While Im no longer a WoW player I applaud blizzard for taking the game back to it's roots. Bringing back the need to learn your class, challenging pve content that requires CC, solid tanking and threat management to complete. Bravo!
If they are equal it doesnt matter what you take and there is no cost -thats what you call equal and no-brainer
if it matters they are not equal and you can evaluate their usefullness
When one of the options is more useful than the other and there is no point in picking the other one, then this is not choice. Look at this:
Option A: You are offered 100 dollars now
Option B: You are offered 200 dollars now
Which one would you pick? Will you pick Option A? Of course, some of the options are not so simple to measure in terms of usefulness. However, if one of them is superior then you eventualy you will determine which one is more useful and you will pick this one. In MMOs, it's even easier. You can find all the info on various wikis/websites, so you don't even have to think for yourself. Now that's dumbed down.
Look at this scenario:
Option A: 100 dollars now.
Option B: 200 dollars in one year.
Now this is different. It still can be calculated which one is worth more but this will depend on the specific situation and it's subjective on the needs of the individual. And it's still subject to interpretation.
An example of good choices in-game would be something along the lines of:
Option A: Rejuvanation heals 50% more but ticks every 4 sec.
Option B: Rejuvanation heals every 1.5 sec but it costs 50% more mana.
You can only pick one of them. Now here you've got choice, a meaningful choice tbh.
These examples are completely random and pulled out of my ... you know :P
I like how a lot of you want to brush this off as a mere reworking, its not a reworking its a Dumbing down of the game.
No more hybrids means dumbed down trees, it means 12 year olds can just do what they always did anyway and just choose everything in one tree, so they ended up with a bad spec. Now to save time and brain cells all Specs are simplified PVE specs, which not only craps on pvp it makes theorycrafting pointless. GCs crusade to make WOW as stupid as possible is reaching its peak. Its also why there are no pvp ratings anymore, theres absolutely no pvp focus in the talent trees any more. Its just DPS. Like another poster with a Marks hunter said he is now forced to be a Haste Marks build, since I played marks I know that sucks, because I played mine like he plays his. Chances are the marks hunter you can play now is configured for dungeons and nothing else.
I dont need you to explain that everything is easier I know that, or that its streamlined. But were not talking about streamlining something advanced or improving it, were talking about taking something more complicated, turning it into a square so it will fit through a peg. No hybrids is a bad thing for thinking players, its a good thing for kids, and unintelligent players who dont want to think about it, I'm sure there is a very happy army of Blood elf Paladins right now and DKs, but it does a disservice to the WOW community to turn to game over to children.
The only bad thing about it up to now is that we are paying to wait even longer... but will give a reason for everyone to have an alt or two to gear so its not the end of the world.
The previous talent trees, were not forced, but if you did not follow the right specs, you were gimped. I was up to the point of having some players in my raids inspect others and tell me if their spec was viable (ie: i can check mage, priest, pallies, but i have no clue of the right skills for DKs) so the changes, will make my LFG much easier.
The downside is that the next 2 months of WoW will be easy mode. Not that it matters, only means more people will have to L2P the LK fight and hopefully (though I doubt it) will suck less if I group with them during CATA. I like what they did with Defile, although i think it it shouldnt affect melee dps (thatd mean I could carry a baddy or 2).
What they did good is this:
Pallies are now fun.
Mages are no longer 2 button masters (1 macro + pyroblast)
Hunters will stop whining about mana
Tanks will have to L2P (but I agree warriors are a bit gimped - will test with more tonight)
The only bad thing about it up to now is that we are paying to wait even longer... but will give a reason for everyone to have an alt or two to gear so its not the end of the world.
The previous talent trees, were not forced, but if you did not follow the right specs, you were gimped. I was up to the point of having some players in my raids inspect others and tell me if their spec was viable (ie: i can check mage, priest, pallies, but i have no clue of the right skills for DKs) so the changes, will make my LFG much easier.
The downside is that the next 2 months of WoW will be easy mode. Not that it matters, only means more people will have to L2P the LK fight and hopefully (though I doubt it) will suck less if I group with them during CATA. I like what they did with Defile, although i think it it shouldnt affect melee dps (thatd mean I could carry a baddy or 2).
What they did good is this:
Pallies are now fun.
Mages are no longer 2 button masters (1 macro + pyroblast)
Hunters will stop whining about mana
Tanks will have to L2P (but I agree warriors are a bit gimped - will test with more tonight)
What they did bad is this:
Now we're stuck with ugly NE models as healers
Actually they upped the level 81+ mobs a bit so ICC isn't exactly the same as it was. I do agree that it will be easymode for a while and really...from a design point i would want to get the rest of the raider done and dusted with ICC before Cata comes out.
As for the poster about 4 posts up claiming there is no pvp specs you are dead wrong. Every class has 1 spec that is dedicated to pvp and they changed that silly stat (resilliance). So no, PvP wont suffer at all with this system.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds -Solid non level based game -Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
GC has apparently decided that choices are bad, now after you pick your mandatory talent tree you usually have 5 to 7 points to put into one talent or just put all of it into the same tree. I played with the Shaman and Priest talents.. the classes I know the best and its pretty pathetic... pathetic is KIND. You pretty much are forced to take PVE specs now.
No Gear ratings in Arena pvp, because Achiveing something in PVP is apparently bad. Now Arena is basically a 4 to 10 man BG with no rewards for skill and hard work.
People on the forums are bragging about one shotting mobs, skills have been removed and most of the skill in the game taken out in favor of premade cookie cutter specs. This is just sad.
Relax.Gw2 is coming to liberate us all.Wow is anyway an outdated game from graphics to everything.
If you want to play a game from blizzard just wait for diablo 3.
The downside is that the next 2 months of WoW will be easy mode. Not that it matters, only means more people will have to L2P the LK fight and hopefully (though I doubt it) will suck less if I group with them during CATA. I like what they did with Defile, although i think it it shouldnt affect melee dps (thatd mean I could carry a baddy or 2).
I wonder if these people even play.
The Aoe abilities of classes were coupled to procs and became cut with this patch.
Problems: Heroics in Wotlk were designed with strong AOE in mind.
These aoe dps are now coupled to procs and their cutting will make the raid and dungeon content actually far more difficult.
I wouldn't even go to your Paladin comments: every retri is crying like hell on the forums.
They removed choice so no matter how bad at the game you are , you can't possibly screw up a talent spec that bad. Seriously , right now as an 80 arcane mage ... I have 5 points to play with in the other 2 trees. Those 5 points are only good in exactly 5 points worth of fire/frost talents ... the rest do not help an arcane mage. So I think I have 2 spots where I didnt take any arcane talents ..... not a lot of choice.
I realize it just hit live , so hopefully they work on it a bit and add a little more choice. Not sure how the other classes are, I havent checked my other 80's yet. I don't have any complaints from teh rest of the changes yet and I'm sure they will tweak things as needed.
Whoa whoa whoa! You guys are dramatically oversimplifying some of these changes. FOR EXAMPLE:
By removing Def, Tanks now have to use their skills/talents to be uncrittable. That seems bearable right? But in return all cloth, leather, mail has increased armor value. Add to that, classes now get very VERY similar HP growth. THUS, a Priest and a Warrior both having roughly 32K (Priest goes up from the 20's and Warrior goes down from about 38K). Now with those changes, ok so clothies and plate wearers are on ROUGHLY even planes. Now that very same warrior now has to depend on his talent trees to get the required aggro just to BE a tank. Mages and S Priests can EASILY do so by using their spells. Here's a considerable broken part: AS of right now.. and 80 Warrior and a 80 Mage, one does 4K damage, the other does closer to 12-16K. If the said clothie were to spec Stamina for a buncha stuff it WOULD be very possible for you to tank with a cloth wearer making the plate wearer useless.
I do find some of the tweaks needed. I believe that by removing ammo for hunters and giving them pets that boost groups, it increases the need for hunters in the said groups. Not saying they aren't dodo's who's pet goes into the next room and randomly pulls bosses but that's a different problem.
The problem as I see it, this is a game. I want to have fun. Having to relearn classes from scratch that I've had for almost 5 years seems a bit ridiculous to me. I have 80's who are now as retarded as kindergardeners because I need to sit down and SERIOUSLY reevaluate EVERY new choice, every new mechanic. Add to that the fact that Blizzard is saying "Your characters are dumbed down until they hit 85 and become balanced"... wait, what? That's silliness. They've changed the glyph system and the reward/honor system. What 2 days ago you could have bought for 50 frost emblems now cost like 2Kjp. And mind you, if you had the frosts they did not NEARLY convert over because once again Blizzard changed the pricing to reflect what a lvl 85 will have access to.
Just my opinion. I came back to WoW recently to start up a new toon and play Cat. With these changes, I can't say I honestly want to stick around. I'll most likely be back but as of right now, I FEEL that this patch should never have left playtesting. There is simply too much that shouldn't have been messed with, or messed up.
For the record, I'm not bashing this, I'm giving my concerns as I percieve them. When I have to spend nights and nights learning to replay a class that I've played for years there is an issue. Games are meant to be fun. The moment they become a chore, I can't help but believe that it's time to move on.
This is the kind of ignorant garbage that fills the forum, just for the hell of it i guess.
As one of those who actually bothers to read the patch notes, and trying the changes out before posting my 5 bisquits about it here i will try to clearify a few things for you.. if you can manage to remove your blindfold for a while and register some information.
First of.. Removed defence stat, sure we all know by now that it is gone. And for a good reason.. blizzard are actually trying to make every class enjoyable for everyone who wants to try it out. That includes making it possible to let for an example a new player who wants to spunge around as a tank for a while to join a few other players and try this out without having some bare minimum of a couple of days (weeks for those who might have a job to go to during the days) of dungeon grinding just to have the gear to do it. You know..reaching def cap and alll that. Now instead for example all a warrior needs to do to have the crit immunity is to be standing in defencive stance, a druid needs to be in bear form, a dk in blood precense..get the point? yes.. it really is as easy as that. So Everyone can try to be a tank,with the classes that serves a tanking specc just remember to use the correct tools given.. no speciall talents, no speciall skills needed. With me so far?..alright
Second part takes us to your imaginary world of the Armor and Hp problem... yes,most of the armors you have seen posted from beta testing have the same Hp on them, for sure that is very true. But make your way onto some site where you can check out the talent tree´s for the different classes in the game and you will find that there is one thing there that the "tank" talent tree´s have in common that the rest doesnt... what could it be.. hm... oh yeah, talents that gives you an extra "boost" to the hp, and the armor value recieved from the gear you are wearing. This even you have to understand.. leaving that and going to the armor part.. yes, all armors has had a total rewamp, we will se clothies and leathery ones run around with alot more armor value then they used to, but only to server a single greater purpose. Longer,more advanced fights in raids and such. Since blizzard are trying to upgrade the combat here so it wont be the same old, spank and tank n flash heals spam ftw contests that ICC has been all about, they are trying stretch it out abit. Wich means... They up the hp on tanks,they up the armor on tanks all so they can push up so that monsters inside the dungeons can be allowed to to a little more dmg,but how would this work if the rest of the party still hade the same low hp,the same low armor.. = 1 hit at all times. So to conclude that they give everyone the boost to scale it to allowe monsters/bosses to hit harder. But still.. watch a few beta videos and you will notice that all tanks are still far superior in both armor value and max hp.
Third. Rely on talents tree´s to get the required aggro?? you really got to be joking now..i dont think you have played this game for nearly as long as you state, perhaps at all. There has allways been a few talents that a tank has been required to set points to for that purpose. The big change now is that they are actually making the tanks work for a living. As of the last 6 months the extent of my tanking in ICC has been, throw an avengers shield, run to the mobs, enter macro for continued casting of consecration, sit back,wait for monsters to die. The only thing that keept me somewhat awake was the bossfights where you actually have to move around a little.. now they have given all dps classes a really big powerup,and making aggro fade by time,why? as explained earlier..they try to stretch fights.. more hp,more mp, harder hits..everything so that you dont need to "spam" every last spell. No more flash heal spam, no more arcane blast spam, etc.etc.. this is going to be all about controll. Learning to controll your aggro,and thus also learning how to controll and reserve your mp and so on. This will lead to that alot of people will be forced to learn how to play they´re character, or become a mediocre player that wont be clearing any raiddungeon any time soon. Ebay childs be gone...
A few personal opinions...
PvP... wow has allways been an rpg with PvE playing the bigger part, and i hope it will allways keep being most about the PvE.
4k damage as warrior?... what are you using, the gear you hade while raiding BT?
// as a player that some days love my wow, some days i hate it.. that week i play,the next i dont, i still say that WoW is still one of the better mmoprgs ever made. Surely divided by personal like´s and dislikes people can argue that point. But still almost everyone that are talking mmorpg´s are using wow as a refering tool while comparing and such, so there has to be something about the game that has stuck.\
I like how a lot of you want to brush this off as a mere reworking, its not a reworking its a Dumbing down of the game.
No more hybrids means dumbed down trees, it means 12 year olds can just do what they always did anyway and just choose everything in one tree, so they ended up with a bad spec. Now to save time and brain cells all Specs are simplified PVE specs, which not only craps on pvp it makes theorycrafting pointless. GCs crusade to make WOW as stupid as possible is reaching its peak. Its also why there are no pvp ratings anymore, theres absolutely no pvp focus in the talent trees any more. Its just DPS. Like another poster with a Marks hunter said he is now forced to be a Haste Marks build, since I played marks I know that sucks, because I played mine like he plays his. Chances are the marks hunter you can play now is configured for dungeons and nothing else.
I dont need you to explain that everything is easier I know that, or that its streamlined. But were not talking about streamlining something advanced or improving it, were talking about taking something more complicated, turning it into a square so it will fit through a peg. No hybrids is a bad thing for thinking players, its a good thing for kids, and unintelligent players who dont want to think about it, I'm sure there is a very happy army of Blood elf Paladins right now and DKs, but it does a disservice to the WOW community to turn to game over to children.
How is it dumbed down? Seriously. Besides no more hybrids but honestly hybrids truly went away in BC and were totally gone by WOTLK and the dual spec talent system. Nobody wants a hybrid now, they want a person who can heal or a person who can DPS and that can do it well. WOW has never been a game about hybrids. And honestly, on my shaman, I can still heal okay for a bit but it is not as good as if I was resto and the spells cost more.
Hybrid classes, to be effective, must be designed as hybrid classes much like classes in DAOC. WOW is not that game and is not a game of hybrids.
(1)Outside of that argument though, how is the game dumbed down? Removing pointless useless talents makes the game easier? How is it easier to be able to choose to spend 5 points to get% more mana. You were almost required to do so. Now its easier because Blizzard said that is stupid and worthless and talent points should be spent on real talents?
(2)With the tress the way they are, now you HAVE to choose your talents how you want to play. All of them are good and I wish I had more points to spend. Right now, I would take every talent in the Elemental tree if I could.
(3)They streamlined the stats to help with balance and with familiarity of classes. Sure a haste hunter may not have been great back then but now, with the reworking of haste and all stats, how do you know its not good?
(4)The only thing I would say that was dumbed down was an arrow was added to the minimap for an active quest similar to LOTRO and abilities that depend on a certain event in combat (parry, dodge, block, etc...) now light up when available. Personally I like that and I believe WOW isn't the first game to do it.
1: I disagree as a hunter 15 of the 31 talent points I spent in marksmanship I didn't want to put into particular talents, but I had to so that I could get Chimera shot. It literally felt like I had to choose between cat crap, and dog crap on my way to get a peanut butter sandwich. Nothing in the tree really felt good, no t-bone steak skills.. Survival and Beast specs are just as bad, actually worse since marks has better dps.
2:Jedi truth. I HAVE to pick up bad talents to get decent ones almost on a 1 for 1 basis. There's a lot of situational talents for hunters. like the mob has to be a 80% hp or higher, or you have to have shot x amount of steady shots to get a free aimed shot. Aimed shot is still just a longer casting steady shot.
3:The way the talents and skills are set for me, as a hunter all I can do is spam 2 skills arcane shot and steady shot 80% of the time. I have to pick up haste to make steady faster, otherwise I won't get focus back to shoot arcane.
4: Disagree again. talent wise I could only skip over about 3.5 talents. Which were obviously the worst of the worst. so, everyone and their mama that plays a hunter and is marks will have my spec or something within 3 points difference so that even having a talent tree doesn't matter.
Originally posted by jackmcleod
Hunters will stop whining about mana
True, because now we have to whine about focus since we have no way of regening focus other than steady shot in combat. Which means we are sitting ducks in pvp. You're going to hear a lot of whining from hunters because we can't even compete to our previous sad standards in pvp since we have to stand still and cast a 1.5 second shot(haste capped) to get focus in combat.
Here is my take. As a Fire Mage I took a few points in both frost (frost burn) and arcane (I did use arcane bolt some). Some of those points I spent prior to maxing fire, heck, prior to hitting 70. Now if I wanted to spend in a similar way (yes, much of those bonuses are internal not purchased) I have to wait till at least level 71 to do so. Was I hybrid? No. Was it fun? Yes. Any good PvE? Sure, most of my running was solo. Any good PvP? I am a mage, I die a lot. But I also got some nice kills.
My main complaint is that I no longer have the option of "waisting" a few points in arcane/frost until I hit the end game. It sort of feels like my choices are being made for me. My support is that, like others, I no longer have to burn points in weak bonuses just to get to the stuff I really want.
Until I play it some I have to give this change a 5.7 out of 10. Could be better but could also be a lot worse.
While Im no longer a WoW player I applaud blizzard for taking the game back to it's roots. Bringing back the need to learn your class, challenging pve content that requires CC, solid tanking and threat management to complete. Bravo!
Actually.....this right here ^^^^^ .....ALMOST makes me want to play WoW again. I'm smelling a little scent of.....vanilla.
Originally posted by Kriosis
They do modify the trees often, but never like this. The new trees are far better then what we've had. I play rogue, finding a talent I don't like is kinda difficult with what they currently have shown. Playing a rogue today I'm having to take less then stellar talents to reach my point goal. Actually, playing an assassination rogue for PvP you only go 44 points assassination, skipping your 51 talent ability and the 5 point tier above it. Now it seems much better, I'm finding myself putting points in everything I could find useful for PvP situations and not having to take something that leaned more towards PvE just becase it was the less crappy option to reach the next tier of talent points.
That used to BUG THE HELL OUTTA ME. It seemed like a constant WASTE of points.
Seriously....all this "news" about changes is intriguing me......
As a ret paldin, I like the new changes. It does remind me of Vanilla WoW....I cant solo like I used to, and my AoE may suffer drastically, but im hell on wheels vs a single target. And I am not afraid of change!
Seriously though, people are just scared of change and it's too hard for them now since they have ot control thier aggro and tank properly. Easy mode is on its way out, which I love.
As a ret paldin, I like the new changes. It does remind me of Vanilla WoW....I cant solo like I used to, and my AoE may suffer drastically, but im hell on wheels vs a single target. And I am not afraid of change!
Seriously though, people are just scared of change and it's too hard for them now since they have ot control thier aggro and tank properly. Easy mode is on its way out, which I love.
Not my particular gripe as I played a ranger in EQ. Soloing a single mob for ten minutes who can one shot me was hard. Having to raid with 70 to 140 players for 6 to 16 hours straight using just chat because ventrillo or team speak wasn't invented yet while on dial-up was hard.
WoW has never, and will never be that hard. If Wow was Mega Man, EQ of 6-7 years ago would have been Ninja Gaiden.
I'm fine with about 60% of the update
My gripes are:
dye casting a player into a particular spec with no hybridization
eleminating viable alternative play(meaning choices like hybrids or play styles, gear set ups)
making any choices in the talent tree not really matter (you can't screw up too damn bad if once you put in your 31 points you could only put in 5 more to max out the tree as a hunter)
I cry for my hunter, while my DK changes make me sad since I had a dps blood spec, and a tank blood spec(people knocked it, but I did great tanking), and my mage is more powerful than ever(so gunna get nerfed).
As a ret paldin, I like the new changes. It does remind me of Vanilla WoW....I cant solo like I used to, and my AoE may suffer drastically, but im hell on wheels vs a single target. And I am not afraid of change!
Seriously though, people are just scared of change and it's too hard for them now since they have ot control thier aggro and tank properly. Easy mode is on its way out, which I love.
I give it 7.0 on gameplay it did some good things but not for Hunters. The steady shot thing is a disaster. Paladins and DKs are not so faceroll however spell DPS is even more ungodly than I remember. Holy Paladins and Mages are going to be a steady source of nightmares. Players need more options on the talent trees otherwise there is really no point in selecting talents is there?
In a game with changes, there is always hope that sooner or later they turn to the better. And it's always fun to try out new stuff anyway. In games without any significant changes, only one is guaranteed: boredom.
I agree, the new talent trees are really tiny. On the other hand: in the end, there is only one optimal spec for each purpose. And in that moment, any thought of free choice is an illusion.
Exactly...and you get your special talent tree ability faster so they had to limit the access.
Sometimes less is more and all Blizzard did was take out the useless talents and make the trees better. A talent tree filled with useful talents is better than a talent tree fill with half useless talents. Quality > quantity.
Wow classic was the best imo (I hate the coined term vanilla)....The more blizzard expanded the classes the more difficulty they had juggling the balance between all the classes. By the time they introduced arena, it became there bone of contention. As it was always a more driven pve game - initially only the insane would go for high ranked pvp gear.
If blizzard can even touch on some of the old magic the game once had before it opted for easy instant gratification in order to take in large profits, then some of the new gamers who came post burning crusade and lich king are in for a real treat.
They need to make people appreciate blue items again and make epics something that required skill rather than time. Before people flame the remark that wow doesn't require skill, I disagree and refused to interject why, I do understand all of this requires people caring about what I have to say !
Sometimes less is more and all Blizzard did was take out the useless talents and make the trees better. A talent tree filled with useful talents is better than a talent tree fill with half useless talents. Quality > quantity.
sorry to quote you, but this is the most heard response. I think it is somehow a good response, however it entirely removes the uniqueness of the character. Back with vanilla wow, you had several different builds for a holy priest. Most people had picked a build that matched their playstyle. Ofc priest that went shadow, were frowned upon. Something that was fixed in TBC.
Imo the new expansion is totally focussing on only 3 true builds for priests. No more hybrids, no more specialized builds, no more uniqueness. Also I'm very afraid this will not only apply on builds. People all will have the same gear, the same enchants, etc. Every priest will be identical to the priest with the same tree. Every priest can be replaced with another player. Catalysm is removing the uniqueness of a character and that makes me a little sad.
Sometimes less is more and all Blizzard did was take out the useless talents and make the trees better. A talent tree filled with useful talents is better than a talent tree fill with half useless talents. Quality > quantity.
sorry to quote you, but this is the most heard response. I think it is somehow a good response, however it entirely removes the uniqueness of the character. Back with vanilla wow, you had several different builds for a holy priest. Most people had picked a build that matched their playstyle. Ofc priest that went shadow, were frowned upon. Something that was fixed in TBC.
Imo the new expansion is totally focussing on only 3 true builds for priests. No more hybrids, no more specialized builds, no more uniqueness. Also I'm very afraid this will not only apply on builds. People all will have the same gear, the same enchants, etc. Every priest will be identical to the priest with the same tree. Every priest can be replaced with another player. Catalysm is removing the uniqueness of a character and that makes me a little sad.
What makes your character unique is how well you play no matter what spec you are.
What makes your character unique is how well you play no matter what spec you are.
I disagree, certain playstyles were only possible because of the ability to hybridize. No amount of skill will bring that back.
I personally use to have a very hybrid hunter back when traps were important. The mix of marks and survival allowed me to be a master traper, while keeping my dps real high. I can't do that anymore. I mean I can still trap like a champ, but you won't see me able to do the things I use to do. I use to be able to CC two to three mobs and make it look easy without frost trap kiting, but I currently can't because I need 5 more points or the ability to hybridize to do it. I could do do two, for a 45 seconds to a minute, if I don't get resisted. I will grant under particular situations I could still do three, but they have to be melee, and I gotta have a lot of runnin room for frost trap kiting. With my old hybrid build I could do a grade CCing, while still getting first rank dps on bosses. Now I have to choose one or the other.
Wow classic was the best imo (I hate the coined term vanilla)....The more blizzard expanded the classes the more difficulty they had juggling the balance between all the classes. By the time they introduced arena, it became there bone of contention. As it was always a more driven pve game - initially only the insane would go for high ranked pvp gear.
If blizzard can even touch on some of the old magic the game once had before it opted for easy instant gratification in order to take in large profits, then some of the new gamers who came post burning crusade and lich king are in for a real treat.
They need to make people appreciate blue items again and make epics something that required skill rather than time. Before people flame the remark that wow doesn't require skill, I disagree and refused to interject why, I do understand all of this requires people caring about what I have to say !
There definitely is a certain element of skill involved.
More knowing how to play your class, positioning, threat management, ability stacking/timing, good communication etc, but it can be the difference between a poor player and a good one all other things being equal.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
These talent trees are much much better. The new talents make me feel like there are now 3 classes in every class. Before I never got that feeling cause you where just choosing the talents in the other tree to make your main tree optimal. Now with passives you dont need that. Overall its much more fun for everyone level10 and up. I love my new talent tree, there is still choice because I couldnt grab everything I wanted too which is good! Shows now you want to have all the talents instead of your old cookie cutter build. New talent system is better and more fun.
If you dont like it at the moment or cant get your head around it, take a chill pill and come back later.
Comments
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
When one of the options is more useful than the other and there is no point in picking the other one, then this is not choice. Look at this:
Option A: You are offered 100 dollars now
Option B: You are offered 200 dollars now
Which one would you pick? Will you pick Option A? Of course, some of the options are not so simple to measure in terms of usefulness. However, if one of them is superior then you eventualy you will determine which one is more useful and you will pick this one. In MMOs, it's even easier. You can find all the info on various wikis/websites, so you don't even have to think for yourself. Now that's dumbed down.
Look at this scenario:
Option A: 100 dollars now.
Option B: 200 dollars in one year.
Now this is different. It still can be calculated which one is worth more but this will depend on the specific situation and it's subjective on the needs of the individual. And it's still subject to interpretation.
An example of good choices in-game would be something along the lines of:
Option A: Rejuvanation heals 50% more but ticks every 4 sec.
Option B: Rejuvanation heals every 1.5 sec but it costs 50% more mana.
You can only pick one of them. Now here you've got choice, a meaningful choice tbh.
These examples are completely random and pulled out of my ... you know :P
I like how a lot of you want to brush this off as a mere reworking, its not a reworking its a Dumbing down of the game.
No more hybrids means dumbed down trees, it means 12 year olds can just do what they always did anyway and just choose everything in one tree, so they ended up with a bad spec. Now to save time and brain cells all Specs are simplified PVE specs, which not only craps on pvp it makes theorycrafting pointless. GCs crusade to make WOW as stupid as possible is reaching its peak. Its also why there are no pvp ratings anymore, theres absolutely no pvp focus in the talent trees any more. Its just DPS. Like another poster with a Marks hunter said he is now forced to be a Haste Marks build, since I played marks I know that sucks, because I played mine like he plays his. Chances are the marks hunter you can play now is configured for dungeons and nothing else.
I dont need you to explain that everything is easier I know that, or that its streamlined. But were not talking about streamlining something advanced or improving it, were talking about taking something more complicated, turning it into a square so it will fit through a peg. No hybrids is a bad thing for thinking players, its a good thing for kids, and unintelligent players who dont want to think about it, I'm sure there is a very happy army of Blood elf Paladins right now and DKs, but it does a disservice to the WOW community to turn to game over to children.
The only bad thing about it up to now is that we are paying to wait even longer... but will give a reason for everyone to have an alt or two to gear so its not the end of the world.
The previous talent trees, were not forced, but if you did not follow the right specs, you were gimped. I was up to the point of having some players in my raids inspect others and tell me if their spec was viable (ie: i can check mage, priest, pallies, but i have no clue of the right skills for DKs) so the changes, will make my LFG much easier.
The downside is that the next 2 months of WoW will be easy mode. Not that it matters, only means more people will have to L2P the LK fight and hopefully (though I doubt it) will suck less if I group with them during CATA. I like what they did with Defile, although i think it it shouldnt affect melee dps (thatd mean I could carry a baddy or 2).
What they did good is this:
Pallies are now fun.
Mages are no longer 2 button masters (1 macro + pyroblast)
Hunters will stop whining about mana
Tanks will have to L2P (but I agree warriors are a bit gimped - will test with more tonight)
What they did bad is this:
Now we're stuck with ugly NE models as healers
Actually they upped the level 81+ mobs a bit so ICC isn't exactly the same as it was. I do agree that it will be easymode for a while and really...from a design point i would want to get the rest of the raider done and dusted with ICC before Cata comes out.
As for the poster about 4 posts up claiming there is no pvp specs you are dead wrong. Every class has 1 spec that is dedicated to pvp and they changed that silly stat (resilliance). So no, PvP wont suffer at all with this system.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Relax.Gw2 is coming to liberate us all.Wow is anyway an outdated game from graphics to everything.
If you want to play a game from blizzard just wait for diablo 3.
Wow has been cursed.
I wonder if these people even play.
The Aoe abilities of classes were coupled to procs and became cut with this patch.
Problems: Heroics in Wotlk were designed with strong AOE in mind.
These aoe dps are now coupled to procs and their cutting will make the raid and dungeon content actually far more difficult.
I wouldn't even go to your Paladin comments: every retri is crying like hell on the forums.
Reading thru all the replies sounds to me that WoW has been GuildWar-fied!
lol
Ready for GW2!!!
They removed choice so no matter how bad at the game you are , you can't possibly screw up a talent spec that bad. Seriously , right now as an 80 arcane mage ... I have 5 points to play with in the other 2 trees. Those 5 points are only good in exactly 5 points worth of fire/frost talents ... the rest do not help an arcane mage. So I think I have 2 spots where I didnt take any arcane talents ..... not a lot of choice.
I realize it just hit live , so hopefully they work on it a bit and add a little more choice. Not sure how the other classes are, I havent checked my other 80's yet. I don't have any complaints from teh rest of the changes yet and I'm sure they will tweak things as needed.
This is the kind of ignorant garbage that fills the forum, just for the hell of it i guess.
As one of those who actually bothers to read the patch notes, and trying the changes out before posting my 5 bisquits about it here i will try to clearify a few things for you.. if you can manage to remove your blindfold for a while and register some information.
First of.. Removed defence stat, sure we all know by now that it is gone. And for a good reason.. blizzard are actually trying to make every class enjoyable for everyone who wants to try it out. That includes making it possible to let for an example a new player who wants to spunge around as a tank for a while to join a few other players and try this out without having some bare minimum of a couple of days (weeks for those who might have a job to go to during the days) of dungeon grinding just to have the gear to do it. You know..reaching def cap and alll that. Now instead for example all a warrior needs to do to have the crit immunity is to be standing in defencive stance, a druid needs to be in bear form, a dk in blood precense..get the point? yes.. it really is as easy as that. So Everyone can try to be a tank,with the classes that serves a tanking specc just remember to use the correct tools given.. no speciall talents, no speciall skills needed. With me so far?..alright
Second part takes us to your imaginary world of the Armor and Hp problem... yes,most of the armors you have seen posted from beta testing have the same Hp on them, for sure that is very true. But make your way onto some site where you can check out the talent tree´s for the different classes in the game and you will find that there is one thing there that the "tank" talent tree´s have in common that the rest doesnt... what could it be.. hm... oh yeah, talents that gives you an extra "boost" to the hp, and the armor value recieved from the gear you are wearing. This even you have to understand.. leaving that and going to the armor part.. yes, all armors has had a total rewamp, we will se clothies and leathery ones run around with alot more armor value then they used to, but only to server a single greater purpose. Longer,more advanced fights in raids and such. Since blizzard are trying to upgrade the combat here so it wont be the same old, spank and tank n flash heals spam ftw contests that ICC has been all about, they are trying stretch it out abit. Wich means... They up the hp on tanks,they up the armor on tanks all so they can push up so that monsters inside the dungeons can be allowed to to a little more dmg,but how would this work if the rest of the party still hade the same low hp,the same low armor.. = 1 hit at all times. So to conclude that they give everyone the boost to scale it to allowe monsters/bosses to hit harder. But still.. watch a few beta videos and you will notice that all tanks are still far superior in both armor value and max hp.
Third. Rely on talents tree´s to get the required aggro?? you really got to be joking now..i dont think you have played this game for nearly as long as you state, perhaps at all. There has allways been a few talents that a tank has been required to set points to for that purpose. The big change now is that they are actually making the tanks work for a living. As of the last 6 months the extent of my tanking in ICC has been, throw an avengers shield, run to the mobs, enter macro for continued casting of consecration, sit back,wait for monsters to die. The only thing that keept me somewhat awake was the bossfights where you actually have to move around a little.. now they have given all dps classes a really big powerup,and making aggro fade by time,why? as explained earlier..they try to stretch fights.. more hp,more mp, harder hits..everything so that you dont need to "spam" every last spell. No more flash heal spam, no more arcane blast spam, etc.etc.. this is going to be all about controll. Learning to controll your aggro,and thus also learning how to controll and reserve your mp and so on. This will lead to that alot of people will be forced to learn how to play they´re character, or become a mediocre player that wont be clearing any raiddungeon any time soon. Ebay childs be gone...
A few personal opinions...
PvP... wow has allways been an rpg with PvE playing the bigger part, and i hope it will allways keep being most about the PvE.
4k damage as warrior?... what are you using, the gear you hade while raiding BT?
// as a player that some days love my wow, some days i hate it.. that week i play,the next i dont, i still say that WoW is still one of the better mmoprgs ever made. Surely divided by personal like´s and dislikes people can argue that point. But still almost everyone that are talking mmorpg´s are using wow as a refering tool while comparing and such, so there has to be something about the game that has stuck.\
1: I disagree as a hunter 15 of the 31 talent points I spent in marksmanship I didn't want to put into particular talents, but I had to so that I could get Chimera shot. It literally felt like I had to choose between cat crap, and dog crap on my way to get a peanut butter sandwich. Nothing in the tree really felt good, no t-bone steak skills.. Survival and Beast specs are just as bad, actually worse since marks has better dps.
2:Jedi truth. I HAVE to pick up bad talents to get decent ones almost on a 1 for 1 basis. There's a lot of situational talents for hunters. like the mob has to be a 80% hp or higher, or you have to have shot x amount of steady shots to get a free aimed shot. Aimed shot is still just a longer casting steady shot.
3:The way the talents and skills are set for me, as a hunter all I can do is spam 2 skills arcane shot and steady shot 80% of the time. I have to pick up haste to make steady faster, otherwise I won't get focus back to shoot arcane.
4: Disagree again. talent wise I could only skip over about 3.5 talents. Which were obviously the worst of the worst. so, everyone and their mama that plays a hunter and is marks will have my spec or something within 3 points difference so that even having a talent tree doesn't matter.
True, because now we have to whine about focus since we have no way of regening focus other than steady shot in combat. Which means we are sitting ducks in pvp. You're going to hear a lot of whining from hunters because we can't even compete to our previous sad standards in pvp since we have to stand still and cast a 1.5 second shot(haste capped) to get focus in combat.
Here is my take. As a Fire Mage I took a few points in both frost (frost burn) and arcane (I did use arcane bolt some). Some of those points I spent prior to maxing fire, heck, prior to hitting 70. Now if I wanted to spend in a similar way (yes, much of those bonuses are internal not purchased) I have to wait till at least level 71 to do so. Was I hybrid? No. Was it fun? Yes. Any good PvE? Sure, most of my running was solo. Any good PvP? I am a mage, I die a lot. But I also got some nice kills.
My main complaint is that I no longer have the option of "waisting" a few points in arcane/frost until I hit the end game. It sort of feels like my choices are being made for me. My support is that, like others, I no longer have to burn points in weak bonuses just to get to the stuff I really want.
Until I play it some I have to give this change a 5.7 out of 10. Could be better but could also be a lot worse.
Actually.....this right here ^^^^^ .....ALMOST makes me want to play WoW again. I'm smelling a little scent of.....vanilla.
That used to BUG THE HELL OUTTA ME. It seemed like a constant WASTE of points.
Seriously....all this "news" about changes is intriguing me......
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
As a ret paldin, I like the new changes. It does remind me of Vanilla WoW....I cant solo like I used to, and my AoE may suffer drastically, but im hell on wheels vs a single target. And I am not afraid of change!
Seriously though, people are just scared of change and it's too hard for them now since they have ot control thier aggro and tank properly. Easy mode is on its way out, which I love.
Not my particular gripe as I played a ranger in EQ. Soloing a single mob for ten minutes who can one shot me was hard. Having to raid with 70 to 140 players for 6 to 16 hours straight using just chat because ventrillo or team speak wasn't invented yet while on dial-up was hard.
WoW has never, and will never be that hard. If Wow was Mega Man, EQ of 6-7 years ago would have been Ninja Gaiden.
I'm fine with about 60% of the update
My gripes are:
dye casting a player into a particular spec with no hybridization
eleminating viable alternative play(meaning choices like hybrids or play styles, gear set ups)
making any choices in the talent tree not really matter (you can't screw up too damn bad if once you put in your 31 points you could only put in 5 more to max out the tree as a hunter)
I cry for my hunter, while my DK changes make me sad since I had a dps blood spec, and a tank blood spec(people knocked it, but I did great tanking), and my mage is more powerful than ever(so gunna get nerfed).
Ok.
I waited a day to post my opinion and ... played it on the live servers now for 6 hours.
I won't ditch my healing paladin anymore. It is simply better than I feared.
I didn't need to copy my talents from "tha holy champ" on the armory (since the armory was off line
) )
I had to find out all again all by myself (and being the dumbed down player spoiled by a dumb game).
And I succeeded --- proud now !
So in the end: I need to push far more keys and have a much greater variety in healing spells that actually have meaningful procs and build ups.
And even the new interface lets me throw healbot out of the window.
Of course I am just another humble player.
But I find it interesting that the moment people have to learn to play from scratch for ... one day, they become crazy.
Yes indeed, Blizzard spoiled us in the past. Time to relearn to play.
Oh ... and I just beat a one on one rogue with a Holy Paladin in wsg. That must have been ages ago.
I give it 7.0 on gameplay it did some good things but not for Hunters. The steady shot thing is a disaster. Paladins and DKs are not so faceroll however spell DPS is even more ungodly than I remember. Holy Paladins and Mages are going to be a steady source of nightmares. Players need more options on the talent trees otherwise there is really no point in selecting talents is there?
Exactly...and you get your special talent tree ability faster so they had to limit the access.
Sometimes less is more and all Blizzard did was take out the useless talents and make the trees better. A talent tree filled with useful talents is better than a talent tree fill with half useless talents. Quality > quantity.
Wow classic was the best imo (I hate the coined term vanilla)....The more blizzard expanded the classes the more difficulty they had juggling the balance between all the classes. By the time they introduced arena, it became there bone of contention. As it was always a more driven pve game - initially only the insane would go for high ranked pvp gear.
If blizzard can even touch on some of the old magic the game once had before it opted for easy instant gratification in order to take in large profits, then some of the new gamers who came post burning crusade and lich king are in for a real treat.
They need to make people appreciate blue items again and make epics something that required skill rather than time. Before people flame the remark that wow doesn't require skill, I disagree and refused to interject why, I do understand all of this requires people caring about what I have to say
!
sorry to quote you, but this is the most heard response. I think it is somehow a good response, however it entirely removes the uniqueness of the character. Back with vanilla wow, you had several different builds for a holy priest. Most people had picked a build that matched their playstyle. Ofc priest that went shadow, were frowned upon. Something that was fixed in TBC.
Imo the new expansion is totally focussing on only 3 true builds for priests. No more hybrids, no more specialized builds, no more uniqueness. Also I'm very afraid this will not only apply on builds. People all will have the same gear, the same enchants, etc. Every priest will be identical to the priest with the same tree. Every priest can be replaced with another player. Catalysm is removing the uniqueness of a character and that makes me a little sad.
What makes your character unique is how well you play no matter what spec you are.
I disagree, certain playstyles were only possible because of the ability to hybridize. No amount of skill will bring that back.
I personally use to have a very hybrid hunter back when traps were important. The mix of marks and survival allowed me to be a master traper, while keeping my dps real high. I can't do that anymore. I mean I can still trap like a champ, but you won't see me able to do the things I use to do. I use to be able to CC two to three mobs and make it look easy without frost trap kiting, but I currently can't because I need 5 more points or the ability to hybridize to do it. I could do do two, for a 45 seconds to a minute, if I don't get resisted. I will grant under particular situations I could still do three, but they have to be melee, and I gotta have a lot of runnin room for frost trap kiting. With my old hybrid build I could do a grade CCing, while still getting first rank dps on bosses. Now I have to choose one or the other.
Gear == skill, so don't even go there.
There definitely is a certain element of skill involved.
More knowing how to play your class, positioning, threat management, ability stacking/timing, good communication etc, but it can be the difference between a poor player and a good one all other things being equal.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
These talent trees are much much better. The new talents make me feel like there are now 3 classes in every class. Before I never got that feeling cause you where just choosing the talents in the other tree to make your main tree optimal. Now with passives you dont need that. Overall its much more fun for everyone level10 and up. I love my new talent tree, there is still choice because I couldnt grab everything I wanted too which is good! Shows now you want to have all the talents instead of your old cookie cutter build. New talent system is better and more fun.
If you dont like it at the moment or cant get your head around it, take a chill pill and come back later.