Blizzard Lead Systems Designer “Ghostcrawler” recently commented on a discussion regarding the goals of Cataclysm’s talent tree revisions by saying:
Sure, reducing cooldown or cast time is just a dps (or healing) increase, but [talents that alter abilities by changing the way they function] does so in a way that requires more on the part of the player than just passively boosting dps (or healing). It changes your rotation depending on whether you have that talent or not. It makes your dps tree play differently from your healing tree.
Everyone can come up with the example of “I think X talent is really fun, but I only have 2 free points in my build, so I can’t get it.” We’d like to see that 2 be a much larger number, like 10 or more.
Another way to think about it is that every talent in say the Elemental tree also says “…and increases your spell damage.” That’s the bonus you get just for investing in the tree.
Talents are one of the few choices with regard to customizing their character that players really get. Gear is often subject to random elements or even whether you have access to the content or not. Everyone gets the same spells as they level. We can’t get away from cookie-cutter builds completely, but we can have more of the type that say “and spend your last several points wherever you want.”
In the past (and currently, to some extent) many talents in a tree are considered to be the “core” of a specialization simply because they provide passive bonuses to stats that are particularly relevant to that spec (increasing healing, damage, or attack/casting speed for example).
Is Blizzard threatening to undermine the effectiveness of player’s efforts to find the “optimal” talent build? Or are they simply giving players more control on how they play? Let us know what you think by registering or posting below.
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