World of Warcraft: cataclysm fully reworked the talents for character setups. The new expansion not only changed the game world. It entirely redid almost all character systems that players learnt to love.

What started as a hardly clear net of talent mixes already got simpler during Rage of the Lich King even so cataclysm went much more forward. The main change was made up of introduction of clear portfolios, so talent choice spots became less key for victory or defeat, and more for well fitting to your role.

How Cataclysm Changed Talent Trees

At the 10th level you receive your first talent spot. More they arrive with every odd level later. This initial choice at level 10 genuinely matter.

Here you choose your main talent tree and stay locked in it. You must reach at least 31 spots in your main tree before branching to others. The intended design here was that: the first talent spot must feel important and useful.

For instance, if you choose Enhancement, you should feel as a better shaman already all along, not after work through thirty levels of talents.

When you reach 31 spots in your main tree, around 10 spots stay for spend freely. They can go back to the same tree or to one of the two others. That freedom allows you to adapt your setup according to the coming hard fights.

Every class ends with three good, fully usable kinds under this system. The weakness? Many players reckon that the final builds look too much alike, with only one or two talents for special times genuinely affecting your playstyle.

Many old talents went or merged during this rework. Talents of the kind “+1% damage”? Gone.

Take holy priests, they have only 37 spots fully in there tree, and 31 of them are needed before branching otherwise. Interesting are, how damage talents mixed into healing trees. Depending on the enemy in fight, that opens chances for healers add a bit of damage or at least ease the leveling as healer.

Calculators for talents became key for plan builds in cataclysm. These tools helped plan, set choices and change them for all ten classes. Some calculators include talents and glyphs from the Classic version 4.4.0 of wow.

Now exist even apps for iOS, where you can save your setups and change them during travel. Sharing builds with friends takes only seconds.

The whole rework came down to a practical design choice, genuinely. It meant to free time from needs and stop talent trees from growing always. If you pile up endless powers without any downsides, result only one good choice at max level, and that soon becomes boring.

Even so, playing fire mage early in cataclysm was among the most fun moments that the game offers. Later arrived Mists of Pandaria, that fully changed the system and replaced it bymeans of a simple way, where choices no longer depend on kinds or prior choice spots.