The Ossiranth Chronicles

Seems the new Cataclysm Beta build is up. This means the new 31 point talent trees, in their earliest forms, are now up! Let's take a look at.......the.....

What is this?

This is terrible!

I thought Blizzard said they wanted us to make interesting choices with our talents?

With these trees, there's no choice at all. They simply cut out all the talents from the old tree that no one ever took. For example, let's look at the Ret Paladin tree. I've already gone through and filled out the points for a PvE DPS build.



There are only two talents I didn't take in the Ret tree. Improved Judgment wasn't a compelling talent since Ret Paladins are normally GCD locked as it is. There is never a time where you aren't pushing a button. This would be the only talent I would consider an "interesting choice". Is it a DPS upgrade to reduce the CD on Judgment by 2 seconds? If so, which talent do you not take (Probably Pursuit of Justice)? The other talent I didn't take: Eye for an Eye. They've changed it so that instead of being reflective damage, it auto casts Judgment on the enemy. However, in a PvE situation you shouldn't be taking damage ideally. Maybe they changed it so that even AoE attacks will trigger it. I don't know.

The other two trees only had two talents even worth consideration, and what a coincidence that I had exactly enough points to put in them.

This is not exactly what I would call "Simple but deep", as Blizzard described how they want the trees to work. I would call it "Brainless and shallow." Unless there are going to be massive changes in the raiding scene in Cataclysm which require DPS players to take non damage talents to be successful, I'm not seeing any benefit to this scheme.

This is the way I had envisioned the talent tree design:

You've got the three trees. Each tree has four columns of talents. Each of these talents takes 5 points. You have enough talent points to get to the bottom of the tree and have 10 points left over. There are now many extra talents in your tree which are untaken. Some of them are PvE viable. Some are PvP viable. Do you put your remaining 10 points in one of these untaken talents, or do you put them in another tree? Which talents do you put them in?

What I mean is this: Blizzard has stated that the current trees have become bloated beyond being tenable. It's all good and well to remove talents that no one ever takes under any circumstances (Looking at you, Turn the Tables). However, I think it would be best if you replaced those with talents that people actually want to take. This way, people actually have to make a choice as to what they want to put their points into. The choices should both be equally valid as well.

As a closer to this post, I realize this is all Beta and subject to change. Many people have been quick to point this out on the official boards when people state their dislike of these new trees. These people seem to be completely forgetting that these statements of dislike are the feedback that Blizzard will use to gauge whether or not they should look things over again. They are beta trees. But without feedback, Blizzard will make them release trees.

Don't Nobody Want That.

As this is Beta, I'm still holding out hope that they will improve things. Adding more "fun" talents would be a start, and by that I mean talents which are obviously gear to not not improve damage of abilities but do other things such as add complexity to rotations, improve run speed, change animations for abilities, and so on. Possibly include more talent points near the end of the leveling experience such as 81-85 or maybe just grant a small bonus like 1 or 2 extra points at 60, 70, 80, 85 or something like that to allow for taking these talents.