So I’m gonna steal a page from the wonderful RockPaperShotgun‘s book here and tell you, well… what I think about a certain something. Today’s topic? The New Talent Tree which everyone loves to hate!
Okay, okay, let’s cut the theatrics. I’m going to tell you what Blizz was going for with this. What they were going for was as follows: “Oh hey, EVERYBODY who uses this spec takes this talent. So since EVERYBODY takes it, we’ll just give it to that spec by default.” That’s really it. They didn’t sit around and have an evil laugh and make nefarious plans about how to homogenize the specs. The specs are still intact; you just get the stuff you were going to get anyway without having to click on it. That’s all.
That said, there is certainly something to be said for, well… the excitement of getting a new talent point at every level and getting to click on it. Heck, there’s even something to be said for those old talents from back in the day that increased your crit chance by 1/2/3/4/5%. Blizzard cut that stuff out because they thought it was boring, but those incremental number changes were exciting to me and to a lot of other people. They made you feel like you were progressing. Why do you think people get all excited for gear that stands a mere incremental number change above other gear?
The Long and Short of It (That’s What She Said): I miss the old talent trees but I’m certainly not sitting around crying as though someone just shot my dog. And it’s definitely not the end of the world. Also, A Murder of Crows is smurfing awesome. Do you remember the movie “We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story”, and how at the end a bunch of crows came and landed on the bad guy and then he disappeared? Yeah. That is this. Awesome.
I have to say, I LOVE the new talent system. I guess because for me, it feels like my choice means something and (at least in my opinion) having some extra abilities makes my BM rotation that much more fun. And, my laziness shows, because if I’m really into the groove of questing, I like automatically learning most of my attacks without having to worry about going back to a trainer every couple of levels.
So sidenote to new talents is that we no longer have to train new talents… they just magically show up in our spellbooks.
Which is great because no more spending money on training spells, but terrible because I get very confused on alt number 752.qx as to what spells I have and when and where I can even find the darn things.
I’ve heard a few people give the same feedback about liking the ritual of clicking a talent into place after each level gained. I think Blizzard is a bit ignorant [maybe deliberately so] of the enjoyment many people get from essentially “useless” rituals like this.
I mean, why do we still cast buffs? There’s no reason for a Mage to ever not have Arcane Brilliance on, so why saddle the player with having to re-cast it all the time and just make it a passive? It’s the ritual. The act of pressing a button and getting more powerful because of it.
I gotta say, I am completely the opposite from you on this, Pike. For me, there was absolutely zero excitement in going and getting that 1% crit, or an extra .5s cast time reduction in whatever spell you only used once when the sun turned green and the stars aligned with orion’s belt.
For me, the excitement came when you got a USEFUL talent. Which happened every 10-15 levels, and that’s exactly what Blizz did. They turned the old baseline yawn and snooze into stuff you just automatically get every couple of levels, and gave you the actual cool shit to pick every 15 levels.
I realize I may or may not be in the majority here, and your opinion is just as valid as mine, but that’s just how I feel.
Also, hooray Pike is back!
Too bad A Murder of Crows is bad and worse than Lynx Rush. 🙁
Also too bad that the talents are basically “take X or you’re bad” in every tier (CTHC, Silencing, Iron Hawk, Dire Beast, Lynx Rush, Glaive Shot) for raiding.
Misdirection on pet – Check.
Dire Beast – Check.
Blink Strike – Check.
Ensuing Awesomeness – Double Check.