What you're describing are talent trees as they were from Vanilla to WLK.
They do that allready. Ideots will be ideots even if blizz gave them no options they would still fuck up basic rotations and have poor special awareness.
But you would be more flexible in handling it at least with some quick talent swapping.
Dps are shit, min max ur own dps,
Tanks shit, splash defensives,
Healers shit, splash for healing.
Well they can bring stances/buffs back for the tank classes like they used to have, it used to be nice popping into blood presence and finishing a boss after the tank died or tanking in a full DPS build in a tanky stance. When they started removing that kind of flexibility from the classes it started hurting the game (one of many things that hurt the game).
Oof, i don't think this guy realizes that with the current talent system there are actually multiple viable builds whether you are going for ST or AoE heavy fight. I love that mage example, like them bringing back frostbolt for fire mages. Why would they ever cast it? It would be a complete DPS loss, and is otherwise a useless button. But it seems like that is what you guys want, useless buttons just so you can feel like you have choice. I mean you can make macros that don't do anything and it would be the same thing. Also the whole "they can just balance it!" despite not realizing that the more you add the harder the game becomes to balance and that it just means it would go slower than it already is.
In spirit yes, that exact implementation no.
I advocate for something like the way essences work but without the silly unlock requirements.
You get X slots to fill with any talents from a pool of all the talents avaliable to a class + any expansion specific talents like we have with Azerite. And you can build what you want.
Mages still won't be tanks or healers but they can splash any combination of frost, fire or arcane or run pure, it's up to them like in vanilla to wotlk.
Hm.
My only real issue with this is that class and spec fantasy is infinitely cooler than some generic essence-like talents. I probably wouldn't be at all interested in a system like essences being expanded into a generic talent tree. We already have talent trees for specs, and getting rid of talent trees for specs to make room for some kind of generic ability set shared between all classes doesn't catch my visual imagination as much as I would like, even if the mechanics are interesting I think the flavor would still need a lot of work - assuming I'm reading all that right.
One good thing is that my tank pala might have some cool dps options for lower keys. Pure dps specs won't change much I would suspect. Most fun comes for hybrid classes - paladins, druids. I could imagine running a key on sustain paladin tank and a boomkin resto. (I assume gear will won't give you agility if you are talented as resto).
Frost bolt has a slow component. So it has a use.
Current talent choices are between 1 of 3, most classes don't even have Aoe v single target choices on a lot of rows and for some it's not even worth swapping to them, my boomkin changes essentially 2 talents depending on if I'm doing raiding or m+.
The balance argument is retarded, 1. Balancing is there job running an mmo, 2. Wheres that promised balance they said the new talent system would give when they took away our choices?.... Oh yea it never happend and 3. Balance is far less important than fun if ur that arsed about being a few % better, Re role and save us all the headache.
As for running slower wtf are you on about, the client and server don't make balancing changes on the fly.
Tanks, healers and hybrids would have the most breadth of flexibility yea.
Dps would still be able to tailor for content though, I bet alot of shadow press would appreciate being able to splash talents like they could do back in the day to tackle content like visions.
- - - Updated - - -
They would be class abilities just in the essence way so for hunter one would be the you get 2 pets Talent.
Then u could be a melee hunter with 2 pets, a more mm hunter but with 2 pets or w/e u wanted it to be.
The. Blizz can throw in the expansion themed abilities just into the pile if you want to alter your theme or not.
Well first off, your problem is only one in your head. To give you an example, what they could do is simply take the current talents, scatter them on a talent page, and throw a few +1% crit/haste/etc. nodes in between. There is your choice! Even though it is literally no different and it just looks more "free" to you. Balancing being there job does not mean you can demand infinite new abilities and they have to be able to keep up. Adding one new row of talents to every class (assuming same between every spec) would alone add 36 new abilities. I take it you have no clue about game dev? I am on the side that balance needs to not interfere with fun, but in the same vein you can't be unbalanced as fuck or it becomes unfun to play the losing class. Balancing also takes time, which they are already slow at implementing big changes, imagine with your idea it would be 100 times worse.
But being a brain surgeon dosnt make you forget the basics of other displines.
The idea of spec in wow has as blizz said, gone way way way way to far. And it started with the mop talents as that bound people to a specifically deified view of a spec that also changed over time so now we have alot of people dissatisfied as the current view isn't the moo view or wod view of that spec and many more upset because a warrior is a warrior and they rolled a warrior and feel really contrived being out in a box of only 3 specific types of blizz approved warrior. Where as befor they could define what warrior was to them.
It wouldn't because i wouldn't be able to pick and define what I want my char to be. It would be constrained to the narrow view of what blizz sees as the 3 specific types of paladin. And the 3 specific types of play style.
Would it be harder to balance? No it wouldn't, not any more than we have currently. That system wouldn't have Infinate talents, most talents we hae now could be chopped anyway as alot just give the same thing but in the different specs.
Atm blizz are balancing talents, abilities, Azerite traits from 4 rows, essences, set bonuses and corruptions.
All in different systems that then all interact with each other in stange new ways.
You think this way of seeing talents is new and revolutionary?? No its not, its simply consolidating the 3 different "talent systems" we hae now into one and preventing the need to keep inventing a new way of doing talents each expansion.
- - - Updated - - -
You have achieved choice.
You don't hae to make an arms war like the current arms war. You can make an arms war with a sword and shield if you wish, becauseaybe you do more than just log for raids and what that extra defence for some solo content.
The beuity for flexibility is you can choose but you not interfering with others freedoms not to choose the same thing you did.
Also blizz were quicker at making balances pass's back in vanilla to wotlk than they hae been in recent years. So.... This is the thing..... Blizz promised us better balance for less choice, less customization.... We didn't get much better balance, nor quicker..... So we want a refund, we want our flexibility back.
The whole pro current talents argument is based on the fallacy that it is any better at being balanced than the old or any new system when compared to the end of wotlk it simply isn't all that better. But I exchange we lost something alot of people found fun. Hell even now people get excited when we break blizzard stright jackets and find wierd builds like the outlaw daggers build from the start of bfa
The point is there wont be fire or frost mages, just mages. You might preffer fire over frost because you are currently running with lots of crit gear, but still be able to cast Blizzard and frost nova to slow down a pack then nuke one down with a frost lance and a Pyroblast. Sure Masteries need to be adjusted to account for the multiple damage types.
No not really, I was more thinking in the line of the essence system you can select what you think is best for you or the current situation.
Nope, if you only pick dps talents/skills you should seriously lack in defensive or healing power. You can make a hybrid spec and do a bit of both.
Pure dps classes just have more options to play their class or tailor their rotation for the situation/encounter/dungeon.
Easy fix: Lets say you can choose 15* traits/talents:
For every dps talent you pick you deal 2%* more damage.
For every healing talent you pick your healing is increased by 2%*.
And for every defensive talent damage you take is reduced by 2%*.
* example values