Unpopular talents, or the Armory in action

• Navaash · 05/02/07, 1:37 PM

I found this on SA (not public forum - need account to see thread), which in turn leads to the official forums (click this link if you don't have an SA account) - insert cliched catchphrase about diamonds here.

Short form: Zyph-Maelstrom (who as far as I know does not post here) rooted through the Armory looking at talents of level 70 characters (albeit with a flawed methodology - he gets his list of names to scan from Allakhazam (obligatory fuck allakhazam)) then isolating to people who have 31 or more points in one tree. Reasonable, since I can't think of any intelligent build offhand that doesn't. After figuring out those numbers, he further culls by determining who didn't take the key 31 or 41 point talents in those trees.

His findings are relatively unsurprising - people hate Slow, Circle of Healing, Endless Rage, etc. - but the standout is that the majority of heavily Holy-specced priests skipped Lightwell. Mind you, he has some really

findings (and if we don't have that emoticon, we really should), such as "Dark Pact is unpopular with Affliction warlocks" - there is an allegation that he meant Contagion, but his original post clearly says "Dark Pact" - but the methodology is fairly sound.

I would like to meet this insane 1.4% of mages though that put 31+ points into Arcane but skipped Arcane Power.

(hooray

is in)

boomix · 05/02/07, 1:42 PM

There was post similar to this by level 20ish on PTR realms earlier yesterday and it focused on priests only. I think this is the same guy just posting on his main again. Even if flawed by 25% margin it still paints a picture that some of holy priest talents are undesirable.

Nite_Moogle · 05/02/07, 1:42 PM

Class/Tree            % Specced     % Skipped 31  % Avoided 41
Shaman/Restoration      36.6        2.6                 0.9

Earth Shield comes out of the study as by far the most awesome 41 pointer.

Interesting to note that not a single Shadow Priest skipped Shadow Form. :P

• frmorrison · 05/02/07, 1:45 PM

I can't see the paid SA forums, could someone repost the numbers?

Any Affliction Lock with more than 31 points in the tree needs Dark Pact, sure I can believe 1% were too stupid to get it (just like AP), but anymore and there is something wrong with his data collection.

Nork · 05/02/07, 1:50 PM

(crosses fingers - edit: bah, formatting by hand)

The first column indicates the percentage of that class that specialized in the tree -- for example, 59.9% of all druids in my study put 31 or more points into Feral Combat.

The second column indicates the percentage of specialized players, that SKIPPED the 31 point talent. For example, 0.5% of all Feral druids (31 points or more) in my study skipped Leader of the Pack.

The third column indicates the percentage of specilized players, that did not take the 41 point talent. For example, 2.7% of all Feral druids (31 points or more) in my study don't have Mangle. They may have gone 0/31/30, or perhaps they went 0/61/0 but skipped Mangle.

Class/Tree            % Specced     % Skipped 31  % Avoided 41
Druid/Balance           13.4        6.7                24.4
Druid/Feral Combat      59.9        0.5                 2.7
Druid/Restoration       26.7        2.8                21.8
Hunter/Beast Mastery    22.0        2.2                 9.8
Hunter/Marksmanship     72.3        0.4                12.2
Hunter/Survival          5.1       30.8                61.5
Mage/Arcane             38.5        3.6                73.8
Mage/Fire               35.9        3.9                18.8
Mage/Frost              25.5        0.4                11.3
Paladin/Holy            67.0        2.4                23.2
Paladin/Protection      20.6        3.3                10.0
Paladin/Retribution     12.1        5.7                 9.4
Priest/Discipline       12.9       23.0                75.0
Priest/Holy             53.7       76.7                83.7
Priest/Shadow           32.7        0.0                 3.2
Rogue/Assassination     23.7        1.0                21.2
Rogue/Combat            56.2        1.7                18.1
Rogue/Subtlety          17.7        4.7                33.1
Shaman/Elemental        24.8        5.1                48.7
Shaman/Enhancement      38.5        4.1                22.3
Shaman/Restoration      36.6        2.6                 0.9
Warlock/Affliction      46.0       10.0                27.5
Warlock/Demonology      35.0        5.3                17.0
Warlock/Destruction     18.2        8.0                35.5
Warrior/Arms            28.7        0.4                60.3
Warrior/Fury            13.1        4.3                23.5
Warrior/Protection      58.1        2.5                 4.1

--
What conclusions can we draw from this?

What talent trees are the least popular?

Survival Hunters
Retribution Paladins
Discipline Priests
Fury Warriors
Balance Druids

What 31-point talents are unpopular?

Holy Priests (Lightwell)
Survival Hunters (Wyvern Sting)
Discipline Priests (Power Infusion)
Affliction Warlocks (Dark Pact)

Lightwell stands out the most. More than 3/4ths of Holy priests SKIPPED it. They were already heavily invested in Holy, so all they had to do was move one point from a lower-tier talent into the 31-point talent.

What 41-point talents are unpopular?

Holy Priests (Circle of Healing)
Discipline Priests (Pain Suppression)
Arcane Mages (Slow)
Survival Hunters (Readiness)
Arms Warriors (Endless Rage)
Elemental Shamans (Totem of Wrath)

These talents may be unpopular for a variety of reasons -- perhaps the talents themselves are bad. Or, perhaps there are other alternatives 21 points into another tree that are more attractive, which is often the case for Arms Warriors and Holy Priests. Or maybe the "filler" talents to get to the end of the tree are undesirable.

Let's look at the data in another way:

Percentage of players of (class) that took the 31 point talent in (tree)
Percentage of players of (class) that put at least 31 points in (tree), but didn't take the 31-point talent

Class/Tree            % Taken 31      % Skipped 31
Druid/Balance	    12.5            0.9
Druid/Feral Combat    59.6            0.3
Druid/Restoration     26.0            0.7
Hunter/Beast Mastery  21.5            0.5
Hunter/Marksmanship   72.0            0.3
Hunter/Survival        3.5            1.6
Mage/Arcane           37.1            1.4
Mage/Fire             34.5            1.4
Mage/Frost            25.4            0.1
Paladin/Holy          65.4            1.6
Paladin/Protection    19.9            0.7
Paladin/Retribution   11.4            0.7
Priest/Discipline      9.9            3.0
Priest/Holy           12.5           41.2
Priest/Shadow         32.7            0.0
Rogue/Assassination   23.5            0.2
Rogue/Combat          55.3            1.0
Rogue/Subtlety        16.9            0.8
Shaman/Elemental      23.6            1.3
Shaman/Enhancement    36.9            1.6
Shaman/Restoration    35.7            1.0
Warlock/Affliction    41.4            4.6
Warlock/Demonology    33.1            1.8 
Warlock/Destruction   16.8            1.5
Warrior/Arms          28.6            0.1
Warrior/Fury          12.5            0.6
Warrior/Protection    56.7            1.5

--
We see that Lightwell stands out dramatically here. 41.2% of all priests in my study are Holy Priests Without Lightwell. This is more than an order of magnitude more than any other 31 point talent.

While I'm a dedicated frost mage, I do find it odd that Ice Barrier is more popular for frost mages than Arcane Power is for arcane mages.

• Navaash · 05/02/07, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

I can't see the paid SA forums, could someone repost the numbers?

Doh, I should have put "(click this link if you don't have an SA account)" next to the words "the official forums", which is where I put the direct link to the WoW forums post, in the first place.

snape · 05/02/07, 1:54 PM

I'm flabbergasted that 38.5% of all Mages with at least 31 points in 1 tree are specced into Arcane. That really, and I can't stress this enough, boggles my mind.

Fizwidget · 05/02/07, 1:54 PM

Forums eat spaces and tabs, iirc you can get around this by posting charts in a "code" box.

• Navaash · 05/02/07, 1:56 PM

Originally Posted by snape

I'm flabbergasted that 38.5% of all Mages with at least 31 points in 1 tree are specced into Arcane. That really, and I can't stress this enough, boggles my mind.

Mages love themselves some Arcane Power.

Also not all mages raid at the high end.

Antoine · 05/02/07, 1:58 PM

I agree about the warlock thing - he must have accidentally counted contagion instead of dark pact.

Deris · 05/02/07, 2:02 PM

You would think that with this information, and how glaring the differences are between specific specs and trees that Blizzard would go about rebalancing/retuning some of these talents and/or trees entirely.

Ideally to me "balanced talent trees" means that there should be an equal distribution of talents - 33.3% for every tree for every class. Obviously this won't ever be possible, but look at Mages who are comparatively balanced, with frost bringing up the rear, to Hunters or Paladins who have trees with numbers in the near single digits.

Lurchington · 05/02/07, 2:02 PM

Originally Posted by Fizwidget

Forums eat spaces and tabs, iirc you can get around this by posting charts in a "code" box.

[code] still is bad about tabs and needs a fair amount of hand-editing. I suggested some sort of "table" tag, but never got any feedback on it

Skulli · 05/02/07, 2:04 PM

nothing new for me, the high-end priests talents (not shadow) are bad and they were always like that (holy nova with cd...).

snape · 05/02/07, 2:04 PM

Originally Posted by Navaash

Mages love themselves some Arcane Power.

Also not all mages raid at the high end.

I know not all Mages raid...but I still didn't think it would be the most popular primary choice...by a fairly vast margin. I still can't believe it. I mean, did you expect that if you had to guess?

Jenos · 05/02/07, 2:05 PM

Originally Posted by snape

I'm flabbergasted that 38.5% of all Mages with at least 31 points in 1 tree are specced into Arcane. That really, and I can't stress this enough, boggles my mind.

Wouldn't that indicate that a little over a third of all mages are specced into one of the three available trees?

To me, at least, it seems to show that there is about an average distribution among the three trees in mages. Sure, theres a large portion that is arcane over frost, but overall it seems somewhat balanced. But if you compare the numbers to other classes, like paladin or druid, it seems pretty good in comparison.

Nyfe · 05/02/07, 2:07 PM

I really wouldn't have guessed that nearly 60% of warriors are protection. Even more so considering it really hurts you to have more than one or two prot warriors in the majority of raids. (counting Karazhan and Gruul as the most raided instances right now)

And I agree that a psyduck emoticon is in order.

snape · 05/02/07, 2:07 PM

Originally Posted by Jenos

Wouldn't that indicate that a little over a third of all mages are specced into one of the three available trees?

To me, at least, it seems to show that there is about an average distribution among the three trees in mages. Sure, theres a large portion that is arcane over frost, but overall it seems somewhat balanced. But if you compare the numbers to other classes, like paladin or druid, it seems pretty good in comparison.

Sure, I can agree that it is really well-balanced. But as a data-cruncher, I'm not really amazed with the standout statistics (~5% of 31-pt Hunters are Survival) - I prefer the subtle ones. However, I don't really know the sample size here, but if it's anything over a few thousand, then I think 38.5% Mages in Arcane IS rather significant, if only a little less so than the other class distributions.

snape · 05/02/07, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by Nyfe

I really wouldn't have guessed that nearly 60% of warriors are protection. Even more so considering it really hurts you to have more than one or two prot warriors in the majority of raids. (counting Karazhan and Gruul as the most raided instances right now)

And I agree that a psyduck emoticon is in order.

Yeah, the 60% Prot Warrior made me also fall out of my chair.

duostrike · 05/02/07, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by snape

I know not all Mages raid...but I still didn't think it would be the most popular primary choice...by a fairly vast margin. I still can't believe it. I mean, did you expect that if you had to guess?

Speaking as someone in 33 points in arcane. I would expect this result.

Frost for MC
Fire for AQ/Naxx

Arcane was the only spec left that I hadn't played with very much. Hence I can try it while I have a chance without the instance specific requirements. Also the distribution isn't "that" off from a 1/3 split.

heel · 05/02/07, 2:09 PM

Originally Posted by snape

I'm flabbergasted that 38.5% of all Mages with at least 31 points in 1 tree are specced into Arcane. That really, and I can't stress this enough, boggles my mind.

33/28/0 and 33/0/28 are both excellent specs, so this isn't surprising at all. Nor is the Lightwell/Circle of Healing thing. I wonder when the poor Holy priests will finally get some worthwhile talents to put their points in.

Nork · 05/02/07, 2:10 PM

Least popular specs, by class:

Druid/Balance	    13.4
Hunter/Survival        5.1
Mage/Frost            25.5
Paladin/Retribution   12.1
Priest/Discipline     12.9
Rogue/Subtlety        17.7
Shaman/Elemental      24.9
Warlock/Destruction   18.3
Warrior/Fury          13.1

So the 'worst' Shaman and Mage specs are still worthwhile enough that a quarter of Mages and Shaman use them. Most classes' worst specs are in the 1/7 or 1/8 range. Poor hunters are out of luck.

snape · 05/02/07, 2:10 PM

Originally Posted by duostrike

Speaking as someone in 33 points in arcane. I would expect this result.

Frost for MC
Fire for AQ/Naxx

Arcane was the only spec left that I hadn't played with very much. Hence I can try it while I have a chance without the instance specific requirements.

If you look at my Armory at this exact moment, I have 40 in Arcane too. But it isn't the popular spec for my guild by a wide margin...I just wanted to have some fun and try something new.

• Navaash · 05/02/07, 2:14 PM

Originally Posted by duostrike

Frost for MC
Fire for AQ/Naxx

BWL significantly more so than MC - MC you only were gimped on two bosses (Geddon and Ragnaros) and trash is not all that significant, though granted back in the day many people started raiding it with little to no +damage gear - in BWL you basically were super gimped on five bosses. In both cases you were dead in the water on the end boss, though.

I should point out as a footnote that EJ's mages generally remained frost all through AQ, except for our lifetime fire mages, since we still did our fair share of loot collection out of BWL.

Nite_Moogle · 05/02/07, 2:18 PM

Remember he didn't take Hybrid specs in to account, so builds like 33/28 or 30/31 aren't included in this study. I would bet a large number of Priests and Warriors got passed over as a result.

Fellwraith · 05/02/07, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by snape

Yeah, the 60% Prot Warrior made me also fall out of my chair.

I would have expected MS to be the most popular (especially 2-3 months ago). It could be in reaction to being unable to tank with another spec. I do wonder about that 2.5% of warriors who went protection but skipped shield slam. I'm not at all surprised that almost every arms build took MS.

60% of druids with a heavy investment in one tree are feral? I'd be willing to bet that's a striking contrast to last year at this time.

What's the sample size of this data and when was the survey done? I'm unable to access either site from work, does he go into that at all in the article?