Why would you want to restrict build ideas? Devs have been adding more modifiers so more mastery combination choices.
2 handed weapons in one hand are not happening, it’s been said many times as has the fact that no staves/bows will be in the game. It’s not that sort of fantasy world.
Masteries are specialities in themselves. Mixing gives you even more specialities. GD is not D2/3 where one class has everything already built in like Barbarian or Wizard.
Going to add in as well that I’m pretty sure they have said that new weapons/anything that requires new animation sets is not a consideration for the upcoming expansion.
Restricting diversitiness is not a good idea but there is no speciality in masteries… that i agree on. Just being able to select mastery skills is neither specialty nor must not be considered as specialty. Stats are not very different either thus by selecting mastery we need some bonuses. Bonuses can come from either stat bar or some not selectable passive i dunno.
For example arcanist can have bonus energy regen, spell amp, warrior can have psy resistance bla bla.
Dear Menhir NO!
Flashback to early D&D around 80’s.
U can use what U can lift is fine.
There is a bit o point in this, however.
Wouldn’t it be nice to NOT get stuff clearly meant for say melee builds rolled with caster/ranged affixes?
Then again this IS GD where EVERYTHING can be mixed into sort of functional build.
It’s always a struggle to balance between class identity and build diversity.
GD edged towards favoring diversity over identity, which is a perfectly valid choice.
However, it is possible to go for some class identity by simply adding mastery-specific skins, without giving up on diversity in the builds. I’d grind for some cool arcanist-only skins at lvl 100 to unlock at my transmogs.
Regardless of skills, you need to be rewarded just because choosing that mastery. It should be included in mastery bar stat bar while leveling. Otherwise what is the point of labeling them as mastery; Just create a pool of all skills and tell player to build around it. Because mastery bar rewards are very similar between each.