The Like/Hate thread (WoW)

[Ashe]

[spoiler]The point is to reduce the number of hybrids by giving incentive TO put more points in each tree and make the class/specs play differently for each. Some specs didn't really feel all that different from others (at least while leveling) and they tried to solve that. There wasn't any "room for difference" before either. People always find that one best cookie cutter spec and go that route. There's a couple of points that are optional to play style, but THIS time I don't have to put multiple points into talents that do absolutely nothing but buff a spell that I do not intend to use whatsoever. I had quite a few talents that just... did exactly that. Buffed stuff that wasn't practical (like the old Hellfire) or just other trash. The only way they could let people feel like they were "being different" in their spec was to add filler talents and have loads of random points to spend. This is WHY people would forgo their final tier talents (wasn't worth wading through the junk talents to get to) at times and go hybrid instead. In other cases, there was no incentive not to go for the 21st and 31st talents just for their abilities (Dreamscape Restokins).

Or due to the enormous reach specs had, some classes were balanced on the assumption that they were speccing certain abilities (Soul Link at 21 points Demo - You couldn't take it while getting UA, so the pvp applications of UA's silence were meaningless during BC arena, since at best you could go 40-0-21. Any buffs to basic survivability to make non-SL specs useful just meant SL became better, which was then combined with the enormous life drain abilities of afflic to become an unkillable monster. You couldn't feasibly go any spec other than SLSL (Syphon Life Soul Link - a very boring hybrid spec, something like 34-15-2 or something, cherry picking each tree's "defining" early abilities). "How's affliction arena?" "I don't know." "Destruction? Demo?" "Eh, we just go all three. At the same time. This is the best spec btw." Not good game design. (In fairness, after SLSL got heavy nerfs, a 41 points UA spec did surface as a sorta glass cannon "Oh god please don't ever actually hit me" spec, but I think it took making it so that every single class in the game was't immune to fear before it worked since the assumption before was "Everyone has a berserk ability and will be immune to fear. You WILL be tanking your enemy, you have no way to avoid this, you are built around fear. Your ONLY option is SLSL and to find a resto druid partner. This is what we call diversity of specs."[/spoiler]

Meh, above is pretty much an unorganized rant writhe with examples to ultimately just say I disagree with the opinion that this kills diversity and instead feels it opens the game up to at least three specs per class while making each tree different.