Thing is: lvl1-60 was obsolete. Now 60-70 is obsolete too. 60 talent points total.
And soon we’re gonna have another 10 extra talents, probably to get the ‘Hero’ talents we had before.
It’s way too much. Make it 15 talents base and 15 talents for specialization…
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The issue is in that case not the talent tree but people having access to development builds early, allowing them to calculate the perfect meta faster.
From a development point of view, every season they have to “fight the meta” or define it themselves.
If Blizzard wants to keep the talent trees relevant, they either have to buff/nerf more often or just take away all possibility for PTR players and the community as a whole, to test out talents on the PTR on a number-basis (as in, knowing exactly what talent interacts with what other talent how good/bad).
The less we as players know in that case, the more it encourages trying it out in the live game and then noting down the most effective options over a longer period of time.
That is, if people at all care about the balancing that much.
Personally, I don’t give a damn at all if my class is “top meta” or not. All I want is that I can get 
done in this game reliably. Doesn’t matter if it takes 30s longer or less in each fight due to my class. I am not aiming for World First completions in raids or 25+ keys…
I do love the current talent trees. I do think they are a bit too big and some are a bit inconsequential or could be match together.
Also with the new hero talents it seems its starting to get complicated with so many procs and interconected talents interacting with each other making addons ever more mandatory.
I do worry they will keep adding talents every expac. I hope hero talents are the end of It for now. I would much rather get a rework of them in the future or them adding something different to be honest.
Nah bro, old talent rows were the worst. Current ones way better.
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I think the best talent system is the pvp one. They can keep adding to the pool and you pick any combination of 3 (number can be changed).
But, the point you made applies to any system. People will just copy paste the “best” build. Easy or hard.
The complex trees add depth to the game, which i am not opposed to, as it keeps the rotation more dynamic.
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The PvP talent resemble a lot the old glyph systems: 3 prime glyphs (vital), 3 major glyphs (important), 3 minor glyphs (mainly for cosmetics).
The PvP talent is a good systems, but it would be too simple for today’s talent. We don’t want to go from overly complicated to another extreme.
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It does matter, its harder to adjust build for how you want to play as you dont simply change one talent for another, but you have to adjust half the tree
You cant evaluate changes without sims etc.
You certainly can, because I do it by hand every time they change something in the skill tree.
I re-read every talent then and think about how it affects my playstyle. If I can do it by hand and have fun alongside setting up my talents for the first time (you can just copy the code afterwards for alts), so can you and everyone else if willing to try.
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you can evaluate effect on your performance just on paper without sims?
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If I got a dollar for every time I wanted to play one of my many alts, just to tab out when I saw the talents had reset I would be a rich man.
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In case you didn’t notice, you can see your spell and skill damage numbers and multiply it with your specific stats. It’s math after all that drives this system and it’s math after all that allows you to understand the functions in place. Every program runs on math and code. No big surprise!
What do you think how people put together the calculator in the first place on WoWhead and co? Did they sacrifice a liver and a chicken to summon it? Ofc they made it by hand and then automatized the process.
All you have to do at best is make your own Excel file and fill in some functions (which are by now also presets for easier use).
In case you didn’t know, there are people out there in game communities that LOVE to spreadsheet every bit of stats. Biggest example would be the sci-fi MMO Eve Online as far as I know. Basically everyone does that kind of stuff there.
And in WoW, you don’t even need to do that. All you have to do if you are lazy, is copy a build code. It was specifically put in there for lazy people. And for people like me that love to use whatever they like and makes sense to them, there is the option to try out things yourself.
As someone else already said before:
With the old MoP simplified system we had up until DF, people would just click the recommended talents on their “chart” anyways. And these days they have it even easier, they just copy build-links.
Nothing changed at all, except the fact that now you choose your talents and passives, instead of having every 5 levels 1 to pick from 3 and the passives being auto-learned.
The old system felt like as bad as the “preset nodes” we had in Destiny 2 til the reworks in Beyond Light/Witch Queen.
Here an example image: https://d1lss44hh2trtw.cloudfront.net/assets/editorial/2019/11/destiny-2-subclasses-warlock-voidwalker.jpg
well once we got the talent trees it just smashed all the spells we had into the tree with not many talents that actually could modify the skills, which should be the goal?
i thought now they eanted to do that with hero talents but seems they failed there mostly as well.
by now talent trees could basically just be the same as hero talents. max out the tree with a few choice nodes.
the way talent trees currently work is basically that they put a few useless nodes in here and there so you can pick the nodes they want you to pick. emphasize with connection paths
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I dont want to bother with all that when playing games, i want to select playstyle and not bother 3% to skill A vs 5% to skill B, but then i cant put points in another talkent that adds 1,5% to skill C
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True 
Then honestly you picked the wrong game genre, because almost every MMORPG has such things of sorts.
In fact, ESO is much worse for your perspective. Look at this:
https://deltiasgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ESO-PvP-Tips-and-Tricks-Typical-Stats-to-am-for-in-ESO-PvP.png
And that is just the summary page. The “Detailed Stats” page is 2-3 pages long.
I honestly think, you have the wrong expectations for this game. Sure, we had simplified talents in the past. But the majority disliked it so Blizzard changed it again after complaints were made expansion, after expansion, after expansion.
And as you said, you don’t want to bother with it. Ok, then just do it like everyone else not willing to bother with it? Copy a build code and roll with it?
Why do you want to ruin things for others with demanding simple talent trees again?
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Of all the “talent” customization designs Blizzard have had in all their games over the years, Diablo III and StarCraft II Wings of Liberty are probably the best. Not perfect, but better designs than their other games. Heroes of the Storm also has a solid talent design.
WoW seems stuck with a very old design that was inspired by Diablo II, and the change to a more modern design in Mists of Pandaria didn’t last, because the nostalgia for the old (likely fueled by Classic) was so strong that Blizzard could sell it as a new feature.
But it’s not a good design.
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they had good tree, they ruined it. either return previous version or put meaningful change instead of
Gaining Clearcasting increases your Intellect by 1% for 8 sec. Multiple instances may overlap.
vs
During Arcane Surge, your Familiar fires 4 bolts instead of 1.
Damage from your Arcane Familiar has a small chance to grant you up to 2% of your maximum mana.
Tbh, for me it’s not the number of talents, but the number of interactions.
Feels like half the tree is “makes skill X have effect Y”, and every single recommended guide just picks it and most players never actually find out what it does.
No wonder the majority of players run cookie cutter builds, there’s too much information for a normal person to parse without giving up an unreasonably large amount of time.
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Now, that’s a whole different topic. The tree design itself is not bad. But some of the talents/passive choices are. And I definitely will not disagree with you there. Like… read this:
“Golden Path - Consecration heals you and 5 allies within it for 702 every 0.8 seconds”
I have right now 1.102.000 HP. Let’s divide that through the amount healed every 0.8s.
1.102.000 / 702 = 1569 | 702 / 1.569 = 0,447%
The passive heals not even 0,5% per second of my current HP. It is so USELESS. Yet I have to pick it if I want to use specific talents below it.
The issue here is not that it is required, but that it is so useless.
Imagine if Golden Path would heal 1% every second while in Consecration but increasing the CD or decreasing the size of it for a certain amount.
That would make it already much better. All they need to do is make those “trash nodes” better.
Edit: Or take the last row talent “Merciful Auras” from Holy Paladin…
Your Auras restore 2.933 Health to 3 injured Allies within 20 yards every 2 seconds.
While AURA MASTERY (a 2,5 mins CD!) is active, heals all allies within 40 yards and healing is increased by 20%
What it should do instead imo:
Your Auras restore 2.933 Health to 3 injured Allies within 20 yards every 2 seconds.
While AURA MASTERY is active, heals all allies within 20 yards every 1 second and healing is increased by 100%.
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That is especially the case when players playing different chars and a lot of alts.
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