#0 - July 15, 2010, 6:31 p.m.
Odds are nothing will be changed, but hey, one can always dream right?
Once upon a time ago, there was hope that talent trees would lead to a 'hero' class. Most assumed they would be the last step of the talent system, but in the end we were told "Well the talent trees already sort of do make classes into heroes" and we were given Death Knights to fill in the vocabulary of "hero" to appease the masses. Though everyone knows they are just like every other class.
The Cata talent trees are pretty much what we have now, just condensed; so it's the same result you just went about it another way. It's pretty much the difference between 2+2=4 and 1+3=4. Whoop-de-do.
Anyways.
I think that every class should have a set of defined 'hero' talents; but they are unlocked by picking specific talents, rather than spending X number of points in a talent tree. Which is to say scrap the three talent trees and make it one talent tree. You can keep the 'regions' per spec as they are, and keep some talents linked; but as you level you should be able to pick whatever talent you feel like you could use.
"Ultimate" Talents would be given out based on what other talents you picked.
There could be like say 12 different 'hero' abilities per class and you can unlock one every 20-30 levels (similar to the rune system) If you spent points equally among the low tier talents you open up 'generic' Hero abilities; if you spent points elusively in an area, you open up Hero abilities centered on that tree. So for example when you hit level 30 and your first hero ability becomes available; but since you have abilities scattered all over the place, you are given a choice of 'hero' abilities that any spec would find useful like an increased % damage/healing done over X seconds. However, if you spent all your points in one tree up to that point you instead get access to a talent that lets you regenerate mana/health, or stuns/CCs the enemy, or knock-back/daze, an instant attack that does a good chunk of damage, or whatever might be appropriate for the direction of that spec.
These hero abilities could be used to balance the classes so regardless of the final spec you create for yourself, they can be made to be viable.
What would the talent trees look like though? Let's take warriors as an example. They have a DPS tree, DPS tree, and Tanking Tree. One of the trees is redundant because it's two DPS trees. DPS and different kind of DPS does not make for a unique tree. What's the big difference? One weapon vs two weapons. That's kind of pointless. The inflexibility of the current talent trees. Personally it would have been more interesting if the warrior talents were set up as Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, and Tanking.
You'd have your first tier talents that gives the warrior "Auto-Throw/Shoot" "Heroic Strike" "Shield Block" along those lines. The talent trees would enable your warrior to full fill the *base* roll of the spec within say 20 talent points. This would let them be able to fulfill the role to say 80% of the maximum capacity. The remaining 20% would consist of utility and hero abilities. So the deeper talent abilities would grant a warrior the ability to charge, intercept, intervene, disarm, buffs, debuffs. Heroic talents would be stuff along the lines of Shield Wall, Recklessness, Retaliation (make these awesome again) Bladestorm, Shockwave, Thunderclap (More like WC3 version) In any event all 'hero' abilities I think should be ones that are active abilities as opposed to passive ones; as they are the abilities that should define a class.
This would allow for things such as:
Tank/Tank - High survivability, threat generation, and group damage mitigation
Tank/Melee - High survivability, threat generation, and good AoE damage abilities
Tank/Ranged - High survivability, threat generation, and good ranged damage abilities
In that set you have a tank that could mitigate raid-wide damage periodically, a tank that would be better for AoE tanking, and a tank that would be good for tanking mobs that like to stay at range.
You'd also have:
Melee/Melee - High DPS, high mobility, enemy debuffs
Melee/Tank - High DPS, high survivability
Melee/Ranged - High DPS, burst ranged DPS
In that set you have a DPSer that brings enemy debuffs, a DPSer who can 'tank' but has low threat generation (so can off-tank things properly), and a DPSer who can keep sustained DPS even if they have to move into range (if a warrior has to run out of melee to avoid AoEs, he can still keep pumping out DPS)
And the last set of
Ranged/Ranged - High ranged DPS, group buffs
Ranged/Melee - High ranged DPS, burst melee DPS
Ranged/Tank - High ranged DPS, high survivability
That would give you a warrior who could be like a hunter without a pets and traps but brings group buffs, ranged-centric DPS that can hold their own in melee for a short duration, or a ranged tank.
Course this could bring in so many balance issues, since you end up talking about specs instead of three. I don't think it has to be that way if 80% of a spec's power is held within the first 20ish points of the spec. It would mean you could mess with the last 20% in a lot of ways but the effectiveness of the spec would still be viable. The last 20% should hold the 'awesome hero' abilities that last a short while, but helps define the spec. Stuff like Bladestorm, Shield Wall (This would have to be buffed), Mortal Strike, Shockwave.
That's just how I'd like to see how talent trees executed. Something that gives a lot of options while remaining viable. We have essentially 3 cookie cutter specs per class because all talent trees are currently high tier heavy (forcing everyone to go deep into the trees to be viable) instead of being low tier heavy, which can open up doors to all sorts of specs to be viable because the bulk of the spec's power would be attained early; with hero talents being what defines a specific build and gives it some uniqueness and personality. It could mean the difference between a warrior having Bladestorm to mow down many mobs, vs one that would do a devastating amount of single target damage and knocking the target back like 20 yards, or even making shockwave available to a DPS-centric warrior. Basically just abilities that have a weak long-term impact for DPS, healing, or tanking; these could be things used to define specs and create 'heroes.' Would be doable if talent trees were constructed so that low level tiers held the bulk of the power.
