Just stash the second set in your (a bit overly limited) item stash and swap over when you feel like it. The cost isn’t that high if you’re selling stuff for gold.
The hardest part is actually finding the new pieces to work with.
I’m constantly making small edits to home in on what I want exactly and even then I’m keeping backup items for various slots just in case I want to try testing something.
Yeah, I don’t understand this whole ‘dying on a hill’ to defend the high costs to change skills or paragon boards. I don’t care what the developers say, they should focus on fun first. Besides the whole Lilith Statue thing, leaderboards do not matter.
“You shouldn’t be able to change to take on every challenge!” - Cool, then have it for free every 1-3 days. Find the balance.
“Your choices are supposed to matter!” - Okay, then myself and others will just look up the meta builds so we don’t make mistakes and be punished for them for wanting to succeed. Then everyone just runs the same one or two things because that somehow improves the game?
“You can easily farm that money for a respec doing 10 NM dungeons!” - Maybe you have time to do that, but if your current build doesn’t perform, it might take more time and more lower level dungeons to get to that point.
World of Wacraft and Diablo 3 moved away from respec costs. You can literally change your build in WoW anytime except in combat or while in a dungeon in Mythic Plus. You just step outside the dungeon in that example and change it up. It makes no sense in Diablo 4 except to waste player’s time. Literally what the recent expansion in WoW moved away from for the most part.
If it has to remain in game, just reduce the cost by at least 75%. Keep the high cost for rerolling affixes on gear.
Sorry the game makes you feel this way as it is and maybe it would be better idk.
My Hot take
Game was designed for more meaningful choice through commitment and encourages re-roll and new character making.
Hence the low respec cost’s early on, kinda work out what you want to go for,and then as it progresses you commit.
Also leads into the best part about the alts being boosted in points and skills etc from the main is that for example my main is a shapeshift druid and i make an alt to try storm
It’s way way faster to catch the alt druid up and this is good since i am playing the same character.
My only issue with this system is s new class by default can never opt in to experience the game as a fresh character unless i delete my old characters.
So my thinking is you love druid or whatever eventually you could have a druid of each type if you wanted and play the one you want to play.
Probably why there is no build template, in game it’s not encouraging it for a reason.
A gear armoury might be good, alternate gear that supports the build though.
That’s my thinking, could be wrong…maybe it’s just bad…but i see alot of wanting the same systems in a new game from old games and kinda ignoring and not looking a d4 as different 
Maybe i am alone but having a darksouls commitment vibe is not that bad,i remeber in darksouls needing to delete my first character after getting pretty far because they were to weak and hard for me to play and i learnt from the mistakes and hit a wall, this isn’t even as rough as that,which is good although i would be fine with it.
It creates meaning and i feel closer to my character and, they old ways are fine but new is good, different is good.
Maybe embrace D4 and give it time to soak, before screaming to blizzard to strip the game to bare bones so early on.
Even non hardcore gamers dive into the darksouls games and have fun once they learn to embrace what it is.
It seems like a slap in the face but is it really?..
Trouble is i get it they can’t please everyone, but maybe give it more of a chance,slow down and look at the options the game gives you.
Aspects (and losing a decently rolled one) are definitely far more limiting than the respec cost by far.
If I could pull them off and put them back on again as freely as gems then I’d have an incredibly easy time shuffling things around for minor (and major) experiments.
Mostly because finding an equivalent “good” item to place a different aspect on can take quite a while.
Here are the problems with the system:
I 100% agree with all these points and I wanted to add my own if someone hasn’t already.
Blizzard: Please give us Build Templates that we can save builds to. If you are going to charge so much to try stuff out, please at least let us save the builds so we don’t have to pay twice if we change our mind.
Plus, extra builds could be helpful for PVP, Uber Lilith and/or general farming.
Relying on external tools to plan a character because the game systems are prohibitive seems to be a major flaw in systems design.
I have voiced this vocally in Beta and some of the white-knight dummies defending or marginalizing this are in this very thread.
Imagine paying for a class on Mathematics, but they do not provide you with any textbook or learning tools. When you ask your professor questions, they just ignore you. There are these students in your class that end up developing their own textbook, tutotrial videos, and then post tips and tricks for solving the equations on YouTube. In return, your school decides to then punish your entire class because one of the students posted some obscure method to solve equations effectively.
That is Blizzard and Diablo 4 in a nutshell.
Low respec costs do the opposite, as the current state of D4 clearly shows. The cost to change skills before level 60 is trivial, yet people gravitate to meta builds. This is not because they are afraid to spend meaningless amounts of gold, it is because it is so cheap to change skills that they feel compelled to do so.
It’s easy to experiment now because the cost is super easy to afford until literally the end of a character’s path. People don’t want to experiment because the game is still new and all the tier lists and streamers and forum posts tell them that their character will be trash if it strays from the narrow path because anything that can’t push NM 60+ and defeat Uber Lilith is absolute garbage. The only way to make it cheap enough to overcome that would be to also let you respec your items.
And they can do that easily well past the point where they have all the skill points. If they aren’t doing it, the problem is not that the cost is too high, it’s that it is too low.
Forcing players to choose between major branch points on their character and yet still handle all content introduces far greater depth because you have to find ways to shore up weaknesses rather than just avoiding them.
They reduce build investment, which reduces diversity and homogenizes classes, making it less interesting to create an alt of the same class. Instead of people trying to get their build to work, they switch to the flavor of the month and then complain when it is nerfed. Again, people are complaining that there is nothing to do at high levels. If they wanted to play with other builds they could do that.
yet people gravitate to meta builds.
people increasingly gravitate towards meta builds because experiementing on their own and taking risks is cost prohibitive because of the respec system
find ways to shore up weaknesses rather than just avoiding them.
shoring up weaknesses via apsect powers and stacking damage reduction is meaningful and takes time to discover and tune. adding respec costs as an additional layer to the truly engaging parts of gameplay is limiting gameplay, not encouraging it.
reduces diversity and homogenizes classes,
there is nothing in modern gaming that homogenizes classes more than imposing in-game fines via gold to experiment. players do not want to waste their time and as a result will seek out meta build guides or subsequently quit the game altogether. with no respec cost, players are freeer to build and test. this is highlighted in popular RPGs will respec free building.
Why keep the cost for enchanting and rerolling? Everytime you respec, you are doing so probably to use new gear, working with new abilities, thus, you have to imprint, extract, reroll, all of those prices are insanely high too. All of these costs need to be significantly reduced.
This game, sadly, is hugely prohibited. If people want to watch people for Meta builds, they will. Nothing will change that. Punishing people into “stick with this build - but we will give you everything gear wise you do not need for this build to progress” is also a huge limitation of this game. It makes zero logical sense for 90% of the gear you see dropped to be from every other build than the one the player needs or wants. They need to fix this too. I know, people, the white knights will say “but this is how they get people to keep grinding”. No, this is how you get people to say F this S… and stop playing altogether.
I’m a level 100 Barbarian. I’ve easily a couple hundred hours with the game. During that time I collected full tabs worth of gear to try different Core, Arsenal, Mastery builds with. Now that I’m 100 its very clear the game doesnt want me to play my way and try wacky, off the wall builds
The systems by their very nature are prohibitive to the point that in order to not waste my time I should follow someone elses guide.
Don’t even get me started with the Uniques.
What I’m experiencing is what other players will be running into later on, and I suspect with similar feedback.
And they are not IMO - you can complete a full respec with minimal time investment into a couple of gold runs at most.
The real cost comes in upgrading gear and re-rolling affixes - now that is a time investment!
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I feel your pain. I’m not 100, only 74. However, after over 115 hours, seeing all the gear be for all other builds that I do not want constantly, I’m starting to get very disappointed. It would be different if the respec, reroll, enchant costs were not crazy and I could freely bounce between the gear, skills, and paragons to enjoy the variety, but that is not the case. I mean it cost me like 500K to extract and imprint, each. Insane. It makes no sense to be that crazy. It is like, we do not want you to enjoy experimentation. A bunch of crazy nonsense.
You made the point for us. The crux of trying new builds is the gear and affixes, not arbitrary respec costs as an additional layer.
I’ve 240 hours worth of gear. Time I spent enjoying the game, but now I need to pay a fine to use it all because swapping abilities and paragon resembles a pen & paper RPG.
Yeah, it is a huge combination of F you that the devs gave players in this game.
Stash space plays into this quite a bit - if they doubled or tripled the available storage then it would help substantially.
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