World of Warcraft has kicked off its public alpha for The War Within, bringing with it the first hands-on look at the features coming in the expansion. Among these, Hero Talents are perhaps one of the most exciting. Acting as an extension of their existing Talent trees, Hero Talents build on the framework set by Dragonflight, letting characters unlock powerful synergies inspired by iconic archetypes. The first build of The War Within alpha will have playable versions of most Hero Talent trees, letting World of Warcraft fans finally see them in action.

Game ZXC spoke to World of Warcraft game producer George Velev, as well as assistant lead encounter designer Drew De Sousa, about The War Within. As one of the masterminds behind them, Velev spoke at length about Hero Talents. He discussed the process that led to their creation, some highlights from the early iteration process, and what the future has in store for the game-changing World of Warcraft feature.

loading screen for the isle of dorn with the wow world within logo on it
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Making World of Warcraft Talent Trees Heroic

The idea for Hero Talents came when World of Warcraft decided to capture exciting class fantasies through a new form of progression. "We did a bunch of virtual off-sites," Velev said. "When we talked about Rogue, it was like, 'What are some really unique archetypes from Rogue's history that we can tap for a Hero Talent tree, and what are some new ones?' It was just a big whiteboard with a bunch of ideas." While many of the Hero Talents in The War Within are inspired by iconic World of Warcraft archetypes, Velev explained that others, like the Fatebound Rogue, are completely new, providing a special challenge for the developers.

"New ideas and new themes that are something that we want to explore are always going to be slightly more difficult than ones that are more rooted in Warcraft and World of Warcraft franchise history."

With 39 different Hero Talent trees, class balance is a huge concern for many players. Velev said fan feedback has already been instrumental in working out the kinks in many of these trees. "In my opinion, the Hero Talent articles were super successful. We shipped off a bunch of initial paper designs to the community and got some early feedback on a lot of these." The Hero Talent blogs led World of Warcraft to completely revamp the Oracle Priest Hero Talent, and Velev expects feedback from the alpha and beta to further shape other trees as well.

"[That early feedback] allowed us to make a lot of really big swings that generally couldn't for something like Oracle, where it was something very out of the box, very different from what people were expecting. We sent that out early to get people's reactions; we got feedback, and we got a lot of thoughts on Oracle, and we pivoted... That's one I'm really happy with about how development went."

That said, some still have concerns about Hero Talents. Many of them require players to take specific nodes on their normal Talent trees. While World of Warcraft is making changes to trees like the Colossus Warrior to make required skills like Shockwave easier to get, others force fans to pick endgame talents they might otherwise skip, such as Eye of Tyr for Templar Paladins. "That's something that we're curious to get peoples' thoughts on," Velev admitted. "Right now, we're trying to make sure it isn't like, 'Hey, I'm playing Templar, and I feel like I'm locked into a build.' That's not great, and that's something we're trying to resolve over the course of the alpha."

What’s more, some of these Hero Talents provide new cosmetic changes for certain abilities. "Some replace existing things, like the Mountain Thane-themed abilities. Some give you a brand-new button with new visuals; some replace your current button with a new button. It's really case-by-case." While this may be a boon to many players, some are concerned their preferred World of Warcraft class playstyle may undergo cosmetic changes they do not like. While there won't be any way to revert these visuals at launch, there could be relief for these fans in the future. "Right now, the focus is to get these released to the public," Velev said, "In terms of future cosmetic Glyphs where appropriate? I think that's something we will definitely talk about. But as of right now, for launch at least, we're not working on any Glyph replacements."

Hero Talents are Here to Stay in WoW

One of the biggest goals of Dragonflight was to set up evergreen systems that could be used in World of Warcraft for years to come. The new Talent Trees in WoW: Dragonflight are excellent examples of this, and Hero Talents are simply deeper iterations on that system.

However, fans are already wondering what Hero Talents are going to look like in the future. World of Warcraft is already working on Midnight, so speculation is abound as to what player progression will look like in the rest of the Worldsoul Saga. Unfortunately, Velev couldn't comment on how Hero Talents might expand in Midnight or future expansions, but he did confirm they are not going anywhere, so fans can expect these new trees and their synergies to stay in the game until further notice.

"Hero Talent trees are being built as evergreen – we use that term a lot; for us, it means they're built to last for more than one expansion. They aren't going away in Midnight."

The new Talent Tree interface in The War Within places Hero Talents between the Class and Specialization trees, but they only takes up a fraction of the panel. This has led fans to wonder if World of Warcraft might add another new type of Talent Tree in the future, or if it will expand the existing Hero Talent system even further. While players will have to wait and see what is in store for them in Midnight and beyond, they can look forward to testing these Hero Talent trees if they are chosen by World of Warcraft to participate in the alpha.