I mentioned in my About page that I began my love affair with WoW way back in September of 2004 with the Stress Test. I recall sometime in those early days one CM or another, being asked about talent point allocation, saying that putting all your eggs(points) in one basket(tree) would be bad, and make for a boring character. The idea behind giving you more than needed to get the big skill at the 'top' of the tree was to allow you to put some points in other trees.
Fast forward 4 years or so to the current Wrath Beta talents, and we now hear about talent Bloat. As described by the class designer Koraa in this thread:
Wait, what? Now we should be putting all our points in one tree, and in fact should have more goodies in that tree than we have points to spend them on? When did this change? The reason I ask is that I did not, and do not feel that the current Retribution tree is in this position, as I still have room for Kings over in the Prot tree. Looking at my attempted build back in an earlier beta build, I did find that I just couldn't spare the points in Ret to go anywhere near the Prot tree.
I just find it a little amusing that the perspective of class design has changed so radically from those earlier 'spread em out' specs that I think it was Caydiem was advising back in those early days of Blizzard's MMO experience. What do you think? Do you like the old way of thinking or the new? Would you prefer less than mind blowing options scattered throughout the trees which would allow you to put points in other trees, or would you prefer having more juicy talents than places to put them? Sound off in the comments below!
Fast forward 4 years or so to the current Wrath Beta talents, and we now hear about talent Bloat. As described by the class designer Koraa in this thread:
Bloat: Bloat is another word for "I can't have everything I want!". We want every class to feel their tree is "bloated" to a degree. We want classes to have to make choices and sacrifices over good talents, because that is ultimately what makes talents interesting. If it weren't that way, we would just make it a linear progression without any choices.
Wait, what? Now we should be putting all our points in one tree, and in fact should have more goodies in that tree than we have points to spend them on? When did this change? The reason I ask is that I did not, and do not feel that the current Retribution tree is in this position, as I still have room for Kings over in the Prot tree. Looking at my attempted build back in an earlier beta build, I did find that I just couldn't spare the points in Ret to go anywhere near the Prot tree.
I just find it a little amusing that the perspective of class design has changed so radically from those earlier 'spread em out' specs that I think it was Caydiem was advising back in those early days of Blizzard's MMO experience. What do you think? Do you like the old way of thinking or the new? Would you prefer less than mind blowing options scattered throughout the trees which would allow you to put points in other trees, or would you prefer having more juicy talents than places to put them? Sound off in the comments below!
Reference Links
More juicy talents than you can actually have points for, please. I don't particularly care if they all need to be in one tree or not.... but I think we need to have different choices, acceptable builds, etc.
I feel there are many acceptable builds, and many more to come. I feel all 3 trees for Druids and Paladins are now fully fleshed out and useful. Of course, I am to understand by many other bloggers that the things I have found fine are in fact not in the eyes of the playing public. I feel Boomkin is a great raid spec in end game, and that Ret has a lot to offer.