are POE2 genders locked to classes again? I like playing as STR women characters in RPGs and I remember in POE1 you could only play thin, dex or int based female chars (because buff women don't exist)
The gender of the class is locked, but you can use any skill with any class and all of the classes use the same skill tree but start at different locations. The most popular build of this current expansion of POE 1 was to play the Ranger class as melee.
In POE 1, each class had more access to a specific attribute, like Witch was Intelligence, Marauder was Strength, Ranger was Dexterity. Scion is a hybrid class in POE. In the trailer for POE 2, they showed that you can change the attribute node on the passive tree so that any class can specialize in any attribute. So you could choose to be a witch but then stack strength.
Each ascendancy has a special focus. The trailer shows 6 ascendancies in the early access which are women: Stormweaver (lightning abilities), Chronomancer (time manipulation, this is new idk), Deadeye (projectile abilities), Pathfinder (poison and potions), Infernalist (fire abilities), and Bloodmage (blood magic). At first glance, Deadeye looks to be an ascendancy that is meant to be played only with bows, however the class actually benefits all projectile abilities including projectiles created by spells and melee weapons.
It's hard to say right now what builds will be possible because of limited information. Many of the most powerful builds in POE 1 were from using classes in unconventional ways, like by having the Maurader be a spell caster, having the Witch fire a bow, or having the Ranger do melee attacks.
You're correct sadly. They did mention that they had considered adding gender variants a while ago.
For what it's worth, you don't have to play the attributes of the class. The new ascendancies they showed for the Witch seem like they will work just fine for melee, especially the infernalist which has ignite skills; that will definitely work best with skills that hit big and slow, so you will have the chance to make a strong and chunky witch if you desire.
how much do you reckon classes matter then? Shame that there really isn't that much variety in the fem body types, but if classes are loose then i suppose it's something
I was really looking forward to PoE2, but I was working under the assumption that would be something they'd fix but it really does feel like women characters are locked down to specific class tropes :/
Just as much as they do in PoE1. They only determine where you start in the skill tree and what ascendancies you can choose from, but you can still get to any point in the skill tree regardless of starting location, and the ascendancies seem to be designed to be very generic such that the Warrior ascendancies are the only ones that are specifically for melee. All the other ascendancies are super general and they will be playable with any given archetype (well, maybe a melee deadeye is gonna be hard to justify but I'm sure there's melee skills that launch projectiles like Molten Strike or Lightning Strike in POE1). The Sorceress ascendancies also seem fairly generic and will probably work fine for elemental melee builds, but you'll probably have to use quarterstaves instead of maces because all the mace skills that are gonna be in Early Access are physical or fire themed, while Sorceress needs other elements to get full use out of her ascendancy.
Also keep in mind Huntress hasn't been added yet but she will be a spear wielding class (you can, of course, use any weapon type on any class but she's themed around spears) so that might kinda be closer to the fantasy you mean.