Mists of Pandaria

[Simond]

Yay !!!


No, wait.  That's wank.

So you're saying people don't just take the identikit "this is the best spec" talent selections and apply them to their character?

[Sheepherder]

I'm pretty sure they mentioned comboing bull rush with the tier 1 talents in the presentation where they introduced this all in the first place.

Right, as long as you take one of the other two.  Option 3 is a trap.

[Sheepherder]

They brought back Fel Sac.  For fuck's sake, Blizzard.

[Nevermore]

So now no talent to increase DK range from 20y to 30y?  And they finally put Hungering Cold out of its misery and removed it completely?  Once upon a time Frost was so fun...

So now what's that gnome trainee dude supposed to cast on those undead at the Frost trainer?

[Ironwood]

Yay !!!


No, wait.  That's wank.

So you're saying people don't just take the identikit "this is the best spec" talent selections and apply them to their character?

No.

[Sheepherder]

Cookie cutter DPS warrior build. - Technically T2 does have some DPS potential, but it's marginal.
Cookie cutter DPS death knight build.
Cookie cutter DPS warlock build. - Less certain about this one.
Cookie cutter DPS mage build. - Scorch might be better, depends on what exists for boss fights.
Cookie cutter DPS rogue build. - I'm going with Vendetta, KS looks more like PvP burst.  Prep is okay, but I'm not sure an extra opener is worth an instant gap closer.
Cookie cutter DPS hunter build. - Somebody forgot to put a cooldown on Lock & Load.

Oh, and feel free to argue with me, but I'm pretty sure this is the most cookie-cutter the game has ever been.

[Ironwood]

Oh, come on Sheepherder, I didn't expect to catch you with that one.

[caladein]

Cookie cutter DPS hunter build. - Somebody forgot to put a cooldown on Lock & Load.

Lock and Load's tooltip hasn't shown its ICD ever, it still has one though.  As for your build:

Arcane vs. Venom Tipped is a toss up depending on the encounter and the amount of damage that Venom Tipped does.
You probably picked the least useful T2 skill for current encounter design.  Both Intimidation and Silencing Shot are gold on certain fights.
Evasiveness in T3 could be a really great defensive CD but Posthaste is nice too.
T4 between Spirit Bond and Iron Hawk comes down to the encounter, but if Iron Hawk works on what's dangerous, it's the one to go for.
Readiness vs. Thrill of the Hunt depends on the value of double Rapid Fire for the spec, so it's not a clear cut thing.
In T6, Black Ice is the one I'd go with as I pretty frequently use Ice Trap.

So, a lot less cookie-cutter than we have now, even just from a PvE perspective.

[Ironwood]

Nah, he's right;  it's unbelievably cookie cutter.  EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted.

However, the solution to that is not to say 'wow, people don't make choices really, so let's take away even the illusion'.  For me, I'd like them to give us a lot MORE choices and ones that are actually viable and different.

But that'd be hard and WoW ain't the main game no more.

[Simond]

Has anyone anywhere every done that?

[caladein]

Nah, he's right;  it's unbelievably cookie cutter.  EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted.

You have an incredibly broad definition of the term "cookie cutter".  For Hunters, there is simply not a one-size-fits-all talent spec above the encounter level.  Every tier (except the first perhaps) is going to have some situations or assignments where at least two options are the best choice, and many of them are going to depend on things specific to one's raid or one's particular play style.

Yes, guidelines will exist.  I outlined a few of them.  But to say that because some choices will be better than others some of the time that it's all "cookie cutter" is silly in my opinion.  Then you are really saying that the only way to have choice is for it to be trivial choice.

[Ingmar]

I can't tell for sure but I think some of you are talking about how things are now currently in game, and others are talking about how they will be after the change, but you're all calling it "now".

[Ashamanchill]

Nah, he's right;  it's unbelievably cookie cutter.  EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted.

It hasn't been this way for a while. Since the nerfs to Cata really.

[Simond]

So you're telling me that if I went to, say, a random class board on the official forums there wouldn't be threads on "here's the spec you will use for class_role_1, here's the spec you will use for class_role_2, here's the PvP spec"?

[Sheepherder]

Arcane vs. Venom Tipped is a toss up depending on the encounter and the amount of damage that Venom Tipped does.
You probably picked the least useful T2 skill for current encounter design.  Both Intimidation and Silencing Shot are gold on certain fights.
Evasiveness in T3 could be a really great defensive CD but Posthaste is nice too.
T4 between Spirit Bond and Iron Hawk comes down to the encounter, but if Iron Hawk works on what's dangerous, it's the one to go for.
Readiness vs. Thrill of the Hunt depends on the value of double Rapid Fire for the spec, so it's not a clear cut thing.
In T6, Black Ice is the one I'd go with as I pretty frequently use Ice Trap.

Arcane is worth 9 focus and one freed GCD every ~10 seconds.  If you drop one Steady/Cobra and add an Arcane every 10s you're down 25 focus and plus the base damage difference between Steady/Cobra and Arcane.  So given the tooltips, umm, 1.1 DPS at whatever level their calculator is calculating at.

It's a good thing you won't be raiding Firelands in MoP then, isn't it?

Evasiveness is situationally useful.  Ghetto sprint is generally useful.

You won't be taking much direct damage in raids or dungeons.

TotH is mathematically equivalent to a 15% reduction in shot cost if the shot costs focus.  The old TotH said base focus.  Is that a stealth nerf to hunter, or a stealth nerf to clarity?  Either way, Readiness is also free focus and free damage, but you eschew some of the free focus if you so desire by dropping steady/cobra shots.

[Wolf]

the difference in encounter design between firelands, and say, ICC, is not that big. The difference in encounter design between Firelands and the brew cavern won't be that big either. You'll have different encounters that call for add control, mostly single target, mostly aoe, more movement, less movement. Within those encounters there will be different phases, one will call for ae, another will call for a patch dps burn, and your raid will balnce their talent loadout - how little aoe can they get away with, so the burn is faster/easier.

I honestly don't understand what the argument is here. Do you argue that current talents are better and less cookie-cutter than the purposed ones? I don't agree. Do you argue that the current talents are needed? I still don't agree. Do you argue that there is a game out there right now with better character development? Rift? TOR? Then argue that, don't argue that panda talents are cookie-cutter, because that simply is not true. Or are you arguing that there's a better system out there?

You can probably say there will be a list of talent load outs, broken down by enocounter, that will be considered the norm. But that will be the norm in 25m, where there are enough bodies for regular skills to handle anything an encounter throws at you and your raid only needs to worry that they make a certain DPS check. I don't think there's a single person on this board raiding 25m, and in 10m you need to worry about those other things.

And honestly, what is this shouting at people in LFD everyone's talking about. I've never had that, on any of the four characters I've ran through dungeons to gear.

[Ironwood]

Nah, he's right;  it's unbelievably cookie cutter.  EJ tells you what to pick and, for the most part, you pick it or you get LFG shouted.

It hasn't been this way for a while. Since the nerfs to Cata really.

Yes, but I don't have to like it.  In the same way that I don't have to like what's proposed either, since it's more of the same but worse.

[Ironwood]

My Give Up.

[Ashamanchill]

I'm not really a fan of the new ones (from what I can see, which admittedly is little) either. I thought the whole reason they shrunk the talent trees down was so they could build from them again, but whatever. Personally, I'd rather just see a system where they take the Wrath era talent trees, as beastly as they were, and add in the bit where you get a skill and a few perks for speccing a certain way.

[Threash]

It doesn't matter what they do there is always going to be a cookie cutter build when dps is concerned.  Even the most balanced system in the world is going to have a build that is mathematically slightly superior and it will become the mandated build from then on.

[K9]

Wow those shaman talents suck balls.

'Hey gusy! We herd u liek totems!'

Tossers.

[Rokal]

It doesn't matter what they do there is always going to be a cookie cutter build when dps is concerned.  Even the most balanced system in the world is going to have a build that is mathematically slightly superior and it will become the mandated build from then on.

The only time the old talent trees ever felt like they were really working is when I played a healer back in TBC. With DPS there always ends up being a build that is mathematically superior for any given fight. With healing, some of the choices came down to personal healing style. We had about 7 raiding priests in TBC, and every one of them had a slightly different build for healing. People decided whether they wanted to invest more in disc or holy since both had attractive options after your initial 41 in holy (or 21+ in disc). They also decided whether they wanted to invest more in instant spells like shield and renew, or cast-time heals like greater heal and prayer of healing.

Since then, the healing trees have seen more specific 'rotations' reinforced by talent selection, so there isn't as much room to support varied healing styles. You aren't going to ignore talents that increase renew because A) Renew is free healing with the Chakra talent that you never have to re-cast and B) the only other available choices are PVP talents. That's not really a choice at all.

By contrast in Rift I looked up level 50 cleric healing builds and there were about 8-9 completely different popular builds. I looked at the one that was closest to what I already had (Sent/Purifier even split) and still decided to place ~10 points in completely different places than what the cookie cutter build suggested. I miss that in WoW, and it's not coming back with MoP talents.

[Sheepherder]

It doesn't matter what they do there is always going to be a cookie cutter build when dps is concerned.  Even the most balanced system in the world is going to have a build that is mathematically slightly superior and it will become the mandated build from then on.

Here's a novel idea: if you don't want people to take something, then don't give it to them, and certainly don't make it the most attractive option.  If you're going to stick 28+ talents into a tree which serve no other purpose than to facilitate the role of that tree, you should not be surprised when people ignore the rest of the shit.

[Simond]

I.e. what Blizzard is doing in MoP.

[Sheepherder]

Sure dude, you keep telling yourself that.

[caladein]

By contrast in Rift I looked up level 50 cleric healing builds and there were about 8-9 completely different popular builds. I looked at the one that was closest to what I already had (Sent/Purifier even split) and still decided to place ~10 points in completely different places than what the cookie cutter build suggested. I miss that in WoW, and it's not coming back with MoP talents.

I don't see how you could bring up Cleric, especially Purifier and Sentinel, as a positive model.  The trees themselves are full of dull filler and so many of their abilities overlap.

[Rokal]

You do have some overlap both late and early in the trees, but in both cases it feels necessary. Healing Invocation is a pretty boring spell if you're also running Purifier, but it's necessary to be a well-rounded healer if you don't invest heavily in trees other than Sentinel. Same situation for the spells you pick up really early in any tree.

If you point out individual talents, sure, they're not that exciting. When you add them all together they result in a really tailor-made healing style though. Same situation as the TBC talent model. Was +1% effectiveness on Renew exciting? No, but if you picked up the renew talents it would be a stronger spell and it's a choice you can make it you liked to use HoTs or instants more than cast-heals.

I think the Rift soul system is pretty excellent, and Cleric Healing Souls are probably my favorite example of what makes the system great. It's what a talent system should offer in an MMO: stylistic choices based on how you play that aren't necessarily better/worse than each other.

[Azazel]

I'm still waiting to see Ironwood's response to Rokal also hating the talent changes.

It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE.

 

[Simond]

Nah, my point isn't "Isn't it wonderful!?!" but it's not actually going to make any real difference other than making terrible players slightly less terrible. Right now each spec is, essentially, "pick these talents or you're doing it wrong" and post-MoP the only thing being removed is the "doing it wrong" part.

I don't know, maybe some people here enjoy deliberately picking bad specs for no reason or something?

[Selby]

Nah, my point isn't "Isn't it wonderful!?!" but it's not actually going to make any real difference other than making terrible players slightly less terrible.

Even now it's so much further ahead than in the pre-WotLK talents where people would be level 50 and have 15 points in all 3 trees, essentially being the definition of terrible.  Now they aren't allowed to diversify into terrible as badly, and in MoP it will be even harder to do so if not downright impossible.

[Merusk]

Nah, my point isn't "Isn't it wonderful!?!" but it's not actually going to make any real difference other than making terrible players slightly less terrible. Right now each spec is, essentially, "pick these talents or you're doing it wrong" and post-MoP the only thing being removed is the "doing it wrong" part.

I don't know, maybe some people here enjoy deliberately picking bad specs for no reason or something?

It's all about what you want.  My rogue's specs were never max-damage but max-nuisance factor. Why? Because she's was an exclusively PVP character.  I'd wind-up keeping people sapped or controlled or draw off 3-4 people from a node/ flag/ at a time because they're idiots and wanted to kill the rogue who'd been annoying the shit out of them.  Can't do that now, you're very limited and it's not as fun a character anymore.

Not all classes allowed for this, but those that did were great, great fun to run up 2-3 trees at once and cherry pick utility talents because the upper tier were only DPS because that's what the game morphed into while catering to the raiding high-end.

[Ironwood]

I'm still waiting to see Ironwood's response to Rokal also hating the talent changes.

It's utter wank, but I can rely on Rokal to come in and tell me how wondrous and rock hard it'll make my penis if I just GIVE IT A CHANCE.

 

My response ?

That this idea is SO FUCKING BAD that even the fanbois don't like it.

[Simond]

Why is it bad?

[Sheepherder]

Because it all hinges upon the new talents being roughly equivalent in terms of desirability for any given spec/gear combination, and they are not.  Not even close, they are in fact so far off that I suspect Ghostcrawler was dropping acid when he made the warrior tree.  There are just some things that don't make sense unless you can see sound.

Bladestorm does roughly half damage if you have a one-hand weapon in your main hand.
Death Wish is utter shit.  A 3 min. cooldown with a survivability penalty which grants an effect that otherwise procs naturally every time you crit.
Warbringer is a joke, trading a massive improvement in the effectiveness of charge for a root that will get blinked or trinketed or shapeshifted or freedomed.
Bull Rush is basically Death Wish without the penalty on a 20s cooldown, if you also take Juggernaut it's a 12s cooldown.

[Ingmar]

Bladestorm in-game now does less damage with a one-hander. You should probably not make assumptions about how it will work in MoP. Consider that whirlwind hits with both weapons when you're dual wielding, for example. And you're massively underestimating the warbringer root. You can charge 6 times during trinket's cooldown, but sure, it will just get trinketed every time, woe is us.