Ellyidol, great thread...

In PL I like the Mage the most because they have variety of skills so lots of interesting gameplay and cool-looking skills. They seem good at solo and groups which is cool. However this balance is sorta trying to square the circle ie

Support/Healer -> needed for groups but flexible skill options to solo!
Tank -> high enough survival to tank but enough damage to be fun?

etc.

If we look at your observation in the OP: Buffs should buff only, not be more powerful than the actual gameplay or other skills I think that's a really good point.

Problem is above^: Each class needs x/12 skills to be Specialist and the other y/12 to be general enough to create different playstyles I think could be said?? So the UI is limiting what each class can do and maybe the combat mechanics that go with that... so instead if SL has:

Weapons: Each has 3-6 skills within each weapon and classes can carry either 3-5 weapons at a time, that opens up the UI to MORE SKILLS to balance specialist builds that support or tank with generalist skills ie pick the right combination of weapons which gets around the problem of having 12 skills on the UI atsm. Because a GCD could be used for using a weapon before swapping (This could apply to weapons or gear)?

Ie a super hierarchy of skills. Different Weapons (z) > Weapon (z-y1) > Skills (z-y1-xi) where z = Engineer weapons, y = powerglove, xi = 1 out of 3/4 skills on this weapon eg

As to maintain class differences especialy buffs, an Engineer could have a Powerglove that has more buffs skills slotted on it eg? That way switches to buff weapon, but obviously CC and DPS is really limited during the GCD until they switch again or need to --> timing using it. Hopefully other classes could have this too. Eg Commando can have more weapon options than the other classes maybe??

Buffs could also be LOW power but there could be buff-combos to boost their effect perhaps is another solution maybe?