Ascendancies in PoE 2 feel worthless!

nothing stopping you from player a simple "ranger" or "warrior" etc...

Ascendancies are far from equal, but each has a significant defensive benefit as well as an affinity for certain builds, far from worthless.

Personally i'm more irked by weapon & skills system, being heavily funneled into a damage type doesn't feel free - e.g. with maces it's melee=fire, otherwise you need to work really hard to get speed and AoE or stick with Bone Shatter.

Whereas class and Ascendancy is just a neat way to freely choose a core character strength - be it ease of "learning stuff" (tree proximity) or bypassing unique item requirements of your desired build with a single ascendancy point.

I mentioned this a long while back that Ascendancy classes can be dumbed down to stat sticks.

Most of them might have one unique thing about them and half the time it's not worth taking.

I certainly don't want to see "Pick this for Bleed builds" but there's not much point in the Ascendancy options. I like to use Slayer as a comparison because it's been fairly untouched for a long time.

Slayer can give any weapons 8% Crit. They can increase AoE. They can save max change points. They can over leech. All these features are unique and yet don't ask anything other than being attack based. Strikes, Slams, Melee, Ranged, Elemental, Physical. Doesn't matter.