Cataclysm Talent System - Completely Changed

[Kalliope]

Everything stays alive better at lower levels.....*Laughs* But true enough, Kalli.

Mages don't.

Although they're going to have pets too, hmmmm.....

At any rate, we're just speculating into the dark right now. Things really could go either way.

[Gala]

im glad its changing. one of the biggest reasons i cant level alts is because i know what spec i want them to be from level 10 on. But the problem is they really dont FEEL like that spec until much later. This is a huge improvement on that current situation.

I also think smaller trees are fantastic idea. Just digging through my pally tree and there are so many talents that are just "increase critical strike chance, blah blah blah". those talents have always felt like an unnecessary point sink, and honestly, i cant say that getting rid of these talents is "dumbing it down". Its pruning the tree and grafting new branches. I know the pally tree is not the only one with so many lame superfluous talents. Its about time they were consolidated and more fun talents were put into there.

[Vephriel]

im glad its changing. one of the biggest reasons i cant level alts is because i know what spec i want them to be from level 10 on. But the problem is they really dont FEEL like that spec until much later. This is a huge improvement on that current situation.

I also think smaller trees are fantastic idea. Just digging through my pally tree and there are so many talents that are just "increase critical strike chance, blah blah blah". those talents have always felt like an unnecessary point sink, and honestly, i cant say that getting rid of these talents is "dumbing it down". Its pruning the tree and grafting new branches. I know the pally tree is not the only one with so many lame superfluous talents. Its about time they were consolidated and more fun talents were put into there.

^ QFT

[Saturo]

im glad its changing. one of the biggest reasons i cant level alts is because i know what spec i want them to be from level 10 on. But the problem is they really dont FEEL like that spec until much later. This is a huge improvement on that current situation.

I also think smaller trees are fantastic idea. Just digging through my pally tree and there are so many talents that are just "increase critical strike chance, blah blah blah". those talents have always felt like an unnecessary point sink, and honestly, i cant say that getting rid of these talents is "dumbing it down". Its pruning the tree and grafting new branches. I know the pally tree is not the only one with so many lame superfluous talents. Its about time they were consolidated and more fun talents were put into there.

^ QFT :D

THose talents might not have been the fun ones, but they were important nonetheless. They defined the specs. If, say, my specs important shot, doesn't have increased crit, or lowered CD, or whatever, and I can just use another shot instead because of it's higher base damage, what's the point of having it?

[Sarayana]

im glad its changing. one of the biggest reasons i cant level alts is because i know what spec i want them to be from level 10 on. But the problem is they really dont FEEL like that spec until much later. This is a huge improvement on that current situation.

I also think smaller trees are fantastic idea. Just digging through my pally tree and there are so many talents that are just "increase critical strike chance, blah blah blah". those talents have always felt like an unnecessary point sink, and honestly, i cant say that getting rid of these talents is "dumbing it down". Its pruning the tree and grafting new branches. I know the pally tree is not the only one with so many lame superfluous talents. Its about time they were consolidated and more fun talents were put into there.

^ QFT

THose talents might not have been the fun ones, but they were important nonetheless. They defined the specs. If, say, my specs important shot, doesn't have increased crit, or lowered CD, or whatever, and I can just use another shot instead because of it's higher base damage, what's the point of having it?

Well they're going to roll that stuff into the signature shot so that it'll remain the signature shot for that tree. I'm assuming it'll be part of the whole passive "you've chosen MM as your talent tree, you win X Y and Z!!!!" thing. One thing that's certain is that the boosts from those point-dump talents won't be omitted from the game. We just have to wait and see how they're put in.

I have to say I agree with ya Galadrael. The more I think about it, the more I like this change. I can't wait to see how it plays out! WTB CATA NAO KTHX.

[Gala]

To be perfectly frank, i do not want passive crit point sinks. Mastery is going to give me that crit stuff i apparently need so badly. So it makes sense to prune the trees. Going through my current spec i can count 16 points that i would much rather have elsewhere, but have to have them to be raid effective. Granted, the things i would rather have them in do not exist yet, hence why i look forward to seeing what changes they have for trees. The fact that the talents are IMPORTANT and NOT FUN are a huge problem to me.

[Vephriel]

Yes, as I understand it a lot of those passive sort of buffs and abilities are being rolled into other things to smooth the whole tree out and just make it so you don't have to waste talent points on small stuff like that.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

So what you are saying is that you don't want to have to take talent's that make you better at what you do because they are boring? Really? Let me ask you this. What kind of talents do you want to replace those? Because they can't all be activated talents, which means they'll either be various forms of chance on hit, more passive buffs, or additional side effects. It's change just for the sake of change, it's shuffling the game around to try to reattract people. Is it a fresh coat of paint? Maybe, but honestly, what was wrong with the OLD coat?

[Saturo]

Okay, I'm giving up on this. They're dumbing the game down, by taking away anything that takes a little brain.
"This talent is fun, I'll take it!"
"But it sucks! Go for increased crit instead, you're near the cap."
"But that's not fun!"
"Do the math, and get better at the game! Use your skills!"

No offense directed at any of you. I don't even know why I commented on this, after all, I'm quitting.

[Gala]

Its not change for the sake of change. All of those talent point sinks that have passive, non-proc buffs are going into mastery. Its a waste of talent points. It makes those passive buffs dull, because they are essentially already there. I certainly have no problem being better at what I do. That is not the issue. Its the fact that combined with mastery, those talents are a double down that are useless, dull, and repetitive.

[Vephriel]

I understand not everyone likes these proposed changes, but I don't see why there has to be so much negativity. If you're quitting the game that's fine, but you don't have to sour the mood when other people may be potentially excited.

/shrug

[Saturo]

I understand not everyone likes these proposed changes, but I don't see why there has to be so much negativity. If you're quitting the game that's fine, but you don't have to sour the mood when other people may be potentially excited.

/shrug

That's why I'm dropping out of this. I don't want to anger you people, I like you.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

Saturo is a little tired and grumpy, don't mind her. She is just getting frustrated because no one is listening to anyone else. So don't be to harsh on her.

And it IS change for the sake of change. Nothing was wrong with the OLD system. It worked fine, and if they'd just pruned out the addmittedly useless talents and baked a few of the more redundant one's into abilities directly, then there would have been no need lop of the 41 and 51 point levels. Was a change in order? Yes. But not of THIS magnititude.

Also, this is a pretty heavy degree of dumbing down going on. For one, there are maybe 38 to 41 applicable talent point allocations in a tree under this new system. That means you've got a lee-way of 7 to 10 points, as opposed to the old leeway of up to 20 points. That's a lot less margin for era for the new and for the stupid player. Not only that but you are FORCED to at least go 31 deep in a tree. They are FORCING you to spec into what are now probably all going to be important talents. That means you will almost LITERALLY be unable to make a stupid build.

As I have stated repeatedly, I think it might be a good thing that we are starting out with important class tools ((The lack of BW worries me, because seriously, what else does BM have??)) but I do not like dumbing the game down in such a large degree. It never hurt anyone to have to pick up five points in a passive to get to a better ability.

[Vephriel]

I completely respect your view on it, everyone is naturally entitled to their own opinions. I just think that using such an aggressively negative tone dampens things. It sort of puts a grey cloud over everything, you know? Not everyone sees it as dumbing the game down.

[Gala]

There are many precedents where nothing was wrong, but there was still benefit to be had from improvement. And what is so wrong with helping people not make a stupid build? Perhaps we should all be a bit less elitist and glad they are making the talent trees a bit easier for newer people.

Now for a visual example of Mastery and its effect on talent trees.



The Melee Crit I receive from mastery is approximately the Melee Crit i receive from passive non-proc buffs.

[Palladiamorsdeus]

First, Galdriel, that's still under the 51 point talent system, and as I said previously I support removing redundant talents. What I do NOT support is knocking down the talent tree's back to Vanilla levels, and then making us only gain a talent point ever other level or so. And level 70 to get our 31 point talent? As some one else pointed out in another thread, that involves ten more levels and AN EXPANSION. That particular part has nothing to do with making the game easier, and everything to do with bad design.

Second, I am going to bow out of this. No one is going to agree with anyone else on this subject, so I suggest we all just leave it.

[Gala]

i am aware its the 51 talent tree. My point was to remind people of the blue post and how mastery is going to work with the talent trees.

The original passive Mastery bonuses players were to receive according to how they spent points in each tree are being replaced by the automatic passive bonuses earned when a tree specialization is chosen. These passives are flat percentages and we no longer intend for them to scale with the number of talent points spent. The Mastery bonus that was unique to each tree will now be derived from the Mastery stat, found on high-level items, and Mastery will be a passive skill learned from class trainers around level 75. In most cases, the Mastery stats will be the same as the tree-unique bonuses we announced earlier this year. These stats can be improved by stacking Mastery Rating found on high-level items.

Also, dont forget. We will be getting a skill of some sort when we are not getting a talent point.

All in all, it is waaaaay too early to be shooting this down.

[Kalliope]

I'm with Gala; I hate speccing for the "practical" talents, since everyone's going to take them ANYWAY. Basically, they're not optional if you're min-maxing, so that's not fun either.

I wasn't very excited looking at a lot of the changes in the marks tree because there WERE a lot more crit-buffing talents that cost a lot of talent points, which felt like a waste of talent points, even though there was no way around speccing into those things anyway.

But yeah, we haven't seen the new trees; we really don't know what it's going to be like. Personally, I will be VERY HAPPY if I don't have to respec my toons in order to PvP at full capacity. Paying 50g to move a handful of points is not fun either.

[Sarayana]

All in all, it is waaaaay too early to be shooting this down.

I just wanted to emphasise this point. It's not even in beta yet. A lot of what I'm hearing from the two perspectives is the exact same thing - the talent trees need pruning, somehow. Blizz is trying to do that, and they've this idea in mind. It still has to go through extensive testing.

Let's argue again when we actually know more.

[Kalliope]

Let's argue again when we actually know more.

I'm sure that won't be a problem!

But seriously, the number of hypotheticals being argued here is astronomical. Blizzard could always say "you know what? this system isn't working like we'd hoped," and scrap it all. Kinda like the path of the titans stuff.