What Happened to Customization & Specialization?

[Sacred_Nym]

No matter what, there will ALWAYS be a BIS that everyone uses... the concept of "uniqueness" in an MMO is fake.

This. Customizable abilities in multiplayer games are either mandatory or worthless. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't using the agreed upon ideal set up, you are essentially harassing everyone you play with by holding them back.

[Shurrikhan]

This. Customizable abilities in multiplayer games are either mandatory or worthless. There is no middle ground, and if you aren't using the agreed upon ideal set up, you are essentially harassing everyone you play with by holding them back.

There is absolutely a middle ground unless fights are entirely homogeneous and/or the changes between choices have no cost beyond exiting combat.

A build may be faster for x section of x dungeon, but suffer in y portion or y dungeon or with z overlapping functionalities in z composition.

For every person who decided "why even think about flexible play -- I'll just copy the recommended builds online" at least 3 more were using adaptations of their leveling, tweaked further and further, and frequently outperformed them in all but the most target-dummy-like content. At perfect play in an exact encounter one or a few builds may have some 1-6% greater maximal throughputs, but even then they may suffer if, say, someone drops an AoE on their more turret-esque optimal build, ultimately performing beneath another "gutter trash leveling-tainted" build.