I knew someone during BC who would always pull with the Mana Tap ability while tanking as a Paladin.
People told him not to. I told him not to. I explained there are better ways to start a pull and maintain aggro. But he always did it because he liked it.
He said he liked giving mobs an annoying smack to start the fight.
It’s like people say - people play how they want.
You’re confusing 2 different topics.
1 is “are people allowed to play however they want?” That’s your point.
2 is “Classes are ‘supposed’ to be played however players want to play them.” which is the point of the poster above.
He implies that classes are not designed with any supposed playstyle in mind. This is what is objectively wrong. All specs are designed with a specific way to be played in mind, no exception. Now if you want to go offroad and do something else, you’re completely allowed to do that. You will notice your performances will be drastically weaker, but if this is what you want to do with your sub, like you said, no one can stop you.
The game is already telling people how to play for the most part, when the tooltip says skill X does more dmg after skill Y, they’re not telling you to spam skill Z, they’re telling you to do Y first and then X.
Yeah and there’s always room for freedom even within intended design. It’s no so strict that you HAVE to use defensive 1 here and then defensive 2 on the next pack. If you flip it around and it works, that’s fine, the design intention was to use a defensive to survive, doesn’t matter which one.
The real problems come when fundamental or rotational issues occur, I’ve seen unholy DKs literally spam festering strike and never use scourge strike because when they first played the spec they saw that one destering strike did more dmg than one scourge strike. Completely disregarding the wounds mechanic and the resource costs. These things are strict design intentions, but they still have the freedom that you’re not forced to use scourge strike right after festering strike, it doesn’t matter if you weave in death coils in between or whatever, you can throw those out as soon as you get the resource or pool runic power to throw them later in quick succession.
Game is complicated and very alien for new players coming in these days.
That is a very good point, and I also think that a clear distinction between playing a class/spec in an unusual way (making a conscious choice to level a surv. hunter without a pet knowing you’ll be less effective) and just not understanding the class/ability (not doing an attack because you don’t understand how dots/bleeds work). You’re definitely right in that regard.
What game is this? I just hit this mat with buttons on it to change the color of shapes on this box of light.
As a hunter I dont even have full awareness of sentience.
We have a new generation of players that are speeding through levels because of TW scaling and zone scaling.
This allows for players to not fully understand the most beneficial way to play their toon. Because they are leveling so fast, they aren’t fine tuning as they go. Usually because they can practically one shot everything. They’re not able to accurately learn how to cycle through rotations.
Also, many new players don’t know to go to outside sources to help with their toons.
At least, this is what I am seeing, others may disagree.
I’m currently leveling several different classes and specs because I want to shift my gameplay. Am I as proficient in these toons as I am on my two mains? Nope. I do go to Wowhead and Icey Veins for help. I also have several add-ons to help.
Patience is very much needed in this game. We, as a collective, don’t want to scare away noobs or discourage veteran players from trying new things.
I play a paladin.
Make the yellow lights turn on.
Spend the yellow lights on big things.
Press the glowy floaty hammer on cooldown
Horsy go brr if there’s something underneath me.
Take a look at an IQ graph. There you will find your answer to this and many other mysteries of life.
I would say most WoW players usually have a pretty good grasp on what they are doing. The ones I don’t trust are the ones that can’t make it past level 70 and have less than 6000 achievement points. 
Depends how far you take it. My guess is maybe at best 1-2% of CE and elite players know what every talent their class has even does.
A lot of wow is being a copy cat. I legitimately don’t think it would affect many players if they removed talents altogether for more complete packed specs.
Yes. I’m at 8000 and have one lvl 73!
Validation!
So very true. I have 6 level 80’s, 7 toons in the 70’s, and a whole passel more that range from level 10 to the 40’s.
I just like leveling new toons so I can learn new things.
making useless passive aggressive posts is a clear sign…
Made this toon as a joke. Didn’t know I would love it.
Most people playing this game are dumb and those who think they’re not - are the dumbest ones.
Smart people don’t play WoW. We’re all a bit restarted here xD
Every time i change from one level 80 to another I have to re-read what all that stuff does. Then I wait for a button to glow and press it, and if it makes other buttons glow i press them too. And then i sit in the graveyard and contemplate how i still don’t know what I’m doing.
Not a single one of us knows what we are doing.
Each time I look at the rotation guide, I realize that I don’t know what I’m doing. Resigned, I just go back to my whack-a-mole approach.