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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBlizzCon 2011: Blizzard reveals new talent system
by Josh Myers 
Oct 21st 2011 at 4:49PM
Like the current talent system, players will choose their specialization at level 10. This specialization chooses what abilities you'll be gaining as you'll level up, rather than there being baseline talents. There will be a few baseline class abilities, but not nearly as many. According to Ghostcrawler, these spec abilities will be "anything your spec requires." Spec abilities will be learned out in the field when you level; you only need to visit the trainer to choose a new specialization! In the preview at Blizzcon, the holy specialization for paladins received staple holy abilities, such as Holy Shock, Holy Light, and Beacon of Light. Some specialization abilities will be available to two specs, such as both ret and prot getting Hammer of the Righteous.
The other part of the talent system is that there is now one talent tree for every class. At every 15 levels, you get one talent point, which can be put into one of three talents for that level. You can't go back and take previous talents. These talents are looking to be abilities, not boring things like passive healing or damage buttons. There are no ranks for these talents. The goal is for there to be no mandatory talents, and that you should choose what you want on a per fight/per content/per choice basis. Retalenting should be as accessible as reglyphing is right now.
So, for example, a paladin will choose holy for her spec, and as she levels up will gain all her core holy abilities. When she hits level 15, she will gain her first talent point, which will be usable on either Speed of Light, Long Arm of the Law, or Pursuit of Justice, which all sound like a speed boost to me. Once she makes this change, she won't be allowed to choose the other two talents when she gets her next talent point, though she can later choose to retalent if she feels she chose poorly.
The three choices you have to take at any level will all share a same theme in common. In the previous paragraph, you have three talents that will be mobility based. (Warriors also get mobility talents at 15, their choices being Juggernaght, Warbringer, and Double Time.) The idea is that you don't forego a mobility ability for a dps ability, or a cc for a survivability cooldown.
An important point to note is that even though these abilities have the same names as current talents in the game, they will not have the same effect. They are being redesigned to try to appeal to all three specs in a talent. The point of new talents is to offer a form of utility that you can customize for your playstyle, and not mandatory choices for maximum DPS/HPS/Survivability.
All in all, it's looking to be a simplified, better, and ultimately more choice-driven take on talenting, and I couldn't be more excited.
Turn to WoW Insider for all your BlizzCon 2011 news and information. Look for our liveblogs of the convention panels, interviews with WoW celebrities -- and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Filed under: News items, BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)
Danny Oct 25th 2011 11:55AM
this is ruining the game
having 1 TP per 2 levels sucked
and now your making it 15
keep it to 1 per lvl - back to wrath
raine13 Oct 22nd 2011 3:51PM
BOO!
choice + often = interesting. right? so...
less choice + less often = less interesting.
you following me here, Blizzard?
i want my talent points back at every odd level, even if i gradually earn the same bonuses. i don't want to wait 15 levels for a new pick. thats dull, and unexciting. and regulates talents to something of an unimportant side note.
sure, many of us have "done it all before" and don't care, we're just gonna respec our lvl 85 and grab all but 1 talent day 1.... but this seems very lame for a new player leveling. this is "thinking too endgame". the end game is the END of the GAME. you play the game as you level, creating your toon as you go. a new player gets a talent every 15 levels? whoopdy do. most likely he wont play long enough to get one, let alone 2...
raine13 Oct 22nd 2011 3:54PM
ps- i think "removing the cookie" is not the right way to fight the cookie cutter effect.
herra.ledonne Oct 22nd 2011 7:23PM
The way I see it, this change will make pvp more colorful. Why? Glad you asked, allow me to demonstrate:
Today, you come across a DK of the opposing faction/team/whatnot. From the abilities he's using, you can determine what his talent spec is, and since mogging hasn't yet been implemented, a glance at his gear will also tell tales about him. Since you now know his spec, you know exactly what kind of gimmicks he can throw at you. You can now continue fighting happily, knowing that your paper of a spec beats his rock of a spec. The only real variable in the fight with this DK and any other with similar spec and gear is the individual's skill.
In MoP, you come across a DK of the opposing faction/team/whatnot. From the abilities he's using, you can determine what his talent spec is, but since mogging has been implemented, you can't really tell shite about his gear. Just because you know his spec, you can't lull yourself into a sense of security and think your paper of a spec beats his rock of a spec. No, the slimy bastard may be holding some unusual talent and/or gear choices that either even out the shortcomings of his actual spec or optionally he may have focused on the strong sides of his own spec and you find yourself trying to wrap a big-ass boulder with a few pieces of toilet paper. Not only is gear going to be a variable, but the underlying talents have hundreds of combinations, and making false assumptions may prove costly.
Ravdoss Oct 24th 2011 12:05PM
The changes won't really stop the cookie cutter builds - in short, nothing will. Unless of course, Blizzard stops the free flow of data that allows for build collection sites like wowpopular to exist. Even if they did put a halt to the build information - players would still find ways to get that info out.
The lack of mandatory talents, being able to choose talents on the fly etc. will also not stop cookie cutter builds. At the very start of the new system you can expect builds to be all over the place. Over time though, the best choices to maximize dps, healing, and tanking will shake out and people will gravitate in those directions. The idea that being able to change talents to suit different fights assumes that there's that much variance in the fights themselves -there's not. The game is just not that terribly diverse to make a few thousand possible talent shifts even necessary, let alone worthwhile.
On the face of things, it seems like you're getting more control but ultimately how effective you'll be is going to be just as narrow a field of choices as it is today.