Switching gear

General

A developer confirmed that gear can be switched during combat, although some restrictions may apply.
Here are the two most recent quotes in that regard:

You can switch gear during combat but there will be some restrictions related to this which we’ll talk more about later. The main thing to keep in mind is that simply swapping a single weapon/wieldable in your hand isn’t enough to switch your “class”. It’s more multipronged than that and the synergies of different gears, traits and your skills is what defines your “class” so while you can have strategies built around some gear swapping, you can’t completely change your strengths and weaknesses during a single encounter and switching to gear that doesn’t fit with the rest most likely benefits you nothing.

Like we’ve said before; The decisions you make before the encounter are at least as important as the ones you make during the encounter so having knowledge about the encounter and how to ready for it has a huge impact on your success. While switching gear is possible, knowing which gear to have ready for that and when to switch is more important than having as much gear with you as possible.