#0 - Aug. 21, 2010, 8:10 p.m.
Q u o t e:
We were sad to see this talent go, because we thought it was cool too. However, BM just had too many damage-oriented talents, which was preventing those hunters from being able to pick up the utility or fun talents, which in turn violated a major goal of the talent tree revamps.
Here I have picked up every single "You make people not die as much" talent in Restoration, and gotten zero utility talents:
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=ffWIc80.9vn.shaman
Note how the build does not have the points to get either telluric currents nor focused insight without spending more than 31 points in the tree (unless you go 2/3 focused insight and skip cleansing waters, which may or may not be better depending on how much cleansing is required). The shaman resto tree has 43 possible talent points in it. Compare to the trees of other healing specs:
Paladin Holy: 39
Priest Disc: 42 (also bad)
Priest Holy: 36
Druid Resto: 43, though druids currently have probably the least to gain from putting points into other trees, something that maybe should be looked at.
If we break down the number of talent points in each tree which would be considered utility, damage, pvp, or fun talents, we get the following:
Disc: 10 utility talents (6 of which are related to smite). Honestly, just bringing a couple of the clunky 3 pointers down to 2 points would fix a lot.
Holy Priest: 8 utility talents. The priest MUST spend 4 points between Spirit of Redemption, Lightwell, the smite talent, blessed resilience, or Body and Soul to move down the tree, as they do not have enough "zomg more heals" talents to even reach Guardian Spirit. Honestly, this is the sort of design every tree needs to be. The biggest problem with the priest tree is after you spend your utility points, all 3 of the talents on the second to last tier are mandatory for PVE (unless you can get by with 1/2 state of mind), making you spend a minimum of 32 points.
Rsham: 12 utility talents (Would be 14, but Restorative Totems is linked to Mana Tide, so are begrudgingly mandatory). There are two clear fun talents here, focused insight and telluric currents, but the shaman must move through tiers 3 through 5 each of which have 5-6 mandatory talents in them to reach the end of the tree. This seriously limits the freedom and goes against the philosophy of "Make utility compete with utility, not throughput" which has supposedly been the MO for designing the cataclysm trees.
Getting rid of talents like Restorative Totems, Improved Chain Heal (making it some base bonus for being resto or merging it with cleansing waters or something), and lowering the point investment for some of the talents would go a long way towards helping this. Everyone will agree that Tidal Waves is well worth 3 points and happily spend them there. But Mana Tide? Nature's Blessing? Ancestral Awakening could be lowered to two points so at least you can get through that tier without spending 6 talents.
Rdruid: 10 utility talents, though 2 are required to get Master Shapeshifter, which is a thinly disguised 3 point talent for 4% more healing. Druids sort of don't have enough in the other two trees that actually makes them want to branch out (pun not intended). Furor and a couple of spell-specific balance talents, primarily.
Holy Paladin: 8 utility talents, 9 if you count the (supposedly unlinked) aura mastery. Not really sure what to say here, other than that talents like denounce and enlightened judgements really don't look very attractive, and that Tower of Radiance looks pretty costly talent wise? I guess the usefulness of the Word of Glory talents remain to be seen depending on how much Word of Glory actually heals for when geared, though they will probably always be useful in PVP (especially in concert with Blessed Life).
