Yes I think this is a very good point which many people gloss over. Sure the reworked nodes like Prayer Aegis and Covenant of Protection look good but NO-ONE is picking them over stuff like Reverence of Duality.
Another point to note passives in the base class tree (especially past 15 pts) are heavily outdated and underused. Particularly since they haven’t got any threshold buffs or anything.
I think a combination of both your suggestions would be the best solution. 10+ point investment passives like Mail Crusher, Heaven’s bulwark, Dread Form, Ironbark, Ancient Might, Ancestral Weaponry should be condensed to 5-8 points. And then 10-15 additional passive points to the current 113 to promote mixing and matching the buffed passives.
I mainly ask myself who thought this changes would be a good thing that make the game better. The devs for sure but was there no QA or testing of any sort before they shoved it into a release build?
Some changes make no sense. They could easiely reduce the high point values and put power elsewhere to not have braindead nodes you feel “forced” to put 12 points in because they are so good or needed to get the most bang for your buck.
To me this is simply narrowing down options instead of making the game better somehow. Yes we got updates but those updates aren’t that progressive and in some cases more like a step back.
Sure everything needs to be tested but on paper it looks a bit dissapointing. If the same kind of rework happens to Shaman it’ll be a bad joke but I guess Shaman ends up like Forge Guard… being reworked but still the bottom tier sentinel by a quatermile.
