World of Warcraft dev team gives in-depth look at return of talent trees in Dragonflight

The World of Warcraft development team published today an extensive update on the upcoming return of talent trees in the game’s next expansion, Dragonflight. 

Talent trees were removed from retail WoW with the launch of Mists of Pandaria in 2012. Since then, players have only had access to 21 talents across seven rows of choices. And while talents have still left players with plenty of customization options in recent expansions, the extensive possibilities given to them through talent trees are immense in comparison. In Dragonflight, players will have access to 61 points they can spend on talents. 

Talent trees in Dragonflight will differ greatly from trees that veteran WoW players may have been used to when they were originally part of the game. The most notable change comes via the fact that players will have two trees to place their talent points into: one for their class, and another for their specialization of choice. For example, Mage players will have a tree that’s accessible to all three specializations, while another is specific to either Fire, Frost, or Arcane. 

“Keeping these separate is one way of ensuring that you have some choices in both areas without, for example, feeling compelled to give up all your utility or off-spec buttons in order to maximize main role performance,” Blizzard said of the two talent trees in today’s update. 

Related: Everything we know about the World of Warcraft talent system revamp for Dragonflight

The dev team specified that classes’ core abilities will be unlocked between levels one and 10, while basic abilities will be given out automatically depending on players’ specializations. With that in mind, you won’t be forced to build and construct your talent trees in certain directions to ensure their core abilities remain a part of your class’ rotation. 

Additionally, “most talents” will have prerequisites, according to Blizzard, meaning they cannot be unlocked without another talent ahead of them in the tree being unlocked first. Beyond prerequisite talents, other talents will appear side-by-side in their respective trees, meaning players must make a choice between them. 

In their update, the dev team posted full previews for two classes’ talent trees: Druid and Death Knight. All classes’ trees will be available for testing when the WoW: Dragonflight alpha goes live.