Step 1: At level 10, choose your spec
Step 2: Other trees are locked as you fill out your chosen tree
Step 3: At level 70 the other trees unlock and more choices open up
There is a lot of work to be done on the trees. Let's take the priest ones as an example. Here is what I posted to the priest forums:
So many of these talents should not be options; they should simply be part and parcel of being that spec. Why should we be given the option of taking something like shadowform as a shadow priest? It should be there by default when you click "shadow" as your chosen spec.
There simply needs to be less choosing talents that no one in their right mind will pass over -- it defeats the purpose of having a tree in the first place -- and more taking things that really do seem optional, that you are sure not everyone will take.
Every single talent that you choose should offer the question: is everyone going to take this because it is a mandatory talent, or is this an actual option amongst all the other options I have?
Sure, a disc priest will play the same as a disc priest -- and the same for all specs -- but wouldn't it be cool if cookie cutter builds actually had half the talent points floating so that there were literally dozens of different specs to give a little different flavour. Makes it more personal. Makes it so you can look at another person's spec and go, "Wow, we have quite a few different talents but we are filling the same role, and neither one of us suffers for not having taken the exact same build as the other." And there you have many, many options.
What should be options (I'm not talking about what should be simply available) are taking damage talents as a healer, getting cool effects and bonuses added to key spells, and having a lot of options in each tree that really complement that spec in different ways.
If Blizzard do anything, it should be to approach the trees from scratch, offering each class specialisation the passives without spending talent points, and a whole heap of option when it comes to utility, boosting spells and doing cool stuff.
Right now, that is not the case. But it will be. I have faith.
Right, so why can't we have, say, a few shadowform boosting talents? Something like: Talent A: Improves shadowform by boosting mana by 5%/10% (2 points); Talent B: Improves shadowform by increasing shadow damage by an additional x/2x amount (2 points); Talent C: Improves shadowform by reducing stun and fear effects by 10%/20% (2 points); Talent D: Improves shadowform by increasing movement speed by 7%/15% and reducing the resistance to snare effects by x%/y% and reducing the time of snare effects by x%/y%.
And that's just one example of talents where people will have real options that really affect how they play their chosen spec, and there will be a whole lot more variety amongst players of the same spec, with a lot of utility and boosting options. Talents that are optional skills -- where you are having to choose wicked skill A, awesome skill B, intense skill C, or crazy skill D -- need to be a cohesively large part of each specialisation, as well as optional supporting talents that make you choose between multiple options; the benefits of which are not immediately apparent, but none of which will make you feel inferior to a different "build".
So for now, we wait. We wait until they dig out these trees at the roots and design a whole lot of new talents that will feel like they are worth taking; but that give you the option of taking. I really do want to be able to open up each of my characters' talent trees and feel that I am choosing more than simply mandatory talents with a couple of extras thrown in with leftover points. It has to feel substantial and solid and unique, with the cool, fun, powerful factor increasingly growing as you go down your chosen tree towards that big, bad talent at the end.
Peace.
Gaiwyn of Proudmoore
