…Is a red herring.
Talent trees aren’t what made classic classes more interesting - it was that you were not locked into a spec, regardless of the talent tree.
As a mage you could gain spells from all 3 schools. As a hunter you had melee and ranged skills. As a Druid you had a full toolkit regardless of form.
Yes, talents enhanced that, strengthens your choices, but the versatility of the play styles was in the class over the now locked in spec.
Its cool having all the schools spells, but none of them go on my bar/binded if I don’t have them talented, as they are gimped & non-optimal.
So not sure what the point is.
I’m inclined to disagree. Having access to all trees results in fire mages using frost bolt rather than fire bolt because they like the look better.
I agree with Heckscream. It’s cool seeing it all, but if 70% isn’t used for your spec and non optimal why take up the space?
The real reason/cause to the debate of the spec trees is that both are good options, blizzard cannot balance the talents properly to allow deviation from the best.
This is actually a BAD thing.
Warriors are (supposed to be) masters of melee combat. But lock us down and you can kite us to death because we have no range. We can Heroic Throw once in awhile, but it’s for such trivial damage as to not even mention.
But compare to Hunters, who should be the masters of range… and then be weak in melee. That was the entire point of the “dead zone.” And while Hunter melee isn’t their forte, they’re not nearly as bad as it as Warriors are at range. In fact, the melee-Hunter became a meme because it was almost sorta viable. It never truly was, but the fact you could even entertain the idea proves how OP their melee is compared to Warrior range.
Well, that’s a design flaw. It’s like saying Mages should be able to wear plate and tank. You can’t have one class that’s amazing at everything, and yet… there are the mouth-breathing Hunters.
Every time I play my Hunter alt I have to exert effort to NOT laugh at how easy the class is.
Ummm, that’s a big mistake on your part.
I keep my tanking stuff on bar as a war because I don’t need to be prot to tank.
I keep my alternate spells on casters because even untalented, some spells do more against certain monsters due to immunities and resists, or my spell school got locked out.
Can go down the list for every class, but you play how you want. Just don’t spout falsehood like they are gimped, because depending on the situation, they are still the optimal choice to use even untalented.
You are kinda hindering yourself with that more than you realize.
Just trying to open the conversation. Everything I’ve seen praises the old tress and the versatility they enable, but it seems to me that not locking in specs is really what allowed for that. The trees did offer some enhancement, but it was the class over spec skill advancement that made it interesting…
No, people liked talent trees because at each level from 10 upwards they were given a little reward to control the development of their character. This gave them a sense of control over their characters development, they were giving input, despite the fact they wouldn’t see tangible benefits until 5-10 levels or so of talent points.
And the fact some of them would have completely useless builds. But to them, they developed the character by making those choices, so they became more invested in them.
Logically the developers made the right choice in removing the talent trees, but in response the players lose investment and identity with the character because they reduce the amount of input the player has during the levelling process. Despite now three +2% damage points and two abilities being baked into a single talent tier. The illusion of choice is a powerful tool.
The main selling point of the current talent system is that it has some choice depending on the situation, but Blizzard could perfectly well create a talent tree system that has just as much choice, if not more, than the current talent system.
If anything, the talent tree system has WAY more potential, if designed properly.
the class pruning. the shoehorning of what a spec needs to be.
my retail guild runs 2 druids, boomy and resto. we have had instances where they have to go bear to just hold aggro and not die for the 8 sec til a brez is up. they literally only have growl.
my first classic class? the 2h enh shaman. you want the definition of fear? a ghost wolf running at you in WSG then pops into a tauren with sulfuras and a little ball of wind swirling around him.
they removed so much utility from all the classes and said “no you dual wield now” or “no you have 2h weapons only” and its like, thats not what i want. i want the choice.
the trees were cookie cutter for raiding, but that doesnt change the fact the classes had identity to them.
Sure. you weren’t “locked” into a spec. But many of the specs were so bad you were only playing one spec for anything worthwhile.
Thus why I’m saying if Blizzard is too scared of certain specs having abilities that will utterly break them, they can hide all the good stuff as Spec Only abilities.
The currently talent system can be changed to make it far far less boring than it is now for every stage of the game, not just end game.
I don’t think it’s about being scared. It’s about economy of design and trying to balance over a dozen classes with 120 point talent trees with no specs. If Blizzard were to ask me to take that job I’d tell them “lol no, you’re insane”
Blizzard said trying to balance talent trees when youre lvl 120 compared to 60 is much more difficult and results in less ‘useful’ talents overall… That’s why they trimmed it. I still prefer a talent tree, but I can image the balancing a nightmare.
both of these are true. 120 points of “this ability deals 5% more damage” and “you gain 10% more armor” and stuff, uneeded. those things are still in game, and instead are built directly onto the ability or passives for the spec.
some things wouldnt be horrible though, like single minded fury and 2h enh, rogues having a 2h option for combat. remember when druids were 3 specs? blizz split the melee into 2 so you could be either. i think adding a passive ability to classes forced to dual wield so they can use a 2h would be good.
Why not both what made legion artifacts weapons fun was the little bonuses and stats you get from your class weapon. Give us all the small passives and spells from the talent tree. But also give the spells from the talent row. There should be no reason why we shouldn’t have something to look for every ding and not every 15. What made essences bad for me was that everyone has the same essences everyone had lucid, blood, etc. Maybe there a few tank essences but theres no uniqueness that legion had imo.
PS if you wanna even take it diablo style let us put 5-10% into our actual stats, haste vers, etc.
Why do people keep saying this?
No they didn’t. It was cookie cutter then, it’s cookie cutter now.
I find it weird how people complain about the current talent trees having abilities being moved to them, yet old talent trees are the same way.
Frost Barrier, Ice Block etc.
its still option/situation/preference.
theres certainly better talents, but not all of them are inherently bad either.
classic tree gives me a sense of progression. each talent point is felt when I place it, which gives a feeling of dopamine each time I level. it adds to my enjoyment on the path to 60. it doesn’t matter that i’m following a cookie cutter build, it’s still fun to feel that progression over time. and I feel like exploring a different talent path, I have the freedom to do so, even if it’s not the best.
on the flip side, retail builds are designed to get you up and running a lot faster. you’re given a lot of your toolkit early, which helps you get a feel for your class and rotation before reaching max level. whenever I make a new character with my close bud, we level strictly through dungeons. the enjoyment comes from being competitive on the meters and pushing our characters to the absolute limit. when he tanks, he tries to pull everything he possibly can while I heal him. it’s fun and challenging, but clearly different from how we play classic.
biggest flaw to retail system is the drought from level 80ish to 120. those levels are boring and need to be redesigned.
Woah man. TMI for a gaming forum.