So I dropped back into Warcraft last night to see what the deal with the pre-patch was. All I have heard for the past few weeks, or months maybe, was new talent trees and new UI. But this was the first time that I paid any attention to it.

I was a bit concerned on both counts. I had enough trouble deciding on which talents to take when there were only 8 choices. And a lot of my play time was trying to get my UI to do what I want. Now they do massive changes to the UI options that supposedly cover what’s popular. I usually don’t care about popularity.

First thing that happened when I logged in was the game asked me to turn off addons because of the new UI, then load them later as needed. So I did. I guess I am going to need to learn this sooner or later so let’s do it now.

Since I basically used only two UI addons anyway, there didn’t seem to be much difference in the new stock UI and what I was using. Plus, everything was nearly in the same locations as I had them. 

Hell, even the keybinds and action bars were set up right. I just had to remap one bar. I was amazed that the Druid bars were set up the way I had them, even during shapeshifts. 

There were, and still are, a few things I need to tinker with yet. Like opacity, and other settings, but it took me less than 20 minutes to get things sorted back to nearly the exact set up I had before. and since everything saves globally. pretty much all of my toons are set up.

Now I was really dreading having go look at these new talents and resetting all my skills and spells. I have not decided on a new main, so I’m going to use my Elemental Shaman as the test subject.

Looking at the new trees,, they make sense somehow. They are set up in two trees, like the skill book is now. You have your talent choices for Shaman (or whatever) class in general. and a second set of talents that pertain to the spec you are in. 

At first it looks very overwhelming. But I was kind of shocked that after only a few minutes of looking at it, I had an idea of whats going on.

Keeping my old skills on the bars, helped when looking at the available tree selections. I could see what I had, and what I needed to choose in order to get the skills that I wanted.

I was oddly happy to see the amount of customization there that lets you play they way you want to play.

Always had a lot of skills I on the bars that were just taking up space and never used. Here, I just picked around those, and grabbed skills that I wanted to use.

Sure a million totems are cool for a Shaman,, but I personally only ever used 2 or 3 as Elemental. Instead of wasting talent pics on the ones I know I don’t use, I can pick things that help me where I want help. Speed, or movement passives, or even cooldown reductions. 

I did load up some addons though. Button timers, the boss mechanics stuff, the handynotes..normal stuff. 

That’s where I am with the Dragonflight pre-patch so far. I am going to start messing with the other Toons talants tonight and will be starting tryouts for who is going to be the main for when the expansion hits next month.

I may have updates as we move along, and as phase 2 of the patch hits. so stay tuned