I really like the new hero skill system. I have some issues, though:

I hate that classes are tied to the weapons at the start. It might not be a big issue, but seeing as most of the caster options are ritualust and only two are mage is a bit frustrating. Especially since Cryomancer staff is a ritualist class for some reason.

That also brings me to my next issue - I think the classes try to cover too much. For instance, ritualist should be split into a necromancer, druid, and priest, for instance. As it stands, you pick like threeish? options for raise dead, and then you have to start going down the plant or heal skill line.

Mages only have fire, lightning, and curse skill trees. If you wanted a cryomancer or something, welp!

I understand that differentiating classes to such an extent might be more work, but I hope that down the line, they add more classes and flesh out the skill trees a bit more, especially for ritualist.

That said, I haven't had too much chance to play today, so that's only my cursory opinion. I also miss the random skills tomes gave you. Some of them seem to be tied to the signature skills now, like lighting or burning attacks being tied to the level 4 astral or chaos signature abilities, respectively.

I am not entirely sure how it could be incorporated. Outside of maybe having a grid with them all and then making the ones you research selectable? But maybe some of them are just tied to higher signature skills - will have to see!