Forever's talent overhaul: a new 16-point talent in every tree

At first glance the talent trees look familiar. Every class still has three trees with seven rows each, and the big one-point talents still sit at 11, 21 and 31 points. What's new is a fourth major talent in every tree at 16 points.

A lot of the 2006 talents are unchanged. The ones on the way out are the weak, passive and barely noticeable picks, the small situational bonuses you only took because the row had nothing better. Those are being replaced or made worth taking.

Talents that only improved or granted a major class buff are becoming baseline instead. Improved Battle Shout, Divine Spirit, Blessing of Kings and Improved Mark of the Wild are the examples given. In Classic, raid leaders told Paladins and Priests where some of their points had to go. That pressure is gone.

The goal is for all 27 original specs to be viable in dungeons and raids. Viable doesn't mean identical. Specs keep clear strengths and weaknesses, no spec should be mandatory, and stacking a pile of the same one shouldn't be the right answer. Some classes are supposed to shine in particular fights because of the enemy type, their utility or the mechanics.

Paladin is the class shown in the most detail, and I've written that up in its own post. You can also try every build we know about in the talent calculator.