crap so no having a farming and dungeon spec while leveling. I am liking the talent changes less and less each time I hear about it.
World of Warcraft
- Thread starter Dave
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From what I read you can still have dual spec. What they are doing is preventing people from instead of being something like 31/10/0 going 15/16/10 and either gimping themselves because they are a new player or taking advatage of a odd concotion of talents that makes something overpower that has to be nerfed. This also will probably allow them to put cool things higher up in the tree without worrying how other spec lines will abuse it. I think(but could be wrong) that now for example only Subtlety Rogues can take prep which means that Subtley will be the only master of the coold down refreshing tactic which means they no longer have to balance Combat, Mutilate, or Preperation itself around the other two trees.
Also Dave I think Dual-Spec will work the same, they mean 'locked in' regards to the current spec sans respeccing.
Also Dave I think Dual-Spec will work the same, they mean 'locked in' regards to the current spec sans respeccing.
It bothers me that the whole time I've played this game, my only maxed out character has been my Dwarf Hunter. I really enjoy the play style. But now I have to totally rebuild him, and completely learn how to play from scratch. This might as well be WoW2 as far as I am concerned.
You misunderstand Dave. Duel-spec will remain as it is now, an alternate spec you can purchase in order switch back and forth. So for instance you can still be a Paladin with a Protection specialization, and then when you feel like it switch to a Holy specialization.
What they are removing is hybrid specializations, or builds that don't concentrate on one tree but instead dip equally in two or more trees. An example is an old favorite arena build taken by Paladins, in which the Paladin would take a large chunk of Protection and Holy talents but would never go far enough to get the bottom rows of either tree.
While this means you have less choices in making wacky builds, Blizzard is doing to for a few reasons that I can understand.
One, this means you will have to get talents that are good for your specialization. No more newbies putting points in talents that don't really help your spec, like being a two handed warrior and accidentally taking shield talents because you were not thinking. It will also make it so people are more likely later on at cap to be well situated in their roles, because they will have much longer play period understanding the meat of the spec they choose.
Two, on the reverse end, no more having to balance on the off chance some players finds out going half-spec1 and half-spec2 makes him a super-god in PVP or PVE. When people discovered the Paladin tank/healer hybrid it was like everyone in arena had to have one just to be competitive.
So think of it like this. You start a Mage, you decide to go with Frost Specialization. You get Water Elemental and bonus frost damage, two "perks" that under the old system would have to be far down the tree to prevent double dipping, but now you get earlier to help define how you will play.
You can not put any points in the other trees at that time, but would would you? You will want to concentrate anyways to get the real "meat" abilities like Cold Snap and Deep Freeze. Putting points in fire not only gimps your ability, makes it harder to learn how frost works, and lengthens the time before you get the good frost abilities.
Now once you do get Deep Freeze, filling out Frost, the two other trees open, so now you can start putting points in the other trees. Really, 99% of players already fill one tree and then sprinkle the rest into other trees after they max, so nothing will really change for most players.
What they are removing is hybrid specializations, or builds that don't concentrate on one tree but instead dip equally in two or more trees. An example is an old favorite arena build taken by Paladins, in which the Paladin would take a large chunk of Protection and Holy talents but would never go far enough to get the bottom rows of either tree.
While this means you have less choices in making wacky builds, Blizzard is doing to for a few reasons that I can understand.
One, this means you will have to get talents that are good for your specialization. No more newbies putting points in talents that don't really help your spec, like being a two handed warrior and accidentally taking shield talents because you were not thinking. It will also make it so people are more likely later on at cap to be well situated in their roles, because they will have much longer play period understanding the meat of the spec they choose.
Two, on the reverse end, no more having to balance on the off chance some players finds out going half-spec1 and half-spec2 makes him a super-god in PVP or PVE. When people discovered the Paladin tank/healer hybrid it was like everyone in arena had to have one just to be competitive.
So think of it like this. You start a Mage, you decide to go with Frost Specialization. You get Water Elemental and bonus frost damage, two "perks" that under the old system would have to be far down the tree to prevent double dipping, but now you get earlier to help define how you will play.
You can not put any points in the other trees at that time, but would would you? You will want to concentrate anyways to get the real "meat" abilities like Cold Snap and Deep Freeze. Putting points in fire not only gimps your ability, makes it harder to learn how frost works, and lengthens the time before you get the good frost abilities.
Now once you do get Deep Freeze, filling out Frost, the two other trees open, so now you can start putting points in the other trees. Really, 99% of players already fill one tree and then sprinkle the rest into other trees after they max, so nothing will really change for most players.
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Chazwozel
The game is over 6 years old, they are making all these changes in order to bring back old players. They are trying to cut this as a WoW2.
---------- Post added at 03:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:05 PM ----------
Back when I played, any mage worth his salt was a frost mage. I said to hell with hybrid specs long ago anyway. My mage was always primarily frost based with like 10 points in arcane for mana conservation. My game play style was always survivability + aoe damage.
WoW really needs to open all 3 talent trees to players. For my example as a hunter. Beast tree for leveling, Marksman for Dungeons/Raids, and Survival for PvP. If a Beast Master goes into a dungeon, and can only choose talents from one tree... He will end up sicking his pet on the boss, going away from keys, and getting another coke. Then come back 10 minutes later to see if the group wiped.
The problem with your example is some people really like the pet aspect of hunters and having the Pet Line be only for leveling is kinda what I think Blizz has been avoiding for awhile.
Both Survival and Marks have been both for PvE and PvP in WotLK depending on how they were specced. I beleive Blizz has been trying to get BM to be up to par, and currently has its niche in PvPsuch as Beast Cleave arena comps.
Both Survival and Marks have been both for PvE and PvP in WotLK depending on how they were specced. I beleive Blizz has been trying to get BM to be up to par, and currently has its niche in PvPsuch as Beast Cleave arena comps.
You really had me going there till I saw the end. LMAO.
I liked having weird specs and hybrid the shit out of my characters. Aside from PvP and very high end End Game it didn't matter what spec you were anyway. Though since I'm not playing and probably won't ever play again it doesn't really matter much. It mostly seems like the game has changed nearly beyond recognition (mechanics) since I quit playing.
I hope you guys enjoy it
I hope you guys enjoy it
Back in Vanilla, I did my own research, built a hybrid survival/MM and topped dps meters for 3 different raiding guilds with that spec.
Does Blizz just list out which talents to choose next for you now? They might as well only have 31 points in each tree.
Does Blizz just list out which talents to choose next for you now? They might as well only have 31 points in each tree.
The issue Dave is that it really didn't. How many people do you know that actually made full hybrid specs? How many of them kept those specs at the high end? Right now here is the process of the average player.
Player looks over talents. Player goes to ElitistJerks, WoW.com, WoWHead, WoWiki, TankSpot, etc... looking for the "optimal" builds and talents. Player looks over discussions over math and theorycrafting to learn best case DPS, HPS, or EH. Once he finds out the best build, he copies it and uses it. This often involves going 51 in a main spec and sprinkling other points in talents that boost you in other specs. For instance, if you were a protection paladin that didn't go into Retribution for the avoidance and TPS, you were considered a scrub. If you didn't have HotR, you were considered even worst of a scrub.
Really, that is the issue. Right now the game has "precieved" choices. But that is all they are, precieved, not true choice. Having ten cases of ice cream, one being rocky road and the others filled with variations of frozen horse crap, does not really actually give you much of a choice on which ice cream you want, it just makes you think you do.
Specializing is basically Blizzard telling us now you have to do what you were doing already, but because of the change we may have more choices inside our spec. They no longer have to juggle the chance one hybrid might be better then they wanted it to be.
People pretty much look alike anyways in terms of spec and if they don't they get called bads and get harassed or vote kicked from a dungeon. Also as of live build most of the role defining actives and passives are really deep in their respective specs so much so that tri speccing usually just gets the weakest passives. I think the new talent tress could use more breadth as other posters on the wow froums have suggested as certain pve builds have to take pvp talents just to move up in the trees but I think having clear and concise trees will be nice.
---------- Post added at 08:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:55 PM ----------
Back in Vanillea I was an elemental Mage Frost/Fire spec. Mages tress were some of the best talent trees in the game at vanilla and even they had poor talent trees by BC and LK stanards. Arcane was a 3 minute mage that whole tree was define by two actives and only one the other mages could not pick up. Fires top tier talent was lackluster and I saw many fire mages opt for the Presence of mind arcane talent instead. As such with other specs hybrid builds could do well just because of how poor certain trees were backin Vanilla.
There are not alot of hyrbid builds in LK expansion as most that proved effective were killed because Blizz didn't want 51 talent builds to be worse then hybrid builds for the same role. Ret/holy for nerfed after Season 5 arena, same with Prot/holy pallies. In TBC they nerfed all/most caster weapons to be mainhand only so Elemental Shamans would not dip to far into Enhance to pick up Dual Wield and have two spellpower weapons. Effective Hybrid builds they have been killing off long before Cataclysm was even announced, this change was just to ensure they could not balance the game alot better as well as prevent new players from falling into trap talents.
DOUBLE EDIT: Also no Blizz does not currently list out what talents to choose, Elitist Jerks(and other community sites) do and given your Vanilla example of research you would have probably followed this specs to top meters like most raiders would. They are trying to take out the fat so to speak because certain taletns are already blacklisted by the community anyways.
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crono1224
Some people are too particular, there are obviously people who are terrible, don't care, or didn't learn. People who went 71 points into a talent tree and still missed key talents. Or people with full sets of gear with no enchants or gems at all. But I still see a fair amount of variation, even in the top builds there can be 1-5 points of your choice talents. And sometimes talents vary amongst what level of gear you have. But I haven't really ever seen blatant bitching about peoples talents in a while especially while they were holding up their own in the run.
To be fair I have seen people with the perfect spec and all the right gear doing really wonky stuff that greatly hampers their ability to help.
EDIT*
To be fair I have seen people with the perfect spec and all the right gear doing really wonky stuff that greatly hampers their ability to help.
EDIT*
As an addon to what you are saying, thats fine but there are/were dead talents in every try which either sounded a lot better than they actually were or did a lot different things than the people thought.
Pre 40 when I am leveling I hybrid a lot. I like having Mortal Shots from MM before going into the Beast or Survival trees. Or aspect mastery from Beast early.
So they will need to change the trees drastically to have some Crit or AP in Beast or Survival, or some hit points added to Marksman.
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crono1224
WoW Talent Calculator - Sigrie is the current thing I do beleive, you may need to refresh the pages if it keeps messing up.
For end game raiders though, this changes nothing. Someone will theorycraft the optimal build and anyone not using it will be labelled a scrub and doesn't get to go anywhere. The problem here lies not with the game mechanics, but with the community.
Rather then fun or inventive uses of talents, it all gets (got) boiled down to numbers and less about just having a blast. At the time that I quit the game, people were bitching and moaning about that shit even in simple non heroic dungeons. It was a real contrast with the early days of Stratholme runs where we were just running about doing shit till we wiped, laughed about it and moved on. Maybe that's how it goes with all MMO's though, I wouldn't know. I never played one as long as I did WoW.
And that is fine. Blizzard does not balance around the "Pre-40" game though. Actually they have said they pretty much balance the leveling game to assume you may not even take any talents at all. That is why I have known some players that didn't even use a talent point till they were in Outland.
There is nothing wrong with choices, but Blizzard is trying to balance out the game where the balance matters, the "End Game", and that is where they look when they figure out where talents are going to be spread and how powerful talents are going to be for you.
I think I should mention that you get all those already in the new system, without using talent points. Picking a specialization gives you stats those talents would have given you in the old system, only without the need for points and much more simplified to allow Blizzard to "fine-tune" us later.
Pre 40 when I am leveling I hybrid a lot. I like having Mortal Shots from MM before going into the Beast or Survival trees. Or aspect mastery from Beast early.
So they will need to change the trees drastically to have some Crit or AP in Beast or Survival, or some hit points added to Marksman.[/QUOTE]
True I think with this revamp that blizz nees to make especially the lower levels better for speccing. They are doing that in a way by when being locked into a spec you get key spec abilities right off the hop for chosing what to be locked into.
Hunter - Marksmanship
A master archer or sharpshooter who excels in bringing down enemies from afar.
•Aimed Shot
•Marksmanship Hunter (+ ranged hit, pushback reduction)
Hunter - Survival
A rugged tracker who favors using animal venom, explosives and traps as deadly weapons.
•Explosive Shot
•Survival Hunter (+ ranged hit, pushback reduction)
Hunter - Beast Mastery
A master of the wild who can tame a wide variety of beasts to assist him/her in combat.
•Intimidation
•Beastmastery Hunter (+ranged hit, pushback reduction)
WoW Talent Calculator - Sigrie
For a hunter example.
Silencing shot is now really early in the MM tree because I don't think the other spec can now get it. The other trees look like they now have some more interesting early level options to make leveling up and getting a talent more fun.
So you level up with a gimp spec for raiding? Spend your 1g and look up a cookie cutter spec for optimal performance. That first talent respec is cheap. Except back in vanilla I moaned over spending that single gold piece. Gold was so much harder to come by back then.
We will have to wait and see. The thing is the whole reason people in BC and WOTLK started pushing towards optimization was because the game was balanced around you doing the best possibly damage your role provided. This meant that taking a utility talent over a damage talent was considered gimping yourself for anything other then a normal dungeon, leveling, or farming. Blizzard sounds like they want most talents to be based more around utility then pure stats, with the pure stats balancing around the spec you choose and given for free. This means the talents have more room for utility.
You will still have people making cookie cutter specs, but it is my hope, and I think Blizzards hope, that such spec will not be required or pushed as hard as they are now, since they will be now balancing around the fact you will do your optimal damage (minus gear) once you "choose your spec".
That is always a choice, but one of the bigger complaints in the community is players that don't understand their specs. You should see how many DKs you will see in the 58-65 dungeons that wipe you, mostly because they are in a very short time trying to learn what the specs do, the rotations, the abilities. Many feel they should start out at level 1 just for that reason.
One of the biggest things about specialization into a spec, is you have to learn it. This means new players are likely to be better players when they hit the end game if they stick to a spec. Yes, it takes away a bit of choice, but I can't way it will be bad for the health of the playerbase.
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crono1224
Scythe starting at 55 has nothing to do with knowing the class i have seen plenty of the same level chars of other classes that know just as little. Especially if the person just decided to hop in an instance after leveling outside for the whole time. Cause lets be honest you aren't using the same abilities inside and instance as you are outside.
Dave
Staff member
I still think it's taking away from individuality. I play a Sub Rogue and everyone hates to party with me - until they find out that even though I don't do a lot of damage I do things like make the monster easier to hit and give the other players more damage dealing capabilities. I also allow the tank to gather more aggro by throwing all my aggro on them. Yet because the Rogue is usually a full on DPS people scoff. Fuck 'em. It's not their toon. And I think Blizz is hamstringing and making everyone more homogenized.
I disagree. If anything, Blizzard is making everyone more specialized. Plus, the trees are all about abilities and utilities now, rather than "required" passive skills/builds.
Dave
Staff member
With three trees and you can only open up #2 when you get 31 in the first you'll have the following:
Max = *
Secondary = #
Tertiary = 0 (as you can't take from more than 2 trees)
*A, #B, 0C
*A, 0B, #C
#A, *B, 0C
#A, 0B, *C
0A, *B, #C
0A, #B, *C
That's it. Those will be your choices. 6 different character types from each class. Dual spec and that makes it even worse. Tell me how that is better than being able to take a little from each?
Max = *
Secondary = #
Tertiary = 0 (as you can't take from more than 2 trees)
*A, #B, 0C
*A, 0B, #C
#A, *B, 0C
#A, 0B, *C
0A, *B, #C
0A, #B, *C
That's it. Those will be your choices. 6 different character types from each class. Dual spec and that makes it even worse. Tell me how that is better than being able to take a little from each?
Ah, but why do they know very little? Maybe because they are not concentrating on learning the specialization they are playing? Also, let us be honest, a player that plays a specific class for 55 extra levels is going to understand it better then one that played, lets say a Priest for 55 levels and then decided he wanted to be a DK instead. You are changing over to a completely different resources and damage system. It's not going to be smooth.
As for using the same abilities inside an instance as outside, I disagree. I disagree a lot. As a person with every class under his belt, you will find yourself using the same abilities and understanding them to the fullest to get down your class and spec, even when doing something outside like Argent Tournament dailies. I am leveling a second Protection Paladin now, and I use HotR, Judgment, Consecration, just as much as I do inside instances. On my DK, I use Death Grip, Heart Strike, Dancing Rune Weapon, etc... just as much. If you are actually using a whole different ability set for outside the instance and inside, you really are not playing well.
The only time my choice in spells change is when choosing between DD or AE, which depends very much on the encounter.
I am rather confused Dave, because everything you said is still the same. You were a Sub Rogue, not a Mutilate Blade Furry Hybrid.
Incorrect. You open up #2 and #3. You don't have a secondary tree, only a primary. The other two open completely after 31 are in the primary, and then you can mix and match those final points in those two trees as you please or dump the rest into the primary.
Dave
Staff member
My point is directly addressing your stating that people are cookie-cutter because of scoffing by raiders. If that were the case I would be totally combat with some assassin thrown in. But see, I don't HAVE to be a sub rogue - I just like that. If I wanted I could split it up between all three trees. It's MY choice! Blizzard is taking that choice away. Now our only choice is, "Which one of the three will I take? And which one will be secondary?" Where's the fun in that?
When I use my hunter talents out in the open when farming the same way I use them in groups and raids, I'd be dead, or just getting hit A LOT. No pet in the game can hold aggro like a Warr or Pally.
I am pretty sure no warr in his right mind will level outside of instances with a tank build. Or it will be attack, get up and get a drink, come back in 10 minutes to see if the MOB is dead.
I am pretty sure no warr in his right mind will level outside of instances with a tank build. Or it will be attack, get up and get a drink, come back in 10 minutes to see if the MOB is dead.
Personally, my main hope is to see under-utilized trees finally accepted as something worth having. I hated getting laughed at when I tried to push out more DPS with Beast Mastery. Now, however, it sounds like a pretty capable tree. I'm also really happy to see Engineering finally get some real love. Goggles were always cool, but so easily replaced. Interested to see what happens with these "Cog" items.
Been there, done that. People have no patience, back at launch I leveled a druid, which was basically levelling as a weakened prot warr
Where is the fun in being useless? Having skills out of all three trees when the meat of each spec is located in the lowest tiers? Once again, you have perceived choice, not real choice. One thing I find interesting is that you keep bringing up Subtlety, which this change is going to help bring back in line with the other specs by allowing better fine-tuning, I love Subtlety and have it as my offspec for PVP (where it can still shine) and am happy that it will be viable again, even if that comes at the cost of losing specs that are not even designed to be viable.
Also, you still seem to be thinking you can only have two trees, a primary and a secondary. Once again, you only have a primary. You can take the last points and put them in any of the three trees you want.
What if, however, all those talents you needed to take over the "leveling talents" were no longer there? And are instead with you just because you picked Beast Mastery in the first place? Thus leaving you room to take those talents you wanted but felt you couldn't get before like Improved Revive or Improved Mend Pet?
I can see you have not played in a long time. Tank builds for all the tank classes actually level just as fast, and actually in many case faster, then DPS builds. Where they lose in single target damage they make up for in being able to kill dozens of things at once in short order through superior survival, area attacks, and reactive attacks, and elites are just cake. I am leveling as a Protection Paladin right now for the second time because nothing can beat it, and leveled my Druid a duel-spec tree/bear. My warriors was an Arms/Prot build, but I often switched to Prot during leveling in zones that had a lot of creature density.
Leveling as a healer, however, is a bit more tricky, which is why Blizzard plans to increase the natural damage of healing specs to make leveling more comfortable.
Yes, the leveling experience is leaps and bounds better then what is out now. Trust me, you will want to experience them.
I love my Hunter but I'm sorely considering leveling a new character to see all the new goodies. Maybe a Worgen Hunter on my old guild's server. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I am still thinking about what I want to level for my Worgen. I do plan to delete my Undead Priest and make a Goblin Priest on my Horde server though. My priest is the only class not maxed so it won't bother me to much to lose him.
Ok I think I need to go lay down, was 100degrees are work today with no AC so I am kind of losing it here.
Ok I think I need to go lay down, was 100degrees are work today with no AC so I am kind of losing it here.
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