I don’t normally repost verbatim news from the big sites, but this is pretty big, considering the Cataclysm coverage we’ve all been chatting about for a while now.

Blizzard has decided to scrap the current talent tree design. The original announcement is here, but here are the main points:

• The talent tree goals from Blizzcon 2009 were to remove the mandatory passive talents, and make talent choices more fun.
• After releasing the previews for druids, priests, shaman and rogues, and getting feedback, Blizzard realised that the new trees didn’t fit the design goals.
• In a future beta build, the talent trees will be overhauled dramatically.
• The goal is still to remove the “lame” talents, but Blizzard don’t think it’s possible with the size of the current trees.
• To resolve this, the trees will be reduced down to 31 points.
• This will reduce the number of total talent points and the speed at which they are awarded while levelling.
• Your rotations won’t change and you won’t lose any cool talents. What will change are all of the filler talents you had to pick up to get to the next fun talent, as well as most talents that required 5 of your hard-earned points.

Talent trees as you know them: GONE.

Here’s a summary of how it will work:

When players reach level 10, they are presented with basic information on the three specializations within their class and are asked to choose one. Then they spend their talent point. The other trees darken and are unavailable until 31 points are spent in the chosen tree. The character is awarded an active ability, and one or more passive bonuses unique to the tree they’ve chosen. As they gain levels, they’ll alternate between receiving a talent point and gaining new skills. They’ll have a 31-point tree to work down, with each talent being more integral and exciting than they have been in the past. Once they spend their 31’st point in the final talent (at level 70), the other trees open up and become available to allocate points into from then on. As characters move into the level 78+ areas in Cataclysm, they’ll begin seeing items with a new stat, Mastery. Once they learn the Mastery skill from their class trainer they’ll receive bonuses from the stat based on the tree they’ve specialized in.

My first thoughts were, “AMG, my precious talentz,” but if you read it all and take time to absorb it, it does make sense. This is the part that I particularly liked:

We want to focus the talent trees towards your chosen style of gameplay right away. That first point you spend in a tree should be very meaningful. If you choose Enhancement, we want you to feel like an Enhancement shaman right away, not thirty talent points later.

When talent trees are unlocked at level 10, you will be asked to choose your specialization (e.g. whether you want to be an Arms, Fury or Protection warrior) before spending that first point. Making this choice comes with certain benefits, including whatever passive bonuses you need to be effective in that role, and a signature ability that used to be buried deeper in the talent trees.

Basically, we’ll have access to some of our abilities earlier, rather than having to slog through lots of 3/3, 5/5 type talents to get down to what we want. For example, say it was Swiftmend (just an example). Imagine having Swiftmend as a baby druid. Or Starfall. Or Leader of the Pack. These are all just examples – we’ll have to wait for the trees – but you get the idea.

I’ve been levelling another druid lately (surprised, aren’t you?) and whining my way to 40 about how I need Innervate so badly. In Cataclysm it looks like Innervate will be learned at 28 – that makes me really happy. A tiny change like that will make a huge difference to uptime while questing.

So imagine having some of our “signature abilities” unlocked from level 10. Here are some examples that they gave:

For example, having Lava Lash and Dual-Wield right away lets an Enhancement shaman feel like an Enhancement shaman. Other role-defining examples of abilities players can now get for free at level 10 include Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst, Shield Slam, Mutilate, Shadow Step, Thunderstorm, Earth Shield, Water Elemental, and Penance.

There are level 40, 50, 60 talents and abilities in there.. that’s pretty exciting. We could see things like Nature’s Swiftness, Swiftmend, Wild Growth.. or even Tree of Life (which, with its damage buff component, would actually make sense, for levelling). All those times I’ve hit my WG button in lowbie dungeons.. maybe we’ll actually get it early, now.

Level 10 Boomkins, anyone?

I’m really excited to see more of this – levelling in this game is something that I love to do (hence the billion baby druids), and the possibility of having more of our cool abilities up front, as soon as we start doing dungeons and getting into the meat of levelling.. that would be really great.

And, the other thing that I like, is the fact that I never really enjoyed splitting talents between trees, in the early levels. Do I work down to Omen, or do I pick up my feral stuff first? Ugh.. decisions. This way – with linear trees to 70 – I don’t have to worry about that. Of course, the flip side to that is the concern that the linear trees will be too… linear – affording us little individuality and wiggle room for “fun”. For now though, I’m looking forward to seeing the new trees, and how it will affect us at early levels.

Hopefully the beta build won’t be too far away!

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• So, what’s going on?
• A little bit of history repeating itself