[url=http://i.imgur.com/HXcrFZn.jpg]The skill tree.[/url] An explanation of the game taken from another post: "The character customization system is extreme. Any class can use any skill, because you don't "learn" a skill, you buy the skill gem. You can also pick any talent for any class, which allows for some very interesting choices. The Witch, for example, is the caster class. Fairly weak. However, if you so choose, you could go with the talents, skill gems, and gear to make her into a melee witch. There's an Archer class, but the Duelist (rogue) makes a much better ranged attacker. There's a talent that you can choose that makes Strength increase ranged damage (whereas normally it does not), and then you can load up on Strength and the ranged attacks hit quite hard. The gear is also extremely easy to customize. My Duelist Archer, for example, was heavy on elemental damage. So I went with gear that included increased elemental damage. There's gear that increases any stat you can think of. There's also three different defense systems. Energy Shield, which is a straight up second health bar. Then there's Evasion, which is your chance to avoid an attack completely. Then there's Armor, which reduces damage taken when you get hit. You can combine the three any way you desire. Maybe you want to go Evasion/Energy Shield, so that you don't get hit often but when you do it gets absorbed by your shield automatically. Or maybe armor/shield, so that you take significantly less damage and each hit is absorbed by your shield. Or maybe just pure shield. There's a talent that reduces your health to 1, but significantly increases the strength of the energy shield. So rather than having a high health pool, you'd have an extremely high amount of energy shield instead. Then there's the gems. There are skill gems (Frostbolt, Ice Wall, etc), support gems (Increased elemental damage, gem that gives extra projectiles... so 2 or 3 frostbolts or arrows instead of just 1, etc), and then there are auras which give an effect to your entire party. You can mix and match these gems however you'd like. So, for example, you can combine Frostbolt gem with an Added Fire Damage gem and have a frostbolt that does both frost and fire damage. There's a skill called Ice Lance (or Frost Lance... been a month or so since I've played) that has two forms. The second form only triggers if the spell travels far enough (roughly 3/4 of the screen), and the second form has a 600% increased crit chance. Combine that with an increased elemental gem and an increased critical damage gem, and throw on a multiple projectiles gem and you've got some serious killing power at your hands. The character customization in PoE is extreme. If you can't make the character that you want to make... you're not trying hard enough. The gear, gem, and stat combinations are endless. Literally. There are so many amazing talents, skill gems, and gear options that I haven't even mentioned. Plus there's also over 100 Unique items, which were designed by Diamond Supporters (people who donated $1000 or more). On top of it all, the game is completely free to play. Paying gives no direct gameplay benefits, and likely never will. The devs have ranted time and time again about their hatred for Pay2Win, and currently the item shop only includes extra character slots and extra bank tabs for 30 points each ($10 got you 100 points and access to the closed beta. Not sure what point prices will be like now that it's in open beta). Edit - I completely forgot to talk about the endgame map system, which is extremely important. Rather than having set endgame dungeons... you find scrolls that will create portals to random maps. The scrolls are items that are consumable, and you can alter the scrolls. You can upgrade them in various ways, but each scroll is unique. You may have a scroll that creates a map where the monsters all have double life and deal triple damage, and have frost immunity... or you may get a map where you take 100 damage per second the entire time you're in there... or maybe one where the boss drops extra loot. There are a ton of possibilities, and there's usually 3-5 different effects on each map. The map tileset (the actual gameplay area) is also different for each scroll." The open beta starts tomorrow, so sign up now!