Just an idea - how cool it would be to have a class with some powerful skills being usable only when you don’t have any weapon equiped? (This would probably need some kind of placeholder item to prevent your character from automatically equiping weapons you loot.) I know this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon with FoA introducing the new Berserker class - but I’d love to see that in some future DLC (or even GD2).
It wouldn’t be cool at all, in my opinion. The core of these games is the gear.
This would not only require a new type of weapon such as brass knuckles or katars, but also a whole new set of animations.
Maybe in GD2. I do like a pugilist playstyle, monk was one of my fav classes in D3.
Not really. What I meant was a class that would be actually meant to be played weaponless (not even katars or brass knuckles). Sure, the new class would need some new animations (especially kicks) - but I don’t see how it would be harder to implement than, say, Nightblade’s dual blade tree skills (which are all, technically, unique animations). Of course the new class would need to have these unique skills (usable only when you don’t have any weapon equipped) strong enough to compensate for one slot of gear missing. Still, I don’t think it would be impossible to do… It’s actually already (somewhat) possible to go unarmed, though such build would obviously not be end-game viable - hence the need for a new class to specifically support this playstyle.
I don’t see how would restricting one class to 12 pieces of gear (instead of usual 13/14) make it “not about gear” anymore 
Existing gloves and boots could have damage stat added to them when used with this class…
As you said yourself, it would require a placeholder item. Or rather two, since you also have an offhand slot.
Of course one could implement passive skills that boost damage and stats while wearing these placeholders (or no weapon/offhand at all), but I think a lot of players would feel like they are missing something.
As @krell_154 mentioned, gear is crucial in this game. In GD your build is often defined by the weapons you are using, especially MIs. Also some sets use weapons, you can’t use those either.
I think the main concern would be balancing the mastery around the other existing masteries. Some combos with other masteries would be much less effective since their skills require certain weapon/offhand types. As a result the build variety would be much lower.
I can see this kind of weaponless class work in a game that is designed from scratch with that in mind, but it’s gonna be extremely hard to implement into the existing dual-class system and itemization of GD.
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I assume it would make sense to make the placeholder behave like two-handed weapon so one would do.
True but this could be somewhat mitigated by foot and hand gear affecting your damage as mentioned above.
This is a valid point. Though every build has some restrictions on which sets you can equip depending on the weapon type you’re using. But it’s true that being unable to equip any full set containing a weapon would be somewhat limiting.
I also have to agree with this.
So, I guess we can only hope for this kind of thing being possible in GD2 (or maybe some completely new ARPG by Crate)…
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Yeah that could work.
Or by anyone else for that matter. There aren’t too many ARPGs out there that allow weapon-less combat. In fact I don’t know a single one. I have played a couple CRPGs where unarmed builds are viable, but no ARPGs.
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POE has Facebreaker, a pair of gloves that explicitly enable unarmed builds with a 7-9x total damage multiplier.
They’re named after an item from Median XL, which recently also has one or two okay unarmed builds after I convinced Gavin to fix some of D2’s skill functions… the %damage from strength on punches is hardcoded at 1:1 (5-9x better than weapons are scaled to), but that didn’t actually work on missiles without a code change.
As a whole class, I don’t think it’s a good idea for the build variety reasons mentioned above. Maybe a few passives would be fine (like the top row in Nightblade, Shaman, Inquis, or Oathkeeper), but classes in GD should really be able to take any playstyle. But it’d be cool to have as an option enabled by some relic or gloves. I don’t expect to see it because of the amount of effort it would take, but hey, we did just get spears as a separate weapon class with their own animation sets, so who knows?
For itemization, you could have hand sanitizers, lotions/moisturizers, and that powder that rock climbers and gymnasts use.
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Well I guess then I played one ARPG where unarmed builds are viable 
Although I only played POE around the time it was released, and not for very long. If I had known that such an item exists, I might’ve played it a bit longer.
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dual-wielding caster off-hands? with them still giving no weapon damage. i wonder how badly that would break things. even disables default weapon attacks and by extension anything that can activate off them
2x Roldaris tome for max trozan cdr
2x ring of steel offhands or PB offhands (i’ve no idea if innate skill flats can carry entire loss of WD 
)
or ofc, the pièce de résistance 2x Tomes of Arcane Wastes for double lazoring baby 
So you want to punch things? Play Grim Armory.
(Replaces Upheaval fx with Fist of Vire fx, makes Upheaval work with Unarmed)
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still only hits with right hand until devs alter that limitation or fixed(or in FoA)?
Animation wise, probably, though there is a ‘backhand’ animation that’s included in the default unarmed attacks.
Mechanically speaking, there is no functional difference between main and offhand for “dual-wield” unarmed.
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ye i think that’s the one that made it look like new/“diff” swing in all the flashy so i thought they changed it