Talent Customization

Ok. We can all accept that pretty much no matter how talent trees are done there will always be min/maxing cookie cutter builds (there are only so many choices no matter how it's done).

This idea just came to me; I think the drawback is that it may be too complex for some players (mouth-breathers I'm looking in your direction).

I'm going to use the mage as an example as it is the freshest class in my head. Feel free to adjust as needed.

Idea: Spend talent points on upgrading specific aspects about certain spells. For example, if someone wanted to spend all 51 talent points on frost bolt they could have a very talented frostbolt spell that is instant cast, freezes your targets, affects multiple targets and has a very high chance to crit. The trouble is, even though this spell is EXTREMELY powerful if you come across something that's immune to frost, you've put all your eggs in one basket and you're a talentless level 80 mage.

Each spell would have a few things you could put talent points into. For example you could:
Reduce casting time
Increase crit chance
Reduce mana cost
Chance to add effect (i.e. two crits gives free arcane missiles)
Reduce cooldown time
Increase damage
Increase defensive ability
Combine with another spell (Frostfire missiles perhaps)
remove spell limitation (I.E. Can see normally while invisible, can cast spells without breaking invisibility, etc)

What I'm suggesting is that you customize your characters by customizing your spells. While I know there would be some balance issues, I think free-market talenting would take care of it. If there is a common mage build that casts invisible living bomb spells, someone else might spec into automatic spell reflection.

Ultimately, instead of being limited to being a frost/fire/arcane mage you can choose to be a "sustained fire mage", or a "high burst damage mage" or an "AoE mage" and not be limited to a respective tree. Imagine someone's face the first time they come across a mage that specs so deep into "polymorph" that they can instantly poly-morph multiple people at a time. All of a sudden you've got to come up with a new strategy to figure out "Who is this guy and what can he do? He must have a weakness..."