We’ll be getting 10 new talent points in Midnight, and new talents to spend them on — including Apex class talents!

World of Warcraft Midnight will raise the level cap to 90, and that means 10 more talent points for players to spend. Unlike The War Within, where we only earned new points for Hero Talents, Midnight will give us more points for our class tree, spec tree, and hero tree, with points awarded in rotation through each of the categories as you level.

But where will you be putting these talents, particularly since you can unlock all available hero talents by level 80? In some cases, classes will have new talents to unlock, but in others those points will just let you fill out more of the tree. Here’s what we know about the new talent points we’ll be getting in Midnight.

Three new talent points for the class tree. You will be awarded three (3) points to spend in the class tree. There are no new talents planned for this tree: instead these points will be allocated within the existing talent pool, hopefully making some of the difficult choices between talents slightly easier.

Three new talent points for the hero talent tree. The Hero Talents will also get an additional three (3) talent points to spend, but because you already filled out all available hero talents at level 80, a column of three new talent points will be  added to the right hand side of the hero talent panel. At this point we don’t know whether it will include another decision node, or whether they will all be a single choice only. Players will continue to be able to switch between Hero Specializations at will.

Four new talent points for the specialization tree. The spec tree will get an additional four (4) points to spend, but unlike the class tree there will be a new talent to put these in: each spec will have an Apex talent that you can put four talent points into. It’s up to you whether you’d like to invest in this new talent (and how much to invest) or whether you want to spread your points around elsewhere. The new Apex talents are intended to provide a meaningful increase in class specialization performance, with the most impactful changes being with the first and fourth points spent in this tree.

The Apex talents are an interesting idea, but we still don’t know much about them. You’ll unlock the initial ability by spending a single talent point, then the next two points will incrementally upgrade the effectiveness, and the final point will transform it in some way. Blizzard used Preservation Evoker as an example, which will get the Apex talent Merithra’s Blessing:

• Rank 1: Essence abilities have a chance to infuse your next Reversion with the power of the Green Dragonflight, upgrading it to Merithra’s Blessing: Spring a bloom of life from your target, healing them and up to 5 other allies within 30 yards for 2,906. Blooms may heal your primary target multiple times if no nearby injured allies are present.
• Rank 2: Reversion protects allies, reversing 2% of all damage taken and healing them instead.
• Rank 3: Reversion protects allies, reversing 2% of all damage taken and healing them instead.
• Rank 4: Dream Breath’s instant healing is increased by 200% and Dream Breath has a 100% chance to grant Merithra’s Blessing.

Be aware that these are pre-release features, and aren’t finalized!

While this is the information that was discussed during the System Download panel, we should note this is pre-alpha versions of the feature, and it may change between now and release. (Particularly if the amount of healing from Merithra’s Blessing worries you, be aware both that a stat squish is coming and that final tuning hasn’t been done to abilities.)

If you want to test out this feature you can either sign up for the Midnight beta for a chance to participate in the public beta testing, or if you preorder the Epic Edition of Midnight, you will be automatically granted access to the beta test. The beta isn’t yet live, but with signups now available it’s likely to start soon.