For what it’s worth, this is my feedback (even if no one asked) on hero talents.
i think they ara waste of time and resources. The devs are trying hard to make something hybrid between gameplay and cosmetic but i think in the end this whole system is going to make no one happy. On one side, these talents don’t have much impact gameplay wise, they’re just a bunch of new passives and modifiers which the game doesn’t really need. On the other side, the visual aspect of these talents is abysmal. Reducing popular class fantasies like Dark Ranger to one new effect on a single spell is kinda lame.
We’re not even in alpha yet, so the devs have all the time to think carefully about this system and in case redesign it
Edit: i know these talents are not like the covenant system, but tying cosmetic choices to player power is never a good idea, especially in a game like wow
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If these were called Hybrid Talents and didn’t employ titles such as Dark Ranger they would be much better recieved.
For Shaman we get Stormbringer and Totemic which sound reasonable, this isn’t build expectations of ultra-coolness. But Dark Ranger implies so much coolness that it could never be delivered with a few talents impacting a few pre-existing spells. Were Dark Rangers to be added to the game they probably should be a new class or at the very least a new spec.
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No they are not, the developers said EXPLICITLY that those talents are PURELY gameplay, have nothing to do with cosmetics.
Again, nothing cosmetics about those. They are pure talents that you can switch at any time.
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No they do not have time. They already worked on those for many months if not YEARS.
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They already announced them in blizcon as a central part of the expansion.
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They offered preorder for the game with a release in 2024, which means that they cannot delay it for later without being liable to fines/returns.
So, I understand if you do not like the system, I would also like them to instead be class skins that change the visuals/cosmetics of your spec, but we did not get that offer.
Best case scenario in the long run they also introduce quests like green fire for locks that interact with the hero specs and we get something similar.
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Kinda agree. this is more of that same thing that makes players feel like the “champion” rather than just an adventurer. Stop forcing players to be “THE MOUNTAIN THANE!” etc…
Also, I don’t care how impactful the spells actually are as long as they feel and look cool to use!
But that simply isn’t true. The whole talent has a cosmetic skin applied to it. They did a whole video showing the difference between a warrior spell normally and a warrior hero talented version and everyone went “Ooo…”
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I agree and have the same concerns.
Dark ranger is probably the most prominent example of expectations vs what we got
They’ve posted them.Backtracking now is bad for business. They will make some adjustments but not changing the core.
And I’ll restate this: these talents are meant to stay forever.
Enjoy feinting you rogues 
I bet you call speccing into fire/arcane a cosmetic choice because it changes visuals of frostbolt.
Or to destro shadowbolt>incinerate
They mentioned that talents will be small atleast 10 times on blizzcon and have showed mountain king spells ON THE SAME PRESENTATION.
But still wowbrain isn’t capable of accumulating information beside titles and names
Colossus, scalecommander, trickster, diabloist, frostfire are the prominent examples of amazing hero talent trees:
- strong theme
- imactful gameplay
- strong synergy
- fun talents
Most of all - these are fun! Building towards something and having a “oh wow” moment.
And then we have Dark ranger 
a whole lot of big nothingness, boring and unimpactful.
Not a single person reacted to Dark ranger with “woow, can’t wait to try this out!!”
Good golly game already hit alpha? Or how do you determine what is fun and what isn’t? Maybe diabolist will have dull unrewarding playstyle, you don’t even know how classes will play in TWW, all you know is how to make up crap
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No? Nor did I say that hero talents were solely cosmetic.
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Visual changes are technically cosmetic but more for the sake of clarity and not for aesthetics.
Its just purposes, of course you need to have fireball on your fire mage for a class fantasy purposes but it isn’t intended to just look pretty.
I just think that cosmetics is wrong choice for a term when it comes to “your frostbolt becomes frostfire bolt upon choosing frostfire talent tree”
I don’t need to play to know that this talent tree will NOT feel fun:
- your main mechanic is resetting the cooldown of Aimed shot, and I’ve not one single time thought “Oh, I wish I had more aimed shot charges now”… the flow is perfect as it is - I use aimed shot, I have enough time to use 2 arcane shots and the occasional rapid fire or kill shot proc, and by that time aimed shot is back off CD and I can use it again
- you are not “building” towards something (f.e. stacking small damage buffs) for a big hit
- no interesting synergies or feedback loops as with some of the better trees
This is the summary of dark ranger: “you maintain a shadow dot which sometimes resets your aimed shot CD, and during Trueshot when it resets, you get 10% more damage for 6 seconds”
This is it! Does that sound fun to you?
Now take the good trees:
- scalecommander: when you do an empowered spell you channel Disintegrate into 3 targets. For each missing target up to 3 increased by 25%. Now that is fun! Everyone who read it on streams and podcasts and twitch said “OMG!!!” One guy said “I don’t even need to read the rest of the tree this is so good”
- colossus: you build damage stacks for the ultimate new ability which makes you immune to stuns and knockbacks while you channel it. This is cool and thematic. You get super cool shockwave effects, etc etc. Everything is golden
- trickster: you have like 5 damage modifiers that you can collect with the new “fazed” mechanic and you build towards a big spree or secret tech
- diabloist: 3 impactful big demons that change your playstyle. One of them can cast 2 chaos bolts at slightly reduced effectiveness. Imagine setting up so that you cast and the demon casts at the same time - that’s amazing.
This is what I call fun. Having cool moments. Building synergies. Having a “now I own” moment
So no mate, I don’t need alpha to tell something is bad when I see it.
I wont argue hunter gameplay because I don’t play hunter, anyway
Ritual of ruination is literally upgraded version of ritual of ruin that exists in destro talent tree and is actively used, they just transferred it to demo too.
Because guess what? Both destro and demo are about building up, so they expand on this fantasy, its not a brand new super fun game design why would they add this to a clearly mm hunter inspired tree? Last time I checked mm hunter isn’t about build up
Synergy with what? Dragonflight talent tree and abilities?
My point is that of course they are for gameplay but they also seem to have wanted them to add a thematic flair, thus the “hero” part but it hasn’t been brilliantly done. I doubt it will make much difference to the gameplay apart to those extreme min-maxers who will go the route of the best sim regardless of what is presented. Time will tell.
No, I mean synergies between the talent nodes of the hero tree itself. One complementing and augmenting the other. For example, frostfire and trickster have so many of these. One increases crit, another increases crit damage, so they stack well together. Or the frostfire one as I said is hugely synergistic. Everything works with everything else.
I don’t play warlock, but when I think of the fantasy, I get hyped up myself and am happy for the players who will get to enjoy it: my demon procs, then I fear somebody… then I start casting chaos bolt, my demon is also casting chaos bolt at the same time… both connect… OMG this is what I call fun. Same with scalecommander, or with frostfire mage when I’ve weaved in my frost and fire abilities and have stacked up the big frostfire bolt and when I cast it it will feel so satisfying.
With dark ranger - my “oh wow” moment is: “my 8 sec CD (with haste) Aimed shot which has 2 charges anyway, just reset”. And, I already have “Lock and Load” and have had it for years, which not only resets aimed shot, but makes it instant. So my “hero” ability is a bad version of a passive I already have 
I want fun talents. That’s why I want them to redo dark ranger and make it in line with the best, not the worst trees. Like they said “we’ll redesign oracle priest”.
Honorable mention - feral&resto is also quite poor, very similar to Dark Ranger. These 2 are the biggest outliers.
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Dark Ranger is extremely lacklustre and Wildstalker looks like it was made with 0 idea and just left at the bottom of the pile. Diabolist looks fantastic and a true mesh of both specs which is what I expected hero talents to be.
So far they feel like Covenants from SL: Your spec will have 1 pick that isnt complete garbage, otherwise the moment folks see you using the other one in pugs folks will suddenly need to go to lunch. By the end of the expansion the other 2 will be buffed up to be of some use.
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