if i did not have faeline stomp, life wouldnt be that different to me. and if i hadnt had the boost in speed from legendary, my rotation would simply be a bit different.
borrowed powers arent needed. never was. it was always an extra to make a class/spec during a specific expansion feel unique (thats the way i see it).
obviously, some key spells that are tied to my build are coming from the deep talent rows, if they will remove more spells and tie them to the tree, it will feel bad
there was pretty much unanimous feedback from Mage Tower that classes feel bad
before classes gained borrowed power, they had more abilities… those were prunned to make space for borrowed power… after their removal in Mage Tower, the classes didn’t feel complete
most spells are in the talent tree
i havent seen the monk yet, but if its true for the monk aswell, i will fly to america and slap ion in the face.
*and i dont even have a visa.
they confirmed that in the interviews that it’s their goal… I’d not assume that they were lying about that
I usually assume they’re lying when it goes directly against something that they did in past and it’s something that community really wants - like when they said the point of the class tree isn’t to increase damage or healing but rather to provide utility and class toolkit - and that did in fact turn out to be a lie
if i cant get my current build and 3 rolls, the ww monk will become useless.
and that does not feel good.
You got an invite to the ALPHA that didn’t even start?
That’s amazing!
How about linking the talents you have for DF and the ones live?
Or is that too hard for you?
It can, IF your class feels fun and complete.
Now whether they will feel like that remains to be seen. Nobody knows that yet.
It’s not worse if it’s more fun to play. Fun is the key.
You’ve seen 2 very early examples.
I’m going to refrain from any further comment on this particular issue until I can see (and better yet: try out) the BM hunter talent tree. Because that’s the one I care about.
No, you don’t HAVE to. That’s a choice.
If you let other people decide that for you; that’s weak. Stop doing that.
Just pick what you like.
Do YOU?
Initially I disliked that I had to choose between bash and roar, and most likely won’t have acces to hibernate, but after playing around with the tree, it grew on me. I now have access to combinations that were not possible before such as moonfire as cat + sabertooth, having access again to rejuv and swiftmend while also having thick hide. Multiple combinations of legendaries that will make us do and more dot damage and more bite damage at the same time. Pretty hyped for it for PvP.
I do wish we would see some new talents though.
they should remove all these passives and bake it into 1 affinity talent. 3 point talents are so f boring and stupid. Who want to spend 1/4 or more of your points in talents like that? What a great talent tree we have 
I can’t find where they are say that we would get fresh, exciting new playstyles for classes.
However they have talk about new and exciting combinations that were previously not possible.
And gaining access to tools that were previously locked to specialization to give us more hybridisation.
And we do see more hybridisation.
blood and unholy get access to permafrost which is a nice passive defensive, not much but it adds up over a fight.
frost and blood get a what seems to be a new ability themed for unholy that makes your ghouls attack have a chance to slow the enemy and reduce the damage they do to you by 15%. Considering that raise ghoul has a 2min cooldown and the ghoul lasts for 1 min that is pretty good.
Frost and unholy get Will of the necropolis and some new blood themed ability that drains health from nearby enemies when you fall below 30% HP.
I think we will notice it more in shaman and paladin for example, druids dont really show it very well since they have always been the hybrid class and had access to more hybridisation.
Yeah, it’s gonna feel better some specs. Since right now your single target is on one row so you can only pick one, same with your AoE.
So on a single target fight the aoe row if close in dps pretty much comes down to which is less disruptive to your rotation.
It is not fun having to use AoE on single-target just because it is a strong talent so it’s extra dps.
And it’s not just about damaging abilities either, tools like an AoE snare is not needed for single-target so it’s better spent in mobility or survival.
The talent tree is new, and having two talent trees that separate class utility and abilities and spec utility and abilities is a fresh take on talent trees.
I still havent seen where they said we would get new and fresh abilities.
Some do want that yes, if someone doesn’t want to do that then fine, they can stay in a middle of the road build that they enjoy.
And it’s not just about performance to me, it’s how it feels to play and neither meat cleaver, dragon roar or bladestorm is fun on ST for me, would even prefer Onslaught over those.
And yeah some of the talents needs to be moved around, it is just a mock-up after all so there is a few mistakes. Feral has been pointed out several times, mean while the other druid specs seem to be fine. Blood also needs some changes, it’s clearly a mistake when you can pick improved gorefiends grasp without picking gorefiend and you need to put two points into it to teach purgatory that is not related to gorefiends grasp anyway.
It’s fine to be disappointed if you had higher expectations for the trees.
I personally find the change overall positive and a solid foundation for the future.
And watching content creators going through the talents and reading different forums the majority seems happy and excited about the new talent system.
I do agree with this.
I especially don’t want to see any azerite stuff return. It doesn’t fit in with class fantasy.
So I’d rather see some new spec specific talents that really go for that extra fantasy aspect.
The class specifc azerite powers had some cool affects though. Like the frost dk Frostwhelp’s aid is a good example.
And for fury warriors, Cold steel hot blood felt good aswell.
And the Dire command legendary for hunters are from the azerite power Dire Consequences so there are some good fun azerite powers that can be used and fit the class fantasy. 
I agree it would be nice to see all new abilities, sadly evoker is most likely taking up all the art and animation teams resources.
Really? I wonder if we are watching the same media, then?
Because just like the expansion reveal, as far as I see, the response has been an extremely lukewarm one with a mix of hope and despair.
That is, what content creators are left. And I do not even care about what other people think, and neither should you when making your opinion.
I mean, people told me in Legion too that the template system was going to be great and it would make pvp extremely popular too and that I was wrong and just stuck in the past- When I said it will kill pvp. Which, it consequently did. Legion s1 was the least played season to date, and subsequently the template system didn’t make it through more than one expansion before being removed.
The thing is, I didn’t have any positive expectations in the first place. When Blizzard introduces something new to the playerbase since Legion and keeps saying “its new, its gonna be great” and “just trust us”, I know its going to be crap.
Compare their presentation of the talent trees to their profession update, see the difference. The guy who presented 100% knew what the hell he was talking about, he argued why they made certain things and didn’t fumble with his words, and went on to even say that its not perfect yet, and they will be ironing out the kinks.
Its a day and night difference between them.
I’m not disappointed in the developers because I expected better - I didn’t. How can you expect anything good from the samw developers who thought corruption and azerite armor were good ideas?
But I do hold them accoubtable and I do think blizzard as a multibillion business can give us good service and products, not bottom of the barrel scraps.
They should be offering us new and exciting talents and abilities.
They should be allowing us to customize our classes and specs playstyle (genuinely, not via false choices).
And they sure as hell should be held accountable for bad work. Blizzard polish used to mean something back in the day.
Well then what is the point with even making a new talent tree in the first place? If everything’s gonna stay the exact same and nothing changes, why waste time and resources on it?
I have been saying this from the start. The paradox of the argument that people give for these new trees is that “you lose nothing, its the same as before but more”, but then in the next sentence when you point out it is in fact nothing new, you say “they didnt promise that though”.
So, riddle me this: Why waste time and effort on these, if its so same and it wont offer people new playstyle options? Because what the hell is the point of talent trees in that case, then?
Sure, they have talked the talk, as have you, but can you walk the walk?
Because as I and everybody else has seen in this thread, everybody seems to have magically just picked more or less the exact same paths as the others, with the variation only happening at the end.
Sure, you can have your double covenant ability and any of the other combinations. But, then again, before you could have 7 free combinations before, and legendary effect choice and covenant ability choice. Thats is without even mentioning conduits etc, but I digress.
And as we have shown, after you have spent all your false choice talent points, you are left with give or take a whopping 12± talent choices, depending on your spec.
So you literally gain ±0 things. Even at best case scenario thats 3 or so extra choices which would be poggers if you also had 3x3 = 9 actual cool choices to choose from- But. Guess what. You don’t.
You don’t have because due to the branched nature of the tree, unless you have that node right next to your current ones, you are going to spend points to get to that cool stuff, again wasting points. And many of those cool choices are literally barred by talents that “increase the performance of x ability by y amount”.
Did I also mention almost none of them are new?
So, I will ask again: what is the benefit of this system over them just giving us 3x new talent rows? Which would actually be fair, since we didn’t get any in Legion, BFA or SL.
I will admit that the class talent tree is infinitely better designed than the spec talent tree is. You would only need to prune out the passive “increases x by y” talents out of it, false choices like hibernation, control undead etc, too powerful passives and ability boosts, and you could potentially begin building it toward hybridization, as you claim.
Problem is, it also has some very obvious false paths in it. There is never (0/0) going to be a situation where any feral druid would ever want to waste points on the moonkin path for one. 0. Or indeed in the Dk one with the UH path toward the bottom- I would even go so far as to say that that path is by far the weakest of the lot.
Also, you might be gaining more “hybridisation”, whatever that is, but some of that is going to be situational, again. I simply do not see a situation for example where would I feel more rewarded that i can access 1 more talent now, but at the cost I lose something I already have had without any issues for the past 10 years.
Yeah, I might have more opportunities now, but if that opportunity involves me making a new build for every encounter to minmax, then I’d not want that choice at all.
E.g. imagine an encounter that has 0 magical damage, it is all physical. Therefore all the talents in the class talent tree revolvokg around AMZ and AMS are completely pointless and I can just ignore them- And get some other utility in its place.
The question I propose to you, how am I more rewarded / hybrid in this system when I have to temporarily give out a part of my otherwise baseline utility away to gain something else in its place (only to swap them back again an encounter later)?
How is it better than, say, just giving them to me freely as a cool new talent that adds to my current kit, and doesn’t replace it?
The result is exactly the same in both of them, however in this new system you will just spend time swapping between builds and talents all the time. That is literally the only difference.
And i do not think that warrants it being a thing.
You could of course ask me that how is that any different from current talents? Yeah, it isn’t. Which is why I ask again, why make this change in the first place and waste time and resources on it?
I’m not sure I follow?
Your single target options should obviously be pitted against other single target dps talents- Your choice as a player is spent around choosing how do youbwant to deal ST. That’s how its supposed to work. That’s how you design talents.
The Aoe row isn’t supposed to help with your single target- It is, as the name suggests, supposed to work in AoE.
Those are not an issue of talent rows, those sre bad ability design problems.
In your new example, hypothetically, you will just conpletely forgo all of your aoe damage for ST damage- Only to change ut back again when you need it.
So i ask again: How is this preferable to just having ST and AoE built into your class and simply having them available when you need them? Because the effect is exactly the same, the only difference is that you will again just be swapping talents for talents sake.
Why do you think the number one thing they said about the new talent trees was that “you can easily swap them wherever you are”? Because they absolutely realized that this would be a massive issue and wanted to avoid it like a plague. But, like you, they haven’t provided a reason as to how is this better to simply having those things baseline and then just using them when you need to?
This would leave talents to the job they are supposed to do: Customize HOW your class plays, not what specific content it is tailored toward rn.
I have already answered these points above regarding the goalposting / whataboutism, so I won’t comment on that.
But you are right. They are, word on word, a fresh take on talent trees. But what is in those talent trees is not new or fresh.
It is the same old stuff wrapped in different paper. Exactly as I have said.
Covenant statistics disagree wih you. People will just copy builds as they do now - The only difference is that they will be doing it even more now, for whatever reason. Or, actually, I know the reason.
They are introducing these talent trees as a scam, claiming they are giving us something fresh and innovative while it is actually a smokescreen to distract people from seeing that there is absolutely nothing fresh or new coming, and that the choices you make are exactly the same ones you make now, just more frequent.
Fair enough. That is indeed a power I liked. 
I was more thinking of those azerite spell type abilities; those really felt off to me, as a hunter.
So you’ve been dealing with those kinds of disappointments for about 6 years now?
My dude… Why are you still here when you ‘know’ it’s going to be crap?
Really. Why?
Some people are naturally more gifted in speaking to others, or doing presentations.
I think it was a mistake to just take all these different devs out of their comfort zone and ‘make’ them do these presentations (which weren’t even real presentations, but rather fake roundtables) just so they could show off how diverse a workforce they have. They should’ve just shot some B-roll footage of all these diverse people doing their job and have the presentation be done by professionals whilst showing some of that B-roll. That’s what I think about that reveal video. Most of it felt awkward and cringy.
Shouldawouldcoulda.
That’s just your opinion and you’re entitled to it. But they are not obligated to give you what you want.
I think they ARE doing that. We just have a different gaming style. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
They are. The drop in subscribers is them being held accountable for the bad work they did in BfA and then Shadowlands. What more do you want?
This comment didn’t age well.
8, actually. Ever since Ion Hazzikostas and his team took over, really.
Good question! And I have an equally great answer: Roleplay!
It’s one of those things players and our community make on our own. Content untainted and unaffected by the devs- And since it’s created by us, it’s actually good, unlike whatever Blizzard provides.
Occasionally I also play Pvp with my friends. It’s not as good as it used to be, but it could also be worse. Shadowlands, for all its faults, is infinitely better designed pvp wise than both BFA and Legion were. That’s not to say that its flawless or even nearly as good as WoD or MoP, but it is what it is.
Some people are also naturally more gifted and better at their work- Like the old devs.
I mean, I get the new devs. I do. It is a bit like a shoemaker without shoes- And also a winner’s curse. You step into the shoes of people who made the best MMORPG in the world from 2004 till 2016- Some of which most certainly were creeps and all sorts of bad people too, as the recent fiasco has shown.
But, they still did your job better than you ever have or seemingly will ever be able to. Of course that grows bitterness- And you can definitely see it in the few leaked developer responses that people have gotten their hands on. E.g. The developer who wanted people banned from a theorycrafting forum that had been there for 8+ years, because they all told him corruption was a terrible mechanic.
It’s a hard pill to swallow. You’re not as good, and during your time WoW has not only shrank to record low, but also been overcome by another MMORPG. Now, you can say that that happens to all games eventually, but it still happened under your watch. You let that happen.
That’s what I think it is.
Probably true.
I do not personally care what they choose to identify as or how diverse they are. I just want them to make good games, and the awful truth is that their job pales before the old work Blizzard’s done.
And the proof is right there: Azerite armor is a bad copy of Tier sets. Which, by the way, they brought back because all of their own systems failed. lol.
Essences were an attempted replacement for glyphs. It even used the exact same UI- And that also failed. I hope we’ll see glyphs return.
And then we have this PVP gearing- Which, after 8 years of Blizzard banging their head on the wall and telling people they are wrong and instead their vision is the right one- is, once more, moving back to how it was in WoD.
Hell, even the new talent trees are an example from the past- Born from Borrowed power failing. Also their venture, by the way.
Yes, it is indeed my opinion- However, you’re the one opposing it, so how about you instead provide an argument against it?
Yes, Blizzard is not required to do what I want them to do. But I do wonder, how pathetically uninspired and passionless must you be not to be able to develop new skills, talentss and abilities for a new expansion?
And before you say, they are working on a new class, Blizzard was able to add new ablities and talents to ALL classes in both Wotlk and MoP too, when we got Monk and DK. Not an excuse.
Hell, I don’t even know if you know this, but there was ONE Warlock developer who really, really wanted warlocks to be able to tank in MoP. Just one dev. And he, alone, made a glyph and designed Demo locks so that they actually could pseudo tank. It was never viable, but people loved it and it remains to this date one of the most requested back features among Warlocks.
Just like Gladiator stance for Warriors, etc. Hell, Chris Kaleiki single handedly tried to save Shadow priests in Shadowlands, and he nearly succeeded at it too. For the first two seasons at least, despite Shadow Having -awful- legendaries, the class was good.
One developer with a vision, a passion and a plan > 10 uninspired drones who do things that are easy, rather than things that are hard.
They don’t need to do anything, but they should be. Because what is there to look forward to in the classes in a new expansion, if not new playstyles, abilities and talents?
Well, I don’t care what you think they are doing because you’ve not brought forth any arguments to counter the points I and others have brought.
For all I could know, you could enjoy your BM hunter having just one ability to press on a mobile phone screen, but I wouldn’t care about that.
Ion Hazzikostas moved back to lead encounter + raid design, where he shines.
Steve Danuser, Madeleine Roux and Christie Golden removed from the business.
The entire game development team went through by Microsoft. Replace / remove / retrain anybody who:
If that means by the way about 90% of the devs, then good riddance I say.
but i like them? (:
I do.
Beats AP grind, tracking down essenses, conduits or memories and going and getting them RNG permitting, spending tons of gold on crafting legendaries.
A talent tree can be built while you level so at Max Level you’ll have the choice of a few big bitters to choose from. This gives a sense of progression for leveling characters and allows alts to be off the blocks as soon as they ding max.
I don’t see how people are saying this is too complicated and a massive prune at the same time.
I’m looking forward to playing with these trees and not just on this character.
Of course it beats AP, conduits, soulbinds, etc. borrowed power, but it doesn’t beat the current simple and effective talent system.
Interrupt should not be locked behind a talent. Not for any class.