How to make characters less generic !!!

This is my idea for a question that was asked in the latest Q&A with chris

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Do you have any plans to make characters less generic / much more different to each other? For example, would you add class skills, make differences in life/mana/stats per level, change base attack speed for specific weapons, etc?

We constantly think of crazy ideas to achieve this kind of thing but so far none of them have made it into a version of the game that the public has seen. We'll see!

I think the best way to implement this would be additional paths exclusivly for each class which lead in the other direction and don't connect to the rest of the tree

here's an example with the marauder area http://i.imgur.com/OXpjI56.jpg (if there is not enough room to add enough skill nodes just make them a bit stronger and cost 2 points instead)

No one responded, but I think this is actually a good idea.

I too think that the characters can be too similar. For example, you can make a magic build that starts off as witch, templar, scion, or shadow and they are very close to each other.

To me I think there has to be an intrinsic thing to a Templar. When I think of a templar, I think of heavily armoured characters, who have LIMITED magical abilities.

when I think of shadow, I think of assassins, who uses daggers, claws, shurikens, traps, who are Weak as hell with armour and defenses, but make up for it by being in the shadows, and being fast as hell. I guess you can include using light magical abilities to create DOT skills, or to augment traps, or to turn invisible, but they shouldn't be powerhouse magical users, that would be what the witch is for.

So for example, I see each class has one or two block nodes, and then you have to travel FAR for block nodes. To me, the shield nodes should be more heavily in the Templar and Deulist tree, and less if even at all located in the witch or shadow tree. That way, a block build templar, doesn't have to travel through Marauder, scion, Duelist AND Ranger tree just to max block like the build of the week had.

Damage wise, crit should not be automatic like capping at 95%, it should be something much more rare, so that Marauder's strength makes him the far stronger damage dealer, that only loses when a shadow or ranger crits, but if crit is ubiquitous, then he loses everytime like it occurs right now.

Other ways to differentiate is having nodes that no other class can get like you mentioned.
Nodes that are FAR from any other class
Nodes that actually do what the class is meant to do
Classes should be heavily invested in their own tree, with "build building" excursion into other trees, or "exotic builds" as oppose to routinely moving into other trees
You gotta fix melee, or else, what's the point in sticking to your tree if your tree is ineffective, same goes to fixing armour
You could make leveling up give different amount of points for life, evasions, and so forth for the different classes. After all, the initial starting differences mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of everything.

Though I like the skill tree very much, it still needs some love. Excellent idea!

Maybe it would be even better if you could connect to the rest of the tree with ONE WAY nodes pointing only outwards, so it remains class specific but more interesting.

Ascendancy is actually pretty much this :D awsome I'm hyped for it!