I don't see how those moves are false choice. I mean it's definitely possible to run out of malzahar's w unless you're otherwise stuck there, in which case there's no illusion of choice.

As for zilean's timebomb, you actually do have a choice: do I stay here and punish zilean for putting the bomb on me (obviously if you have some way of doing so) or do I run away from other things on my team so I'm the only one who takes the damage? I suppose one of the choices you have (run back to my lanemate and give them a hug) could be considered a false choice, but I don't think anything about the skill suggests that that's what you're supposed to do. The skill simply gives you a way to mitigate its effect. The only anti-fun I can see in that is being the partner of the idiot who decides it's a good idea to run next to you and get you blown up too.

So yeah, I guess that part's anti-fun, but it's not really so much false choice as it is burden of knowledge? Actually zileas I'd like to hear what you have to say about this, because as you can tell from my rambling post I was thinking the skill was clear-cut but now I'm not so sure...

Edit: readability ftw

I'm not claiming that WoW's old talent trees were not cookie cutter, there very much was a set pattern that you NEEDED to have, but there was generally enough left-over points to do some fun stuff at the end, whether it's adding some survivability/emergency tank utility to Feral dps vs. pushing out more aoe dps (worthless on a vast majority of real (boss) fights) vs. pushing out more single target dps (worthless on trash pulls, but useful against most bosses), etc.

From what I have seen in the new talent trees (again, I mostly look at the feral tree, because that was my main), those minor choices do not even exist anymore and the 'correct' build appears to be 100% cookie cutter, or at the very least the few minor choices that still remain are not as interesting or useful as they once were.

Nice post, thank you. I really like to learn more about design and balance, so i always appreciate these explanations. I think the way you guys from Riot make these kind of choices, I belive that this is what makes LoL waaay less frustrating than other similar games.

To those still bring up Swain and the loss of Maledict-lite I think one thing really needs to be kept in mind here.

The DoT bonus on Torment was going to be right around a 20% amp, hence what it was changed to.

Maledict ends up being something in the neighborhood of a x2.8 amp on damage dealt before the first tick, well over ten more powerful than Torment without taking into account that it amps damage from your whole team. What made Maledict awesome was the fact that you could blast someone with it, Dagon them, and then wait a few seconds for them to explode.

A 20% amp isn't in anywhere the same league and simply wouldn't be anywhere near as entertaining.

why does karthas have an AoE around him. when he's SUPER squishy?

I'm interested in the burden of knowledge problem. One potential solution is to have a one line thing people can read during the loading screen that will let them know about it. For example, under Shen, there could be one sentence like "Shen can shield and teleport to his teammates" or "Karthus can cast spells even while dead"

to do something if someone gets close
(ARCANE EXPLOSSSIOOOON)
Also, Karthus dies, turns on E, whole teamfight is in his E

Peeentaakill

ITT Zileas acts like a designer tough guy even though all the game design ho's are hanging at Peter Ilves' house lining up outside the bedroom.

Well I was one of the top geared feral druids on my server and had most of ICC25 heroic cleared (with a casual group that raided one night a week and consisted of players from about 7 different guilds) when I mostly stopped playing that character a few months ago (a friend of mine painted (like, a real life, canvas painting) my character for me, so I did not want to get any new gear, lest the painting become inaccurate).

I can't check /played now due to the patch, but that druid (Splitcart) has well over 300 days of played time, quite possibly over 400, I don't remember how much exactly.
So, I'd say I've played enough as a casual to have an informed opinion, at least when it comes to feral (tank or dps) talent trees, which I think are severely lacking so far, in fun and choice, for Cataclysm .

So i heard Feral is the only melee class who can bring down Healers/Hybrids atm?
Also, there's no choice, obviously. One thing is the best
Always.