This is awesome. All armor classes available for everybody was a topic now and then. Now the armor pieces get their identity and we wont see all the mages in plate armor anymore.
Although I got used to the passives system by playing for a whole now, I think these changes are exactly on point. In theory this all sounds great and I can’t wait to see these changes ingame.
This really will be a very huge patch! 
Not a fan of “smart loot” especially in an ARPG. That said its beta so i’ll reserve judgement to see how it pans out.
thanks for the great news
So… 32 new items, 8 per classes, which means either: They are keeping the supposed Rogue Class a secret to share when they’ll finally get out 7.8
Or… only the same 4 classes until soon arrives.
I’ll try to check the other updates mentionned (I might have missed some along the way) but same with Multiplayer?
On a good note, even if some don’t like class-specific loot, I do, nice job 
I am not sure if the game is an American one or not? Praytell Thou art not one of those that choose his side only because of a grammatical error?
You seems to say that Mike is right, but on the other side, he would be all wrong 
I’m half Canadian and Half British, so I am Honoured
P.S. Does it really matter that we spell it Armour and not Armor?
Everything seems great.
But i have doubts about class specific gear and smart loot.
I think it alters a lot the global value of a piece of gear since it suits only a specific class.
Maybe it’s okay if this is limited to a small number of pieces of gear, will see.
But really excited to try that.
Two really awesome design directions. Synced mastery progression is going to alleviate a lot of confusion! Great answer to a question we get a lot. Class-specific loot definitely feels like a good direction too! I hope it is kept open-minded enough for people that want to push odd builds, and we don’t get pushed into directions that the class-specific affixed tell us.
I too, am not a fan of a Smart Loot system. This action tends to leave build diversity in the dust and force a more META mindset for character creation.
On a different note, I am over the top with excitement!
This Team has kept true to their word, and has been listening to their community.
Thank you!!
Well Done !!
My post is just playful banter about the use of the words armour & armor on the same item while incorporating Mike (a Canadian), Sarno (a Brit), and the fact that the company is based in America. Words, always a challenge to convey subtle humour.
will masteries will be reseted after new patch goes live?
Is the only actual change is that more points transferred to base tree?
So we still choose mastery at 20 points invested into base?
You will still need a minimum of 20 points in your base tree but the trees have better stuff and have some higher nodes now too.
@EHG_Mike will the UI display the actual amount of invested points in the base tree in patch 0.7.8? At the moment it displays 20 points no matter how many points you invest into it. I see your screenshot showing 25 points, so just want to double check.
I don’t understand the people complaining about smart loot. D3 does it and it is great. It is crap when you kill a boss and all the best loot doesn’t even go on your character.
The “meta build” argument doesn’t seem great either. The most powerful items being abused right now need a heavy nerf (I think poison as a whole does) and are uniques. The vast majority of my item farming is for affixes to shatter.
Because D3 is a good example of a game with good build diversity? Smart loot works there because D3 builds are centred around class-specific set items for the most part. Other games like PoE doesn’t have this system so you can really make creative builds, even if it’s not the strongest or the fastest. But at least you can do it.
LE introducing this system (class specific gear+the accompanying smart loot) made me nervous, but I’ll have to reserve judgement after the patch goes live. I still think it’s fair for people to voice their concerns about this.
Very good. Thanks a lot.
I really agree with the Smart Loot idea.
Trading items constantely is not that fun. I am a player, not a trader.
Playing with others players should be encouraged a lot with better loot, hard quest to do. But trading is not really playing with others players.
The armor changes are amazing…did i mention i love you guys. It will be much better for builds
With them being locked to the class. Great work as always guys!
The armour outside of uniques dont make the builds in poe. The crafting,uniques , skill gems and skill t tree make the builds
The old max 20 refers that youve reached the 20 max lines not how many points are in the tab, thats why the other 2 non mastery tabs max at 25 cause thats the highest line to unlock. That being said the new base class will max at 30 bow instead of 20. They added 10 lines.
Maybe PoE has more theoretical build diversity, but that isn’t because of loot. It is because they have a massive skill and passive pool. If you want to play a build based around an item in PoE, you are forced to play trade league just to get the item. If you want to talk about meta builds, D3 does actually have more S Tier builds. PoE usually has 2 or 3 max each league.
Hate the smart loot idea, D3 had this and was terrible.