Let’s move away from forced specs.

[msdos]

They decided at some point that they want to normalize snares. They robbed every spec of a snare; Blood, Fire, Arcane (slow?), Feral. They did it randomly and didn't communicate it and it gutted Feral tanks.

They lied about what the actually pruned and why they did. It's obvious with the snares.

[Frozenbro]

The current classes feels like a shadow of their former glory. Like im an old man struggling to take a piss...

Former glory? as in MoP? cause classic mage is utter trash.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

This would fundamentally break warlocks due to how differently each spec generates soul shards. Demonology generates a full shard with one Shadow Bolt, and two with Demonbolt. Affliction generates a full shard sometimes on one tick of agony, and destruction generates bits of shards gradually with a few different generators. Shards are significantly more valuable to Destro and Affli, so you'd have to make the super important end tier talent for demo "your shadow bolts generate one shard", and probably an equivalent one for Demonic Core procs to make DB instant, otherwise the optimal way to play both other specs is to be mostly demo, because shards are just that important.

[Charge me Doctor]

I’m not here to argue. I very simply stated what I want based on my own selfish opinions.

I don’t want the different ranks of the spells. I just want all abilities to be available at all time no matter which spec you choose to focus on. The reason: because I think it’s awesome in relation to class identity. That’s all.

Then you should post it in your blog, instead of posting it on a forum

[Kaver]

Then you should post it in your blog, instead of posting it on a forum

You can make thread to see how many people are of a certain opinion without having to start a discussion.

[erifwodahs]

Basically what I really want is to get a sense of class identity back instead of spec identity.

I understand that, my take on that would be actual visuals of the spells, I really like what blizz did with frost mage visuals and animations, but I would something more massive, at least for high end PC users. That helps me to "feel as master of ice"

[Loveliest]

The "modern" way to do this is to have all available spells and have a limited number of slots to use. Like GW2 or Wildstar had or such. The design where you have 60 spells that don't fit on all your keybindings with modifiers combined is antiquated. Which, I don't know, is different but not necessarily better.

[GhostShaman]

Balancing basically. If you merge the specs you basically again have only one spec you HAVE to play because it is going to be so much better.

Right now the specs are at least so close to each other, that most poeple don't care what you play unless you pug high level keys.

Retail is not classic. Don't bring too much classic in retail. If you like the specs in classic where basically 2/3 of specs were useless... go play classic. But please don't change retail to something wow was 15! years ago. That is not compatible anymore

Not true, there were experimental hybrid specs which were not considered the norm, that would out perform the others. That was part of the fun of the hybrid system. The Ion excuse that everyone went to the same website and played the same cookie cutter build is a complete and utter farce. Its not about changing retail to classic, lets not forget that TBC, wrath, and cata all had these systems, and the new talent/spec system didnt come out until mid cata. I mean why have an inferior system, when we could have something better?

[Soon-TM]

De-pruning is coming.

I really hope this is true. The fact that my Mage somehow instantly forgets how to cast e.g. Arcane Explosion the moment he specs Fire, has always been quite aggravating to me. Your spellbook shouldn't be just your raid rotation.

[Gasparde]

De-pruning is coming.

Looking forward to getting Farsight and Stoneclaw Totem back while probably losing Lightning Bolt to avoid having too many buttons.

[Soon-TM]

The "modern" way to do this is to have all available spells and have a limited number of slots to use. Like GW2 or Wildstar had or such. The design where you have 60 spells that don't fit on all your keybindings with modifiers combined is antiquated. Which, I don't know, is different but not necessarily better.

I like the way Path of Exile handles this part. You can use a lot of weak spells or a few powerful ones, with many intermediate possibilities. Of course there is a hard cap (6 links) to how powerful can a spell become - but the game doesn't FORCE you to do it. They are nice to have, sure... but not mandatory.

[Kimekaro]

What you guys need to understand is that if Jeff the priest has 2 in healing, 6 in solo skills and 2 in offense; he is going to be useless to anyone other tham Jeff.

Classic was Not better. Any particular freedom you may feel in it right now is due to the lack of boss mechanics, not because the talent system was better.

[Soon-TM]

Looking forward to getting Farsight and Stoneclaw Totem back while probably losing Lightning Bolt to avoid having too many buttons.

Shhhh don't give them ideas ;.;

[Radaney]

Literally just give us MoP back with slightly less utility.

And stop stacking OP PvE utility on certain classes like Demon Hunters and Rogues, that can do everything possible in the game with the easiest rotations in the game.

Literally doing 100k DPS pressing 1 button on a short CD Eye Beam, whilst having strong ST damage, a CD that lasts about 2 minutes in duration that gives high survivability too, the most mobility in the game, a long st cc, a dps increase debuff, a complete immunity, an aoe damage reduction, strong DR, resource generating interrupt, aoe stun.

Whilst DKs have; High Burst ST or AoE damage whilst consistent dps is low for either ST or AoE, a grip, a really shitty cloak, perma slow cc at loss of dps resource, a rez. The lowest mobility in the game.

[Soon-TM]

What you guys need to understand is that if Jeff the priest has 2 in healing, 6 in solo skills and 2 in offense; he is going to be useless to anyone other tham Jeff.

Classic was Not better. Any particular freedom you may feel in it right now is due to the lack of boss mechanics, not because the talent system was better.

While Vanilla/Classic is a bit of an extreme, I prefer having the complexity incorporated into my toon, instead of it being dictated by external factors such as boss mechanics.

Speaking of which, bosses (some of them at least) have way too many mechanics for my taste, and become an utter tedium to fight. No, that doesn't mean that bosses should be like Patchwerk, but rather like Ulduar/ICC/Firelands.

[Kemsa]

I would agree with you... if some of those "specs" didnt work better as standalone specs....
Like Outlaw, assa, retri, survi.

I believe that the problems resides on the "general class pruning" rather than the Spec(sub class) Class

[Kyphael]

May be an unpopular opinion, but I don't see being locked into a specialization being pigeon holed. Mostly because I'm a major alt-holic. I have at least 30 characters I actively play, which means I play at least 2-3 of every class, and the reason I can without getting bored is each one plays a different spec, so when I play them, I enjoy it. For example, my Frost DK is one toon, and my Unholy DK is another. If they start to share abilities, they'll start feeling the same and I'll have no incentive to play them. That's just me though.

[Cosmic Janitor]

De-pruning means what it means, prune abilities = streamline by removing abilities either completely or locked in specs.
De-prune means the opposite.

What people think it means is that A: either they think specs are gone completely and we go back to old talents. Or B: We can use all spells in all specs.
What I think it means is that SOME abilities won't be spec locked anymore and SOME abilities will come back, since I'm fairly sure that's how he explained it in the video.

As I said: What ever that actually means in the end, because no one outside of some devs have any idea where this particular statement of Ion will lead, at the time I'm not even sure Ion knew exactly and maybe he and his team still don't know(expansion is probably over 9 months away).

The only thing for certain here is that none of us do either, and seeing as what some people take it I can't help but advise caution with your expectations.

[Kumorii]

As I said: What ever that actually means in the end, because no one outside of some devs have any idea where this particular statement of Ion will lead, at the time I'm not even sure Ion knew exactly and maybe he and his team still don't know(expansion is probably over 9 months away).

The only thing for certain here is that none of us do either, and seeing as what some people take it I can't help but advise caution with your expectations.

Thanks, but I rarely get disappointed in my expectations because I rarely hype them up. Ion stated clearly that they plan to make more abilities cross spec, that's certain. How many and time frame is something I don't ponder on because nothing were mentioned. My post was more of a jab towards people who actually do have expectations beyond what's been communicated or flat out misinterpret what's being said.

HotS team saying "eSports isn't lucrative and we tried, but we won't support it anymore. Any community events are things we endorse and don't worry we will bring content such as events, maps and heroes, but at a slower pace." <- paraphrased ofc.

What players took it as: No more hots team at all and it's abandoned completely.
Which is what I expect people to do when it comes to the de-pruning statement. Ergo, my examples.

[threads]

In my opinion it would be awesome if classes at max level had access to all spells/abilities. Talents should just enhance certain abilities like back in the days. So a dps Death Knight would always have both frost and unholy abilities available. We should have the option of how specialized we want to be.

So basically I want the old type of class design back... in a modern version maybe.

i agree and i hope this is what they are doing in 9.0.

i've hated spec fantasy since legion. only 1 rogue spec with poisons. frost dk is only frost. fire mage only has fire skills. etc.