Definitely want to reinforce this. I understand it’d take more development time, but it’d vastly help improve feedback. Thanks to the tree calculators that Saormash pointed out for us, it’s much easier to give specific feedback, and I’ll be waiting for trees for the next classes.
Here’s my thoughts on the specific talents, rather than the overall thoughts as noted above:
I’ve reached out to a few druid friends who regularly parse in the top 10, and if they give their feedback to me, I will post it here. That said - I have regularly played druid in Shadowlands since the start, so this is my feedback on the individual talents:
Druid Class Tree:
Resto will have to spend 7 points in “useless” (Useless meaning Bear Form or Cat Form, without improved cat/bear form stuff that would make them useable) talents for them in order to access an interrupt - touched on in my last post - this is a terrible design. Interrupts are practically mandatory with how you design encounters. I know Balance has access to Solar Beam in the Balance tree, but Resto does not.
Likewise, Innervate will require Feral druids to spec a minimum of 8 points into a part of the tree they otherwise don’t need and will make them miss out on other useful talents. Feral suffers from the same fate Survival does - they offer no utility their ranged counterpart doesn’t. This will further push Feral into obscurity and just further reinforce Balance is superior to Feral for raid composition.
It is possible for new players to not spec into 1000% required abilities for their specs - such as Ironfur for Guardian, Sunfire and MOONKIN FORM for Moonkin, Wild Growth as Resto, and Rip for Feral. This just blatantly should not be possible. I understand you want “player choice” - but player choice shouldn’t come at the expense of being able to completely neuter your character to the point it is useless compared to someone else.
From a personal viewpoint, I think it’d be better to swap Stampeding Roar and Soothe - the movement talents (Wild Charge/Tiger Dash) are locked behind Soothe, rather than Stampeding Roar. As they are both on the same “required talents” section, swapping them wouldn’t really hurt anyone, and it’d make that part of the tree flow better, as Stampeding Roar would be needed for the movement talents and Soothe would be needed for the utility talents.
Just to re-iterate what I said in my first post: The way you handled the spec-specific talents to me is great, there’s a good mix of ST, AoE, etc. However much like the class tree - it is possible to skip skills that should not be skippable.
Balance:
Much like the above issue with core rotational abilities - it is possible to not spec into Starfall or Celestial Alignment, both very important spells for Balance. This shouldn’t be possible.
Resto:
Again, it is possible to not spec into spells that are required, like Tranquility and Efflorescence.
Guardian:
Maul being the first skill is… an odd choice. It is only used to dump rage when we don’t need Ironfur, so it doesn’t get used nearly as much unless you’re focusing on DPSing as a Bear. This seems like the perfect candidate for an optional skill, instead of something like Survival Instincts, which is extremely important, one tier down.
Much like Balance and Resto - it has a mandatory skill for the class being optional. Survival Instincts. Likewise, they have talents that affect class talents that a new player could miss speccing into - like the aforementioned Ironfur.
I consider something mandatory for a spec if without it, they would be completely horrible. Like, if a resto doesn’t spec into Nourish - they won’t be significantly affected as choosing another talent likely makes up for it. But if they don’t choose tranquility, it will be very noticeable.
I do not play Feral enough to feel comfortable giving feedback on that. However, they don’t seem to have the same issue the other 3 specs have, in that I don’t see any of their mandatory rotational abilities being spec-specific talents. That said - the druids I mentioned earlier main Feral, so I’m sure they will have plenty of feedback from a Feral Perspective.
And just something I will mention here and in the DK thread: I understand the concept of locking AoE and ST behind different parts of the tree - however, the baseline AoE and ST should still be given to you, or not possible to not spec into. This is a big issue with Balance as the trees currently stand - as they can actually not have their main AoE spell if they don’t spec into Starfall, the same goes with Frost DKs with Obliterate and Howling Blast.
You shouldn’t need a third party site to understand what to do - which is what these talents trees are going to do to new players that start the game. They won’t know what to do and they’ll have to look it up, or they’ll risk being kicked for not speccing into the talents that are mandatory rotational skills.
Just to re-iterate a point I said earlier: Player Choice should never come at the expense of being able to make your character practically useless.