Will we ever see a return of talent trees?

[Annastasi-proudmoore]

Will we ever see a return of talent trees?

2 answers

1. no
2. I hope not

[Sunzsu-alexstrasza]

Absolutely not.

Getting +1/+2/+3% to spell power was so much fun.

About as much fun as the multiple useless mandatory talents you had to take to get to the good talents.

[Wariya-stormrage (Wariya)]

Yeah for me that was best feature of legion that resulted in the op Mage tower appearances. I played legion a loooot due to it

[Zordiak-darkspear]

@Annastasi-proudmoore

I hope not

I’ve never really understood this mentality. If someone enjoys a complex system (and if you don’t think it’s complex I’m sorry but you are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect) what is it that makes you want other people not to have it? Especially if you can just look up “optimal” builds online and spec without thinking about it.

[Fobnop-turalyon (Fobnop)]

I doubt it but I wish it would happen. That’s one of the things I like a lot better about classic. I can build my toons my way and not be locked into how blizz wants it.

[Rahkeetahp-aerie-peak]

@Zordiak-darkspear

Talent trees offer players a system to master. They’re great for experimenting with different builds and trying things out to suit your own play style. And people are going to make a comment about cookie cutter builds and while it’s true that there are talents that are “must haves” there’s a lot of talents that are situational and there are even entire builds that are situational.
… How about we just get more character customization in the form of talent trees?

Based on my short time in classic, I have to agree, Id like to see it more like it was than what we have now.
Some things I didnt like about classic, but other than the mount/riding/flight thing most of it was tolerable if it means better character creation.

[Annastasi-proudmoore]

@Zordiak-darkspear

if you don’t think it’s complex I’m sorry but you are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Zordiak-darkspear

@Nzhuv-area-52

someone is going to skip 5/5 shield block to put an extra 2 points into threat?

Funny you should say that because here is what 1 point in Improved Shield Block reads.

Allows your Shield Block ability to block an additional attack and increases the duration by 0.5 seconds.

Here’s what 3 points looks like

Allows your Shield Block ability to block an additional attack and increases the duration by 1.5 seconds.

You may look at that and say “I want my shield block maxed out” but I look at that and say “That first point has a ton of value and the next 2 give a lot less value”. This is where the fun is. What you say is a “unique” and “improper” build I say is simply a build that has more value than what you’re used to seeing.

1/3 imp shield block is meta it’s not unique at all.

Not sure people would enjoy not having very basic skills until higher levels though.

Warriors don’t even get their primary ability until level 40 and that’s only if they put every talent point in 1 tree. Just for a functional damage ability.

Base toolkit stuff removed and put back into talents like shadow priests shadow form, vampiric touch, mind flay, and silence.

[Zordiak-darkspear]

@Argorwal-ysera

1/3 imp shield block is meta it’s not unique at all

I didn’t say it was unique

[Turàndotte-stormrage]

@Revlol-misha

But seriously, the talents right now, are much more impactful and customizable for different viable builds then the old tree ever was.

Exactly this. On the surface it looks like “OMG I have all these points I can spend!!” but in actuality, you need to get TalentXYZ and to get TalentXYZ, you have to spend 1/3 of the points you have in a completely uncreative way, taking a lot of things you don’t give a rat’s fuzzy behind about (I remember Wand Specialization) just digging down to where it is…

This person gets it:

@Asana-moon-guard

Another issue with old trees is half the talents were filler stat bonuses to take up space. Not really that inspiring or interesting. The talent system we have now is basically that pointless filler cut out and kept the handful of actually impactful talents.

Exactly. I much more prefer just picking the talents I want and be done. Why does anyone want to click 30 damn buttons to pick the only three talents they actually need?

@Zordiak-darkspear

And people are going to make a comment about cookie cutter builds and while it’s true

You don’t need to add to this. That was true. PERIOD. There were some people who goofed around with stupid crap which was highly inefficient and not really viable. They were the people who do basically nothing in the game. If you wanted to do anything remotely serious, you were lucky if you had even two cookie cutter builds from which to pick.

I was there. I know how it worked. I would seriously love people to stop pretending like there were all these amazing special snowflake builds to play with… THERE WEREN’T. They weren’t viable. Sure you were free to pick a special snowflake build and have no one want you in the group.

@Nzhuv-area-52

I know players were afraid of being booted for being the wrong covenant, but I haven’t heard or seen it happen yet.

You don’t see it happen only because they simply don’t get picked in the first place. They sit there wondering why it takes hours to get into a group. Same difference.

[Annastasi-proudmoore]

@Turàndotte-stormrage

You don’t need to add to this. That was true. PERIOD. There were some people who goofed around with stupid crap which was highly inefficient and not really viable. They were the people who do basically nothing in the game.

this.

oh boy, you have a super awesome tank/dps hybrid meme spec for killing boars.

But take that spec into actual content where you face any amount of difficulty and you’d be laughed right out of the raid.

[Zordiak-darkspear]

@Turàndotte-stormrage

You don’t need to add to this. That was true. PERIOD.

People are ALWAYS going to follow guides. With your logic we should just remove every single character customization system from the entire game because people will “just optimize it and make cookie cutter builds”

How about you create a sufficiently complex system such that many MANY builds are viable.

[Annastasi-proudmoore]

@Zordiak-darkspear

How about you create a sufficiently complex system such that many MANY builds are viable.

Why are you asking forum posters to create something the devs themselves have never created?

people with funky hybrid specs back in classic vanilla weren’t anything other than the people we laughed at for playing suboptimally. Gonna miss out on your best talents so you can put 1/3 of your points into another tree? lol.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Zordiak-darkspear

@Turàndotte-stormrage

You don’t need to add to this. That was true. PERIOD.

People are ALWAYS going to follow guides. With your logic we should just remove every single character customization system from the entire game because people will “just optimize it and make cookie cutter builds”

How about you create a sufficiently complex system such that many MANY builds are viable.

My hybrid arms/fury warriors that didn’t get mortal strike or blood thirst was so unique and flavorful.

It basically auto attacked because the actual damage ability is locked as a 31 point talent.

[Zordiak-darkspear]

@Annastasi-proudmoore

Why are you asking forum posters to create something the devs themselves have never created?

LOL what are you talking about? At what point did I say “Hey you guys. Yeah you Annastasi. Go ahead and come up with a talent system for me. I’ll wait.” lmao I never said that.

@Annastasi-proudmoore

people with funky hybrid specs back in classic vanilla weren’t anything other than the people we laughed at for playing suboptimally. Gonna miss out on your best talents so you can put 1/3 of your points into another tree? lol.

This is completely false. Are there really bad hybrid builds? Sure, but look at some BC specs. You’re going to see some real interesting ones especially for warriors in pvp.

[Fenny-wyrmrest-accord]

Gosh, I hope not. The talent trees were horrible. What we have is much better, I just wish the talents were a little more balanced as to get rid of the “meta” nonsense.

[Mbogo-zuljin]

@Zordiak-darkspear

You can always go look up a decent build online and you’re going to perform well. But if you really want to push the limits of what your class can do talent trees are great for doing that.

That implies that no one who created the “decent build online” tried to “push the limits of the class.”

Which obv isn’t true. The best builds get figured out, then most people use them.

[Zordiak-darkspear]

There is no best build. There are builds for what you’re trying to accomplish.

[Samtaya-wyrmrest-accord]

@Zordiak-darkspear

That’s how fury prot was born. Someone was having a hard time tanking and they said to themselves “Hmm…I wonder if I actually need all this mitigation. Maybe I can sacrifice some of it for more threat.” and they experimented. That’s the kind of system that’s interesting.

This is a thing because deep prot in classic was/is numerically terrible, not because somebody wanted to fiddle around with things.

[Thelordherne-cenarius]

I too look forward to a BM SV hybrid… keep the talent table we have now, just allow cross speccing.