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When it comes to the new talent trees, there are 3 types of people in the World… of Warcraft.

• The people who love it
• The people who hate it
• The people who couldn’t care one way or the other

For the purpose of this post, we’ll say goodbye to the 3^rd group. Don’t take it personally, however in this situation your opinion doesn’t add weight to either side of the spectrum. I still love you.

What’s The Big Deal?

In the current build of the game, once you hit level 10 you get a talent point, and you continue getting a talent point every level, until you hit the level cap at 80. In previous expansions, such as Wotlk, 10 new levels meant you gained 10 new talent points. So right now, a max level toon has 71 delicious points to spend how they like. Simple? Good

In Cataclysm, the level cap is being raised to 85, so you’d presume as an intelligent sentient being, that you’d gain 5 additional talent points out of this. But alas, life is never that simple.

Blizzard looked at the current state of the tree’s and decided that there was too much “bloat” In laymen’s terms, there’s a lot of shit there that isn’t needed. So after much deliberation, the decision was made to reduce the number of talent points to 41 at max level, and get rid of aforementioned “bloat”

As well as reducing the number of talent points gained (you’ll gain a talent point roughly every second level now) Blizzard is also laying waste to “hybrid builds”. As it stands, you can be running around with a 25/25/21 build. I’m not sure how effective it would be, but if you’re that way inclined, there’s nothing stopping you.

However once 4.0 hits the live servers that will change. As soon as you spend your first talent point, you will be “locked” into that tree until you spend at least 31 points in it. Thus reducing the chance that new players will be running around with a horribly ineffective spec.

Red Pill/Blue Pill

With such a drastic change there is always a split in the community. Love/Hate it’s one of those things.

As with any argument, and because it makes it easier for my brain to understand, I like to write out the pros and cons.

PROS

• Less “Bloat” – There are too many uninteresting talents in the current trees that a lot of players would like to see gone.
• Newb-Friendly – Locking you into a specific tree, helps newer players and “trains” them to spec correctly…for the most part.

CONS

• Less Choice – Although a large chunk of the current trees are made up of “filler talents” Players like the large variety of choice that’s available to them.
• Virtual Freedom – Newb-friendly sure, but what happens If I want to experiment with “hybrid builds” If I want to mix and match my spec, what harm’s it doing?

Personally speaking, I can see the direction Blizzard is aiming for. The current trees are saturated with dull, unexciting talents that you take purely because you want to get down to the next tier. In an ideal world, I would have loved for them to have kept with the current number of points, and spruced up everything, but that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

As for locking players into a tree… I don’t agree with that. I love the idea that Blizzard is trying to help newer players spec correctly, but wouldn’t the new UI that pops up and explains each of your trees be enough? I’m not one of those “Blizzard are making the game too easy” players. On the most part I agree with the majority of changes that have taken place.

However, once I know how to spec, I would like the game to give me some leeway. Is that too much to ask?

What Say You?

What are your thoughts on the new talent trees? Is there anything you particularly like or dislike about them?

Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!

Eulixe