We had a dog – a good one, maybe a golden retriever. He was not perfect, he would bark sometimes at night. This is the actual, soon-to-be gone talent trees. However, after the Cataclysm, our dog will die. That’s OK, Blizzard said. We’ll replace him with a pony. This was the 41-pts talent trees. It is supposed to trim the fat and leave only fun talents, to allow better choice, to allow players to spend points on “fun things” rather than “+1% to damage” talents. I thought it was a pretty good idea. However, the current beta trees make me think that instead of a pony, they’re replacing our pet with a hamster. Or maybe a goldfish.
My main, and only 80-level character, is a Shaman. I started out as Restoration, then dual-specced Elemental. After a while, I spent too many time in Elemental and lost my “healing mojo”. However, my first love is still Resto. But seeing the cataclysmic changes, I think I'll stick with Elemental.
I can’t help and look at the talent tree and see only things we lost. Gone is Tidal Force, and so is Improved Reincarnation. Cleansing Totem is gone, too. We’re losing a few other talents, without much consequence. What do we gain? Pre-level 81, nothing except Greater Healing Wave which will obviously used almost only with Nature Swiftness. Some talents are gutted as they are.
It took me about 30 seconds to fill my talent tree. I know what spec I’ll use if I decide to go on with Resto. No fun talent there, really. I’ll cast a few shocks and lightning bolts here and there, thanks to the two only interesting talents, but that’s only if things don’t go crazy, and they often do.
OK, so the talents are not finished. Still, I think they fixed something that was not broken. It seems Blizzard forgot three things that make people stick with the game: uniqueness, carrot on a stick and min-maxing.
Uniqueness: Unless you’re a raider who thinks (maybe rightly) that a given spec, down to the very last point, is the only way to go, one of the thing that interests players in MMORPGs is the uniqueness of their character. WOW does not have many character customization possibilities compared to more recent games, or even some console games. However, talent points were one of these things that set some characters apart. I’m proud to say I use Improved Reincarnation, which is useful when you string multiple battlegrounds or tougher heroics and expect to die. Plus, my last few points in the current tree would not drastically improve my healing, so I like my choice…
Carrot on a stick: This is the staple of every good MMO: what makes you stay. In WOW, it’s the next ability or, when there is none, the next talent point. Blizzard said they wanted to give 1 talent point every two levels, and one ability for the levels where we wouldn’t get talent points. Unless I’m mistaken, this will either still leave a lot of levels empty, thus removing the carrot on a stick for some levels and making those level plain and unexciting, or make it so some abilities are learned really later in the game. I don’t think there is enough abilities to make sure each level has its own ability or talent – there will inevitably be empty levels. As uninteresting as spending one point to gain 1% sound like, I think it’s even less interesting to have nothing to go with a level.
Min-Maxing: The raider I spoke about in Uniqueness is here. He tries every spec, every talent to make sure he has the absolute best. OF course, experience and simple reading skills allow him to eliminate outright some talents, but he seeks to gain the most of his few last points. With much less points and much less talents, the possibilities are lesser. Plus, some guilds already refuse entry to players who spent a few of their 71 points in a “wrong” way. With talents a more precious resource, this attitude will only go up. Cookie-cutter specs will be the only way to enter raiding guilds, even more so than today.
Now let me make an analogy: I used to play Magic: The Gathering. For those who don’t know (really?), it’s a collectible card games. There exists literally thousands of different cards. Some are really good, some are truly, truly terrible. When asked why there was bad cards in the game, one developer answered: So that players can learn which cards are bad, and which are good, and progress. So I’m asking this to Blizzard: Give us bad talents!
By “bad”, I mean talents that are not necessarily “optimal”. There will still be only a few viable raiding specs, no matter what you do there will always be people who will calculate and test specs to determine the very best in a given role. But by adding flavorful talents, players will be able to actually learn to play, and it will allow them to customize, as far from all players are interested in having the “absolute” best. Even if we end up with a lot of players sharing the same spec in the raiding scene, the illusion of choice is sometimes better than realizing you have no choice at all. And that’s where the latest trees are headed.
I thought that with less talent points, there’d be more choices. As it stands, we have less choice and the carrot on the proverbial stick is getting thinner. Then, what was the purpose of this change? I have no clue, really. I’m guessing leveling a new Shaman will be more fun because of the level 10 bonus: Restoration gain Earthshield, which is absolutely awesome, and in my opinion, this is an awesome change. But my existing shaman will be nerfed.
I thought that, since each talent points would have had an impact on our character, it’d be possible to grant each healer talents that would allow them to dispel more effects than what is currently implemented – you’d have to choose between adding a little “oomph” to this ability and the possibility to add another dispel to your repertoire. However, the way things stand now, it is impossible, as it would be an evident choice – there isn’t enough variety and truly useful talents to actually make this a choice.
And finally, my last concern about the change: what next? What after Cataclysm? new levels, new talent points, right? Taking useless talents isn’t going to be any fun, and adding, say, 3 talent points to the trees feels... boring. Useless.
I truly hope Blizzard can pull a rabbit out of its hat so our hamster is actually a pony (does that make sense?). In fact, concerns for the talent tress aside, I’m truly looking forward for the expansion…
Goofy specs
The new implementation of talents means there cannot be anymore “goofy” specs. Such specs, for instance Shadow/Holy, Frost/Fire or any other weird and unoptimal combinations, might not be valuable in raids. In fact, they’re probably very much undesirable. However, they should exist for many reasons:
Fun. Some players find those specs fun. Simple as that.
Variety. With 11,5 million players, its important to have a distinctive feel for our character. Such specs might be the way to go.
Role-play. What if a player on an RP realm plays a schizophrenic Holy-Shadow priest? The implementation means such a character might not exist anymore.
In favor of goofy specs! /silly and /cheer
What can Blizzard do?
What can Blizzard do to make sure every spec is kept interesting while leveling and at levels 80-85? I think it’s too late to go back to 51-trees. I’m going to go on with Restoshammy.
A quick calculation tells me that the old tree holds 76 talent points, and that at level 80, having 71 TPs, I can fill 93% of the tree. With the addition of the now-gone 5 extra TPs, I could have filled the whole tree, had there been no additions.
With the new system in place, at level 85, I can fill 41 of the 42 talent points, so 97 % of the three. That’s a plus, no? Wrong.
We’re losing the Improved Healing Wave, Improved Reincarnation, Tidal Force, Healing Focus (apparently integrated into baseline class abilities…), Healing Grace, Tidal Mastery, Healing Way, Focused Mind, Purification (also into baseline class bonus), and Improved Earth Shield (integrated into the base ability). Not counting abilities integrated into the baseline class bonuses or the base EarthShield, that’s a loss of seven talents. Some were clearly PVP-oriented, others are simply flat increase.
Instead, we get Ancestral Resolve (reduce damage while casting), Focused Insight (Shocks reduce healing mana cost and improve effectiveness), and Telluric Currents (Lightning Bolts restore mana). We lose seven different talents to gain three. So even if we effectively have a greater ratio of talent points per talents to "buy", we use most of these points to “fill” the same talents. The proportion used above to fill 100 % meant we used 76 points to fill 26 different talents, now we use 41 points to fill to 97 % of 19 different talents. In my opinion, it’s a great loss.
So what can Blizzard do?
I think they could add more talents. That’s the obvious answer, and given that trees are not final, it’s probably going to happen.
I also thought that given the current system or the newer one, there is really few choices we have to make as long as we got the points. So I thought they should implement exclusive talents – two talents linked together, you can pick one but not the other. What it would mean is that no matter how many talent points we got, we’d have to make a choice.
Imagine if you had to choose between two talents: one alleviating mana problems, one increasing healing or damage output. Would be interesting, to say the least. I wonder if they pondered that idea, and what would be the players' reaction? Would it really help?
What can WE do?
Simple enough, we can wait till the game is released and try it. Blizzard have a pretty good resume: Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft I, II and III, Starcraft… I say we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, let’s not forget that we still gain a few new abilities: Healing Rain, among other things. We are not at a complete loss (in fact, the three new Shaman abilities are all in theory useful for Restoration, which is not the case for either Elemental nor Enhancement.
In the meantime, I promise my next post will be a shorter wall of text! /cheer
My main, and only 80-level character, is a Shaman. I started out as Restoration, then dual-specced Elemental. After a while, I spent too many time in Elemental and lost my “healing mojo”. However, my first love is still Resto. But seeing the cataclysmic changes, I think I'll stick with Elemental.
I can’t help and look at the talent tree and see only things we lost. Gone is Tidal Force, and so is Improved Reincarnation. Cleansing Totem is gone, too. We’re losing a few other talents, without much consequence. What do we gain? Pre-level 81, nothing except Greater Healing Wave which will obviously used almost only with Nature Swiftness. Some talents are gutted as they are.
It took me about 30 seconds to fill my talent tree. I know what spec I’ll use if I decide to go on with Resto. No fun talent there, really. I’ll cast a few shocks and lightning bolts here and there, thanks to the two only interesting talents, but that’s only if things don’t go crazy, and they often do.
OK, so the talents are not finished. Still, I think they fixed something that was not broken. It seems Blizzard forgot three things that make people stick with the game: uniqueness, carrot on a stick and min-maxing.
Uniqueness: Unless you’re a raider who thinks (maybe rightly) that a given spec, down to the very last point, is the only way to go, one of the thing that interests players in MMORPGs is the uniqueness of their character. WOW does not have many character customization possibilities compared to more recent games, or even some console games. However, talent points were one of these things that set some characters apart. I’m proud to say I use Improved Reincarnation, which is useful when you string multiple battlegrounds or tougher heroics and expect to die. Plus, my last few points in the current tree would not drastically improve my healing, so I like my choice…
Carrot on a stick: This is the staple of every good MMO: what makes you stay. In WOW, it’s the next ability or, when there is none, the next talent point. Blizzard said they wanted to give 1 talent point every two levels, and one ability for the levels where we wouldn’t get talent points. Unless I’m mistaken, this will either still leave a lot of levels empty, thus removing the carrot on a stick for some levels and making those level plain and unexciting, or make it so some abilities are learned really later in the game. I don’t think there is enough abilities to make sure each level has its own ability or talent – there will inevitably be empty levels. As uninteresting as spending one point to gain 1% sound like, I think it’s even less interesting to have nothing to go with a level.
Min-Maxing: The raider I spoke about in Uniqueness is here. He tries every spec, every talent to make sure he has the absolute best. OF course, experience and simple reading skills allow him to eliminate outright some talents, but he seeks to gain the most of his few last points. With much less points and much less talents, the possibilities are lesser. Plus, some guilds already refuse entry to players who spent a few of their 71 points in a “wrong” way. With talents a more precious resource, this attitude will only go up. Cookie-cutter specs will be the only way to enter raiding guilds, even more so than today.
Now let me make an analogy: I used to play Magic: The Gathering. For those who don’t know (really?), it’s a collectible card games. There exists literally thousands of different cards. Some are really good, some are truly, truly terrible. When asked why there was bad cards in the game, one developer answered: So that players can learn which cards are bad, and which are good, and progress. So I’m asking this to Blizzard: Give us bad talents!
By “bad”, I mean talents that are not necessarily “optimal”. There will still be only a few viable raiding specs, no matter what you do there will always be people who will calculate and test specs to determine the very best in a given role. But by adding flavorful talents, players will be able to actually learn to play, and it will allow them to customize, as far from all players are interested in having the “absolute” best. Even if we end up with a lot of players sharing the same spec in the raiding scene, the illusion of choice is sometimes better than realizing you have no choice at all. And that’s where the latest trees are headed.
I thought that with less talent points, there’d be more choices. As it stands, we have less choice and the carrot on the proverbial stick is getting thinner. Then, what was the purpose of this change? I have no clue, really. I’m guessing leveling a new Shaman will be more fun because of the level 10 bonus: Restoration gain Earthshield, which is absolutely awesome, and in my opinion, this is an awesome change. But my existing shaman will be nerfed.
I thought that, since each talent points would have had an impact on our character, it’d be possible to grant each healer talents that would allow them to dispel more effects than what is currently implemented – you’d have to choose between adding a little “oomph” to this ability and the possibility to add another dispel to your repertoire. However, the way things stand now, it is impossible, as it would be an evident choice – there isn’t enough variety and truly useful talents to actually make this a choice.
And finally, my last concern about the change: what next? What after Cataclysm? new levels, new talent points, right? Taking useless talents isn’t going to be any fun, and adding, say, 3 talent points to the trees feels... boring. Useless.
I truly hope Blizzard can pull a rabbit out of its hat so our hamster is actually a pony (does that make sense?). In fact, concerns for the talent tress aside, I’m truly looking forward for the expansion…
Goofy specs
The new implementation of talents means there cannot be anymore “goofy” specs. Such specs, for instance Shadow/Holy, Frost/Fire or any other weird and unoptimal combinations, might not be valuable in raids. In fact, they’re probably very much undesirable. However, they should exist for many reasons:
Fun. Some players find those specs fun. Simple as that.
Variety. With 11,5 million players, its important to have a distinctive feel for our character. Such specs might be the way to go.
Role-play. What if a player on an RP realm plays a schizophrenic Holy-Shadow priest? The implementation means such a character might not exist anymore.
In favor of goofy specs! /silly and /cheer
What can Blizzard do?
What can Blizzard do to make sure every spec is kept interesting while leveling and at levels 80-85? I think it’s too late to go back to 51-trees. I’m going to go on with Restoshammy.
A quick calculation tells me that the old tree holds 76 talent points, and that at level 80, having 71 TPs, I can fill 93% of the tree. With the addition of the now-gone 5 extra TPs, I could have filled the whole tree, had there been no additions.
With the new system in place, at level 85, I can fill 41 of the 42 talent points, so 97 % of the three. That’s a plus, no? Wrong.
We’re losing the Improved Healing Wave, Improved Reincarnation, Tidal Force, Healing Focus (apparently integrated into baseline class abilities…), Healing Grace, Tidal Mastery, Healing Way, Focused Mind, Purification (also into baseline class bonus), and Improved Earth Shield (integrated into the base ability). Not counting abilities integrated into the baseline class bonuses or the base EarthShield, that’s a loss of seven talents. Some were clearly PVP-oriented, others are simply flat increase.
Instead, we get Ancestral Resolve (reduce damage while casting), Focused Insight (Shocks reduce healing mana cost and improve effectiveness), and Telluric Currents (Lightning Bolts restore mana). We lose seven different talents to gain three. So even if we effectively have a greater ratio of talent points per talents to "buy", we use most of these points to “fill” the same talents. The proportion used above to fill 100 % meant we used 76 points to fill 26 different talents, now we use 41 points to fill to 97 % of 19 different talents. In my opinion, it’s a great loss.
So what can Blizzard do?
I think they could add more talents. That’s the obvious answer, and given that trees are not final, it’s probably going to happen.
I also thought that given the current system or the newer one, there is really few choices we have to make as long as we got the points. So I thought they should implement exclusive talents – two talents linked together, you can pick one but not the other. What it would mean is that no matter how many talent points we got, we’d have to make a choice.
Imagine if you had to choose between two talents: one alleviating mana problems, one increasing healing or damage output. Would be interesting, to say the least. I wonder if they pondered that idea, and what would be the players' reaction? Would it really help?
What can WE do?
Simple enough, we can wait till the game is released and try it. Blizzard have a pretty good resume: Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft I, II and III, Starcraft… I say we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, let’s not forget that we still gain a few new abilities: Healing Rain, among other things. We are not at a complete loss (in fact, the three new Shaman abilities are all in theory useful for Restoration, which is not the case for either Elemental nor Enhancement.
In the meantime, I promise my next post will be a shorter wall of text! /cheer
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