Classes or builds....

[stauch]

Just adding in another "select screen" at character creation does not in any way necessitate them to make shared abilities between builds from the same "base class", and honestly it would be a pure illusion of choice. It might very well come later to clean it up a bit but I feel that if they do it then people will demand that they should be able to switch between the builds at the in-game respec NPC's since they are part of the same "class" now.

[kfmc]

Well, I only suggested that since it Cryptic seems to be insistent on making them distinctly separate. However, it's still possible for them to use the a "base class" system if they truly want to go that way.

Yes, from a player's perspective, it is an illusion of choice. And that choosing a Guardian Fighter, will not in any way, shape, or form, let you build more offensively like a Great Weapon Fighter would be. On the other hand, I'm looking at it more from an internal mechanics point of view, like with Powers. Let me use Clerics as an example (since that's easier to visualize than Fighter Powers). Regardless of what Cleric you are, you'll typically get Cure Light Wounds and/or Bless. At the same time, a Battle Cleric (yes, this is not in-game yet -it's just an example) might favor weapon based skills like Wrathful Thunder while a Devout Cleric will get Divine Glow.

With the current class system, for each iteration of Cleric, they have to add Bless and Cure Light wounds to their respective skill sets. But if they instead made Battle Cleric and Devout Cleric share a same base "Cleric" class, they just have to add both spells to one skill set, while adding other powers specifically to Devout like they currently are. Sure, 2 Powers seem easy work, but when you start having more of them, and ontop of that you want to start tweaking/fine tuning them, then it's so much easier if they're shared.

In fact, if (though it's a big IF) we get the chance to select from multiple Paragon Paths, then that's how I imagine Powers obtained after 30 will work. From 30 onwards, we'll probably still get the usual Devout Cleric Powers while at the same time getting a Power/s specific to which Paragon we pick.