The last beta weekend I started a Templar and wanted to play this character as a caster / healer but I was stupid and did not read the tool tip for Solar Barrage closely enough. This ruined the feel of the character as I now needed to move pretty close to the enemy in order to use what was one of my main spells.

All this made me think... Currently the shrines to respec are in a higher level area. It is possible to get there with a low level character by teleporting to a high level friend there but after release this may take a while.

But the thing is that while high level characters will want to try out new specs it is in the low levels where most of the mistakes will happen that can seriously dampen the fun a player has with the character... I loved the caster-style templar but after that mistake I stopped playing because suddenly everything felt wrong.

Would it not be better to have the shrine for this available from the beginning? Maybe even make the first respec free or very cheep?

I did the same thing with Barrage last Beta so I just made another Templar. All the characters are getting wiped at launch anyway, so it makes no real difference.

I think this is a very good point. While you can always reroll a new character, doing so can feel like a terrible waste of time and effort. Having the ability to correct mistakes when learning new skills seems like a pretty important feature.

16 mins 42 secs is how long it took my newly minted and unarmed level 3 character to reach the respec shrines. No porting, no sneaking, just following the roads dodging around a few hostiles and using sprint whenever it was up. (in the covenant area)