Almost every complaint about the ShB job changes could be solved with talents

[Xyr]

Did we even play the same game?

I don't know why you posted that, because it contradicts your point. According to your chart, you can pick 1 talent in each tier, which means a total of 7 talents in your chart. There's 4 ? talents which means viable depending on the situation, and 10 check marked talents which means optimal. 14 viable talents for 7 that's 14!/(7!(14-7)!) = 3432 combinations. Although, some choices are locked out as there are only a single choice for that tier so the total combinations is probably around 100, but I'm too lazy to look up the formula. However, even 10 choices is still better than 1.

Did you even look at the logs you linked? If you looked closer at the talents of same classes literally almost all of their talents are the exact same. The mages are using the same talents, warriors using the same talents, druids using the same talents. There's only like 1 or 2 SINGLE talent differences, but the other 15 are exactly the same as everyone else. It's exactly an illusion of choice.

Nope, they aren't using the same talents. Did you look at different bosses? The same class might be using the same talents for 1 boss, but they are using different talents for a different boss, hence choice, and not illusion either. Also, again, there's many more classes in the top ranking whereas FFXIV logs consists of Black mages only. That's a diversity ratio of 10-1.