The Passive Tree - one normalized version for all classes!

Dear GGG,

ever since 0.1 I was worried about the passive tree not being "the same" for all classes. Back then the only dual starting point was for INT based classes. In 0.2 the same happened on the DEX side of the tree. And now the STR/INT area as well...

It's sad enough that the gemcutting panel suggests to play set skills for each class, but while you are still able to play a spear Witch or a staff Warrior, the passive tree often is a huge obstacle in achieving said play-styles.

I was planning my fire bear as a druid. He has a very nice starting area for shapeshifting, armour and energy shield, especially in regards of weapon swap points (attack vs. spell). However, I ultimately changed to a warrior to approach shapeshifting as the Warbringer ascendancy but still wanted use the same tree layout, including the powerful early druid STR/INT area, just from a different point of view. This is the flexibility a Path of Exile game must provide. Unfortunately mid Act 3 when I was reaching the Druid starting area, I realized that half of the available passives don't fit the hybrid play-style and are replaced by some other random stuff.

This problem occurs for many classes when they want to use points from other starting areas (Witch/Sorceress is very prevalent). Sometimes you can't even avoid this problem. As of now, other classes' starting areas are often the fastest way to traverse to the opposite side of the tree. While I understand the design flavor to have a different early path for Ranger/Huntress (projectiles vs. melee/parry), I cannot understand why both are locked in in the Sorceress' version of the INT area.

How will this go on in the future? Will my Warrior have access to a Mercenary or a Duelist starting area? Will my Mercenary get the Warrior or the Marauder starting area when traversing to the Templar area of the tree? ... or will that then be the druid area anyways? Will my Chaos-Dot Chronomancer have to miss out on both the Witch's and the Shadow's early chaos damage nodes, because Sorceress and Monk are meant to be played elemental based?

The problem is obvious! There should only be ONE mutual unique passive tree for all 12 classes. Right now when playing unconventionally, you can't really tell what version of the tree you will end up with and it's only going to be more complicated in the future.

Solution to this? Since making the starting area more generic is lame, I suggest to just have more options there. The easiest way would be to have more alternate paths, instead of two options (left or right) you could go with three (left, right, center), maybe even four. If boardspace is the issue, just stretch it out a bit or shrink the central ascendancy deadzone. Issues of a changed geometry with "From Nothing" jewels or the Oracle's "Entwined Realities" should really take a backseat here. An identical structure as with PoE1 doesn't work in PoE2. That game had one class for each base stat archetype. Having twice the amount needs a different approach, and there are solutions to not have the tree lose its characteristic identity and uniqueness.

With the latest addition of the summoner Sorceress this problem has become even more obvious and I hope, that it will be addressed when re-designing the tree for future classes. The current status quo feels like an ever increasing pile of band-aid fixes for what should be addressed properly and it needs a fundamental design change. The longer you wait, the more of a nightmare it will become.

As for my bear play-through? - I put it on hold, I'm back to theory-crafting.

Greetings

Gussl