WoW Talent System

While I was on holiday, World of Warcraft was patched to version 1.60. In this patch the talent trees for warriors and warlocks were reviewed, several talents changed, and all players from these two classes got all their talent points back to redistribute. My main is a warrior, Raslebol, and my second highest active character is a warlock, Honey. Time to have a look at the WoW talent system.

The system is simple enough. Starting from level 10, and up to level 60, you get 1 talent point per level, a total of 51 talent points over your career. Every character class has three branches over which to distribute these talent points. But you can't just choose any talent you want, at the start you can only take the low level talents of each branch. Putting 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 talent points in one branch opens up the next level of that branch. Sometimes there are additional requirements of having to take one specific talent before you can chose another.

So how do you distribute your talent point? Well, as you need 30 points to unlock the highest skill of one branch, plus 1 additional point to take that talent, your 51 points aren't enough to get the best talent of more than one branch. So many people put 31 points in one branch, and distribute the remaining 20 points over the other two branches.

Raslebol, pre-patch, had 31 points in Arms, 5 in Fury, and 15 in the Protection branch. That was a rather common build, because the top talent for arms is Mortal Strike, which gives an additional attack. Before the patch, both the top Fury and the top Protection talent weren't much good, and having an extra attack was just too important to miss. Fortunately Blizzard noticed that too, and the v1.60 patch changed the top Fury and Protection talents to give an extra attack too. Now warriors have a real choice.

Post-patch Raslebol has 11 points in Arms, just enough for tactical mastery and anger management, and 5 points in Fury, for the important cruelty talent. The remaining 35 points I put into Protection. That fits well with Raslebol's shield plus one-hand weapon build, optimal for groups. Besides better protection this build gives me the nice improved shield block / improved revenge combo, the important improved taunt, the stunning concussion blow, and the shield slam extra attack. If I had wanted a more solo-friendly build, I could have gone for a build specializing in Arms or in Fury, both of which seem quite viable now. Arms probably better for two-handed weapons, and Fury for dual wield.

With Honey, my warlock, the situation looks differently. The changes to the warlock talents were not that important as for warriors. But I had decided that going for Affliction was a mistake, the talents of that branch being relatively weak. Demonology not only has the much better top level talent, soul link, but it also has the better talents on the way there. So my current build has only 5 points in Affliction for suppression, and the remaining 20 points (I'm level 34) in Demonology. The combination of fel domination and master summoner means that once every 15 minutes I can summon a demon in half a second, instead of in 10 seconds, which makes combat summoning a lot more viable. And all my demons are a lot more powerful than those of warlocks who went for the other branches. So basically the patch saved me from spending money on changing my talents. Nice.

A friend of mine has put all talent points of his warlock in Destruction. The talents sure look good, but that is a matter of how you want to play your warlock. A Destruction specced warlock plays like an inferior mage, with the pet doing some additional damage. Aggro will be on the Destruction warlock most of the time, and rarely on the pet. The Demonology / Affliction warlock is a totally different beast. Aggro is on the pet most of the time, and the pet is typically the voidwalker, while the mob is slowly dying from lots of damage over time effects. A lot subtler, but slower, than the Destruction warlock. Both are viable, but I prefer the subtler approach.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:00 AM Permanent Link