#0 - June 4, 2010, 2:23 a.m.
Q u o t e:
Every player is going to have a different definition of "boring or bland talents" so that's not going to be a great litmus test. We're probably keeping Improved Overpower. It's the kind of talent that makes Overpower more powerful for an Arms warrior or just makes the ability more powerful in general. Because the talent affects one ability it can have a greater magnitude which is more noticeable than say a 5% damage buff.
Cruelty is the kind of talent we'll replace (probably by making it affect only a handful of abilities) and tanking talents like Anticipation (if we can get away with it).
Now GC arms warriors are the only spec that ever, EVER, uses overpower. If the talent was made baseline it would only free up talents, and I think those extra 2 talent points are something you'd rather not replace as you'd have to think of something equally boring if not more interesting to replace it.
Unless in cata both prot and fury want to be sitting in battlestance I struggle to see how your argument holds water :s
There are lot of bland talents like overpower, I'm going to list all passive % modifying talents that doesn't change the spec but just increases damage across the board (I'll touch on only a few specs) all other talents in the tree are considered flavourful and game changing:
Retribution paladin
Deflection 5/5: Adds 5% parry
Benediction 5/5: Instant cast spells mana reduced by 10%
Improved BoM 2/2: Increase AP bonus of BoM by 25%
Heart of the Crusader 3/3: Adds 3%
Vindication 2/2: Melee attacks have a chance to reduce the victims ap.
Sanctity of Battle 3/3: Adds 3% across the board +15% damage to excorcism and crusader stike
Crusade 3/3: Adds 6% damage
2h weapon specialization 3/3: 6% more damage with 2handers
Vengeance 3/3: Adds 9%
Fanaticism 3/3: Adds 18% crit to judgements
Sanctified Retribution 1/1: Adds 3% More damage
Swift Retribution 3/3: Adds 3% haste raid wide
Total: 34 talent points that do not affect the play style of the spec, all of which are passive bonuses that are fire and forget and/or do not add any flavour to the spec. So more or less 50% of the talent points are % modifiers that could just be passive bonuses to spending talent points in the tree.
Now the arms talent tree isn't chock full of % modifiers like paladins and rogues, but each tree has a lot of talents that could be made baseline without effecting other specs, this is mainly because each spec is generally segregated to different stance as it is generally not as beneficial as it used to be to stance dance.
Arms Warrior
Improved Rend 2/2: Increases rend bleed damage by 20%
Deflection 5/5: Adds 5% parry
Improved charge 2/2: Increase rage on a charge by 10
Anger Management 1/1: Gain 1 rage per seconds (this should have been baseline from launch)
Improved Overpower 2/2: Add 50% crit to overpower
Impale 2/2: Crit damage bonus of 20%
2h weapon specialization 3/3: Adds 6% damage
Strength of Arms 2/2: 4% extra strength and stamina +4 expertise
Blood Frenzy: 4%+ physical damage
Arms isn't as bad as ret, but I hope this outlines that if you say you're going to get rid of boring or bland talents the scope is pretty huge, a lot of talents could be made baseline since not all specs use them, and if that was done then certain abilities that weren't designed for other specs or are holding them back *cough* divine shield *cough* then they could be turned into talents rather than being baseline. I think rogues need a lot of special attention for cata that they haven't had since launch especially for their talent trees since 70% of their talents are % modifiers or passive buffs of some kind.
