If you wanna talk about unhealthy class design and lacking counterplay, then there are a lot of examples to be had ever since they moved away from the original talent trees in cata and started moving abilities and moving/adding passives to specific specs instead. They’ve never cut this loop, and it has continued to degenerate over time, more and more each time.
If you want a more overall picture of possible reasons and hows, then buck up and read the wall of text at where I’ve gone over the progression of changes: Group finder madness and game design
Now keep in mind, game devs have said that they’re in a constant state of compromising between PvP and PvE when it comes to the designs of things, and I can’t remember a single player saying “PvE is great for PvP!”. So to truly fix these nonfunctional compromises, they’d have to separate the designs entirely. For example, have you ever said that “PvP could really use more PvE” or “PvE could really use more PvP” as you were playing either one? I’d bet on no. I’ve seen people wanting PvP to BECOME PvE, as in not just influenced by it but actually to become a PvE race. But that’s not the same, and is called m+. Some just wants to be able to attack another group while doing this PvE race, but like I already said, that’s still not the same.
So as players have always treated and seen PvP and PvE as different aspects to the game, the solution to solving the mess of game development becomes obvious. To separate them entirely.
It’s just funny how most complaints were directed at items and item builds rather than talents and abilities in the distant past, and when compared to now it’s generally completely different (with a few outliers).
So ask yourselves: Do you want this to be a PvP game? Or do you want to continue with this design of constant compromises? There is no inbetween. They will continue down this road of stupifying classes and overall design of the game, as explained in the post I linked to. You’ve already seen the effects it has had on what makes PvP:ers unhappy with the gameplay, and how it has changed for the worse over the many years. It won’t get better, because this is now at a point of no return. The aim for frictionless non-social grouping is too deeply embedded in the current game for it to be brought back from the depths of despair.
If they would separate the two sides of the game, it’d provide a better foundation for frictionless non-social grouping, since it’d provide a stronger shared goal of doing the activity. If you’d queue for PvE, you’d only meet others who only expects to get ahead in PvE. If you’d queue for PvP over on the proposed arena tournie realms being brought back, then you’d only meet players only expecting to get ahead in PvP. There’d be no muddy mix of it. Because mixing it is a big part of what continues to make both sides unhappy, and what causes friction (i.e. hostility) in groups of strangers, and THAT is what is truly UNHEALTHY for the game.
Not to mention what it would do to class designs themselves, since it’d open up the possibilities of seeing complex designs that truly challenges the mind, like you can see in games rated as “masterpieces” of either genre. Because it would enable designs only focused on PvP, and other designs only focused on PvE. Because both sides cripples each other as they continue going down this direction. (Or in simpler terms, how large the difference can become between the skill cap and the skill floor.)
Take vanilla as an example, that was a true masterpiece in terms of social design since it was about “unity through hardship”. It enabled true social bonding, and they spent a lot of time meticulously designing natural congregation points throughout the map, while thinking of what made people want to be at a specific place at any one time.
But people don’t want hardship anymore, as the customer base in games has grown significantly older overall. So what would provide the possibility for a healthy social design in a game with non-social grouping? That part is also fairly simple, it’s to focus on what makes people queue for something and then making sure there is nothing that causes friction like how some people absolutely hating to do it but feel they have to, or how some people have conflicting motives for doing it that doesn’t fit in with other people’s motives.
Basically to make PvE content strictly for PvE:ers and to make PvP content strictly for PvP:ers, with no mixing of the two and a shared motive for being there. It’s kind of like if a bar would exist solely for the sake of finding partners (you know what I mean). Nobody would get mad at anyone else for trying to pick someone up, or that anyone would have a completely different motive for being there. Because that’s what they went there for. But if people would start hitting on others sitting and reading a book at a coffee place, it would get kind of overbearing, right? That’s because there is no shared foundation between the one trying to pick someone up, and the person being hit on, because one is there to “look for partners” and the other one being hit on is there just to read a book with something to eat and/or drink on the side in a calm atmosphere (as coffee places usually aim to provide). In other words, such a thing would create friction.
It’s the same principle affecting all of us in the game. We expect too many different things in certain places, and it creates friction and causes an atmosphere similar to a “stranger danger” atmosphere becoming commonplace. (Not EXACTLY like it, but similar.)
So they have kept aiming to provide a more frictionless environment for their non-social grouping functions which they’ve kept adding over the years. But because they have never truly separated the two, it has never worked out completely. It’s just always in a state of compromise, only difference is by how much.
And as mentioned above and in the other post, it also has the same effect on the class designs and so on, for the exact same reasons.