What is the benefit of weapon specific nodes vs physical damage nodes?

I was making a new character with a friend visiting - him watching my big screen (split screen) from the sofa. He is also a POE player.

I was designing my new build on the passive skill tree and I was trying to optimize getting to the sword nodes I wanted nearby. He then pointed out (paraphrased):

"You have alot of +physical damage nodes already and theres more of them nearby with easier access, why not just take them and thus also avoiding pidgeon holing yourself into a specific weapon?"

And I was like... because... uhmm...

So yeah, does weapon specific nodes give you more bang for your buck? Im not sure what the big tradeoff is here and this left me slightly confused for what would be the better option.

Could someone help me understand what Im missing? Im leaning towards skipping weapon specific nodes atm.

Note: Im going 1H+Shield double strike.

they used to be stronger, however now this isnt the case in many parts of the tree

so theres no difference really, pick the stuff closer to you

There very few weapon unspecific nodes on the tree and they do not give as much as specific nodes. Nodes that effect all one-handed or all two-handed weapons give less than weapon specific ones also. Weapon specific node clusters are also specific to weapons equippable by str/dex/int characters, ex: marauder sword nodes give phys damage and life/armour, ranger sword nodes give crit chance to make use of the crit multiplier implicit on thrusting swords.

This said, always go with what's closest to you. Efficiency is king.

Thanks bros! :) I'll go with the pure dmg nodes then instead of chasing down the specific wpn ones.

The more specific the nodes, the more powerful they are usually.

Generic physical damage: relatively low bonus but easily accesible and work for any spell/attack that does physical damage. Nodes are usually in small clusters
Weapon class specific nodes: nodes like 1-handed damage or dualwield usually offer stronger boni and are also usually in small clusters of 3-4 nodes with a powerful Notable.
Weapon specific nodes: give the most bang for your buck and often come in one large cluster with multiple Notables and a few smaller ones. They are usually located on the outer ring of the skilltree so it takes a few skillpoints to get there.


Personal recommendation: Go with what you have nearby and focus on efficient use of skillpoints early on. Leave the big weapon specific clusters for later when you have decided on a specific weapon type. When you have decided on a specific weapon type, take at least one of the big clusters and you will have a very good basis for your build damage wise. I often get whatever nodes are nearby and respec these to get to the more effective ones later on. Focus on geting notables since they are usually worth at least 2-3 'normal' passives!

Example: lets that you want to play a life/evasion based Shadow or Ranger focusd on physical damage with swords then you could start out planning your tree with something like This Build. This build would give you plenty of life, evasion, damage, attack speed, block, accuracy as well as some elemental resistances and additional utility like leech, mana and block/stun recovery and so on.


edit: build example