Talents you hate
by Allison Robert 
Mar 10th 2008 at 7:00PM
My main is a tanking feral druid who respecs to PvP resto pretty regularly (you know you're playing a hybrid class when your local trainer publicly thanks you for financing his boat payments), and every week I find myself staring at my talent calculator wanting to take a shillelagh to Nature's Focus. The Druid restoration tree has a lot of talents that leave you wondering what you're supposed to be using them for, and I nominate this one as winner, class, and show. Which says something, given the number of resto talents there are that either: a). make no sense if you take the 41-point talent Tree of Life, which virtually every raiding resto does, or b). also make no sense if you mostly PvP.
Rant after the cut.
Rant after the cut.
For the uninitiated, Nature's Focus affects spell pushback or interruption (for 5 talent points!) on:
- Healing Touch: Which you never cast in PvP, can't cast as a tree Druid in PvE, and for which you'd have to talent into to the exclusion of necessary HoT improvements for it to be really worth it
- Regrowth: Which you desperately try to avoid casting no matter what because it gulps mana with the approximate fuel efficiency as a 1998 Chevy Suburban. As many wiser restos than myself have noted, no matter what the situation is, if you're using this spell a lot, things are going down the tubes
- Tranquility: Which is a very powerful healing spell on a 10-minute cooldown
You have to hold your nose and take something to get further into the resto tree no matter what, so assuming you're 3/3 Natural Shapeshifter, it's either Nature's Focus (barf) or Naturalist (I would argue that Naturalist is an even worse talent for resto purposes, but it's a useful talent for ferals and I can live with that notion). 4 points has to go into one of the two, so assuming we leave Naturalist to the kitties and bears, we are now stuck with a talent that benefits a spell we never cast, a spell we shouldn't cast, and a spell on a 10-minute cooldown. I know there are situational benefits to be had, and possibly more to come in 2.4 (at least with respect to Regrowth, as Phaelia points out here), but I am nonetheless in agony every week having to take 4 points in something that could be much better spent elsewhere.
I'm currently leveling a Shaman, Hunter, and a Warrior and am not sure I want to plan their talents at 70 yet; I'm afraid I'll just scare myself.
I'm currently leveling a Shaman, Hunter, and a Warrior and am not sure I want to plan their talents at 70 yet; I'm afraid I'll just scare myself.
Filed under: Night Elves, Battlegrounds, Talents, Classes, Raiding, PvP, Analysis / Opinion, Druid, Tauren, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
jappaex Mar 10th 2008 7:08PM
Well atleast you get 15% resist to stun and charm for only 3 points. Warriors have it for 5.
Allison Robert Mar 10th 2008 7:14PM
15% resistance to Stun and Fear from Primal Tenacity, a seventh-tier talent in the feral tree - no PvP or PvE resto will have it. And, sad to say, it's one of the talents most routinely jettisoned for PvE purposes.
I have it in my tanking build to resist as many stuns and fears as possible for both 5-mans and raids (stuns leave you unable to dodge for the duration of the debuff, which means you take more damage, and less fear = always a good thing), but I may have to get rid of it for Nurturing Instinct in the next patch. Woe!
jappaex Mar 10th 2008 9:41PM
True, true. I do agree with your statement on Nature's Focus. Maybe a change to make it 50% spell pushback resist (all spells) would fix it?
DaveThePain Mar 11th 2008 5:06AM
---Which is a very powerful healing spell on a 10-minute cooldown---
I loled!
Charlie Mar 10th 2008 7:10PM
I find mages have some of the best talent tress, as well as priests.
Its rare while planning out a spec that you have to take something that you just don't want to.
The only thing I can really think of, is pyro for mages inorder to get blastwave, since the only reason you ever use that spell is with PoM. But still its one point, and a spell you might use sometimes when your bored (it looks cool thats for sure).
hpavc Mar 10th 2008 7:34PM
Priests, yes what a messed up randomly allocate dtree.
Zarzuur Mar 10th 2008 7:36PM
IMO, the icy spells I didn't take are Frost Warding and Frozen Core - hardly enough mobs to make them worthwhile, either in reflecting back frost spells or taking a bit less fire/frost damage. The rest are OK.
theRaptor Mar 10th 2008 8:25PM
Except if you go arcane. So much of the early arcane tree is plain ol' filler. Frost has about two talents I would never take, but the rest of the tree is great. Fire is pretty good, but very polar depending on whether you are PVE or PVP.
Snailking Mar 10th 2008 8:49PM
Priests have good talent trees? What kind of $%&#ing crack are you smoking pal?
matt Mar 10th 2008 9:02PM
Well, in the mage tree, you're basically taking 10 points of filler to get to Improved Counterspell in a PvP build. (I'm obviously not counting the 5 points for clearcasting as filler.) You do get a few points of anti-resistance, which I guess if great if someone's... uh... wearing frost resist gear?
Agreed on the Frost side, though. It's a sweet tree. And the Arcane side isn't awful if you're going PvE Arcane.
I do think that Wand Specialization is Blizzard's little inside joke, though. It wouldn't be OP if it doubled your wand damage. If you can multiply a talent by 4 and it's still worthless, that's saying something.
Nick S Mar 10th 2008 11:33PM
frozen core is a talent with no purpose whatsoever. when i first saw it i searched for it on the forums, just to see if there was some special reason to have it... but i never found one.
Jack Spicer Mar 11th 2008 12:09AM
The priest's Discipline tree is a total mess.
As an illustration, let's take a look at the very first tier in Discipline. Its also a good example of "talents I hate". There are two talents in this tier.
Unbreakable Will - Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by an additional 15% (5/5)
Wand Specialization - Increases your damage with Wands by 25% (5/5)
While both spells have their uses, from the standpoint of a non-pvp group and raid healer neither of those are really that useful. Its a complete case of having to pick a talent purely for the sake of moving further along the tree.
Naix Mar 11th 2008 11:15AM
"I find mages have some of the best talent tress, as well as priests."
I take it you never played a priest. The holy tree is only a shadow what paladins get for healing. The Disc tree is a joke and the shadow tree is ok, but don't pvp as shadow cause you will get beat down.
Depherios Mar 10th 2008 7:24PM
One word. Lightwell.
Fetialis Mar 10th 2008 7:38PM
What he said.
No other class gets to complain until your 31pt. talent sucks that bad.
Orestes Mar 10th 2008 8:27PM
I'm inclined to agree, if only for what it could be if they just eliminated that pesky "breaks on damage" part and morons would learn to click one time
Faar Mar 10th 2008 9:00PM
Lightwell is great. Please educate yourselves, nubs.
It's an extremely powerful HoT, and very very cheap mana-wise for the total amount it heals. I doubt any other heal spell in the game comes close, except perhaps Tranquility, which has its own issues.
Kuroyume Mar 10th 2008 9:43PM
@Orestes:
lol... two words for you:
Endless Rage
What's worse than a useless 31 point talent?
a useless 41 point talent
Kuroyume Mar 10th 2008 9:45PM
bah... got names mixed up... i meant @Fetialis
Bootsanator Mar 11th 2008 11:36AM
I was gonna type a big long post, but really, I can keep it concise.
1 - Situational.
2 - PRIESTS don't determine effectiveness, OTHERS do...not gonna rely on that, until I'm farming sunwell (lol).
3 - Cooldown. It would be OP without a cooldown, true, but still.