The fact that you call the new talent tree a pseudo system in contrast to the old system is simply insane.
The new talent tree is simple to understand (which every good system should be), but it offers more viable options and more frequent periods to change your build.
That’s just a fact.
Because its not exciting getting a 1% more crit chance as a level reward
It all depends on what your goals in the game are; In Path of Exile per example it is excruciatingly painful to clear a map if you made some meme build as it will only prolong the time it takes and feels awkward to play with. Whereas the best builds blaze through the map with 50-90% fewer clicks required.
I would assume the reasoning for DK’s having only one option as Tank currently is to prevent literally 100% of the tanks being DK.
You can still make different builds with the current talent-system and you can use either 1H or 2H in Shadowlands. Doubt they will bring back the tanking option though.
Great. That’s an entirely different game tho.
It wasn’t an issue then.
I reckon the reason is that today, it’s impossible to do specifically because we no longer have those ‘boring’ filler talents. These days, every spec has a pre-determined role, and are given passive effects accordingly. If you were to give each DK spec these passive effects (or similar) so they could tank, then they would either have 3 tanking specs, or would have DPS-levels of damage and tank-levels of survivability at the same time.
Of course you could always give DKs 2 of each spec, one for tanking, one for DPS. But at that point, DKs would become a class with 6 different specs. And that’s before we even consider adding hybrid specs!
Yeah, but the levels of customizability you can do today are still nowhere near the levels of customizability we had back then.
You have to go back.
The lack of talent trees is why Blizz feels the need to put our customization in weird places like weapons (Legion), shoulders, helms and chest pieces (BFA) and now in some weird system that isn’t even connected to our character for Shadowlands. All of this could’ve been avoided if there were talent trees.
Even Blizz realizes they’re gimped by their own system. It lasted for 2 expansions - MoP and WoD - and it was good. But it’s time to get something with more longevity.
Removing borrowed power is incompatible with the current talent tree system.
My goodness, the insightful depth of old talent trees when giving 5 points would increase 1 2 3 4 e 5% crit chance.
Behold the marvelous peak performance of what human brains could conceive back in the glory days!
Account age? Dont let it fool you too much, i’m on my 2nd account and first one dated back to original classic wow, which i played from the year it was released.
Honestly wish they just did away with the talent trees and instead gave us an option between two thematic load outs per spec.
Too often there are abilities which are mostly useless, or notably inferior depending on game mode/encounter.
Other then that i wouldn’t really mind to see the reintroduction of the Legion talent tree due to how you would always get all the talents, with some extra points depending on gear drops.
Mmh, x to doubt.
I mean even if that person did not play on another account back in the days, is not like you can’t try how the game was in a specific exp on private servers, or even Classic WoW.
You won’t get a 100% exact picture but you will have an idea.
I loved the old talent system. However I do think it would be a mistake to bring it back into the current version of the game.
In vanilla, tbc and wrath. Aswell as cata to some degree, You didn’t have the same type of playstyles as you have now, nor the same combat system for that matter.
Right now everything is pretty much percentage based, there are no hit ratings no resistances etc.
badic melee/ranged attacks were a much bigger part of the game in the past aswell.
Now your basic attack is not as important. Getting a basic melee 2h crit as a warrior in pvp could change the entire fight with someone, whilst now a basic melee crit does barely any damage and functions more as activators for other abillities.
If you start adding everything up you get two very differe t systems that rely on different ways of play, stats even.
Sure this is my 2nd account first one was pre alpha… 
Removing borrowed power is compatible with current talent tree system, like in Mop and Wod.
I’d much prefer the old talent trees as well.
The borrowed power systems Blizzard keeps coming up with, and tying you to a max level leveling progression, getting into a class will NOT give you a clear picture as to how the class is when you finally finish your leveling progression. It just muddies the waters.
For example in BfA there was never a talent or a passive that you COULD SEE in your spellbook or talent trees, or if you inspect the set bonuses from the raid through the dungeon journal, that specifically procs an RNG Avenging Wrath for you. Sorry, that was tied to the Essences.
Or similarly, while you could inspect that there is an Azerite Trait that increases Avenging Wrath duration by 5 seconds and has a small AoE component on using Holy Power spells, you never knew that that 5 seconds wasn’t stacking, or when you get it in the first place, as you have to level your necklace AND raid at the same time.
It just muddies the waters and ties people to a leveling experience at the maximum level, which is pretty much always the stupidest design you can come up with, especially in World of Warcraft. Some games do it good like Diablo, PoE, etc, but not WoW. And it can’t be done good in WoW.
Compared to the old system, you could easily check all the talents, all the spells, all the glyphs and all the set bonuses before you leveled up, and when you did, you could access all of them, with the set bonuses being tied into the natural gear progression, making it feel smooth and fun.
When you get max level, you are complete. There isn’t any more leveling to do, there isn’t some insane new passive modifier that you have to grind, no: what you see is what you get.
A lot of people argue for cookie cutter stuff and that 5/5 crit stuff was boring etc.
First of all, cookie cutter isn’t an issue at all? Not to mention that even now we have cookie cutter stuff, except it’s more agressive as the game is tying you to a covenant choice. There will be great builds, there will be bad ones - the old one just happened to give you more flexibility in the regard that you don’t have to regrind an artifact weapon, or a new azerite piece to use 3x Soaring Shield - no, that is something you can choose to talent into.
It also allowed for some goofball builds where you could spec into 2 or more specs at once, again, some powerful, some complete memes, which is once again, fine.
As for the 5/5 crit or 5/5 5% increased damage dealt… I really think Cataclysm improved in this aspect with it’s talents, but I’d honestly argue having the 5 points choice for 5 crit is a lot better as you can directly choose how you want your stat distribution to be on your gear.
For example in Cata, I never went for Critical Strike as Ret, as you could pick up multiple talents that increased your crit chance in a much more nuanced way. You could pick up 12% crit for 2 points on TV and Judgment in the Holy tree, 15% extra crit on Crusader Strike and Word of Glory for 3 points, and 6% extra crit on Hammer of Wrath in the Ret tree + 60sec reduced wings CD for 3 points. You could also choose to double down on your Crit and gear for it, which is something a lot of people did for PvP.
The point I’m really trying to get to is that the old tree gives you a much clearer vision of what your class / spec actually is instead of having some external complicated borrowed power leveling system that muddies the waters.
You had to, all those talents you mentioned, there was no choice, literally every single retri paladin had them.
I remember having an argument on the MoP beta forum about retri pala talents, the main path is the same for everyone, even inspected several characters, the only choice is between meaningless stuff, like Eye for an Eye or Guardian’s Favor.
As for your argument that you can’t see every single bonus ahead of time, yeah this was the case in BFA regarding essences, SL starts with all systems and even for Azerite traits you have the dungeon journal to check them.
Although i’m not sure what the point of this is, even if you were able to see everything it didn’t give you a clear picture for the rest of the expansion, many abilities were buffed or nerfed or changed enough to affect how well your class played.
Nope. It worked in MoP and WoD because the talent tree system was relatively new. It did well for 2 expansions and that was its legit lifespan. Due to how these talents work, Blizz can’t just infinitely add more rows to it.
However, a talent tree system that’s based on talent points as an entirely different beast. Blizz doesn’t even need to expand the talent tree every expansion, just the fact that you’ll get talent points from the new levels will be enough to make your character feel like you’re progressing in the new expansion. Every now and then they’ll need to add new talents, of course, but there’s more ways they can expand the talent trees. For example, instead of adding more rows to the bottom, they can add new specs, and because you’ll be able to mix and match specs, that new spec will also serve as an expansion to all other specs of the class. It will matter to you, even if you don’t intend to play it.
The current talent system is actual garbage. And Blizz knows it and I wouldn’t be surprised if 10.0 removes it.
You could very much go down for reduced stun CD and going for the 9% melee haste in Holy to have more consistent damage, it was a build that worked super well too for PvP.
Again I don’t think having cookie cutter stuff is bad at all -
I’m more advocating for clarity of choice - such as being able to inspect what your class can truly do ahead of time, but I’m also advocating for systems where you don’t have to grind extra levels when you get to max level. For example with the battle pass, you have to wait WEEKS before you can use both of your potency conduits, regardless if you have grinded them out or not.
Sure buffs and nerfs happen, but again, if the class power progression stops at max level, it’s much less punishing to the player when a rebalance occurs. Take for example what happened to many Azerite traits in BfA. People grinded it out, they grinded out the neck level, few days later, it’s nerfed, and another one is better now, so have fun regrinding.
Having all your class power tied into the class is less punishing, as if a change occurs and some other talent becomes better, you can just switch without any problems, or you might not even have to change at all, numbers may just have been nerfed by a slight bit because of an insane overperformance that wasn’t intended.
Muddying the waters is just spitting in the soup of the players.
That is something that can be changed by giving those talents a more defined use / changing numbers / relocating them in the tree etc., but that is a completely different talent format compared to the old tree-style.
The 9% melee haste is also auto-pick, while the stun is actually 5 points because you have to waste 3 on first row. This from a PVE standpoint, if you are trying to maximize damage.
I know what you mean, and for example the SL covenants satisfy your criteria, you can see everything they have to offer before making your choice, HOWEVER just like in the past, blizzard can step in and make changes that mess with your initial calculation.
Yeah i somewhat agree with this, they could make it so your while soulbind tree is opened in the first week. However this seems like a side issue, it doesn’t have anything to do with talents or even borrowed power for that matter.
It doesn’t actually as you can’t see the full Soulbind trees before you do anything, and even when you get to choose your covenant, you can only see the “signature” soulbind of each one. Nobody can check the fact that Venthyr won’t have the second Potency unlocked for a LOT longer compared to the other Covenants.
Think you may have skipped over this.
How is it a side issue when you have Potency conduits that literally gives you 40% mastery for 6 seconds ON IT’S WEAKEST RANK? (talking about Virtuous Command conduit for Retri here) Paired with a conduit that gives you a 30% chance on it’s weakest rank to deal 60% of your Templar’s Verdict damage? (Templar’s Vindication)
It’s every bit of issue as it’s another talent system you have to go through when you are already at the maximum possible power level. Same issue with the Artifact weapon: there are bonuses that are simply super strong, BUT when you are finished with your weapon, that is when your class is finished. Instead of your class being finished at max level. Same for Azerite and Essences.
It’s just a feelsbad moment. You have to grind MONTHS just to finish your class, and since the class is the tool you approach the game with, it has to feel fun and good. In BfA, the difference between a freshly dinged 120 ret and an absolutely pimped out ret is the following (not counting stats from gear, and only counting the BiS options from across PvP and PvE):
And I’m pretty sure I left some out.
While catchup systems were added, you still had to grind a lot for all of these things (especially grinding the required Neck level), things that should be unlocked as soon as you hit the max level, with maybe a couple exceptions as we did have tier sets back in the day - but getting those wasn’t a huge problem as they usually weren’t that much of an insane modifier compared to what we have today. (Edit: and also, it was easy to pick them up… if you wanted your PvP set bonus, just go win a couple BGs, and if you wanted your PvE set bonus, you could buy 2/5 starting from Wrath and raid the rest on multiple difficulties)
When you hit max level, you already had all your glyphs, all your talents, all that you needed to do was to get gear. That is how the endgame progression should be done in an MMORPG.
Another argument is that it just saves resources. We had 3 completely new Borrowed Power systems in 3 expansions that each worked completely different, whereas if you just have the talent trees, it’s easier to swap some around, rebalance, add and remove, iterate etc, and you don’t have to build the endgame around achieving these class power levels, you’re free to do what you want.
You don’t have to design an artifact power grind, you don’t have to come up with arbitrary throttling mechanisms, you don’t have to come up with a new system that fixes the previous system, you don’t have to tie players to these insane grinds, and you can let people have alts.
Sorry if it’s a long read, but I’m a long man and if I get carried away I just can’t stop.