I still don't see Duelist's identity

A little late to the party here (particularly as I'm also relatively new to the game) but I can't help but feel like Duelist really has nothing truly special about it.

The only thing it has access to easier than other classes is the whole IR + US combo because you start in the middle of them. From there though, there aren't many great passives in the area of the tree.

Duelist was the second class I tried out, and I did so to play with a friend so I hadn't any time to prepare or find a build so I just went with what felt right. Even though I really enjoyed the class, I couldn't bring myself to continue with it. My initial plan was to design a character around the concept of Rapiers and Shields. The passives at the start seemed to work into my plan fine, but then I realized that a shield was very nearly pointless, particularly early on. Even though I had two skill points in one handed damage increases - I found myself using a two-handed sword simply because it did so much more damage that everything became so much simpler (went from 2 shotting with double stike to 1 shotting with heavy strike) and I was having more fun. Due to my lack of requirement for damage passives now, I found myself aiming for defensive ones. This is when I thought to myself "Why am I playing Duelist if I'm spending all my passives tanking up when Marauder has better passives for that?".

Out of curiosity, the next day I started checking the forums. I had come across a dilemma and wasn't sure what to do with this class anymore. All I saw for builds were 2H or DW - and reading up some it seems as though there is no place for shields in most melee builds. Moosifier's 2H build interested me the most, and based strictly on the passives he used he could have started at Marauder as he traveled all the way to one of the two Marauder starting nodes.

This is where I got frustrated - Duelist really doesn't do anything special. The two primary methods of playing it involve DW or 2H, and the Keystones many Duelist's get don't really change the play-style much which is somewhat disheartening. I started messing around with the offline skill tree calculator, and noticed a few things about shields that really bug me.

#1 - There's no true "shield" class. The shield passives are strewn all across the tree, and to pick all of them up you need to spend most, if not all, of your points.

#2 - There are no Keystones around shields. I'm not sure why at all. There are definitely some interesting ideas you can come up with for shield keystones - from trading block chance or value for damage to blocking spells or elemental damage to stunning on block. There are plenty of ways to augment the functionality of a shield, so I find it surprising there are no keystones that do this. Passives like CI/PA/EB/BM can be considered "build-defining" - the change the nature of a character and become a milestone to your end goal.

#3 - The values associated with the current shield passives are underwhelming at best. Dual wield block chance has passives that increase it by 2%, and so does shield? When you're talking about having one weapon in each hand versus a weapon in one and a shield in another, you're talking about a HUGE change. If you're sacrificing defense by not using a shield in order to have more offensive power with a secondary weapon, you should feel that choice. Including passives that increase block rate while dual wielding are nice touches, but they overshadow the shield passives that do the same. Unless the shield passives can turn you into a near perma-blocking machine, they become a waste. Maybe I'm wrong on the blocking aspect, since I haven't been able to test what a full block chance build would look like, but it seems low. 20-30% increased defenses on shields is also pretty underhwelming. Why would I get this when I can get 20-30% increased armor/es/evasion - the general passives apply to all of my armor, the shield to just the shield. Again, you've sacrificed the option of a secondary weapon to increase your defense, and if you decide to invest in passive skills to beef up your shield power they should reflect that. At best it seems on-par with the +30% armor passives which seems odd.

To me, Duelist is ALMOST fine as it is. You have the options of both Marauder and Ranger - the only problem is you have nothing to offer as an incentive for picking Duelist. A Duelist can easily find himself skilling all the way to the Marauder starting area, yet I doubt many Marauders are skilling that close to the Duelist starting area. All Duelist needs to be relevant is a few Keystone passives that could make iconic builds. Perhaps a Dual Wield passive that cuts down on the offensive effectiveness of your offhand, but increases its' defensiveness. Shield passives that can block spells, or offer a trade in defensiveness for more offensive power. I just feel like there's nothing making any Duelist build unique, and it ends up trying to be LIKE a Marauder or LIKE a Ranger. Move some shield passives down to the Duelist side, and make the first few nodes a little more noteworthy (like block rate along with 1H, slightly better DW and 2H etc) and Duelist would seem a lot more unique.

The issue really is that duelists seem to be a class that tanks or gains durability via mitigation, and as it stands, armor just straight sucks. Therefore their entire initial plan, so to speak, of defense, is somewhat in disarray, meaning they have to transverse farther then intended to gain the correct amount of durability to survive in melee range, which gimps them offensively, as they MUST invest in hp nodes, and must invest in traveling to said hp nodes. Once armor and evasion get ironed out, duelist will be in a much better place.