GEM system feels just awful

The reason I’m even writing this is the new Druid and it's 0 synergies from it's own ascendancies.

GGG Needs to Rethink Its “Classless” Identity – It’s Killing New Player Fantasy

So the dust has settled and it's time to review some core mistakes from GGG.
Let's recap why POE2 even exists: To draw in new players and update the game.

Progress so far: New graphics, old problems.

I know POE1 veterans love the classless system, but I think POE2 is repeating the exact design issues that pushed so many players away from POE1 — especially players who care about fantasy identity, theme, and intuitive class design.

Here’s the core problem:


POE encourages optimization over fantasy

The typical POE loop is:

Patch notes drop
Community scans them like IRS auditors
Path of Building week-long theorycrafting
Choose the best ascendancy for the best scaling skill gem
If “Deadeye Comet ” is the best this patch, that’s what you play.

That’s great for hardcore theorycrafters. But it’s terrible for players who want to play what looks and feels cool.
Furthermore this a class balancing nightmare for GGG with the added variables, ( and POE2's class balancing history really tells ) but it even widens the gap between classes or archetypypes melee / ranged

I never felt attached to my character in POE2 ever. Class choice feels like a math problem, not an RPG identity.

POE2 was supposed to fix new player friction… instead it doubles down on old forumlars from POE1. It's very bad for retention numbers


The new Druid has basically zero synergy with the Druid ascendancies.

How does that make sense?
Why release a new thematic class and give it no mechanical support for its theme? This is exactly the kind of unintuitive, immersion-breaking design that makes new players quit mid-campaign.


And remember:
Most people who tried POE1 and quit, didn’t quit because it lacked graphics — they quit because the systems were confusing and counterintuitive.

TL;DR

POE’s classless system is awesome for veterans, but extremely unintuitive for anyone who wants clear fantasy identity.
POE2 should rethink how classes and ascendancies support theme and playstyle, especially if the goal is to grow the playerbase beyond POE1’s theorycraft-focused audience.

Let mages feel like mages.
Let druids be druids.
Don’t make every build start with “open patch notes + open Path of Building.”

GGG: please reconsider how class theme and ascendancy synergy work, especially for new players.

Never seen a post that is more wrong than yours. PoE made history when it decided to go away from the usual class system EVERYONE else was doing. It is the whole identity of the characteristic passive tree and the whole game. The moment they would do what you ask for, it would be over for me. It is insane to me that so many people in this forum ask for things that are normal in other games and PoE does different for a reason. Seriously play the other games and stop trying to force the only game that has a unique way to be the same.