WoW The War Within Early Look Into New Hero Talents

World of Warcraft The War Within is a part of one of the most ambitious storylines by Blizzard so far with the story spreading across three different expansions. Given the recently released roadmap for 2024, it looks like the devs are looking to bring back the much-needed excitement to the franchise with iconic characters returning and the lore further expanding upon the very nature of Azeroth.

We will be taking a look at what was unveiled regarding the upcoming new system called "Hero Talents" so we can get a better understanding of what we can expect in the newest expansion set to release around late summer, or early autumn 2024. 

WoW The War Within What Are Hero Talents?

Blizzard has taken the opportunity to showcase how the system will work but is also asking for feedback to make the system potentially even better. 

Hero Talents are new, self-contained talent trees that players unlock access at level 71. Hero Talents build on the abilities and talents of current classes and specializations. Players can choose a single Hero Talent tree to activate on a character and these talents can be changed in the same way class talents can be currently changed in the game.

This means that players will have even more variety when doing end-game content to reach the maximum level for the expansion. 

There are three Hero Talent trees for each class (excepting druid with four and demon hunter with two).  Each specialization has two Hero Talent trees they can choose between, and each of these trees is available as an option for two specializations.

Adding additional flavor to classes certainly has been a long time coming for WoW with many of the gimmicks and appeal for certain classes quickly feeling old and unimaginative.

For example, warriors have three Hero Talent tree options: Slayer, Colossus, and Mountain Thane. Fury has access to Mountain Thane and Slayer, Protection has access to Mountain Thane and Colossus, and Arms has access to Colossus and Slayer.

Below we can see a visual representation of how the Hero Talent tree will function once it is ready at launch.

Blizzard further clarifies even more details regarding the upcoming Hero Talents.

There are 11 nodes in a Hero Talent tree. The first of these unlocks with the system at level 71, and you earn 1 talent point per level from level 71 to 80, so you get every talent in the tree by level 80. Hero Talents will have starter builds available, and your saved builds will save your Hero Talent choices as well.

WoW The War Within Hero Talents Core Concepts

Each Hero Talent tree will have a "keystone" acting as a core mechanic to what the tree will offer, whether it will be a new ability, an enhancement to an existing ability or cooldown, or a new buff. Furthermore, there will be a "capstone" at the bottom of the talent tree that will essentially enhance the core themes or add even more power and utility to the keystone.

Each tree will offer or modify some class utility and include defensive bonuses that are useful to all specializations. We are aiming for all trees to be about equal in the amount of utility and defensiveness they provide.

Trees for characters that can take on a tanking role may have some additional defense bonuses that will be less valuable to healers or damage dealers (DPS), such as bonuses to tank talents or cooldowns. Three or four nodes in each tree will be choice nodes where you can choose between two options.

Blizzard then further clarified that these new talents will not be the staple to your class, but rather act as faithful enhancements to the class and further cement the the visual aspects of what you as a class are doing to help your group. 

WoW The War Within Hero Talents Freedom of Choice

As with all MMORPGs, there will be strategies or builds that aim to maximize your damage, healing, or tanking potential but Blizzard seems keen on making the choices in the Hero Talent tree to be of equal importance, rather than maintaining a philosophy of a 'must-have' dynamic.

We know that for some players, prioritizing total throughput is the most important thing to them, even if the difference between choices seems small. That’s okay but keeping Hero Talent balance close is one of our priorities so that players can play what they prefer and still be viable in any content.

This is very important as it will allow players who enjoy the game more casually to make use of all possible builds to discover what feels right and fun for them, rather than going with the flow of the meta and adhering strictly to what is deemed the best or most viable.

WoW The War Within Hero Talent Ideas

It looks like the devs are striving towards replicating iconic characters from the World of Warcraft universe so individual players can experience the general archetypes that are synonymous with each class. 

Hero Talents also retain your combat role and the gear that you use so that you're not competing for new types of gear. For iconic Warcraft character archetypes, we wanted to be sure that we could deliver on their fantasy with World of Warcraft’s classes. Blademasters just wouldn’t be Blademasters without abilities like Wind Walk and Mirror Image, but those abilities don’t fit in a warrior’s toolkit.

Another reasonable design philosophy by Blizzard that will be appreciated by the players as although it would seem very fun to be able to use Wind Walk as a Warrior, it would not be as effective or useful in most scenarios. 

WoW The War Within Hero Talents and Gameplay

It seems that the main focus is maintaining the class identity by further enhancing the abilities and overall gameplay of each spec so that players not only feel more powerful without sacrificing the core elements of their class but also empower the archetype by giving them even more ways to flourish once mastered. 

A Hero Talent tree might add new behavior or bonuses to an existing ability, like Keeper of the Grove’s bonuses to Force of Nature and Grove Guardian treants. They might occasionally reset the cooldown on abilities or replace spells with more powerful versions. They might make it easier to maintain important buffs or grant additional resources at key moments.

Another crucial pain point might be that by adding more flavor to the classes through Hero Talents, the complexity of the roles might become too much of a setback instead of allowing for more fun and skill expression to be at the forefront of your gameplay.

Summary 

Overall, this is a very ambitious move by Blizzard to add to World of Warcraft as many players might be skeptical of this new system being another massive power creep that enables certain playstyles to take dominance instead of encouraging a diverse and equally-powerful ecosystem.

It is a good sign to see that they are showcasing what they are working on this early on so they can gather feedback from players to ensure that come launch day, the Hero Talent trees will achieve what the devs set out to accomplish in the first place. We are certainly excited to learn more about the Hero Talents once more information is shared.