Weren't they removing passive talents?

Three quick points:

1) These talent trees aren't done. They're just far enough along that we're seeking feedback.

2) Just to reiterate, we *are* looking for feedback on them. They are considered public information now and you are free to discuss them. While the rest of the alpha is still under NDA, we want feedback on the talent trees so that we have plenty of time to iterate on them. Just keep things in perspective. Nobody at this stage can predict with any accuracy that their dude is DOOMED in PvP or PvE based on these early designs. :)

3) "Passive talents" is somewhat subjective. We are going to prune out what we can. Some players interpreted that to mean that every talent was going to be something game-changing like Chakra or Grace, but we think a talent tree of nothing but those would be quite overwhelming (not to mention making those cool talents feel less special). We still have talents like Improved Eviscerate, which are passive but more interesting than flat +damage talents . We still have talents like Malice because, frankly, everything else that can be modified in a low-level rogue already has a talent.

We still think the Cataclysm talent trees will be a big improvement over the Lich King talent trees, and your feedback can help us get them there (not that it all has to be confined to this one thread of course).

The only thing we ask is that you not let Cataclysm discussion completely take over the forums. There are millions of players playing the current live game and many of them will still want to discuss the current game instead of only looking to the future.

4) Cataclysm will fix it.

Q u o t e:


Here:

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent

Q u o t e:
But what will it break in the process?

Your soul.

Another response I am seeing a lot of is "Gah, look at all the PvP talents." One of our stated goal was to get more utility and fun talents into more trees. If you're just looking for talents that affect your dps or healing at the expense of everything else, it's going to be a little trickier to make a build. We want you to have some room for utility talents. You may write those off as PvP, but they often have use in dungeons, when leveling and even on some raid encounters.

Also be careful before you decry a tree as bloated that you aren't just being greedy and wanting to snatch up every possible talent. :)

Q u o t e:
Question for you. When you guys are officially looking for feedback on something why don't you post a thread about it specifically saying that you're looking for public feedback?

I did!

We don't want to designate just one thread for talent feedback though. Even one per class would quickly get into the dozens of pages. Respond as you see fit. If there's a good discussion on the topic that interests you, jump in. If not, start a new thread. The role forums are ones I am personally most likely to read, but as a collective we read every single forum post, so don't fear that your feedback won't get back to us.

Q u o t e:
Just for the sake of clarification, could you perhaps explain the little legend appearing at the bottom of the rightmost trees? The trees are clearly unfinished as you say, but it's somewhat confusing when the legend indicates that two of the priest trees are 100% and the third is 95%. It's easy to interpret that as an indication of how close to finished they are. That's clearly not what it means, but what does it mean?

Ah. That's probably throwing a lot of people. Those are internal notes we made to fellow developers and the alpha participants to indicate that the tree had gone through an initial review and was functional again. For a time you could literally get stuck on say tier 4 and not be able to spend enough points to go any deeper. The Wrath talent trees changed enormously from their initial unveiling to their final version on launch day, and even the final versions of many didn't last long. :)

Q u o t e:
I'm somewhat confused as to your vision for the holy and disc talent trees. Right now both of them have a heavy smattering of talents to increase the effectiveness of smite and holy fire, suggesting that you want us to spec for holy DPS... But to spec largely evenly throughout both trees?

I mentioned this in the healing forum, but I will reiterate. For a dps spec, damage is always useful. It helps you kill a boss and helps you get through easy content faster. Healers often have much less to do when healing isn't challenging or necessary. Our thought was that more damage could be useful while leveling, while doing easier dungeon encounters, and of course in PvP. The idea is that you have to give up some of your healing to pick up the damage talents. Sometimes that will be worth it. Sometimes you just need to focus on healing.