A few comments around the passive tree and balance

If you look at any actually good build that has existed thus far in the game, nobody is playing an ability or a set of abilities "honestly." Virtually every build is combining (sometimes unintended or bugged,) interactions from disparate systems and you end up pressing like 6 buttons and then every boss in the game gets one shot.

I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but the guy that presses 6 buttons to make different interactions is dealing 50x the damage of the guy that is trying to play a skill "honestly." I'm not opposed to these interactions but there is something off about the game when you can't play "spark" or some attack skill as a build, and instead have to use those skills as a vessel for other abilities and interactions to achieve good damage. At the very least there should be some kind of balancing that makes the distance between these types of builds not so great.

Regarding the passive tree, we hear things like "adding life would be a noob trap" but I contend that the entire tree is a noob trap as it exists currently. The best builds path to a few jewel sockets, maybe a keystone (CI,) and the rest of their points go to energy shield. Meanwhile, if you play naively and just click all the damage nodes and try to play a normal ability you are dealing no damage and you have no survivability. The tree as it exists presently is more of a noob trap than whatever you're worried about.

Anyway, good luck.