Great video. I think there are examples of what you're looking for regarding playstyle choices; EG Shadow Priest being able to go for direct damage or dots, but that's all in the spec trees. They really seemed to struggle with hybrid class trees in particular. For Paladin, it's oddly heavy in throughput, and you basically choose how much passive damage/passive healing you want to put out. But, I think they've been very clear that these talent trees are a foundation they're going to build on, and they've proven that so far!
Shaman main here. We're probably the single best case in the current game of a class tree that revolves primarily around utility choices rather than throughput, and frankly, it still sucks. A lot of the choices in our class tree are boring little nothings, super niche useless-until-mandatory utilities, or are based on a version of class mechanics that haven't existed since the Vanilla talent system they stole half of these ideas from. I share your criticisms of the DF talent trees, but not your optimism that they have greater potential - at least not that we're ever actually going to see Blizzard realize, because actually realizing it would turn the game into an unbalance-able mess. The biggest problem with Vanilla- and DF-style talent trees are their size. The sheer number of of points players need to be able to spend in them necessitate that the majority of these systems be taken up by low-impact talents that mostly just get everyone to the same baseline, with only a portion of those total points going into anything that actually differentiates you from every other player of your spec (and even then, really only splits you off into being the same as everyone else doing your content mode, i.e., raiding, M+, etc). Bottom line, it's illusion of choice, and it always will be, because actually giving every one of the ~40 specs in the game 61 points to spend on truly divergent talent builds would be impossible to remotely balance. This also introduces another issue with the DF talent system you didn't touch on - that the sheer complexity of these trees has majorly ballooned the depth of knowledge a player needs of their class and spec to make anything resembling an informed decision about which talents are good for them, and widened the gap between optimal and suboptimal builds. I'd much rather see a return to the Mist-style talent system where we were picking from a much smaller array of much more impactful talents, as that system had much more potential to deliver build-defining choices at each junction without ballooning the scope of build diversity beyond the devs' capacity.
Well said, I think you touch on some good points. Hopefully as the talent trees get iterated on we can move in this direction, now that it is a long term feature instead of an expansion specific borrowed power system.
agreed, and the good news is that it's not exactly a secret that the devs didn't have much time to come up with and test all these talent trees. it's basically a given that they'll be iterating with them through the patches. ret has already had a major revamp, holy has one on the way, and my 2 classes have had many talents completely swapped out for new ones. as for dps balance, i don't know how realistic it is to have meaningful choices because player tooling is just way too advanced, people will always figure out the mathematical best options given a certain play style. where i do find the talents to be already good are with healers, as healer gameplay is often not static and undetermined, so it is much harder to theorycraft exactly what is and isn't better. mistweaver talent tree is very interesting towards the bottom.
Hi, I returned to WoW with a new account after quitting during WoD. I have heard complaints about the druid points tree and I agree it's very awkward. Also, nice work :D As a previous feral player, I needed some talents much sooner - they should be baseline, in fact - remove corruption, an interrupt and one I was not familiar with, the absorption through Matted Fur. I also could not get Typhoon, Cyclone, Mass Entanglement/Ursol's Vortex without going far into the restoration side in a way I felt would terribly dampen my abilities (examples being Primal Fury, Mighty Bash/Roar, Maim to lesser extent as it is not as deep into the tree). With Guardian the druid points felt even worse. I'm with you fur certain concerning Rake/Rip holding mobility options hostage. I dropped points into Resto to get down to Natural Recovery and it felt so painful (regarding Wild Growth in particular - there's almost no reason I'm going to cast that). I didn't even consider the Moonkin side because that felt like an extreme mistake on the dev's part. From there, the obvious choice is getting to Innervate, but it's like whoever designed this forgot what we may need to bring to a group regardless of which spec we choose. I don't envy whoever had to design druid as that IS 4 specs, but I probably would have started by not having Moonkin Form in the general tree. To me, it's as if they placed Tiger's Fury there or Pulverize. Let alone Remove Corruption. Like, maybe they should've asked themselves why we chose druid at the start: class fantasy, as you say. :| "I want to be able to cleanse and assist my allies alongside dealing damage. Otherwise, I would play rogue!"
I agree with what you say on the spec side. the class tree is kind of it's own mess. i think the druid one is the worst for that but for the spec tree, elemental shaman and the next fire mage rework both really hit that playstyle choice that they should try to expand to all specs, but it's just something that'll take time to get to all... 37 specs (with augmentation release).
That's why love how guild wars 1 did it. It was simple, you have access to all the spells, the difference is where you spend your attributes. More "fire magic" attribute points, the more damage it does, longer it lasts etc... That way hybrid builds were more viable because you can choose exactly how much interrupt or utility you actually need
Well, I totally disagree that there should be stat nodes specifically geared around choosing this or that stat. However, I do feel the pain of your cited problem. My main solution would be to have things conceptually gated. This would probably result less in the existence of a main tree and the relevant specialty trees, than a large interrelated web. It would have little subsections that start with some ability, or some critical modification to a baseline ability, and then all the talents relevant to that thing would spawn from there, and/or a series of conceptually related effects. Like you might have an animal control section that would have both Hibernate and Soothe, another section with all the plant oriented power, and another with all the wind/weather powers. These might connect up with other paths, if there were a logical reason that you could get to some particular thing from different routes, particularly if the talent in question is a bridge between effect between two different powers. This might not please you totally, because Astral Influence would still fall in with all the celestial effects, since it represents some sort of attunement to the stars, but on the flip side, Moonkin Form would more likely be grouped in with shapeshifting powers, rather than directly in the Astral tree. At least things would be connected by logical antecedents.
As a new player to WoW and MMOs in general I'd like to try talents from MoP, because they simply seem to be more friendly in terms of making builds in general and especially for newbies like me. I can totally see and agree how current talent system is more flexible and most likely more appealing to veteran players, but honestly I think that many veteran or just experience enough players also are lazy to dig into the whole talent tree abilities and most likely instead will go online for "ready-made" build that is min-maxed and optimized thus killing personal creativity and making more "strict" rules in the end for everyone when it comes to clearing harder dungeons that require you to be "meta" or get kicked. TLDR; The more complicated and "flexible" things get in games - the more pressure they make in terms of meta for everyone if game's intended to be played online with or versus other people. I am sorry but I really believe that such talent trees are only good for single player games or online games that are designed to be played mostly alone - something like PoE
Nah, MoP ones were boring as hell and no less "cookie-cutter" than the DF or original trees (I'm tired of this narrative MoP ones gave you choice, each boss had best talents). The classic trees had the one advantage of allowing hybrid specs (like sub-assassination for rogues in PvP, or prot-holy paladin healers before Blizzard took the nerf-bat to it in Wrath) which admittedly wasn't that common, but did pop up from time to time. The real thing that made experimenting with builds something you can do was removing the respec cost, not any of the talent systems themselves. If the goal is min-maxing and "balance" then the best method to fix them would be to just straight up remove them. Most will agree that's not very fun though.
I think these are all good ideas, though with +Stat Talents, there is always gonna be the issue of what is simply mathematically the best. Depending on the Class and Spec mechanics, some Stats will always scale better, than others. It's often really hard to feel the difference any given Stat gives you, unless it has a significant effect on your rotation. Mastery and Versatility are Stats, that don't usually offer feedback, they just make numbers bigger. Crit and Haste, especially the latter, have a much more noticeable effect on most Specs, as they can increase Resource Generation in a significant way. So, Stat Talents are tricky, but I do see another benefit of the suggested +Stat Talents: they could help with balancing. Ideally, you want all Stats to be around equal, so these kinda things could help with that, if designed right. Overall, I think Class Trees should focus on Utility, Defensives, and Class Fantasy. These would be things, that all Specs share. For some, Resource Generation fits here, but not for all. Spec Trees should focus on things, that make each Spec different. This would mean some Special Situational Abilities, Iconic Spec Spells etc. How to achieve those goals, that's the harder part, and it definitely requires dedicated Devs, who understand the Class from both the mechanical aspects, as well as what the power fantasy there is.
Sorry but the suggestion about the stat priority is worthless when combinations of talents further affect those. Stop playing Guardian. Start playing a spec that isn't currently seen as badly designed. Other talent trees have a boat load of talents that do the job you want to assign to those 4 notes while not being the literal text book version of: Pick your best 2ndary stat. If you want those notes to matter the rest of the tree will be quite barren or simplistic because most synergies within the trees affect 2ndary stat priorities.
I think the druid trees are one of the worse ones for the problems you're pointing out. For me as an enhancement shaman main, I've had a BLAST and plenty of choice. The spec tree allows for around 3 "mini-specs" or a mix between. The main tree is situational stuff I keep swapping for PvP and M+ which I enjoy. They nailed some classes and not others which is a shame but the new trees are a huge improvement from what we had before
The idea for enhancing secondary stats is genius. Imagine never getting quite the right gear for your class, so you get the option of enhancing the stats you do have to compete…or enhancing your haste just enough to get you over a certain threshold that your gear isn’t getting you there. Great ideas!
For me, I find it a shame that talent trees don't offer more variety when it comes to the complexity players might want while playing. I see people ask "what is the easiest dps class to play?" and be told to play fury warriors or beast mastery hunters. I wish there were more options for different classes and specs to allow for this without having to make massive damage sacrifices. I'm not saying playing like this should let someone sit at the top of the dps meters, but would at least be able to do content without looking bad. The talent trees do this to some extent already, but I wish they did it better.
@@savuflorin6242 Sure, but my point is these are far and few between. They also often come with fairly significant dps drops compared to the more complex options.
You called druid's Soothe a "niche talent" in the video. I don't know if you're aware of this interaction, but Soothe will remove raging effects from the mobs. It's probably one of the most important spells a druid has in their spell-book on raging weeks. There are many key mobs in dungeons that need to be soothed so that they can then be stunned, to stop them killing the party with some of their moves.
That's a Mythic+ thing right? That's still niche if so. I can't think of a regular dungeon, especially while leveling, where a mob was enraged and we noticed it. Maybe a better option would be fore Soothe to become a dispel ability that removes enrage, and if it can't do that it removes a magical buff instead. Or maybe make it castable on self/party and remove fear effects. Either change pulls it out of that niche of only dealing with one relatively rare effect.
@@Xanthelei That's like saying that if you turn god-mode on in a video game, half of its mechanics become irrelevant. I mean they would, technically you're not wrong, but that's clearly not how the game is design to be played!
@@Grogeous_Maximus It's basically what he's implying with so much of the video covering things that actually happened in Mists of Pandaria. You "watch the video", sir.
I've noticed you can go non-meta on support and defensives usually. Like for pally I can go a pure greed build instead of getting bop, sac, and other healing stuff to just go pure passives for myself. But ImO, all classes should have all of their talents at all times and you just get new stuff as u level. the whole talent choice thing is stupid. i bet games could be so much more balanced if there weren't these stupid choices all of the time to make so many variables.
I think you're a bit confused. Just because the talent tree choices don't involve many playstyle changes doesn't mean they aren't meaninfull choices you can make. You literally add or subtract abilities depending on what you choose, that's a playstyle change. And saying that on a aoe fight choosing an aoe build is not making a choise, rather the game making the choice for you, it's like saying ''the beach choose my swimsuit cloths because i rather go with jacket and pants''. Seems abit of an inane thing to say. What you're asking for is to be able to edit a spec, like a dev would, but you can do that by just changing class/specc. What you're really asking is like going to a car dealer and saying ''i know you don't make any of these but i want that car with 8 cilinders instead of 6, hard top instead of convertable, with 5 doors instead of 3, etc etc''. Like, what? What you're asking is not normal or reasonable.
![[TH] FS vs BME - VCT Ascension Pacific - Lower Bracket Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnygqsR2Fig/mqdefault.jpg)
Great video. I think there are examples of what you're looking for regarding playstyle choices; EG Shadow Priest being able to go for direct damage or dots, but that's all in the spec trees. They really seemed to struggle with hybrid class trees in particular. For Paladin, it's oddly heavy in throughput, and you basically choose how much passive damage/passive healing you want to put out. But, I think they've been very clear that these talent trees are a foundation they're going to build on, and they've proven that so far!
Can't make a long drawn out comment right now due to time, but really enjoyed the video and def agree on almost if not all points. Keep it up.
Shaman main here. We're probably the single best case in the current game of a class tree that revolves primarily around utility choices rather than throughput, and frankly, it still sucks. A lot of the choices in our class tree are boring little nothings, super niche useless-until-mandatory utilities, or are based on a version of class mechanics that haven't existed since the Vanilla talent system they stole half of these ideas from.
I share your criticisms of the DF talent trees, but not your optimism that they have greater potential - at least not that we're ever actually going to see Blizzard realize, because actually realizing it would turn the game into an unbalance-able mess. The biggest problem with Vanilla- and DF-style talent trees are their size. The sheer number of of points players need to be able to spend in them necessitate that the majority of these systems be taken up by low-impact talents that mostly just get everyone to the same baseline, with only a portion of those total points going into anything that actually differentiates you from every other player of your spec (and even then, really only splits you off into being the same as everyone else doing your content mode, i.e., raiding, M+, etc). Bottom line, it's illusion of choice, and it always will be, because actually giving every one of the ~40 specs in the game 61 points to spend on truly divergent talent builds would be impossible to remotely balance.
This also introduces another issue with the DF talent system you didn't touch on - that the sheer complexity of these trees has majorly ballooned the depth of knowledge a player needs of their class and spec to make anything resembling an informed decision about which talents are good for them, and widened the gap between optimal and suboptimal builds.
I'd much rather see a return to the Mist-style talent system where we were picking from a much smaller array of much more impactful talents, as that system had much more potential to deliver build-defining choices at each junction without ballooning the scope of build diversity beyond the devs' capacity.
Well said, I think you touch on some good points. Hopefully as the talent trees get iterated on we can move in this direction, now that it is a long term feature instead of an expansion specific borrowed power system.
Way too many buttons. Less is more.
You analysis is on point and thought provoking. I don't like the new talent trees, but also, i'm not quite sure how to fix them either.
agreed, and the good news is that it's not exactly a secret that the devs didn't have much time to come up with and test all these talent trees. it's basically a given that they'll be iterating with them through the patches. ret has already had a major revamp, holy has one on the way, and my 2 classes have had many talents completely swapped out for new ones.
as for dps balance, i don't know how realistic it is to have meaningful choices because player tooling is just way too advanced, people will always figure out the mathematical best options given a certain play style.
where i do find the talents to be already good are with healers, as healer gameplay is often not static and undetermined, so it is much harder to theorycraft exactly what is and isn't better. mistweaver talent tree is very interesting towards the bottom.
Hi, I returned to WoW with a new account after quitting during WoD. I have heard complaints about the druid points tree and I agree it's very awkward. Also, nice work :D
As a previous feral player, I needed some talents much sooner - they should be baseline, in fact - remove corruption, an interrupt and one I was not familiar with, the absorption through Matted Fur. I also could not get Typhoon, Cyclone, Mass Entanglement/Ursol's Vortex without going far into the restoration side in a way I felt would terribly dampen my abilities (examples being Primal Fury, Mighty Bash/Roar, Maim to lesser extent as it is not as deep into the tree).
With Guardian the druid points felt even worse. I'm with you fur certain concerning Rake/Rip holding mobility options hostage. I dropped points into Resto to get down to Natural Recovery and it felt so painful (regarding Wild Growth in particular - there's almost no reason I'm going to cast that). I didn't even consider the Moonkin side because that felt like an extreme mistake on the dev's part. From there, the obvious choice is getting to Innervate, but it's like whoever designed this forgot what we may need to bring to a group regardless of which spec we choose. I don't envy whoever had to design druid as that IS 4 specs, but I probably would have started by not having Moonkin Form in the general tree. To me, it's as if they placed Tiger's Fury there or Pulverize. Let alone Remove Corruption.
Like, maybe they should've asked themselves why we chose druid at the start: class fantasy, as you say. :| "I want to be able to cleanse and assist my allies alongside dealing damage. Otherwise, I would play rogue!"
I agree with what you say on the spec side. the class tree is kind of it's own mess. i think the druid one is the worst for that
but for the spec tree, elemental shaman and the next fire mage rework both really hit that playstyle choice that they should try to expand to all specs, but it's just something that'll take time to get to all... 37 specs (with augmentation release).
That's why love how guild wars 1 did it. It was simple, you have access to all the spells, the difference is where you spend your attributes. More "fire magic" attribute points, the more damage it does, longer it lasts etc...
That way hybrid builds were more viable because you can choose exactly how much interrupt or utility you actually need
Well, I totally disagree that there should be stat nodes specifically geared around choosing this or that stat. However, I do feel the pain of your cited problem. My main solution would be to have things conceptually gated. This would probably result less in the existence of a main tree and the relevant specialty trees, than a large interrelated web. It would have little subsections that start with some ability, or some critical modification to a baseline ability, and then all the talents relevant to that thing would spawn from there, and/or a series of conceptually related effects. Like you might have an animal control section that would have both Hibernate and Soothe, another section with all the plant oriented power, and another with all the wind/weather powers. These might connect up with other paths, if there were a logical reason that you could get to some particular thing from different routes, particularly if the talent in question is a bridge between effect between two different powers. This might not please you totally, because Astral Influence would still fall in with all the celestial effects, since it represents some sort of attunement to the stars, but on the flip side, Moonkin Form would more likely be grouped in with shapeshifting powers, rather than directly in the Astral tree. At least things would be connected by logical antecedents.
felt the same way about the talents still do also theres still so much useless talents being forced picks to get to something useful
As a new player to WoW and MMOs in general I'd like to try talents from MoP, because they simply seem to be more friendly in terms of making builds in general and especially for newbies like me. I can totally see and agree how current talent system is more flexible and most likely more appealing to veteran players, but honestly I think that many veteran or just experience enough players also are lazy to dig into the whole talent tree abilities and most likely instead will go online for "ready-made" build that is min-maxed and optimized thus killing personal creativity and making more "strict" rules in the end for everyone when it comes to clearing harder dungeons that require you to be "meta" or get kicked.
TLDR; The more complicated and "flexible" things get in games - the more pressure they make in terms of meta for everyone if game's intended to be played online with or versus other people. I am sorry but I really believe that such talent trees are only good for single player games or online games that are designed to be played mostly alone - something like PoE
Nah, MoP ones were boring as hell and no less "cookie-cutter" than the DF or original trees (I'm tired of this narrative MoP ones gave you choice, each boss had best talents). The classic trees had the one advantage of allowing hybrid specs (like sub-assassination for rogues in PvP, or prot-holy paladin healers before Blizzard took the nerf-bat to it in Wrath) which admittedly wasn't that common, but did pop up from time to time. The real thing that made experimenting with builds something you can do was removing the respec cost, not any of the talent systems themselves. If the goal is min-maxing and "balance" then the best method to fix them would be to just straight up remove them. Most will agree that's not very fun though.
I think these are all good ideas, though with +Stat Talents, there is always gonna be the issue of what is simply mathematically the best. Depending on the Class and Spec mechanics, some Stats will always scale better, than others. It's often really hard to feel the difference any given Stat gives you, unless it has a significant effect on your rotation. Mastery and Versatility are Stats, that don't usually offer feedback, they just make numbers bigger. Crit and Haste, especially the latter, have a much more noticeable effect on most Specs, as they can increase Resource Generation in a significant way.
So, Stat Talents are tricky, but I do see another benefit of the suggested +Stat Talents: they could help with balancing. Ideally, you want all Stats to be around equal, so these kinda things could help with that, if designed right.
Overall, I think Class Trees should focus on Utility, Defensives, and Class Fantasy. These would be things, that all Specs share. For some, Resource Generation fits here, but not for all. Spec Trees should focus on things, that make each Spec different. This would mean some Special Situational Abilities, Iconic Spec Spells etc. How to achieve those goals, that's the harder part, and it definitely requires dedicated Devs, who understand the Class from both the mechanical aspects, as well as what the power fantasy there is.
he don't miss.
Sorry but the suggestion about the stat priority is worthless when combinations of talents further affect those.
Stop playing Guardian. Start playing a spec that isn't currently seen as badly designed. Other talent trees have a boat load of talents that do the job you want to assign to those 4 notes while not being the literal text book version of: Pick your best 2ndary stat. If you want those notes to matter the rest of the tree will be quite barren or simplistic because most synergies within the trees affect 2ndary stat priorities.
I think the druid trees are one of the worse ones for the problems you're pointing out. For me as an enhancement shaman main, I've had a BLAST and plenty of choice. The spec tree allows for around 3 "mini-specs" or a mix between. The main tree is situational stuff I keep swapping for PvP and M+ which I enjoy. They nailed some classes and not others which is a shame but the new trees are a huge improvement from what we had before
The idea for enhancing secondary stats is genius. Imagine never getting quite the right gear for your class, so you get the option of enhancing the stats you do have to compete…or enhancing your haste just enough to get you over a certain threshold that your gear isn’t getting you there. Great ideas!
i honestly think the druid tree is among the worst i d like to hear your thoughts on the monk and warrior trees though
For me, I find it a shame that talent trees don't offer more variety when it comes to the complexity players might want while playing. I see people ask "what is the easiest dps class to play?" and be told to play fury warriors or beast mastery hunters. I wish there were more options for different classes and specs to allow for this without having to make massive damage sacrifices. I'm not saying playing like this should let someone sit at the top of the dps meters, but would at least be able to do content without looking bad.
The talent trees do this to some extent already, but I wish they did it better.
You can do that with any class but you'll do less dps if you only pick-up passives and easy talents
@@savuflorin6242 Sure, but my point is these are far and few between. They also often come with fairly significant dps drops compared to the more complex options.
You called druid's Soothe a "niche talent" in the video. I don't know if you're aware of this interaction, but Soothe will remove raging effects from the mobs. It's probably one of the most important spells a druid has in their spell-book on raging weeks. There are many key mobs in dungeons that need to be soothed so that they can then be stunned, to stop them killing the party with some of their moves.
crap players dont understand how to use half their skills and will complain
@@SuperNuclearHamster you sooth in bear form lmfao
That's a Mythic+ thing right? That's still niche if so. I can't think of a regular dungeon, especially while leveling, where a mob was enraged and we noticed it. Maybe a better option would be fore Soothe to become a dispel ability that removes enrage, and if it can't do that it removes a magical buff instead. Or maybe make it castable on self/party and remove fear effects. Either change pulls it out of that niche of only dealing with one relatively rare effect.
@@Xanthelei That's like saying that if you turn god-mode on in a video game, half of its mechanics become irrelevant. I mean they would, technically you're not wrong, but that's clearly not how the game is design to be played!
Oh no, I just learned the the freaking THREE CHOICE! MAN! WHAT THE HECK!? 😔😔😔 I HAVEN’T PLAYED IN A WHILE!
So, basically you want the MoP talent revamp back?
Not what he's saying. Watch the video.
@@Grogeous_Maximus It's basically what he's implying with so much of the video covering things that actually happened in Mists of Pandaria. You "watch the video", sir.
I've noticed you can go non-meta on support and defensives usually. Like for pally I can go a pure greed build instead of getting bop, sac, and other healing stuff to just go pure passives for myself. But ImO, all classes should have all of their talents at all times and you just get new stuff as u level. the whole talent choice thing is stupid. i bet games could be so much more balanced if there weren't these stupid choices all of the time to make so many variables.
I think you're a bit confused.
Just because the talent tree choices don't involve many playstyle changes doesn't mean they aren't meaninfull choices you can make.
You literally add or subtract abilities depending on what you choose, that's a playstyle change. And saying that on a aoe fight choosing an aoe build is not making a choise, rather the game making the choice for you, it's like saying ''the beach choose my swimsuit cloths because i rather go with jacket and pants''. Seems abit of an inane thing to say.
What you're asking for is to be able to edit a spec, like a dev would, but you can do that by just changing class/specc. What you're really asking is like going to a car dealer and saying ''i know you don't make any of these but i want that car with 8 cilinders instead of 6, hard top instead of convertable, with 5 doors instead of 3, etc etc''.
Like, what? What you're asking is not normal or reasonable.
He wants less filler choices. Nothing is unreasonable about that.