World of Warcraft: Dragonflight Talent System Guide

The World of Warcraft talent system has been completely revamped in Dragonflight with the re-introduction of talent trees. Instead of selecting 1 talent per row, each class now has access to two separate talent trees — a Class Tree and a Specialization Tree. This is due to the combined importance of class-wide and specialization-specific themes for current characters.

Here is an example of a talent tree. As you can see below, talent trees now have multiple rows and nodes of various shapes.

• Square nodes are active abilities;
• Circle nodes are passive effects;
• Octagonal nodes are multiple-choice talents.

Your character will have access to the new talent system at Level 10 when you choose your specialization and gain the first talent point.

Talents with multiple ranks require additional points to be spent per rank of the talent. Currently, there are only passive effects with multiple ranks.

The value of these passives may not linearly scale with points invested. You must purchase all available talent ranks of a multi-rank talent to progress further down the tree from this node.

Talent points are obtained by gaining character levels. You will receive 1 point every level, alternating between a class point for your Class Tree and a specialization point for the Specialization Tree.

In the pre-patch at Level 60, you will have a total of 51 talent points for your Class Tree and your Specialization Tree, split up as 26 in your class and 25 in your spec tree.

Upon reaching maximum level (70) in Dragonflight, you will have 61 talent points, with 31 in your class tree and 30 in your spec tree.

Certain basic abilities in the class tree, are given automatically to particular specializations. These do not cost any points.

Most talents have prerequisites indicated by arrows. If a talent has any arrows leading to it, you must have fully purchased at least one of those previous talents to access it. For clarity, arrows always point downwards or diagonally downwards.

In our specific scenario, the Evoker cannot unlock Terror of the Skies because it is missing multiple nodes that lead up to the talent, like Leaping Flames from the row above it.

Every tree has rows that you cannot advance past until you have spent a certain number of talent points. You cannot buy talents in the fifth row and beyond until you have spent 8 points in the tree. Similarly, you cannot buy talents in the eighth row and beyond until you have spent 20 points.

In octagonal choice nodes, you can only select one of the two choices at a time.

If you have both a talented version of a Shadowlands Covenant ability or Legendary power and the actual ability or power, those versions will override the talent. You cannot have multiple versions of the same spell to cast, or double-stacked Legendary Power effects.

The new talent system allows you to change talents anywhere and for free. Switching talents no longer requires being in a Rested Area or using tomes. You still cannot change talents in combat, Mythic+ runs, and active PvP matches.

Loadouts allow you to save and switch between multiple talent builds. You can Import Loadouts from outside sources, Export Loadouts by copying a loadout code. Each Loadout has its own saved set of Action Bars. Specific loadouts can be set to share Action Bars by enabling the "Use Shared Action Bars" function.

Starter Builds are preset talent builds available for players who want a decent build that is suitable for most content. They are ideal if you are new to the class or do not want to spend time experimenting with different builds just yet.

To get started, switch to your desired Specialization and from within the Loadout Tab dropdown, select the Starter Build option.

The talent tree has been updated with a Search Bar that lets you locate specific talents, keywords, and synergies. For example, searching for Tidal Waves will highlight Riptide, Healing Wave, and Healing Surge because they are mentioned in Tidal Waves' tooltip.

The search bar comes with a preset search to help you locate abilities missing from your Action Bars.

Unlearning a talent high up in the tree may automatically unlearn talents below it. Unlearned talents are highlighted to make it easier to reconstruct your build and you can mass re-learn them by using Shift click.

It is not possible to unlock every single talent in the talent trees. Similar to the old system, maximum-level builds will have to make decisions about what to include and exclude.

No, you cannot spend talent points in a specialization tree different from your own. For instance, if you put points into the Restoration Druid tree and swap to Balance Druid, the effects from the Restoration tree will no longer apply to you. You will have new points to spend in the Balance tree.

Yes, some talents are shared between multiple specializations. For example, Berserk is available to both Feral and Guardian Druids, whereas Restoration and Balance will not have access to it.

With a few exceptions, nothing will change in the Class Tree when changing your specialization. One such exception might be a Hunter's Counter Shot, which will change to Muzzle if you choose Survival Hunter. They are both the interrupt button, but are themed differently and have various cooldowns.

No, even though there may be some throughput-increasing talents in the class tree, but the specialization tree likely has the majority of them. One of the main purposes of the class tree is to give you a place to explore parts of your class that are not focused on your main role's throughput (such as utility, or abilities that are more closely connected to other specializations), so Blizzard is limiting the pressure to make throughput optimizations in the class tree.

No, most of them already exist in the game, but there are also new active and passive abilities present in the class and specialization trees.

Exile's Reach remains unchanged; you will still get many fundamental class abilities from completing the quests and this content. Your interaction with the new talent system will begin after you reach Level 10.

The goal is to fit as many combat-changing abilities as possible into the new talent trees. This includes spells such as movement abilities, interrupts, dispels, hybrid healing options, or defensive abilities. The major focus is to set up the trees and paths so that there are opportunities to choose between different types of utility, but not to, for example, abandon all utility choices entirely in order to maximize your DPS.

If you choose not to have an interrupt, it is mostly because you traded it out for some other type of utility or crowd-control that you believed would be more useful in the situation.

The opposite is also true, where specs that do not have a certain capability in Shadowlands (like an interrupt) may be able to obtain it by giving up something they currently have.