Blizzard plans to scrap the current talent trees, and trim the new ones down considerably. We will be going from 51 point talent trees, down to 31 point talent trees. I was a bit unsure if I would make a blog post on this now, or wait until the new talents get released, because right now, all I can say about these changes is “It’s a good idea”.

Thank you for rea–… oh, alright, I guess I can elaborate. The current 51 point talent trees has a lot of random stuff that you have to take, either because you need to accumilate the bonuses, or because you need to advance down further into the tree. For you and I, this might not be that much of a hassle, but for new players it doesn’t excactly help them. There are a lot of talents, and it can quickly become confusing. There are a lot of places one can go wrong.

Simplifying the talent trees is a good thing. What would happen if we didn’t? Do you expect 101 point talent trees in level 150? Jeez, what a mess that would be. Cutting down the talent trees is a great idea, especially if it all becomes a little bit more transparent. It might even root out some of all the inquiries from newly dinged level 80′ies (or, well, 85), because it will be a little bit more clear which talents they have to take.

Talent specializations

Upon reaching level 10, players will now have to choose between one of the three talent trees. This will mark the tree as the players specialization, and allow for talents to be spent in this tree. It will also give you a couple of abilities tied to that talent tree, and add a load of passive abilities.

What this means is that druids chosing balance at level 10 will probably recieve their moonkin form right off the bat, and, most likely, a couple of moonkin related abilities such as insect swarm or even treants. I’d also venture to say that it is pretty safe to assume that we will get the new eclipse meter at level 10 if we choose to specialize into balance. We will also get a lot of passive bonuses, and these are the ones that you would otherwise have to spend talent points on previously.

Blizzard’s vision for the new talent trees is that they want the player to become a balance druid right away, not after spending 30 talent trees in the tree. This would greatly improve the leveling experience for anyone, new and old to the game. I leveled my druid as feral, so I got into the feral mindset rather quickly, but I do see the point from a moonkin perspective. In fact, I have been leveling a shaman as enhancement, and it is only now – when it has reached level 43, that I actually begin to feel enhancement-like. For moonkins being able to turn chicken right when they reach level 10 would be an awesome addition to the game.

What goes bye bye?

A lot of talents will be removed, but this isn’t the same as saying that they disappear. They will be tied to your specialization, and will be available right there at level 10. This would be talents such as Nature’s Reach to give you a threat reduction and further range on your spells, or effects like those of Wrath of Cenarius, adding more damage to your starfire and wrath. These are all of the talents that you would have to spend 5 points in to advance further down, and all you would get is a measly percentage modifier to some stat or spell.

Think about a talent such as the warriors Cruelty, where each point provides 1% critical strike chance. Imagine having to spend your first five talent points in something that ultimately doesn’t really effect your gameplay at this time. You are not going to notice a 5% crit addition when you are level 15, fighting mobs that die after 20 seconds. These are the talents that you would notice at level 80 on long boss fights, where five percent would be a huge increase in your damage.

The new talent trees

The talent trees will then consist of more powerful talent choices. New abilities like starfall, gameplay changing talents to reduce the cooldown of your abilities or maybe talents to change the cast time or the effects on your spells. Add to this that you are getting core specialization skills as soon as you hit level 10, spending talents should be a lot more interesting, even in the very low levels.

You will have a total of 41 talent points, and you can only put new talents into another tree once you have spent 31 talents in your primary tree. For some, this might spike a “Well, what if I wanted to take Omen of Clarity?!” comment. But with the new talent trees, there is no reason to think that you would take talents such as that, because you are getting nearly anything you need as soon as you spec into balance, and then you’ll just add more awesome to your abilities. Omen of clarity might become a trainable ability, and even if it doesn’t, I’m sure there will be plenty of other stuff we can play around with.

You will, ofcourse, still keep your special mastery bonus – in our case, the bonus to the eclipse system.

Limiting choices

Already, I am seeing some posters expressing worry that they do not get enough options to specialize their talent trees. They want to be able to choose between genesis and brambles, between mana regen talents or damage talents. I am sure that you can still do this, to the same extent as you did before. Do keep in mind, though, that you don’t really have that many choices as it is now. We have a cookie cutter PvE spec, and at the moment, if you are not using that, you are not optimal. I wouldn’t excactly call that “optional”.

I think it’s a great idea to reduce the talent trees. It will help new and old players alike, and it might just make it a tad more fun to level up new characters. We will have to wait for the new talents to be released before we can really see Blizzard’s vision. I would expect them to come around in the coming week, and until then, we can only wait.

- QQ