WoW: Talent trees in Dragonflight – As of now, we can stick with the talent matrix

The revision of Talent Trees is one of the great features of WoW: Dragonflight. After the talent matrix was introduced in MoP, the coming expansion returns to the old talent trees and even gives each class two trees: one for the class and one for the playing style.

27 points in the class tree and 26 points in the game style tree must be awarded. This allows for more variation in builds. Well, you might think so. Because a certain restriction and a lot of missing inspiration mean that instead of the new Dragonflight talent trees, you could now stay with the talent matrix. I’ll show you why below.

This is my spell book as a protection warrior without talents

Pretty empty. This is because we need to unlock essential warrior skills through the talent tree. That’s not really what a talent tree is for, Blizzard.

Source: buffed



You see correctly, four passive abilities and execute in the protection tab. The latter ability isn’t necessarily part of the core repertoire of protection play now. And no, that’s not because there’s still a lot missing in the alpha. In the general warrior tab I find at least important abilities like charge, shield bash, shield block and taunt. You could theoretically fill up with it. But where are my goodies like Spell Reflection, Berserker Rage, or essential attacks like Thunder Clap, my Shield Wall Cooldown, or Last Stand?

The answer can be found in the talent tree. If you want to play your class like in Shadowlands, you have to get your standard skills through the talent tree. At the end you will see how packed the Dragonflight talent trees are with old stuff that we already own.

Collect standard skills

“How do I squander five points now, in order to possibly get one or two good talents later” shouldn’t be the thought when trying to skill talents.

Source: buffed



My Defensive Stance is gifted to me as a Protection Warrior in the Warrior talent tree. After that – yes got to – I get my old abilities Berserker Rage, Intervene (or optionally Gather Powers), Thunder Clap and Rallying Cry and below them Spell Flexion via talent points. I have to take the talents with me because I can only select further talents in the lower part of the tree once I have invested eight points. and so far I have not received anything new about the Dragonflight talent boy. I only have a part my default Shadowlands abilities back.

Now you can say “But the talent trees are so branched and so versatile”. Agrees towards the end, yes. But I’m not going to take 5% movement speed or the rather nonsensical berserker stance as a tank in order to give up essential tank abilities, without which I can’t capture several enemies, have only half as much mobility (Heroic Leap/Intervention) or are almost completely defenseless against magic attacks. But wait a minute, I’ll take the “garbage skills” with me because there’s a point limit (see picture above) that I have to meet.

Take the rest of the rubbish with you

Before things get any interesting in the class talent tree, however, I need to get a certain number of points before I can continue. Luckily, there are a few halfway useful talents for the warrior, some classes choose some cheese to do so.

In the classic talent tree I would now see how I can most effectively get the last talent in the tree, in Dragonflight there are seven talents in the class talent tree for the warrior. But I can’t think like that in Dragonflight, because the points aren’t enough. The choice of path is quite clear. On the right edge are the bonuses for shield slam, thunderclap upgrades and so on, a swerve to the left and we take even more strength and armor with us.

My path as a protection warrior is pretty much set in stone. Of course, I leave talents for two-handed specialization or attacks that I don’t even have. Still, I have to forcibly select some rather useless talents again. In addition to the eight-point limit, there is also the 20-point limit. I think this second coercion rule is one of my biggest criticisms of the Dragonflight talent trees. In the picture above, I have all the talents that make sense for the tank, but I still have to “throw away” five points before I can continue skilling. The problem: After that, only seven points remain.