First, I’d like to say:
I really enjoyed the the leveling and maxlevel campaign of TWW (so far), I like the storytelling and how the characters interact with each other. The voice acting, the many cutscenes, how authentically the characters are written and the many wholesome moments, when the character‘s stories pay off or someone is laid to rest… even the unexpected twists. I haven’t felt so immersed in the game since the days of Legion — and I’m one of those players who primarily play WoW for the story. So, big kudos for that, I’m looking forward to the coming chapters!
However, I am somewhat disappointed by the “Hero Talents.”
I’ve always thought that classes should be more customizable, to better reflect the tradition and culture of the race you’re playing (f.e. the individual Druid forms and Shaman totems – I think they’re great!), so I was excited when the „Hero Talents“ were announced. After trying them out for a bit, I now think that class skins (i.e., glyph-like customizations for spell colors or effects) would have been a better alternative.
To be more specific:
1. Immersive Archetypes
According to Blizzard, Hero Talents are supposed to represent some of Warcraft’s archetypes and add to the class fantasies. Unfortunately, imho, that only worked half-way.
An example:
As a Marksmanship Hunter, I can choose between “Sentinel” and “Dark Ranger.” This is obviously cool for Night Elf and Blood Elf Hunters because it expands their class fantasies, allowing them to feel like Sylvanas or the Night Elf Hunters from Warcraft 3. But for a Mechagnome, focusing on a mystical Elven owl is out of place, so are the shadowy abilities of a Dark Ranger for a Lightforged Draenei or Pandaren Hunter. These two archetypes are kind of race-specific and therefore don’t fit every race - from an immersion perspective.
2. New Class Experience(?)
For my Windwalker Monk, I really liked the thematic focus on (Conduit of) the Celestials; the new ability, as well as the increased presence of the Wild Gods in combat actually improved the gameplay experience for me (*because it was virtually tailor-made for Pandaren and fits their culture).
On the other hand, I was a bit disappointed with the Shado-Pan build. A random proc of an additional flurry of blows, mostly passive effects—and eventually, you don’t even notice the difference or even the existence of the Hero Talents at all, because very little happens (visually) and gameplay-wise.
That said, I haven’t tried all the classes/hero builds, but… there are some where the gameplay doesn’t really change. Sometimes, you don’t even get a new active ability, which is bitter, especially, because these new spells (active and passive) are usually the core of the new hero tree. Which brings me to my next question:
3. Why a Talent Tree for the Hero Talents?
If you’ve maxed out every point on every tier in the tree at max level anyway, then why do we need an entire talent tree? Just because you can choose between 1-2 abilities on a couple of branches?
This already irritated me in DF with the Dragonriding tree.
My Conclusion:
I do like the concept of Heroic Talents, but I believe that thematic class skin-sets, which would have allowed players to recolor/customize their abilities in a glyph-like manner or at the barber, would have been a better feature.
Someone playing a Hunter with a Dark Ranger skin could have recolored their Hunter skills in Sylvanas’ typical black spells, a Kul Tiran Elemental Shaman could have primarily set their abilities to water magic, while Tauren could have chosen a Sunfire based Paladin-color variant for their skills. Expanding the class fantasy is great, but many classes have a different cultural background in each race.
I understand that they need to integrate new content into the game mechanics—after all, the Hero talents were supposed to be THE feature of the expansion alongside the Delves—but I think, at a point where we players are actively farming transmogs and the visual aspect of the characters has become that important to us, simple visual class skins could have done the job.
To me, it feels a bit like the introduction of Allied Races back then; we now know that they were originally supposed to be new customization options for the main races, but it was decided to make them standalone races instead.
This worked well in some cases (Nightborne and Void Elves for example would have been hard to integrate otherwise), but for others, I find it a waste of customization combination possibilities. Today, we could have ONE Dwarf race with a ton of hairstyles, flaming beards, stone skin and accessories - the same goes for the Tauren tribes—instead, we now have two Tauren races and two (basically three) Dwarf races with standalone customization options, that would easily fit on the other Tauren and Dwarven races quite well.
I don’t want to disparage the dedication and time that went into the design of all these hero talent trees and I’m happy we’re finally moving in that direction at all. I’m also unsure if they are basically a “one-and-done”-feature or if there are plans to expand them with new archetypes in the future. But since they’re a part of the combat mechanics, that would need additional balancing again, which isn’t that easy, so - it’s another thing that wouldn’t be needed if it were “just” cosmetic class skins.
Do you agree with my opinion? What do you think about the hero talents?
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