to build a personalized identity for your character and the social/mechanical pressure to optimize all power selections that we saw with Shadowlands Covenants, where Blizzard has created a system that fuses major mechanical power with aesthetic and identity choices. Hero specs have fared better than Covenants did because they are tied much more closely to pre-established aspects of our character identities, generally have much smaller performance gaps, and aren’t making the boneheaded attempt to force us to eternally commit to only one selection, but the same root issue with tying character identity to power selection is still present.

Marksmanship hunters are of course the ultimate example of this, with both their hero options very heavily themed on two specific races, but it applies to varying extents to plenty of others. This character, for example, should thematically be a Stormbringer based on the identity I’ve consistently tried to build for her over all the years I’ve been playing her, but I find the gameplay of Stormbringer absolutely atrocious.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have transmog: a system whose entire function is to separate mechanical power from character identity by allowing us to customize our equipment appearances independently of the mechanical power attached to our gear, and which has been one of the game’s most successful features for it. Practically every player in the game uses the transmog system, despite it being from a purely mechanical perspective a complete waste of resources that could otherwise be going toward purchasing more mechanical power via consumables.

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For once, /laughs in DH.

got access to all my hero talents as either Havoc or Vegeance!

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Thing is, how do you make something like Holy Priest work with Voidweaver?

I wouldn’t even want a cosmetic alternative, but even if they went that route there’s still the issue with the passives it has. Holy has no synergy with SW: D even though hero talent does, but that’s because Disc and Shadow specs support the spell.

Hero Talents are good in some areas, horrible in others.

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If you are running around in the open world and questing, it literally does not matter your hero talents

Close you eyes and pick blindly and that build will be more than fine

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This in incorrect.

It was specifically stated that the point of hero talents is to add more talents while having a smaller influence on current builds and not making the trees too bad

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I don’t really pay much attention to my hero talents.

I only have 2 choice. Spellslinger or Frostfire. I don’t like the “elemental” play style so Spellslinger it is.

Then I pretty much just pick which ever talent that makes them stop showing up as red.

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Sure, it might not matter for some things, but it does matter for others. And constantly swapping around your visuals and spells just kind of sucks. And I’ve done exactly that before, and I’ve even just sucked it up with less optimal builds in delves and LFR and stuff. But I feel like I’m then wasting my time being “slower” or contributing less.

I shouldn’t have to feel that way to play with the “theme” I want to play. It’s bad enough that the talent specs are maimed in some cases. Another great example, Unholy can’t DW but Frost can? Why can’t sub use swords as an option instead of daggers? Sure, “rogues”, but it’s become a literal gray area unless you are sin spec. Why can’t my surv hunter dual wield, why can’t a lot of things.

A comment above put it perfectly, transmog lets you literally be whatever you want, but actual gaming restrictions that are at this point outdated prevent that final 15% over the line aspect of look and feel.

Actually…

These new talent points will focus on offering the ability to explore a deeper class fantasy, provide additional flexibility to suit your play style, and offer progression and agency while not adding excessive complexities.

This is from:

So while yes, offering progression and agency while not adding complexity, they are also “exploring a deeper class fantasy”.

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I really don’t vibe with frostfire myself, then again I don’t think I like the options for Mages in general.

Kinda doing a crap job so far.

Problem is the environment will get ruined by spreadsheet andies because to them it’s less about fantasy appeal and more about “How can I perform optimal in muh endgame?”.

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Right. Change 14 of those talents around to gain 0.3% more deeps.

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Yes and it does that

It’s primary purpose is power progression.

Is secondary purpose is that it allows that.

So it does what it said it would do.

You said the entire point was flavor. Which is not true. Entire point means no other point.

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Why are you worried about 0.3% dps?

You can’t belittle the min maxing of builds, then complain that you feel behind because of others min maxing

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To whit: if this was intended to just be flavor we would be using glyphs from inscription to add extra visual effects and cues to our abilities.

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I didn’t say I felt behind due to min/maxing. I said that the difference can be extreme between two builds, to the point that it’s obvious. That’s a fair bit different. I know you like to paint with a broad brush, but try better.

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You said their entire point was flavor.

Don’t get on to me about painting with a broad brush, unless it’s to teach me lessons for not doing it as well as you.

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How do you expect a holy priest to have access to void Weaver?

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Then pick whichever you want, as you’re not doing content at a difficulty where it matters which hero spec you pick.

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Wow needs skill trees like Path of Exile. There is basically no choice in Wow builds. Its terribly boring. No theory crafting. drops mic

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They seem kinda pointless if you can get them all as far as making it a tree instead of just giving me X hero talent each level for 10 levels. Why make it a tree at all at that rate.
and why not just toss that stuff into our spec tree or something instead of being separate? So they can more easily remove them next expansion?

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LOL, GL with seeing that come to WoW, people freaked out over the current tree we have now when DF happened.

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