Dev WC - Seeing the Forest for the Talent Trees

[Flex]

judgement giving a shorter duration sprint every ten seconds.

Every 6 seconds. Judgement has a 6 second cooldown. I feel like LAotL is just way better than the other two.

Unless you don't need any form of movement speed increase and just want a 10% damage increase as Prot.

[Kelaan]

So you have the choice of a long-duration sprint while you have holy power (escape and drink? GTFO of void zones?), vs a weaker sprint that is up just about all the time. Holy crap.

When would I need a 1-minute cooldown 10% extra damage as Prot, though, especially with Vengeance ramping faster? It seems like it has its merits in pushing hard enrage timers, but ... yeah. Seems like something I'd almost never use. Of course, actually using it would change that, but 10% just seems so ... lackluster.

[Flex]

When would I need a 1-minute cooldown 10% extra damage as Prot, though

It is a fairly long duration currently, 1/5th uptime. If you're surviving just fine you want to kill things faster right?

[Sabindeus]

judgement giving a shorter duration sprint every ten seconds.

Every 6 seconds. Judgement has a 6 second cooldown. I feel like LAotL is just way better than the other two.

Unless you don't need any form of movement speed increase and just want a 10% damage increase as Prot.

Which is just never true.

[Flex]

Which is just never true.

Of the first 5 bosses in Dragon Soul that I have experienced none of them have a need for movement increasing talents/abilities as a tank.

[Sabindeus]

Which is just never true.

Of the first 5 bosses in Dragon Soul that I have experienced none of them have a need for movement increasing talents/abilities as a tank.

Agreed, but I don't feel that speccing for bosses is a good quality of life decision.

It's like, will 1/6 uptime 10% damage potentially help down Patchwerk style bosses faster? Sure. Will it help me get where I'm going faster? No. If you're a bleeding edge omg squeeze every last dps out of your shit type, then yeah I can understand picking it up, but I've never been that guy.

[Kelaan]

Of the first 5 bosses in Dragon Soul that I have experienced none of them have a need for movement increasing talents/abilities as a tank.

There's more than Dragon Soul. In many other tiers, we've had a chance where increased movement speed could help us, whether to GTFO of crap faster or to move the boss more quickly. Perhaps not a "need" (as we've done it without it) but it'd certainly be nice to have. I can't comment on heroic versions as I've not done them, but I bet it'd help there too.

T11: Omnitrons, Maloriak's adds, kiting things on Nef (I assume). Halfus' adds, picking up trash before the Council, moving to the transporters in Throne of Four Winds.
T12: Shannox (kiting the dog), getting away from hatchlings on Alysrazor, picking up stray adds on Rhyolith.
Wrath: Lich King, Sindragosa, Anub'arak.

It's one of those things that if you already play perfectly is unlikely to help you, but can be really handy when you are sometimes imperfect in your timing. We have SO MANY fights where "kite something" is either necessary or even merely kind to our healers that a sprint sounds pretty neat. I mean ... how long have we been asking for a gap-closer? It's a nice feature that is not universally useful, but is tremendously handy when we can make use of it.

[Sabindeus]

Of the first 5 bosses in Dragon Soul that I have experienced none of them have a need for movement increasing talents/abilities as a tank.

There's more than Dragon Soul. In many other tiers, we've had a chance where increased movement speed could help us, whether to GTFO of crap faster or to move the boss more quickly. Perhaps not a "need" (as we've done it without it) but it'd certainly be nice to have. I can't comment on heroic versions as I've not done them, but I bet it'd help there too.

T11: Omnitrons, Maloriak's adds, kiting things on Nef (I assume). Halfus' adds, picking up trash before the Council, moving to the transporters in Throne of Four Winds.
T12: Shannox (kiting the dog), getting away from hatchlings on Alysrazor, picking up stray adds on Rhyolith.
Wrath: Lich King, Sindragosa, Anub'arak.

It's one of those things that if you already play perfectly is unlikely to help you, but can be really handy when you are sometimes imperfect in your timing. We have SO MANY fights where "kite something" is either necessary or even merely kind to our healers that a sprint sounds pretty neat. I mean ... how long have we been asking for a gap-closer? It's a nice feature that is not universally useful, but is tremendously handy when we can make use of it.

The fact is, I play Retribution a lot. And thus I already feel like Long Arm of the Law is pretty much indispensable, to the point where when I respec back to Prot, I feel horribly gimped. So having this as an option for a tank spec is just about the best thing since sliced bread. The only annoying part is that I have to give up my 15% baseline increased speed for it.

[Flex]

Of the first 5 bosses in Dragon Soul that I have experienced none of them have a need for movement increasing talents/abilities as a tank.

There's more than Dragon Soul.

There's more than raiding. I have Pursuit of Justice because I enjoy running between the Bank and Auction House faster. Doesn't mean I wont change up talents or glyphs for a fight.

[Kelaan]

True. I mistakenly assumed you were saying something like "I don't see why I'd ever need a speed boost as a tank", but when I re-read what you'd actually said that wasn't it at all. Sorry

[Koatanga]

The fatal flaw of their idea of making choices interesting by making them situational is that it forces players who min/max to go respec for every single situation.
That's not fun.

The only reason min/maxxers would respec for a fight is if it offered an advantage. Seems to me the option to be able to spec into an advantage for a fight is a good thing. It also seems like min/maxxers would welcome it versus having to go back to their trainer.

If the ability to squeeze more performance out of your toon and to show precisely how awesome and knowledgeable you are to take the most advantage of your hybrid flexibility isn't fun, I gotta wonder what would float your boat.

[Darielle]

The one thing we can guarantee based on new talents is that a lot more encounters are going to feature stuff that we saw early in T11 and in some instances in T12, where stuns, slows, knockbacks and those kinds of things will feature more prominently on a lot of fights.

[Carabas]

The one thing we can guarantee based on new talents is that a lot more encounters are going to feature stuff that we saw early in T11 and in some instances in T12, where stuns, slows, knockbacks and those kinds of things will feature more prominently on a lot of fights.

Let's hope so. T11/T13 do not need this kind of talents (maybe in some fights a speed boost would have been nice, but not necessary), wotlk fights were more or less on the same boat (I remember speccing for a shorter Hammer for LK fight). A Veneration talent on Freya HM would have been nice, Gormok charge was avoidable even w/o any speed boost, Mimiron fire too. Yes, they would have been nice, but not necessary.

[Mannstein]

If there are only 6 points, every point need to matter, not only 1 or 2. You can run both as protection or as retribution with the same set of talents and be ok (and imho this is wrong from a game design point of view).

QFT

Recall that DPS and tanks will likely want different things. (...)
I certainly feel like all of the tiers have meaningful choices, from both perspectives. Here are the choices I see. I am mainly looking at a pve and pvp tank/dps perspective; Holy has a lot of choices too.

• (15) 1 minute sprint CD, vs a much more frequent 40% (PoJ), vs judgement giving a shorter duration sprint every ten seconds. PoJ is neat in that it potentially would let you keep the movement speed all the time, whereas judgement synergizes VERY well (in PvP and PvE) with snaring runners.

No question, in PVE it's 100% encounter dependent. every fight description can now start with a lvl1 choice or not.
Can you tell me what lvl1 choice you chose for old'patchy fights? (i for one do not believe everything "crawler" promises.)

(30) Judgement snare, vs 30 second stun, vs Repentance. Note that Repentance has a cast time, and APPEARS not to have a cooldown. I don't even know which I'd rather have in PvP -- sheep-games, or permanent snares? Stunning adds helps a lot as a tank, but so does being able to apply CC.

As you said "which I'd rather have in PvP", for PVE, again it's all about the fight. i expect that 90% of the (PVE)time it's the... "nothing to see, move along folks" talent.

(45) Ardent Defender is on-use bacon-saving, whereas Sacred Shield is a more frequent bacon-saver. I think I'd rather have Sacred Shield in most cases, but I've used Ardent Defender for some pretty silly boss-survival shenanigans too. I honestly don't know which I'd prefer, and I can see some being better for different fights.

Absolutly, "I can see some being better for different fights." but to be honest i start to have a "deja vu" moments /cough in each choice /cough

(60) Eternal Glory vs Holy Shield? Especially pertinent now that ShoR makes us block the next attack, so you are choosing a shield vs a chance at a heal+block combo. Selfless Healer looks like an AWESOME pvp talent, too, in that it makes ret (or prot) much more capable of healing teammates.

Wait "Selfless Healer", thats new... a CHOICE... omg didn't expect this... at least for ret and it's hasted judgment, now i can be a (on par i hope) dps with a little heal...
In behind work firewall so Iirc the description on Holy Shield is the same that "hand of sacrifice" as in it can only be use in others. So unless, we are changing this to http//offtankadin.failsafedesign.com, i don't want to see it used as a tank. /JK

(75) I really want cleanse to remove snares. I'm just happy that more than Ret gets it. However, I can certainly see the situational value of Veneration for a tank or as part of an arena team. I think they'll pry Acts of Sacrifice from my cold, dead, hands, but I can also see how some would prefer to be able to double up on Hands of Whatever. These mostly seem like PvP talent choices, but we've had SEVERAL boss fights (Keristrasza, Hodir, etc) where I'd LOVE to be able to cleanse my own snare away, and I expect to see more.

Agree, these mostly seem like PvP talent choices.
If "we've had SEVERAL boss fights", all tank classes must have this abilities, and that is a BIG if.

(90) WTF. I have no idea which I'd prefer. One lets you block five things in a row (or hit things hard) while running Guardian, which COULD be pretty awesome as a clutch CD, esp if we are not able to block cap. The others let you guarantee fast HP buildup or throughout, or have a chance at free HP usage like Ret gets now. As a tank, I like Holy Avenger, but it seems liek Divine Purpose is more generally useful. Sanctified wrath ... I guess. Not for tanks, but the others are still choices?

Ret has 1 choice (same as live)
Prot has 1 choice - for me, randomness doesn't mix well with tanking.

I can look at them and find that one of them appeals to my playstyle choices, rather than role requirements, and also see the conditional value in many of them.

This is the thing, in none of the above coments you say that you are gooing to chose based on you playstyle, every coment it's fight dependent.
/rant
I hope this will be changed... i want new toys
/offrant

P.s. Sorry for some bad english

[theckhd]

• (15) 1 minute sprint CD, vs a much more frequent 40% (PoJ), vs judgement giving a shorter duration sprint every ten seconds. PoJ is neat in that it potentially would let you keep the movement speed all the time, whereas judgement synergizes VERY well (in PvP and PvE) with snaring runners.

No question, in PVE it's 100% encounter dependent. every fight description can now start with a lvl1 choice or not.
Can you tell me what lvl1 choice you chose for old'patchy fights? (i for one do not believe everything "crawler" promises.)

So, your argument is that because one or two fights in the entire game contain no movement, the first tier talents are irrelevant or cookie-cutter for PvE?

I think the first tier is actually one of the more interesting ones, because all of the options are moderately interesting. One may be better-suited to certain fights than others, but likely not in a way that necessitates re-speccing from fight to fight. In that sense, the first tier embodies the idea of the new talent system: interesting choices about how you play your character that aren't necessarily going to be min-maxxed on every fight.

I'm not sure what you want the alternative to be. The old spec systems had fewer interesting choices than this system. Being able to skip Holy Shield or Grand Crusader, for example, isn't an interesting choice. It's simply a dumb choice, and a choice not worth having at all. Granting those abilities by default makes sense - there's no logical reason to skip them, so there's really no decision being made.

I'm not going to go through and critique all of the rest of the tiers, because I'm short on time right now. But rest assured that several of the talent tiers you've written off as PVP tiers contain talents that are game-breaking in PvE encounters. You, and several others in this thread, seem to be discounting a lot of talents that would have been quite useful in T11 and T12 heroic progression.

Also, you can Holy Shield yourself, not just others. You're misreading the talent, which has the exact same wording as WoG (or at least, it did last I looked; presumably that didn't change in the recent updates).