Can any class play any role?

I am new to PoE and in one of the reviews i read, it said something about how deep the skill trees are, and that even a marauder can build full witch skills etc..

I am wondering if this is true before making my char. If i understand correctly, only starting skills, character model and class name are set in stone then?

So if i were to want to play a ranger, but shadow looks the best to me i could go shadow and work towards ranger skills?

If i am pvp-centric is this in any way gimping my char?

Only the Name, Class and those Skill-Gems you get for Quests (you can trade or find others ofc) are set in Stone.

That beeing said, Classes start at different points in the Skilltree and the distance you have to travel from your "random" start point to the passives you want may gimp your Char enough to make you regret your choice.

Because you are new to the game I'd highly recommend you search for a proven Build and do exactly this 1:1 for your first Char to learn what awaits you and what you need to counter it. exilepro.com is a great place to look.
That is, if you're not the kind who likes learning through several chars that don't make it to the endgame.

It is more or less true. However depending on the build you are looking to make, you might have to travel a bit too much for a specific class when another class would not spend as much time travelling.

That being said, any class can basically fulfill any role, with varying levels of success.

I would advice just a regular build. If you want to play with bows, go for ranger, if you like daggers, go shadow, if you like mages, go witch. And so on.

It's the easiest to start with, you'll get enough skill gems to use in that area of the tree of the class.


Oh and btw, you WILL screw up your first character, no matter what :) It's completely natural in this game to fail as soon as you hit cruel~merciless.

You can but not effectively. YOu'll have to travel far and you won't be as powerful.

Only class that can actually do anything is Templar though.

of course some classes are better in specific roles but its not as limited as some say

"

If you want to play with bows, go for ranger

sure, ranger is good for bow builds but some people even say that duelist is "the better ranger"
because he has such a strong start area (gets tons of increased attack speed early on, ect)
and starts right next to ranger so u can also get any ranger passives easily if u want em

another example, shadow makes a great caster just like witch,
shadow starts next to witch, as a caster-witch many builds will head straight into shadow area anyway...

in general a class is more suited to play roles that would typically be played by the classes next to it in the skill tree then to roles typically played by a class on the opposite end of the tree

excuse my bad english plz :)

Sometimes classes that don't appear suited for a certain role have some sort of trick up their sleeves to allow them to excel. I can't really recall many specifics though.