Find popular builds with TalentChic
by Eliah Hecht 
Oct 19th 2008 at 7:00PM
The site makes use of Armory data, so it stays relatively up-to-date. Builds are organized by class and by primary tree, and you can also filter for playstyle (Raid/PvP for instance). Playstyle is determined by what kind of gear the player was raiding when their data was cached, so it's not foolproof (a raider could have been wearing their PvP gear and thus counted as PvP), but it's about as good as can be done with Armory data.
As far as the information displayed goes, it seems reasonable to me. I'm a little surprised that Combat is still so dominant with Rogues, given that I've heard Mutilate got significantly buffed. And I'm very surprised that 0/61/0 is the most popular Holy Priest build; I haven't seen people talk about that one very much, and I certainly wouldn't want to be without Meditation. It does drop to only second most popular if I look at raiding Holy Priests. Are your own talent builds popular? Does TalentChic give you any ideas on how to spec?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
John Oct 19th 2008 7:19PM
Well this dont seem very up to date (3.0.2) since no sane firemage would ever go 2/48/11 after the patch
Damntheman Oct 19th 2008 7:50PM
Why do people find it so hard to choose decent talents. As long as you can make some kind of reasonable estimates about how much you using a given spell. Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised when [url=http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/19/divine-providence-not-worthless-after-all/]wowinsider's colomnists can't do it[/url].
Ekimus Oct 20th 2008 9:09AM
This is primarily for the min/maxers out there. Also, it's always good to have a decent starting point from which to work.
Lannicbane Oct 20th 2008 7:12PM
I agree with John, and not just for mages. I looked at lots of the most popular builds according to TalentChic. They are very bottom heavy as people are trying out all the new talents at the end of the trees. As it gets closer to Wrath, a lot of these specs will fall away. Keep in mind, we are living in paradise right now with nerfed instances and awesome new talents. Everything is very easy. My guild has skipped t5 and is downing bosses in Black Temple and Mount Hyjal. As we level up in Wrath, start to hit progression raids, get new pvp and arena experiences, and the theorycrafters compute every little talent point to dps/heal/etc ratio, we will start to see the most viable specs rise to the surface.
Noel Nov 27th 2008 6:28AM
It really seems that all the news trees will be great at level 80. But they suck at 70.
Angry Joe Oct 19th 2008 8:26PM
Tell that to Retadins.
SlimPickens42 Oct 19th 2008 8:49PM
@Angry Joe
Why is everyone so bent out of shape about the fact that Paladins are finally fun to play?
Nathan Oct 19th 2008 8:59PM
There is a difference between fun to play and overpowered, and ret paladins are definitely overpowered right now. Perhaps not PVE-wise, as I have not seen any in that environment, but they are over the top in the battlegrounds.
That being said, I hope they don't take all the fun out of them and make them useless, but they do need to be knocked down a few pegs. :)
muffin_of_chaos Oct 19th 2008 9:58PM
@SlimPickens
Why do most of my fellow retadins find it so hard to believe that the other classes *aren't* simply out to get them?
It's like ret pallies believe that because they weren't viable before, no one wants them to be now. But the idea of buffing ret isn't what aggravates people, merely the severity of the buff.
SlimPickens42 Oct 19th 2008 10:40PM
@Nathan and Muffin_of_Chaos
I'll admit I can't speak of PvP, because the only time I go to BG is when there's something in it for me like during the Olympics. However, I can speak about PvE, and I know that finally we aren't useless anymore. Before the patch if I wanted to do an instance I had to either respec to Protection or Holy or just not go. Before the patch Retadins were a total joke. I couldn't really tank, healing was hard because of mana concerns and many other classes could out DPS me with no problem. I had no utility. Now I do.
muffin_of_chaos Oct 19th 2008 11:12PM
The question is...why do you assume people want to take that away?
Non-ret pallies just want a more level playing field, which doesn't mean they want to take the buffs we've gotten completely away. Equality is what we ret pallies wanted before...we shouldn't want it to be slanted towards anyone, even when it's us. Or resto druids or SL/SL locks or arms warriors or rogues.
We shouldn't feel like we're entitled to have obscene advantages over other classes just because we had disadvantages before. That gets us nowhere.
ivan256 Oct 20th 2008 11:51AM
When a Ret paladin can do 15% more DPS than anybody else in a 25-man raid, they're overpowered in PvE.
Perhaps all you ret pallys want to explain to rogues, mages, warlocks, hunters, dps warriors, shadow priests, and druids why you - as a utility class - should be so far ahead of everybody on the meters? I'm cool with parity, but what you've got now is ridiculous.
dawnseven Oct 20th 2008 12:08PM
I'm with Slim on this, to a point.
My main is a holy pally and has been since I rolled her. I'm sure Blizz will work out the OPness in somewhat short order, and I'm sure all the ret pallies will QQ about that when it happens, however, for now I say let them run amok and if you get your butt beat by one just /salute and go on about your way. They were laughed at and put down for so long ... a week or two (or three) of them taking their revenge on all of the other classes isn't so bad.
Asahunt Oct 19th 2008 8:48PM
Well it's only been collecting data from really "well-off" level 70's. Ergo, there won't be any real leveling info, as well as any go-to information because of the relatively small sample size. With [short?] time though, there should be a more valid sample, and when Wrath hits, they'll be collecting leveling builds from everybody.
I for one, am extremely excited about this site.
Ken Oct 19th 2008 8:59PM
Plus I think the armory is busted. Most of my toons have been showing as "Untalented" for days even though they have spent the talent points.
Lemons Oct 19th 2008 9:37PM
Don't trust that site, it's filters are dumb. I wanted to find the most popular rogue build for pvp and it gives me a combat build that takes imp slice and dice, and doesn't take nerves of steel (basically a raiding build)?
Brennith Oct 19th 2008 9:42PM
The links to talent calculators don't always work. Some do, some don't. I was looking at arcane mages, and the "build 1" link worked great, but the arcane/frost ones didn't.
Evan Oct 19th 2008 10:08PM
wow that number 1 fire mage build 2/48/11 is just reject build after the patch the mages using that number 1 spec should delete their mage and let the full 0/61/0 spec mages come in
The Claw Oct 19th 2008 10:03PM
Mutilate might have been significantly buffed, but if you've got two good swords/maces/fists and no good daggers, you're not going to switch from Combat to try it. That's the boat I'm in and I'm sure I'm not alone.
And anyway, it's not as if Combat DIDN'T get significantly buffed also..
Nick S Oct 20th 2008 12:15AM
I think this is why a lot of Rogues are still combat. Our Rogues are just now starting to roll on daggers that went to Hunters or got sharded in the past.