WoW crazt talent tree changes coming in Cataclysm

Zorachus

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
Messages
11,278
Say goodbye to the good old talent tree you knew and loved the past 6 yrs in WoW, the biggest changes in the history of the game are being made in Cataclysm.

http://www.azzor.com/blogs/monochromacer/2010/07/talent-trees-get-major-facelift-cataclysm


- Each Tree trimmed down to 31 Talent points each, NOT the 70 currently in each tree. They'll have a 31-point tree to work down, with each talent being more integral and exciting than they have been in the past.

- You will be stuck in one single tree from Level 10 - 70, no hybrids allowed until Level 71. Once they spend their 31'st point in the final talent (at level 70), the other trees open up and become available to allocate points into from then on.

- As characters move into the level 78+ areas in Cataclysm, they'll begin seeing items with a new stat, Mastery. Once they learn the Mastery skill from their class trainer they'll receive bonuses from the stat based on the tree they've specialized in.
 
So is this an advertisement? Sure seems like one, where is your opinion / reason for posting this?
 
I am posting this let all WoW players know the new changes, and to start a discussion on the revised talent tree . What is your opinion ?

At first I was shocked how they could trim each tree down to 31 from 70, but maybe in the long run it will actually be much better.
 
Correction: Each tree will have about ~48 talents in them, but the highest tier will be 31-point talents.
 
all i can say is they better make DK tanking still fun and even better than it is now
 
As a longtime WoW player, this is a greatly positive change. Talent trees are bloated and people are just expected to know what to do with their points or look up cookie-cutter builds, ensuring they put 5/5 into +critical strike talents or what have you. My father is an intellectual; a surgeon who loves playing WoW, but admits that if he didn't have me there to tell him about talenting, glyphing and all that, he'd have NO idea what to do with his talents. Right now WoW is too complex in ways it need not be, and talents are one of them. Personally, I'd like to see the same thing happen to stats - I'd like to go back to having 5 stats that behind the scenes compute to everything else, not requiring someone to take up a spreadsheet in order to figure out that 1 agility = 2 attack power when you're X class and Y spec.

There is very little in WoW itself at the moment to tell you how to make use of game mechanics properly, but that doesn't stop them from building encounters that are made for ONLY those who read ElitistJerks and talent/gem/enchant/glyph their characters accordingly. This needs to stop. Immediately.
 
I guess making one thread about it was just not enough?
Cataclysm; which tree for DPS ? Blood = TANK only
Seems to me that what you are trying to do here is to direct traffic to sites where you or folks you know earn commission or other ad revenue, amirite?
Lol, it sounds like to me too.

Anyways, mmo-champion.com is all you need. ;)

This is a good change that I'm glad to see they're already to push out because I'm anxiously awaiting to see how each tree for Priest and Druid are going to be laid out. So far, the changes in Cataclysm is putting WoW back where I enjoyed it (with the exception of the ridiculously high stamina now to combat PvP spike damage). Other than that, I'm eagerly awaiting the release.
 
I guess making one thread about it was just not enough?
Cataclysm; which tree for DPS ? Blood = TANK only
Seems to me that what you are trying to do here is to direct traffic to sites where you or folks you know earn commission or other ad revenue, amirite?

Zorachus has a history of keeping 2 or 3 threads open with nearly the same subject matter. Often times posting the same post in both threads. But the site traffic thing is an interesting possibility.

Besides last I saw, Zorachus quit gaming, they discussed it for 10+ pages about how he should spend more time with his children.
 
Gonna post because I can. I don't currently ploay WoW but I did for a long time. I'm curious to see what cataclysm brings to the table and might rejoin for some casual stuff. And its an interesting change of perspective. If you're out for a month you're behind by 3. I used to twink and when I came back after I think it was almost a year (maybe like 6 months) everything had changed. Of course the changes were dumb but I was so far behind it wasn't worth it to go back to twinking. It would cost too much time.

The talent changes sound dumb, especially locking you into 1 tree for 60 some levels. Just asinine unless imo. Unless the trees will work totally different than now. I haven't read enough to know. I do know that it seems like every change in recent time has been for the worse. Imo of course.
 
I guess making one thread about it was just not enough?
Cataclysm; which tree for DPS ? Blood = TANK only
Seems to me that what you are trying to do here is to direct traffic to sites where you or folks you know earn commission or other ad revenue, amirite?
From reading through his posting history, don't think so. In the future, just report it if you have a concern and the mods will check it out. Besides me, the resident slacker mod, the mod team is pretty active and will look into matters.

Anyways, mmo-champion.com is all you need. ;)
great information there


Zorachus has a history of keeping 2 or 3 threads open with nearly the same subject matter. Often times posting the same post in both threads.
Yup, and I try to keep an eye out and close one or all as needed. We all get excited over games, sometimes a bit too much. I try not to rain on enthusiastic peoples parades.
 
I like the idea of reducing talents, way to many which is why I don't want to get back into wow, there is just too much junk now, but locking people in doesn't seem right either.
 
I doubt the lockdown means you can't switch to another tree. Most people didn't branch out much early on anyway because all the good stuff was fairly deep into the tree...so you wanted to go heavy into one so you could unlock the good stuff earlier.

My guess is this system is there to make it so people don't run around with a little bit of points in every tree dabbling because they don't quite understand how they should approach it.

If you were just getting into the game as say a druid or paladin..where people tell you each tree is for healing, dps or tanking. So you got people who think I want to be a tank who can heal..so I'll put points into both. And they don't realize that most of the stuff just modifies specific abilities they may not even have yet (which Im guessing they will also be addressing to make the trees line up better with when you get abilities.) Get a new ability and the next level or two you get enough talent tree points to put a point into the tree modifier for that ability.....so you saw it pre-tree ability then post-tree ability and you can decide if you think it's worth it.

Im guessing in the end the system will just simplify it so there's less people getting frustrated with the class. Also so early on people will have a better idea what people's role will be in the group instead of having a mix of a bunch of trees and you need to get the forensics team to figure it out for you.
 
I saw this coming, it's the only way they can remotely balance anything. Talent tree bloat in some classes was already horrible, there was almost no way they could have streamlined the current system.
 
To the folks thinking I am trying to get traffic to some guys website ? That is ridiculous. I have never once done that, and don't even know this site. I was just Google up info on DK Tanks and liked the article on his site that came up. Then rereading it today I saw this other article on the Talent tree which was news to me so I decided to post it here to start a discussion is all
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Last edited by a moderator:
And whoever commented about time with my children vs playing games ? WTF ? My kids are the most important in the universe to me. I only game after they go to bed. Not that I even need to explain that to anyone here.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
They had to do something. After almost six years, the talent trees are so fucked up, it's ridiculous. The talents are all combined in weird ways, in weird places, and are often in the wrong trees, IMO.
 
I'm pretty sad about most of the things I hear about Cataclysm. I play a Resto Druid and my class is getting nerfed hard. They are turning Tree of Life into a gimmicky situational ability with a long cooldown. They are taking one of our main instant-cast HoTs, Lifebloom, and making it so that we can only have it on one target at a time. They are raising the base mana cost of our AoE heal (Wild Growth) very significantly. On top of all that they are obsessive about the idea that healers should constantly be running out of mana and that the concept is somehow fun.
 
Everything is getting revamped so I don't know how you can say you are getting nerfed.

The reason priests never got a holy form is because it wouldn't change anything. Instead of healing normally, you would just be healing in holy form. Imagine if you could heal the same amount, with the same bonuses, just without being in tree form. Then treeform can be a cooldown you pop.

edit: Back in classic, healers used to talk about efficiency. Like, using Heal (Rank 2) instead of your max rank because it was a good balance between throughput and HP per mana. People also used to care about being low on the overhealing meters. That all went away when Blizzard made all ranks cost the same, but it was another dimension to being a healer.
 
Last edited:
I'm pretty sad about most of the things I hear about Cataclysm. I play a Resto Druid and my class is getting nerfed hard. They are turning Tree of Life into a gimmicky situational ability with a long cooldown. They are taking one of our main instant-cast HoTs, Lifebloom, and making it so that we can only have it on one target at a time. They are raising the base mana cost of our AoE heal (Wild Growth) very significantly. On top of all that they are obsessive about the idea that healers should constantly be running out of mana and that the concept is somehow fun.

Just be thankful you aren't a shaman. Nerfs ahoy! Managing mana is a fun mechanic that has been lost in wotlk. Hopefully they will tune it to BC'ish levels without the need to chain mana pots. :)
 
They are taking one of our main instant-cast HoTs, Lifebloom, and making it so that we can only have it on one target at a time.

They have been slowly but surely doing this since the launch of wrath.
 
One thing I disliked about the game when I played during BC period was that you were kinda screwed if you were a healer and your guild didn't provide for you. Because it was a major chore for a healer to go out and do dailies or farm because it took so long to kill stuff, and it was expensive to respec when you might be called up to heal the next day out of the blue.

I assume the dual spec system they added corrects this failing where healers are penalized in every other aspect of the game for being healers.

It was OK at first being a healer for a guild, but the cost of pots and upgrades and everything was just emptying my bank account out and I couldn't do dailies and farm enough in the lulls to make the money back. When I went quit the guild and went boomkin the game started to be less work and more fun again, however then it was difficult to get in on raids because I wasn't the DPS people wanted. But at least you didn't have to endure the healer hatefest if the raid went bad, because it was always the healers fault and never the healers who helped pull off a kill.

I mean I understand streamlining and making things more clear, but I also hope they keep in mind that raiding and PVP aren't the end all be all of what people do in the game and keep features in place that make the rest of the game more enjoyable when they have the time to partake.
 
I brought this up in the beta thread about a week ago. The response from the community have been surprisingly positive despite the anger toward the (now retracted) battle.net real names on forums. It seems that nobody wanted to spend 5 talent points for 10% damage, or something pointless like that.

Another significant change is that, once you put in your first talent point at level 10, also you get a couple abilities that clearly define your role. They want people to know what their class will be like right away, instead of 30 levels later. For example, Enhancement Shaman will get dual wield and some kind of active ability (like Lava Lash). No more "Awesome, I got my first talent point! Now I have 1% hit!"
 
I brought this up in the beta thread about a week ago. The response from the community have been surprisingly positive despite the anger toward the (now retracted) battle.net real names on forums. It seems that nobody wanted to spend 5 talent points for 10% damage, or something pointless like that.

Another significant change is that, once you put in your first talent point at level 10, also you get a couple abilities that clearly define your role. They want people to know what their class will be like right away, instead of 30 levels later. For example, Enhancement Shaman will get dual wield and some kind of active ability (like Lava Lash). No more "Awesome, I got my first talent point! Now I have 1% hit!"

Instant gratification.
 
I'm pretty sad about most of the things I hear about Cataclysm. I play a Resto Druid and my class is getting nerfed hard. They are turning Tree of Life into a gimmicky situational ability with a long cooldown. They are taking one of our main instant-cast HoTs, Lifebloom, and making it so that we can only have it on one target at a time. They are raising the base mana cost of our AoE heal (Wild Growth) very significantly. On top of all that they are obsessive about the idea that healers should constantly be running out of mana and that the concept is somehow fun.

its about time that druids got nerfed. the healing that they can do is insane. im talking in bgs though. really unbalanced...some of the classes. resto druid was one of them. not trying to start a flame war just my opinion. druids ....palys and rogues need to be looked at in bgs ..really really unbalanced.
 
Just be thankful you aren't a shaman. Nerfs ahoy! Managing mana is a fun mechanic that has been lost in wotlk. Hopefully they will tune it to BC'ish levels without the need to chain mana pots. :)

Resto and Enhancement have barely any improvements so far but Elemental is looking awesome. I may have to bust out my Elemental PVP style again, all the mechanics now just scream crazy burst damage. I miss the days of 1 shotting 3 people with chain lightning.

My DK is definitely going to be a DW Frost still, with the change to frost presence now having the 15% damage increase along with obliterate no longer consuming diseases.
 
Last edited:
I can't believe people are already crying (yes, it's crying) about being NERFed.

You have to be kidding me. It's not a NERF, it's a revamp of everything. Look at hunters totally revamped everything and then cry some more about losing a hot or some damage.

This is BETA, things will change a ton before it's released.
 
Am I wasting time upgrading my Tankadin ? Just got back into WoW this month after not playing since Winter. My Parading had all iLevel 245 gear, now running ICC as Off Tank, picking up a few 251 and 264 pcs. But with Cataclysm so close to official release won't greens dropping off a rat be better in Level 81+ zones ?
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Am I wasting time upgrading my Tankadin ? Just got back into WoW this month after not playing since Winter. My Parading had all iLevel 245 gear, now running ICC as Off Tank, picking up a few 251 and 264 pcs. But with Cataclysm so close to official release won't greens dropping off a rat be better in Level 81+ zones ?
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

Maybe maybe not...some higher ilvl pieces will likely be with you until hit level 85, and even be good enough for entry level raids. From vanilla to BC, my druid had some BWL/AQ/Naxx gear that was good until the later parts of Kara. From BC to WotLK, my shaman and priest had pieces that were good until level 80 heroics and Naxx. (Neither one was geared beyond SSC/TK, in fact the priest was purely a PVP toon.) I've not leveled my horde druid from 70 yet but I am pretty sure his gear (SW/MH/BT) would last until triumph badge gear replaced it.
 
One thing I disliked about the game when I played during BC period was that you were kinda screwed if you were a healer and your guild didn't provide for you. Because it was a major chore for a healer to go out and do dailies or farm because it took so long to kill stuff, and it was expensive to respec when you might be called up to heal the next day out of the blue.

I assume the dual spec system they added corrects this failing where healers are penalized in every other aspect of the game for being healers.

My first character when the game came out was a priest, so I ran smack into that issue. Dual-spec corrected it and I'm back to playing a healer again (shaman).

Plus you can only use one pot per fight now, so you cant chain drink pots. Flasks arent all that useful now either. Theres almost no need for farming to keep raiding.
 
Maybe maybe not...some higher ilvl pieces will likely be with you until hit level 85, and even be good enough for entry level raids. From vanilla to BC, my druid had some BWL/AQ/Naxx gear that was good until the later parts of Kara. From BC to WotLK, my shaman and priest had pieces that were good until level 80 heroics and Naxx. (Neither one was geared beyond SSC/TK, in fact the priest was purely a PVP toon.) I've not leveled my horde druid from 70 yet but I am pretty sure his gear (SW/MH/BT) would last until triumph badge gear replaced it.

Looking at the items found in BETA on mmo-champion suggests that you will in fact get rid of your iLevel 264 epics pretty quickly with blues and quest rewards. I saw a nice polearm that required level 78 and it blew away my 251 iLevel polearm on my huntard.

Especially in regards to tanking and healing, you will replace gear very fast. A helm with 400+ stamina at level 78 will destroy my iLevel 245 set I have now. Not to mention the big changes with defense (not needed) and spirit (more important).

This jump seems much bigger than the last 2 expansions.
 
Looking at the items found in BETA on mmo-champion suggests that you will in fact get rid of your iLevel 264 epics pretty quickly with blues and quest rewards. I saw a nice polearm that required level 78 and it blew away my 251 iLevel polearm on my huntard.

Especially in regards to tanking and healing, you will replace gear very fast. A helm with 400+ stamina at level 78 will destroy my iLevel 245 set I have now. Not to mention the big changes with defense (not needed) and spirit (more important).

This jump seems much bigger than the last 2 expansions.

That does kind of piss me off a bit. I mean for player who busted their balls, or tits on grinding out awesome raid gear iLevel 264/277, and spent alot of time to learn the encounters in those 25man dungeons, and get truly Epic gear. But, then to be replaced from an easy Level 81+ five man Instance boss is not cool.

Why even bother playing the Raids right now ? Don't even bother for that new iLevel 277 Ruby gear, total waste of time. If killing a Level 81 rat, will drop a green with close stats :rolleyes:
 
Man the amount of crying over raid epics being replaced is nothing new, but wow is it annoying every time an expansion is on the horizon.

fast forward to summer 2012...

Man why even kill Deathwing for his ilvl380 gear it'll just be replaced by some lvl85 rat dropping a green almost as good in The Hellplains of Argus or whatever xpac is after cata.

Gear is meant to be replaced, if you want something you'll keep till they close the servers go for mounts, tabards, pets, etc...
 
these talent changes for end game raiders (pve) mean nearly nothing. This perspective is from a fury warrior.

They made 9 talent points passive, they change a few talents effects (slightly) taking 5point talents down to 2 or 3.

Overall its just the same thing with less clicks, again for end game raiders.

There are a couple new abilities, the norm for expansion packs.

I give it a big fat meh.
 
they essentially gutted the mage frost tree, did not even bother focusing on the others.


This was not simply a case of trimming down the number of points needed to get certain capabilities, they REMOVED a ton of abilities, arctic winds being one of the more glaring examples.


Sucks, as it stands right now, this revamp makes mages less powerful in terms of what they can do. ESPECIALLY compared to the pre 41 point cata revamp where they went crazy with the abilities and talents.
 
Back
Top