Quote Originally Posted by Pondera View Post
I personally never did that. I did things the old fashioned way, and experimented and figured it out. It's the kind of thing that people seem to be averse to these days. Instead of learning fights, taking your licks and figuring out how to do better next time, I guess we can just whine at developers until they simplify things to the point that, as ADVSS put it, it's more like a quick time event than dungeon running.

And besides, there were still those unique individuals who would spec into talents that others would say are not viable for high level raiding. Was it non-viable and possibly a waste? Maybe, but by oversimplification, one is denied that chance to experiment. MMORPGs are all about growth, be it character development, the relentless hunt for higher stats, or understanding and mastery of your own abilities. If people want to have a 3 button rotation with 1 buff and an "ultimate", I would suggest they go play a MOBA instead. They can take two words from me with them on their way out the door and they are not "happy birthday"
To be honest, the only spec I really felt like I needed to theorycraft the shit out of, even back in Wrath, was Death Knight. Just about every spec I ran was allegedly non-optimal, but I still had the highest output per gear score among all melee in my raid, even while participating more in mechanics than the others would for fear of dps loss. A very large part of the condemnation of Wrath talent systems was really due to people being unable to figure out how to best utilize them. The website builds then weren't just highest target dummy dps (often falling off under the strain of real mechanics), but with the least complexity. On pure DPS or pure Hybrid (original DK) classes, viable options still frequently remained to either side, greater mechanical leniency or greater rotational complexity.

Customization can give equally viable options while still varying in variety of ways (such as the above). It just depends on metas not being purely distinct (much like CC being unavailable in raids now, or saved burst priorities being prevalent only in PvP).