World of Warcraft: Dragonflight's pre-patch update has begun rolling out, bringing with it the long-awaited talent revamp. Blizzard has finally brought the talent trees of old back to the game, but far more advanced. This new talent tree system makes leveling feel worthwhile, and offers a level of customization that the game has not seen for some time. While it needs tweaking and balancing before it can reach its full potential, the new talent trees have really shaken up the World of Warcraft meta.
Before World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, the game had a simpler talent system introduced in Mists of Pandaria. The old talent system presented players with multiple tiers of talents that were each made up of three different talents. Every 15 levels, players were able to select one of these, and their character would feel more powerful. These new talent trees seem to fix a lot of the complaints that players had with the other system, but it is also a bit more complicated to understand.
World of Warcraft's New Talent Trees Offer a New Level of Customizability
World of Warcraft now presents players with two different talent trees. One tree represents the core features of a chosen class, while the other tree represents their specialization. Each time a player levels up they are granted a point alternating between one of these trees. No longer do players have to wait 15 levels to get stronger, they can feel like they accomplished something every level.
Players are able to change their selected talents on a whim, and they can mix and match them. If they find a build that they like it can be saved as a talent loadout for later, with up-to 10 loadouts saved at a time. This lets players have a separate loadout for Mythic+ dungeons, PvP, raids, and questing that can all be changed up with a click. Blizzard also offers starter talent builds for those who want to jump right into the action without having to learn this new system.
These new trees offer a level of customizability that World of Warcraft has not had in a long time. While there is always going to be a meta with must-have talents, these new talent trees allow players to run wild with their characters. They can mess around with all sorts of different builds, and they can share those talent builds online with the new export feature.
Dragonflight's Talent Trees are the Future of World of Warcraft
The past couple of World of Warcraft expansions garnered controversy within the community for the inclusion of borrowed power systems. These systems had players grind out resources to power that expansion's main feature, only for it to be disabled when the next expansion rolled around. These features came in the form of things like Artifact Weapons and the Heart of Azeroth. This was the focus of character progression for some time, but that no longer seems to be the case.
These new talent trees will hopefully mark the end of borrowed power in World of Warcraft. Blizzard will just have to stay committed to expanding these talent trees with more useful abilities, as long as it stays relatively balanced. While these talent trees may have a bit of a learning curve, they are a breath of fresh air for the MMO, and will hopefully foster a lot of fun, new shenanigans as players explore the Dragon Isles.
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight launches on November 28 for PC.