Talents are my biggest gripe with the game. The EA had less talents than DOS1, and maybe only 4 - 5 'good' talents that people generally want. The rest are just 'I couldn't think of anything else to take, so I took the least worst'. Not only that, we actually lost more talents than we gained since EA.
I would have gladly taken Polymorph or Summoning not being added to the game if we had tripled the number of talents and exponentially improved how many possible build options we had. Talents are the most build-defining feature, more than any individual stat, spell, or role. In the previous game, your entire build was generally based on what talents you had. In the EA, Executioner, The Pawn, Glass Cannon, etc. They all defined how you functioned and your game plan.
I posted a comment in another thread about it, but there should be more talents like Elemental Affinity and What A Rush - things that give you a flexible goal in combat that you generally want to keep up for more rewards, that create dynamic AP gain, but isn't entering the DOS1 or EA territory of 'stack as much AP as possible'.
Sadly, they dropped the ball with talents. The rest of the game is great, other than a few major gripes, but talents should have been one of their major focuses - instead, they were so concerned with making too many strong talents that the majority of talents are worthless afterthoughts that you don't even notice. Things like Pet Pal are almost essential, yet most conversations via Pet Pal also require persuasion to get anywhere. It's the complete opposite of diversity. You feel obligated to take the only usable talents, and further obligated to structure your concept around them to make use of it.
I don't care about them adding new races, classes, skills, etc. I want more talents. More goals to work towards, both in and out of combat, as a result. More build diversity as a result.
