QUOTE(neoengsheng @ Jan 10 2011, 06:01 PM)
Like I said, Blizzard never revealed how they itemized the armor and weapons and they never revealed whether all those will be class specific or not, so if we are to assume that they stick to the old Diablo 3 rule of wear anything as long as you fulfill the requirements, then it is going to be a problem especially with mages when they can have the best of both world.
Its not a good thing too if pure classes such as mage, barbarian that are limited to doing damage in physical or magical becoming less desirable because they they have less choices to tackle a challenge compared to hybrid classes such as demon hunter or maybe monk that can do physical and magic damage since this change benefit hybrid the most in my opinion. Its just not enjoyable to play a game when 70% of the population plays the same class.
Asking Blizzard to implement a hybrid tax like in WoW is a workaround but just not a good one.
Thats why I prefer Blizzard to split up the stats and let the players decide what they want.
They did kinda tell us there will be class specific items. It's also stated in the post about the huge attr changes. Affixes.
QUOTE
Like I said, Blizzard never revealed how they itemized the armor and weapons and they never revealed whether all those will be class specific or not, so if we are to assume that they stick to the old Diablo 3 rule of wear anything as long as you fulfill the requirements, then it is going to be a problem especially with mages when they can have the best of both world.
You're forgetting stats progression. Mage will not have the same resilience as e.g. Barb even with the same gear. Also fight mechanics/monster attributes.. iron maiden/ immunes anyone?

Fine, mages grabs same +Attack gear as a barb now who'd you think will last assuming they both got hold of the same set/runes/what nots that throws 100 DPS for both. You still have yet to take the consideration of builds.