On one side you have “only” the passive tree. Most passives nodes are pure stat boost, with some handful of exception with really thematic nodes, like “Penance” for Paladin where you bleed yourself but get a buff for it.
Generally the strength/budget per passive point increases the higher you get in the passive tree. The Nodes that are mroe in the upper part of a passive tree are usually a little bit stronger.
The Node you took as an example “Faith Armour” does have CSA, which is a relatively rare secondary defense. While the stat itself is not super “unique”, it’s pretty unique or at least uncommon to have access to such a stat in the passive tree.
We could talk the whole day about particular nodes, some might be not 100% reasonable to be “mastery locked”, but my question remains: Where do you draw the line?
You even can put more points than 25 in a non-mastered mastery, you only do not get further up than 25 points “deep” into the passive tree of that mastery.
And then there is of course the most important thing for me: Exclusive active skills. Each mastery currently has like 2-3 of those. While the above point of exclusive passive points might be argueable for me.
I think exclusive active skills are very very important for class idtentiy. Those are not “the best” skills, but they are very thematic. Not mandatory, but if you choose to play with them, they give the class a even stronger idtentiy.
You made a good point about the exclusive active skills, which i completely overlooked because i was only giving examples for the passive nodes so i totally agree on that part. firm handshake
Exactly, and i didnt mention Faith Armour as an example only to say: ‘Hey thats unfair, my forge guard should also have the chance to spec into it.’ Those passive nodes will travel along the required mastery lvl during the beta phase and even after the full release to balance masteries. So i think now we should not debate about all the passive nodes if they are in the correct spot of the passive tree.
The question you asked where to draw the line is actually really interesting. If we raise the line for a couple more lvls, people have access to more interesting nodes to make different and unique builds or playstyles (More build variety, less build identity). If we lower the line for a couple more lvls, people have less access to different mastery points and will focus on points that clearly fit to the specific build (in this case all the points only in FG) that you are playing (More build identity, less build variety).
But yeah, then we have the problem about the exclusive active skills, when they should be available on which mastery lvl…
Coming straight from my 7 years of PoE experience, I think there should not be a line at all. I think the mastery itself should be a bonus specific to your class (for example the litch gets damage leech and increased damage at low life) and perhaps you also earn mastery skill points that could only be spent in that mastery class.
If you want to spend the vast majority of your points in another class though, you should be allowed to and it would certainly open up realms of build diversity. It feels less restrictive and overall more fun for creative builders and new players alike.
