Breakfast Topic: Talent changes in Wrath of the Lich King
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Nov 25th 2008 at 8:00AM
Here's a question for you: Have you changed your talents drastically in Wrath? With 10 new talent points to spend and a couple new tiers to spend them on, there's a lot of temptations to keep a player guessing as to the exact perfect spec, and I know some people have spent a lot of money picking out and testing specs. It's even easier to do with Hybrids. I know a lot of Protection Paladins are taking the opportunity to try Retribution for a while, and horror of horrors, I've even known a couple Feral Druids who have actually tried Moonkin form, if you can believe it. I find myself strangely unwilling to respec, so I'm sticking with my Unholy Death Knight, Feral Druid, and Beastmastery Hunter for now.
How are you doing on talents in Wrath? Have you decided on a build? Are you throwing money at constant respecs? Have you changed your spec 180 degrees from what it was in Burning Crusade?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Leveling, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Cyanea Nov 25th 2008 8:04AM
I went down to Haunt on my Warlock. There was no doubt whether I would or not once I read the spell's description. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my points though. Probably going to experiment with Soul Link.
Madrox Nov 25th 2008 12:31PM
Soul link is nice... more so for pvp than leveling imo, and if you play on a pvp server that may push the scale towards soul link instead of ruin, but if you avoid pvp or play on a pve server i would definitely go with ruin... I play Meta w/ ruin and when demonic empathy and pact are up and i pop meta and spam shadow bolts i crit big. Bigger than chaos bolts by far. I was pretty disappointed by deep destruction actually. Now that affliction scales so much better with gear i don't think i would even bother w/ destruction beyond destructive reach again unless the tree gets some kind of buff.
gathis Nov 25th 2008 8:05AM
as a protection paladin I have re-spec'ed to retribution for solo leveling. killing things is soo much easier as retribution. I love tanking though so will be switching back to protection soon.
Ryan11 Nov 25th 2008 12:29PM
Amen to that. Nice to not be oom after every single pull, eh?
Faelwen Nov 25th 2008 8:06AM
Not me - my main, an arcane mage, has remained pure arcane. And so all others. I chose the talents for their flavor, not for any tasks, and as such, a modified talent tree does not affect my choice.
SBKT Nov 25th 2008 8:06AM
What the hell, is that new icon some sort of ogre?
I went Deep Arms as I did before on my main, not respeccing either. Feral stays feral, BM stays BM, and the rest are too low level to matter.
Spoonman Nov 25th 2008 9:39AM
Yeah, what is up with that new icon?
Looks pretty weird... like a crying baby...
Rob M Nov 25th 2008 8:08AM
I'm a prot pally as well. I stayed prot even after the patch.
I have to say, being prot for leveling actually works out incredibly well. Want to kill 15 of something? No problem, just go pull 8+ of them at a time and DPS them down simultaneously. :)
Gathis Nov 25th 2008 8:18AM
I started as prot pally til 73 and then decided to try ret when i was having trouble grabbing enough guys to be efficient. Now I am thinking of switching back to prot since things are more spread out. I also am going to start running instances and while i know we can tank in ret spec I still like doing it as a prot
Clasifyd Nov 25th 2008 8:17AM
I completely agree with you. The sheer volume of junk I could burn down at once made those 'Kill 15 boars' quests terribly easy. I'm sure I didn't make many friends doing it, though. People tend to get a little irritated with you when you clear out a whole camp in about 30 seconds. On the other hand, I'm 80 and they're not. ^_^
Sagara Nov 25th 2008 10:09AM
And do note, if you have someone lese to help you with a healing spec'd class, you can just waltz through the nearly every quest,.
Only exception being, of course, dungeons, and well, you can basically "/1 LF 3 DPS for " and choose the best pickings.
Seriously, I'm astounded how much the tank spec is underratted in leveling...
byaccident Nov 25th 2008 8:09AM
Bah, forget re-speccing.
77 mage vs a mounted 80 ret pally =
"Pyroblast hits you for 8.9k"
"Arcane Barrage hits you for 7k"
"You have died"
Time to re-roll mage.
Dart Nov 25th 2008 8:58AM
Hate to ruin your QQ, but you can't get Pyro and Arcane Barrage together.
Khass Nov 25th 2008 9:14AM
@ Dart
For those of us who leveled beyond 71, you can very well get both. Pyroblast = 11-point in Fire. 51+11 = 62, +9 = 71 as the minimum level to get them.
byaccident Nov 25th 2008 4:20PM
Nice fail Dart. He could get Pyroblast, and have 6 talent points left over (9 when he reaches 80).
I wasn't QQ'ing I was addressing the topic. 10 Talent Points has made Mages extremely appealing, and my paladin extremely un-appealing when compared to every other class. I find myself wishing I could revert my paladin to being 70 again, so I am re-rolling to something I might find enjoyable at 80.
Not to mention, it's really lame getting flamed, down ranked, and called a QQer based on nothing else but my class all the time.
tony Nov 25th 2008 8:11AM
my shaman was resto for all of bc but enhancement is so freakin awesome now with the changes made to that tree that i am almost thinkin i might raid at 80 as enhance.
Heblevi Nov 25th 2008 8:10AM
My main, a paladin, had never been specced anything but holy since i first created him. I lvled from 1-70 as holy, which was excruciating, but I did it. When i went to the trainer to re spec ret so i could actually level at a decent rate, i felt really, really weird. I felt almost as if i was betraying my character. But now i can actually kill things so I think it was a decent payoff.
feldling Nov 25th 2008 8:46AM
I leveled a holy paladin too from 1 - 70 and yeah it was slow going, I rarely ever died. I am continuing with the holy tradition even now (people seem to be asking for healers now more and more often for instances). With the holy shock cool down reduced to 6 seconds, I feel I can hold my own for soloing.
I've got all the holy talents that I feel I need / want, so I am putting some points into retribution, which is nice and helps out with DPS. Can't wait to try out my build in PvP / Arena.
Flint Nov 25th 2008 8:10AM
I base my talent tree choices on the concepts/styles of the trees instead of pure effectiveness so I have no problems of another tree trying to lure me to its grasp with sexy new skills because they're still a completely different tree. In other words, I haven't respecced at all. I do expand to other trees with the new talent points, but only after I've picked up everything I've wanted from my main tree.
Narune Nov 25th 2008 8:14AM
After playing a Holy Paladin for about 90% of his play time, I switched to Ret for 3.0, and as glorious as the smashing has been I recently decided to switch to Prot for the first time (at lvl 74) to get ready for a potential tanking spot on my guild's raid team. Tanking with a Pally is so much more fun (and less mind scrambling) than tanking with my warrior. I'm really enjoying my pally again since 3.0 with the Ret and Prot. It's more fun than I've had playing any of my characters in a very long time.