That, I can agree with. For instance, there are no reasonable Arms Warriors who don’t take Colossus Smash - why even have it as a talent, then? In general, a lot of talents closer to the center of the spec tree are mandatory, though not all of them. The real big choices start in the bottom third of the tree, too.
I could see the talent system being somewhat reduced in size if some passives were returned back to the abilities themselves, and some mandatory abilities being baked into the spec again (like Garrote applying silence by default, or Arcane not having to pick up Touch of the Magi as a talent). But otherwise I like that I do get a choice sometimes (if something is suboptimal by 2%, but it reduces the amount of clunk I have to interact with, I’ll gladly lose 2% damage).
4 Likes
No!
I like when my enhc shaman has a gazillion buttons light up at the same time and I have to decide when to press!
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In contrast, I have checked out Rshaman’s listup of spells.
Oh my goodness - How do they manage to find enough hotbars for all of them?!
We don’t. We put a totem bar somewhere which we click. Especially for poison totem and tremor. It has become impossible to hotkey.
I would love to see talents replaced by loadouts. Easier to play alts and easier for Blizzard to balance.
Im scarse to look at it now
Here is the unlawfully horrible talent trees
And my rshaman from game, I made it work by either baking many spells without global cd into same macros or having help/harm macros. Nevertheless, in general I could not play this spec without mmo mouse though and I have keybinds both on keyboard + mouse with nomod, mod:shift, mod:alt, mod:ctrl, binded with macros so you can imagine I have quite many binds as total from keyboard and mouse.
Its terrible game designing and I cant imagine any new player to do even half of what I have done to my specs to make them more tolerable to operate. New players dont know what to do with macros or addons. The game is just designed to be extremely clunky to start as someone new.
3 Likes
Eeeeeehhhh……i had my resto shaman needs filled with wrath Classic 
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I’d like fewer abilities.
I feel like there are too many instances where there are two abilities that do practically the same, and the only reason you have two is to fill your rotation up with more buttons and spread your damage or healing out across more abilities.
And I don’t like that.
I also wish there were more multi-purpose abilities. The Evoker ability Living Flame is a good example. It heals allies and it damages enemies, depending on who you use it on.
By comparison a Priest has Flash Heal and Smite to do the same. Just merge them. That’s the modern solution.
And then I don’t see the point of class fantasy over spec fantasy. I remember when Blizzard focused entirely on spec fantasy and a Frost Mage only had Frost abilities. Some players had some criticism about that and felt that the fantasy wasn’t to be a Frost Mage but to be a Mage, and Blizzard agreed and subsequently gave Frost Mages a bunch of Fire and Arcane abilities that honestly don’t really compliment the design – which is still the spec focus of playing a Frost Mage.
In that sense I feel like Blizzard just threw some general class abilities around to pander to the players complaining, but with the adverse result that everyone still plays a spec-focused character which is littered with a number of fairly trivial class abilities just so Blizzard can say that you’re first and foremost your Class. And I think that’s dumb. Get back to spec fantasy and design focus and get rid of Fire abilities if you’re a Frost Mage.
But I don’t think Blizzard will do any of the above. Their modus operandi these days seems to be to pick a few specs and give them some design overhauls that are pretty random in terms of design direction, and then just leave it at that. And then they’ll do another overhaul a while later of another class or spec. Like with the overhauls to Paladins and Druids and now Hunter. The only design goal seems to be to clean up the shortcomings of the existing design, or try out something new entirely for the heck of it. And it’s not consistent and it’s not approached across all classes, so I’d say future expansions is a mixed bag where some classes and specs see a lot of development focus and others don’t. Some go into a new expansion feeling fresh and exciting, and others go in feeling half-broken or same as before.
4 Likes
The main difference between MOP and current talent system:
- In MOP system, every talent point is a choice. It is literally a choice from 3 options (of passive or active abilities)
In current system, a lot of points are not a choice but required. e.g. the first row of class tree or spec tree. One has to take them to start the tree. These points don’t offer any choice (node of 2/3 options) and must be taken.
Why? because they are essential abilities that Blizzard taken from old spell book then put into new talent tree. They are critical spells for a spec. So Blizzard put them on the first rows so everyone has to take them. This is not meaningful design.
- In MOP system, every talent is independent from each other. There is no pathing requirement. One literally has 3x3x3x3x3x3x3=2187 different combinations, in theory.
Current system bring back the pathing. e.g. One has to take a/b/c points if he wants to get d, no matter if he likes or not. It also bring back boring talents like +5/10% etc, just so there are enough points on the tree for players to put…
- The problem of MOP system is that, on some specs, the 3 options of each row may be imbalanced. But that can be easily solved with number tweaks, ability buffs/nerfs, rearrangement of ability rows, etc. And the system itself is awesome: less points, but each point is a choice, important and meaningful
Meanwhile, current tree shape talent system will face the same problem as vanilla/BC/LK trees: pathing problem, boring +5/10% talents, few points with choices, too many points that eventually make the tree bloated. With higher max level each expansion, current tree will fail exactly the same way as vanilla trees over time.
We can’t add more points or new hero talent each expansion. And we have tried this tree shape talent before and failed. It is just insanity: repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Yeah I feel like Blizzard learned some design lessons over the years that spurred them into overhauling the talent trees into the new talent system for Mists of Pandaria. I certainly recall Ghostcrawler standing on stage and explaining the sound reasoning for this new talent system.
And honestly the only explanation Blizzard have provided for going back to the old talent trees is nostalgia. Some players thought fondly of the good ol’ days with the old talent trees, so let’s have those again!
That also felt like a lot of the advertisement for Dragonflight. That it was a return to the good old days, stripped of all the new foreign designs, and back to the core gameplay and designs everyone knew and loved.
But it’s crap. I mean, Blizzard themselves came to that realization – hence why they made the new talent system for Mists of Pandaria. And no amount of nostalgia changes the fact that the old talent trees are still crap, because the inherent problems with the talent trees don’t go away just because they get a coat of new paint.
3 Likes
I think another reason why classic tree worked back then in Vanila/BC/LK is because the game was simple back then, less levels, less abilities, and no borrowed powers.
Once when we entered MOP, we already had more levels and more spells. A same tree shape talents with level 90 will be too much and messy. It is reasonable that they switch to MOP style talent.
It stayed until SL, because Blizzard introduced borrowed power in Legion/BFA/SL which functions like added talent/spells.
When Blizzard decided to remove borrowed powers in DF, they chose to put some of the iconic abilities into classic talent trees, instead of MOP trees or spellbooks.
The current system is even more complicated than vanilla/BC/LK talent. 3 trees (class/spec/hero) interact with each other. It is way harder for devs to balance or even for players to understand.
I am afraid the result will be either keeping current tree and doing level/talent squish each expansion, or go back to simple ones like MOP. It is repeating what we have done and tried before.
Doesn’t this mean that Rshaman is in a good place design-wise, since most of its talents find use and are somewhat balanced, and it isn’t “locked” to only a couple of valid/viable tree builds?
Sorry, that made no sense for me with what have been said. Rsham is also not in a good place design or balance wise.
Maybe I don’t understand the graphic.
Every talent in the graphic has a number that shows how many people in the top 50 use that talent. We see that nearly every talent is picked even at the absolute most demanding of contents, since that’s where the top 50 play. This means that the top players do not agree on what the “best” talents are; it means that even in content where one must be absolute optimal there is room for personal choice. In other words it means that there isn’t a cookie-cutter talent tree loadout, which in turn means that the talent tree allows for players to make their own personal build without impacting their performance significantly. Therefore it’s somewhat balanced.
What’s the situation with other class/specs?
1 Like
The topic were related design flaws and button bloat which creates globals, this is rsham representation 2400 shuffle/blitz wise. Its because rsham has design with alot abilities and globals it presses to do nothing, while design like hpalas did 4mil holy shock with one global and no need to cast anything and continued to rotate few short cd and throw another 4mil holy shock. Same apply for disc which hands out 3mil shields with few globals. Rsham cant keep up with the other specs, gameplay on both rdruid and rsham feel like you are constantly 10 globals behind others and amount to do nothing.
Mw, disc, hpala are all op cause they dont take many buttons to press and the ones they press are strong cds or do alot healing or something else useful on single press of that ability. Meanwhile rsham and rdruid design is like ramp up with 3-5 globals and then press some button which is suppose to be the big moment but in reality at best it were just equal to something which the other healers did with single global. So the gameplay feel like they are just pressing alot of globals to do nothing and then they get behind and things die.
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I were demonstrating the awkwardity of the talent trees. The topic were about abundance of basic abilities put in talent trees.
I pasted pic of rsham talent trees as demonstration how busy the new talent trees look. There is little no reason to create this busy designs and put basic abilities from old spellbook into there. Also ditching talents and switching stuff around in few second time windows between arena rounds done either manually or through dozen presets feels clunky for design in practise.
For example we dont need tremor versus classes that dont have fear, now you end up ditching it to get something else on its place and doing the same for bunch of other things related the opponents you are facing, now picture doing this over and over and over… All in few second time windows, and forget about communicating any strategy when your time goes with talent window open. There were no sense to put basic abilities into talent system. On my opinion its bad design.
Im fine with the talent trees aslong they put almost half from it back into spellbook as core abilities and keep the trees as choise between how you wish the build to be like do you want stronger aoe dmg or stronger single target dmg or which ability you wish to buff most and things like this. Imo they need to make it less busy and put alot core spells back into spellbook and it would be fine as some middle ground between the old and new.
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It is indeed insane.
It is not only overwhelming for new players to get into the game, but also horrible for old players.
I can’t image someone who plays multiple alts can understand all the talent trees on each spec. It is just too much.
I’d honestly rather have my abilities (and possible ‘upgrades’) being gained solely through leveling up my class, rather than being a possible choice I have to select from. That is, after a proper pruning down is happening.
And the ‘talents’ would be something to change up how you approach situations. Do you prefer a stronger solo heal, or want a bit more flexibility on group damage?
