WoW: The talent system has some errors and gives newcomers no chance

World of Warcraft has removed important information from the game. Newcomers don’t have a chance to understand their talents right now.

The new talent system in World of Warcraft has been live for a few weeks now and the changes have been well received by many players. However, there is still some criticism, because in some respects the talents seem immature. Particularly annoying: from time to time the descriptions are completely missing, so that newcomers can’t even know what it’s actually about.

What descriptions are missing? In the World of Warcraft subreddit, some players have pointed out that important information has disappeared completely with the change of the talent system. Some classes are missing details on abilities and mechanics – which simply can not be found.

The most prominent example here is probably the fire mage. For years it has had a mechanic called “Hot Streak”. The idea is that if the mage scores 2 critical hits in a row, then the next Pyroblast or Flame Blast becomes instant cast and deals more damage. There are a number of talents that relate to, enhance, or interact with this heat of battle.

The problem: Nowhere in the spell book or the fire mage talent tree is it explained what heat of battle actually is. What used to be a passive effect in the spell book is now simply gone.

This may not be a problem for veterans who already know this mechanic – but if you are new to World of Warcraft or just want to try a different class, you have no chance of getting this information in-game and have to rely on other players or websites.

Are there any more examples? There are similar difficulties with many other classes as well. So the Affliction Warlock gets some talents that also improve the “Shadow Bolt”. However, the game forgets to mention that Shadow Bolt will be replaced by Steal Soul in Affliction Sorcerer. This leads to some confusing moments where you’re flipping through the spellbook and just can’t find what’s actually been boosted.

Inaccurate talents ruin decisions: Talents that are simply described too imprecisely are just as annoying. While an exact chance or percentage of improvement is often given, this is not always the case. Here the shadow priest especially stands out, like “–Pariah” on the WoW subreddit explained:

“As a Shadow Priest, it’s impossible to gauge the final talents that impact your build so much without doing a great deal of research. The worst example:

“Idol of C’Thun
Mind Flay and Mind Blast have a chance to create a Void Tentacle or Void Lasher that channels at your target for 15 seconds, generating 3 Insanity every 1 second.“

What is the chance? How often does this happen? Is it the same value for Mind Flay and Mind Blast? Is it higher for either of the two? Is this an AoE or solo target talent? Does it generate insanity in both cases?
Void Tentacles or Void Lashers? What the hell are these? What are they channeling? How much damage do they do? What’s the difference between them? How do you choose your destination? WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

I know what they’re doing because I’ve played when they’ve been brought into play in various forms. But if you don’t have these years of knowledge, you first have to look for precise explanations on various websites.

Community demands revision: While there are those who feel that there is no need to explain 100% of the details, at least the consensus is that core class mechanics need to appear as passive abilities in the spellbook.

Blizzard will still have to improve here, because newcomers currently have little chance of understanding the various specializations in the game at all if important information simply does not exist in the game.

How do you deal with the new talents? Does your specialization have the same problems? Or is everything clear with you?