31pt talents up at MMO champ

#0 - July 14, 2010, 6:08 a.m.

MMO champ has been up for a while now; no more 502 error- http://www.wowtal.com/

Pretty dissapointed TBH, so many crap boring talents like improved tracking still in the game.

My biggest general complaint is talents you want still require the same number of points, yet our total number of talent points has gone way down. I was expecting talent cost adjustments (listed below) to keep the relative "value" of talent points high.

5pt ---> 3pt Talent
3pt ---> 2pt Talent
2pt ---> 1pt Talent
1pt ---> 1pt Talent (with some made baseline to the class, or available at lvl 10 for the spec)

Sadly most of the 3pt talents still cost 3pts which just makes them more expensive and even more mandatory. Talent point inflation gives players fewer options when choosing between a "fun" talent and a "dps" talent which contradicts the goal stated at Blizzcon last year. I'm all for 31pt trees but the talent point inflation is too high, with too few points to spend on flavor talents. It feels like DPS talents become even more mandatory. IMO the trees need more variety (more talent options) and less points required to max out individual talents.

Also there are several people (including myself) that would like to see the 5,15, & 25 point tiers removed so that you basically have 3 tiers of 10, 20 & 30 points. It would be a lot less rigid as you progress down your primary tree and offers a far more flexible use of your 10 points into sub trees.

Edit to show MMO champ is up and give link to their official calculator at wowtal instead of the ones at http://talent.mmo-champion.com which don't look as nice or show pre-requisite talent arrows.

Second edit to refine my opinion of the initial 31 point trees.

Zarhym

#27 - July 14, 2010, 7:08 a.m.

Here is a snippet of the patch notes for the latest Cataclysm beta build I feel is worth posting here:

Q u o t e:
A first pass on new talent trees has been implemented.

Each specialization has been reduced to a 31-point talent tree.
Players will now get a total of 41 talent points to spend.
31 points must be spent in the primary specialization tree before any points can be placed in additional trees.
Players will be asked to choose a specialization at level 10. Doing so will result in the unlocking of a spell or ability unique to that specialization, as well as one or more passive bonuses.
While this is a first pass on all of the talent trees, death knight, druid, paladin, warlock, Arcane mage, and Assassination rogue trees are not as far along as other specializations.
More information regarding our plans for talent trees can be found on our Cataclysm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25626290449&sid=1

Latest beta patch notes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24702229998&sid=2000

Zarhym

#62 - July 14, 2010, 8:01 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Only Assassination is behind for rogues? So you think sub is just fine and dandy? IMHO they are all pretty crap.

Well, to be fair, the very first note I quoted said that this is a first pass on all of the trees. We plan on opening up the field for questions about the new talent system in the very near future. Stay tuned.

Zarhym

#366 - July 14, 2010, 8:49 p.m.

One of our goals while fleshing out the new talent trees is to make sure that, when they go live for level 80 characters, damage and healing should be about the same. Some of the specializations currently implemented in the beta will likely need some form of passive "you do more damage/healing." Some trees already have passive bonuses like this, while other trees (like the hunter ones) do not.

Be sure to bring any questions you have to our live Developer Chat on Twitter this Friday from 5-6 PM PDT: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968570519&sid=1

Zarhym

#519 - July 15, 2010, 2:45 a.m.

We've added a preview of how we want the talent interface to look here (backed by the text we released on the forums last week): http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml?rhtml=y