Any FREE respec for any class in next patch?

Q u o t e:
How much did the shape of the trees change?

*nod*

We only give free respecs in cases where the shape of a tree changes, meaning actual talent placement and/or point cost. Meaning if a talent changes names and effect, but retains its position and point cost it doesn't warrant a free respec.

(edit - I think my initial paragraph was a bit vague in what in relates to, and that's the changing shape/point in relation to breaking builds. My next post clarifies a bit more: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=98642215&postId=985641050&sid=1#54 The below paragraph does go into the actual issue. I'm not sure if most people skipped it or just took the first paragraph out separately as the main statement, I'm sure I would too.)

The reason being if you were to spend 5 talent points on a talent that was then reduced to 3 points, you would me missing 2 points which you could have spent elsewhere. On the opposite end if we were to say put in a new pre-requisite for a talent you already have, you would have more points to spend elsewhere than you're intended to. Or the possibility of any number of unknown side effects.

There aren't any free respecs in 2.1 for any classes, unless of course some new changes were to go in that required it before the release of the patch. At current though none of the changes being made would result in one.

The consensus seems to be throughout the thread that free respecs should be given based on the importance of the changes being made, and not just if the change breaks a talent build or not. I think my original post was a little vague in the first paragraph as well, I didn't hit on a key point immediately which is "if it breaks a build".

So, as far as changing based on importance, does changing a talent from a 1/3/5% to 2/6/10% warrant a free respec? What about 4/12/20%? Do you feel that change is important to that class, does everyone else? What about when a talent with the same numbers for a different class is increased in the same way, but the talent is considered unnecessary by a lot of players. Does it still warrant a free respec? It's entirely subjective what constitutes an important change.

That wouldn't work, it would be a mess, so it's really all or nothing. Free respecs all the time for everyone every time, or choosing to only do so when necessary to avoid buggy/broken builds. It sounds awesome, hey I don't want to spend gold either, but respecs do factor in to a player's expenditures, and continually pumping money into the economy isn't something we would take lightly. Offering a class a free respec every time anything is changed isn't something we agree with. It may seem heartless, but we do need to curb the influx of unsubstantiated monetary gain in the game economy as much as possible.

And so we only provide free respecs in cases where if we didn't the talent builds would break, it's a clear line and it's what is required.

Q u o t e:
Hunter survival is getting a major upgrade. So I have to pay my respec cost to go test out the new functionality of those talents and see if I like them? And if I don't like them, I end up having to pay to respec again?

We invite you to take part in the PTR and test the talent changes if you like.

Q u o t e:


You seem to be ignoring the situations Paladins are in. They have a BRAND NEW TALENT in their prot tree, a talent which any half serious tank is going to take up.

You only talk about talent values, not additional talents altogether.

Did you even read the patch notes?

Did you read the post you quoted? I don't expect anyone to like the fact that they don't get a free respec, but I gave all of the information you could need to at least comprehend why we handle it the way we do.

The post you quoted answers why we wouldn't give a free respec because of a new talent, or talent change that doesn't break a build. Again, like it or not, the information is there if you choose to read and understand it. Beyond that I don't have anything else I can say on the subject to make it much clearer.