One thing that annoyed me about pillars, was how character development was so heavily weighted around these best in slot type items.
Character builds weren't "I want to make a tanky melee fighter" it was "I want to make a tanky melee fighter, but to do it I need this item and that item and this other items and then boom I have my character!"
Basically, instead of augmenting builds, items MADE builds.
I much prefer the augment approach, which allows for a more take it or leave it style of character development.
Now, keep in mind, this is strictly for path of the damned. You could beat Pillars with just about anything on lower difficulties, but on higher difficulties, especially the first 1/3rd of the game, the game was a delight, difficult, challenging, items were not so intertwined with the builds. However as you progressed, if you didn't want the game to be a brutal slog, you had to adopt an item centric min/max build, and it kind of sucked.