Seems like a lot of the people talking about the perceived pitfalls of the one-bar system like to point out Doctor Strange, and suggest that being reduced to one bar will make him too... "simple". Could someone please explain to me when pressing slightly more keys became a sign of depth and complexity?
Because this...
... doesn't seem more complex to me than this...
... just seems spammier.
I could accept this as an answer if the good Doc had a bunch of intriguing cross-power interactions, but he doesn't. There's no real "power combo system" where you need to hit a bunch of specific powers to produce interesting effects. None of the heroes have this really. At most they have a couple of powers that interact. Use Power A before Power B and Power B gets +X% damage... and again, that's usually two powers in a hero's kit (in Strange's case, it's any incantation prior to Fangs). All Strange really has that requires a load of powers is a generic cooldown reduction and vulnerability application based on... generic incantation spam. And really, this could probably be moved over to a one bar system simply by lowering the cooldowns of his incantations or reducing the number required to be hit.
While there's certainly an argument that could be made for reducing the number of bars ultimately reducing visual variety, since you'll be seeing fewer different powers firing off, it won't lower complexity because, well, there's never been any complexity added with more powers in this particular game. All more powers have added has been visual flair... and damage layers, and thus imbalance.
/2¢