Both of those can be true at the same time (or rather at different times).
Early on, getting the gear will be much more expensive than the respec cost. But getting the gear is a one-time thing, so very late in the game that cost has already been “paid”, making the respec cost the higher one.
So the respec cost is still super important for when you have gotten that gear for different builds.
I agree, but at least it sounds like it is going to take a good amount of time to get that good gear. I don’t know how the content is balanced though so maybe mid range gear is good enough for most builds. Won’t know till a couple weeks into June I guess.
So, it being pointless to be free is obviously where we disagree.
I don’t want to have to be taxed to use what I have already spent a vast majority of my time to gain.
I also don’t want to have to waste character slots to get around that tax.
Given that not one person has been able to tell me how they could tell if I did a character swap or a respec to play a different build of the same class and thus not been able to tell why they should then care about the respec … I’d like to not be taxed.
Let me happily work hard for every spec I want to play. But then leave me alone to enjoy it 
How on earth is that? What I said was that the gold cost being a hinderance will only hit some people and by extension is unfair to them, when others do not feel it.
Most people likely will not level another character of the same class during a season. Nor will they play enough to get to a point where they can freely respec because gold feels like nothing. Meanwhile those playing 10 hours a day will easily get to a point where gold is nothing and hence roll on people who go to the fields with ease, because they can focus their build to fit PvP for example.
My point just is that as is this system favors playing a lot. As with getting all your gear to 4/4 and gems in the end game will take quite a while and hence you will feel the impact of the gold cost when you are upgrading your starter gear, but afterward when you have upgraded everything you can pretty much use all your gold towards respecs without even thinking about the cost, because you just have the gold.
You have investment in a new character. The “150” hours, to hit 100, spent are the discount paid on never having to pay to respec to that spec again. Not sure how much gold that you could farm in 150 hours, but a new character lets you swap between specs at the cost of 150 hours at the top end. You can even share gear so gear farming at that point isn’t even a tax.
Hmm… Maybe the gold cost for respecs should go up over time, but not each time you respec, but rather, each time you upgrade gear 
Or some other way to scale it with how well geared you are, so after these gold sinks are gone, the respec cost starts compensating for it.
Seem difficult to do though, but could be interesting.
Maybe go up slightly based on how much gold you have ever found on the account (per season of course).
And you can tell whether or not
??
It doesn’t matter what I can tell. The devs know and that is all that matters. They set the investment cost for the good of the game and its balancing.
As I’ve pointed out before … there is no difference between
If there is an issue with a particular spec completing a particular content … the issue is with the spec and/or content.
Yes there is. It is in the way that the game is balanced. The game will be balanced off of META specs if there is free respec. Friction to respec will allow the game to be more loosely balanced then META specs that are too jack of all trades or too powerful in a single regard can be nerfed.
As I just stated above … there is no difference between someone playing a meta spec from the start and someone respec-ing to one.
If the meta spec is outside the bounds the dev desired for class power, then there is the ol banhammer likely enroute.
You still see this in Path of Exile with it’s costly respec system as well as other games with their free respecs.
I don’t see it. It’s increasingly sounding like you can respec in a day. So it will do nothing against people going for META builds. There will always be some FotM even if you nerf that people will flock to the next one as they can’t be arsed to find builds themselves with it taking time from them to do work that other people can do for them.
See D3 not every build can clear GR150 except for META specs. Blizz does nothing because with free respec you are free to go to META. See D2 respec has friction. Game is balanced to where META is OP at content, but various builds can clear all content.
And this differs from Path of Exile, which does not have free respecs and has several builds that can’t clear all sorts of its content … not just the highest level?
What’s the difference?
Diablo devs have a more casual approach to ARPGS. PoE has a very hardcore vision. You have to be META boss killer to do ubers. You have to be META AoE + aurabot to do 5 ways. I don’t imagine that D4 will be anywhere near as hardcore as PoE is. PoE actively tries to punish the playerbase.
Are we really thinking a level 100 nightmare dungeon could be cleared by anything but very specialized builds if it even can be cleared in a season. From past Blizzard games one would think we won’t be able to clear a 100 in the first seasons.
It depends. Since their is friction with respecs I would imagine that they are more loosely balanced than a GR150 is in D3. I doubt that you can only clear them with one defined spec per character.
Yeah, this feels like arbitrary wordplay.
You claim
One defined spec per character in D3?! Have you looked at the ladder? I’m 99.9% sure that every single one of the set builds as well as non-set build ladders for each class has multiple people beating GR150.
You’re just making things up.
If you don’t think that PoE is hardcore compared to Diablo I don’t know what to tell you. Just go check out r/pathofexile sometime and look at all of the complaining. Game is meant to brutalize the playerbase in all aspects.
At least the last time I played D3 which was like last summer if I can remember right there was 1 build per class that could do high GR not even 150. Whatever set was the one that was buffed for that season or the last one that was buffed was going to top the ladder. I did hear that there was some good powercreep this season so it may support your position now. It wasn’t like that for most of the life of the loot 2.0 game though.