World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s talent trees getting a major rework

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight will finally whisk players away to the Dragon Isles, where they’ll be able to roll new Dracthyr characters and play the new Evoker class. Blizzard is also going to be working on revamping old systems. Dragonflight. The much-maligned talent tree, in particular, will undergo its first major overhaul for nearly a decade.

Polygon chatted with Steve Danuser (lead narrative designer) and Brian Holinka (lead combat designer), about the changes to their talent tree. World of Warcraft Dragonflight.

Go back in World of Warcraft: Mists of PandariaBlizzard redesigned the original tree-based talents system to allow for very limited, powerful skill options. While the game gained some readability — especially for new players — it lost some depth, and Blizzard is looking to bring it back into the game.

DragonflightBlizzard is going to completely revamp the talent system and bring it back to the original tree form. When players level up, they’ll unlock points to put in one of two skill trees for their character. One is the class skill tree, while the second is the specialization skill tree. The specialization tree can change depending on the spec player’s active.

While players won’t be able to put points into multiple specializations like in the The Wrath of the LichkingNew system is flexible enough to allow customization and even hybridization. Will players like to be part of the fantasy class they have created? You can also expand your specialization. Players will only have so many points to allocate, but they’ll be able to quickly swap to different talent loadouts between activities or raid bosses, with the new loadout system.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Players will have the ability to modify and grow their classes with the help of new trees. But Blizzard stressed that while players will be able to stretch their classes in new ways, they’re still the classes they know (outside of the new Evoker class, of course).

“The intention is that players can still feel comfortable playing the classes that they know,” said Holinka. “We don’t want to be overly disruptive and someone logs in on patch day, and they just are like ‘everything on my action bars changed, I don’t even know how to play this class I’ve been playing for 10 years anymore.’”

Holinka made it clear that the team wants to preserve what players know, and players looking for something familiar will be able to craft their character in a “very comfortable and familiar way.” However, the opposite is also true, and players will be able to build out an almost greatest hits list for their favorite class.

“A lot of the talents, you know, we’ve been trying to say ‘hey, what are some of the best things that we’ve created for these classes and specs throughout the years,’” said Holinka. “‘Azerite traits, Artifacts, Covenant abilities. What are some of the coolest things we have, and let’s put it in a talent tree so that players can make some choices and get those cool things back.”

Holinka elaborated that they’ll be picking some of the most popular abilities and traits for each class, although players shouldn’t expect every cool thing they’ve ever been able to do to return. But anything players would label as “iconic” should be a pretty safe bet.

Holinka also confirmed that it was part of their thinking when we asked whether the talent trees would be easier to expand.

After nearly a decade of very rigid selection process — Holinka said you currently make “about seven choices about your character” — and no major Azerite, Artifact, or Covenant-adjacent system in DragonflightTalent rework looks to be the biggest change in expansion. The new talent system, as exciting and important as any new class is, will determine the success or failure of the next generation. World of Warcraft.