Talent Guide

A basic primer to the Talent system in World of Warcraft (WoW).

The talent system is a way to personalize your character and stand out against the other characters of the same class. Starting at level ten you are given one talent point per level to spend towards purchasing talents on the talent screen. There are three different talent trees for each class and it is up to you, the player, to choose where the points are spent. This allows you to personalize your character and make it differ from the other characters of the same class.

Each talent tree has a tier for every 5 levels with up to three talents per tier. You can start off at level ten able to purchase any talent in any tree as long as it is in the first tier. When you reach level 15 you will have a total of five points. If five of those points are spent in one tree then another tier becomes available (in this instance tier 2). If in another five levels five more points are spent in the same tree then another tier becomes available. It continues this way until it reaches the ultimate talent at the end which differs based on the current level cap.

A Warlock talent tree. Notice the line showing that it requires a previous skill and the red text showing how many points are needed to be spent in that tree to be able to purchase that talent.

Some talents have more then just a prerequisite of having a certain number of points in a tree. These talents often require points to be in a specific talent before they become available. In these scenarios you must unlock the tier by spending the necessary points followed by purchasing enough of the prerequisite talent that it becomes available.

Talents can be purchased at the Talent screen available by clicking the Talent icon on the default interface towards the bottom. You can also press the N hotkey if you are using the default keybinds.

Talents are not permanent. Certain patches can reset a your spent talent points and return them to you. You can also seek out a class trainer and pay 1 gold to start with to respect your talents. After the first time you will be charged a fee that increases by 5 gold each time you respect up to 50 gold. Don’t fret if you respect too much! The cost decays at 5 gold per month until it reaches 15 gold.

The Finer Points of Talents

Part of the fun with the Talent system is that you can personalize your character to your tastes. Each talent is useful in certain situations while others are useful all the time. You can pick and choose which talents that you personally get the most use out of and they will go a long way in increasing your enjoyment of the game.

However, you should also pick talents that compliment one another and you should generally specialize in one field. For instance, most Mages will either specialize in Arcane, Fire, or Frost. They will rarely spread their points out between all three. As you level up the talents begin to get more powerful as the higher tier talents are generally more powerful then the lower tiered talents. So it makes sense to continue going into one tree and specializing to get the most powerful talents out of it. However, for some classes and some builds that isn’t always the case.

The ultimate talent, generally found at the end of the talent tree in the last tier, is usually very powerful and a great asset for any player. However, it requires a player to spend a lot of points into one tree. For some classes and builds it is generally well worth it to specialize that far into a tree. However, there are sometimes when it just doesn’t make sense to.

Keep an eye out on mana costs and how a build will work with your gear. If you have a lot of spirit and forgo any helpful mana regeneration talents then you may not be getting enough efficiency out of all that spirit. Using the same logic, if you get a talent that increases spell damage or mana regeneration based on spirit and you don’t have a lot of spirit then you are wasting those talent points.

As you level up remember some talents are more useful as you level up then compared to higher levels. The same applies to being a high level - there are some talents that are more helpful with the larger health and mana pools and armor then when at lower levels. Some trees may often find themselves more useful for either endgame or leveling but not both.

Overall the Talent system is a fun and easy way to customize your character. For more information about each class talents look for our Ten Ton Hammer class guides. Each class guide is full of information on that class’s talents and often times suggests the best ones for you or supplies premade builds for you to use.

Remember: Don't worry about messing up, with the expansion World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, 50 gold is nothing and it takes a good few resets to get to that point.

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