Post by Arideni
Please remember to follow the forum rules. Additional guidelines can be found here.NOTE: The format for
Topic of the Week is being changed. In the future, there will simply be a monthly discussion about current trends & issues dealing with World of Warcraft. Stay tuned next week for more information.
Welcome to the
"Topic of the Week" discussion. Our topic this week involves talent builds. More importantly, how certain talent builds mix with other players to form successful groups.
The classes in World of Warcraft generally fall into one of three categories: tank, healer, or damage dealer. While simple in its own right, what happens when one archetype tries to cross over?
Groups are typically made up of at least one tank, one healer, & several damage dealers. When a player, for example a warrior, joins a group they are often expected to tank just as many times a priest is expected to heal. These typical molds can & have been broken, but common stigma in the mainstream continue to dominate the perception of many classes.
That's where talents come in. Talents are a means to customize our characters. By level 60 or 70, characters have amassed so many talent points a "build" or "specialization" is possible. Warriors, for example, have three distinct talent trees. Arms talents lend themselves to high burst damage for player versus player combat (PVP). Fury talents are centered around dealing damage over time while Protection talents enhance & add new functionality to the class for "tanking" player versus environment (PVE) content.
So my thoughts for this week are all about how one can break the mold, as the game is now & as it may be in the future.
- What "archetype" does your favorite class fall under?
- What kind of type does your talent build support?
- Do you always enjoy the same role in a group?
- How does your role in PVE differ from that in PVP?
- What do you think about the roles of players in certain levels of content & how that changes based on the raid format (10 player raids vs. 25 player raids)?
For example, warriors are often expected to tank, but with proper gear they become more than capable damage dealing machines.
Feel free to add anything more to the discussion as these are merely starter questions to get some thoughts flowing. Let's reflect on how our talents determine what we do in-game.
-----
For a complete history of the TOTW series, click here.