How to set, save, and share your talents in Dragonflight (and the Dragonflight pre-patch)

A big change is launching with today’s Dragonflight pre-patch — the newly revamped talent system. Gone are the days of three talents to choose from every fifteen levels or so. There are now two talent trees: one for the class, and one specific to your current specialization. Players put points into both trees, customizing their character to fit their needs — or just following a guide that tells them the optimal way to spec. To further that end, you can now formally share your talent build with others, or import other builds. There are ways to save multiple builds, not just per specialization, but with different customizations — say, a PVP build, an M+ build, and a raiding build.

Let’s look at how many points there are, how the trees work, and the import and share system.

Gaining and using talent points

The new talent system kicks in at level 10. Players earn one talent point at that level, and one talent point every time they level up after that. This alternates between the two trees — the first point in the class tree, the second point in specialization tree, back and forth. A player starting from the level 60 cap of Shadowlands will have 51 talent points to play with: 26 in the class talent tree, 25 in the specialization tree. When leveling up to 70, they’ll receive a total of five more for each tree, ending up with 31 class points and 30 specialization. In this method, players feel they earn something every level.

There are talents that can only be unlocked if the previous one(s) on that branch of the tree have been chosen first. Furthermore, there are rows that can’t be selected at all until a certain amount of points have been spent in total in that tree — eight points for row five and 20 points for row eight. You cannot just go straight down the left-hand side and reach the bottom talent right away, as not enough points will have been spent to hit those point gates. Also, some talents have more than one rank and require two or three points before they unlock the next talent. In a specialization tree, there are a total of 50 talents to spend points on, but 30 points available, so 3/5 of the talents can be chosen.

Saving and sharing specs

Once all of the talent points are spent, you can select Apply Changes to save your spec. In the bottom left of the talent tree is a drop down menu, where you can select New Loadout. Choose this, and a name can be entered to save this particular spec for swapping around later. You might want a spec to run keys, or for raids, or maybe one is saved for AOE and another for single-target.

Also from that same dropdown in the corner are two more options — Import and Share. These allow you to import another person’s talents, or share your own, respectively. Pre-made specs for import will probably be available from how-to sites, with the best setup for each class for different types of content. Some people might want to tinker with their own set ups, but others might just want to import.

On the other hand, if you have have what you feel like is a great talent setup, hit Share, and let others import your talents.

Notes and advice on Dragonflight talents

The system is surprisingly simple to use for the most part. After applying changes, if you change your mind and want to change one small area, just right click on the talent. It only undoes that talent and, if applicable, the ones below it. No more having to undo everything in the tree because you want to try something different. There’s no cost to it, and you don’t need to be in a Rested area to make changes. Did you accidentally click on the talent tree and undo everything? There’s a circular arrow button to Undo Pending Changes next to Apply Changes. Press that, and it’s all fixed.

At a quick glance, the shapes on the talent tree mean different options: Squares are active abilities. Circles are passive effects. Octagons are choice nodes, where you get to pick just one of multiple options in that talent node. This might help when looking for a particular talent. If you’re a Protection Paladin, and wondering where Rebuke went in your Spellbook, it’s a square shaped talent along the right-hand side of the class tree.

PVP talents work as they did before, there are three slots at the bottom, and a talent to choose for each one. These are active when in a PVP situation, and don’t work when in PVE. Warmode toggle is right beside them.

Talents in Dragonflight promise to be a robust system, designed to let you customize your character for your playstyle. Hopefully, this helped you untangle a bit of the intricacies of using it to your advantage.

Originally published September 6, 2022; updated October 25, 2022