I see a lot of people with bad takes so I'll give my thoughts here. I don't have all the expensive proc gear, I just play all three classes and grinded them to 81 so your ordinary player's opinion for what it's worth
1) The experience of leveling is different than endgame by a whole lot, with not so good gear mages need to get carried through Misty Grotto, and simply do less damage than rouges. Aquarius changes Mages to be v strong. For warriors, with okay gear you do similar enough damage to an early mage... with WAY MORE damn survivability making the class feel way better. Rouges do the most damage but are squishy, I like where they are now, though they feel like superior mages until endgame
2) Class identify for Warrior without looking at the raw numbers, my impressions and improvements:
Warriors Juggernaut charged skill feels great to pull off, you "stand and deliver" massive sweeping cleaves and whirlwinds while being an absolute unit, it feels great.
The other skills are rather lackluster, for example the Axe throw pull is a good spell utility wise but not feel wise, you chuck something at an enemy and it dies from afar in grinding lvl areas, or it's just a single targeted meh damage ability. I would prefer this ability to fire two projectiles, pull, and debuff, while doing less damage, think "get over here" as a utility spell. Rallying Cry and Vengeful blood both feel like duplicates of Juggernaut while going against warriors feel, warriors should be tanking and debuffing, not third rate healing and recovering mana and health. Buffing should be part of the mages core identity, and maybe one skill in rouge's kit. Having AoE taunts and debuffs replacement effects, ie taunts that *feel* like you're GRABBING enemy attention instead of the changing tracking effect we have now // and making other classes like mages low damage high AoE spells shine, or supporting rouges high single target on bosses further, where warriors shouldnt be oneshotting but being a team player, making other teammates feel good and saving their butts from the high dmg bosses
3) Class identify for Mages without looking at the raw numbers, my impressions and improvements:
Fireball is in a good place thematically and effectivity wise, Whirlwind felt like a movement only spell to me for the longest time until I tried the point blank upgrade without the dash. As an AoE spell I like point blank but it is ALSO very viable to not upgrade either point blank OR the dash for a frontal AoE cone stun. It feels bad to be slow, it feels bad to blast away warriors pulls, it feels bad to pinch points on your meh skill to put into generic flavorless passives (more on that later). Lighting is just plainly a bad spell, it takes rouges high damage and crit role, slaps a low cooldowns on it, and tells you to sink ten levels of points for "BIG number more good" hurr durr. Terrible/10. Ice Bolt, if you're not pulling mobs 2+ at a time, usually when you're grinding a place solo and failing the damage check, you NEED the single target freeze to spam your low damage AoE spells on a boss level health trash mob, it's role shouldn't exist. The flip side of this is similar to why I dislike lighting, dealing high single target with a low cooldown makes what I call a spam mage, where you run fireballs with 3s cooldowns, lighting w/ 3s, and Ice w/ 3s and a skill of choice. This built has significantly more damage than other specs while ruining class identity. Lightning should be plain deleted, mana for damage conversion spells feel gross, while Ice Bolt should be a small wave, say frost breath, similar to the frontal attack un-upgraded Gale Force. Gale Force is tricky, its like a redundant Fireball and I don't have any solid improvements for it.
Whew okay, sheilds and heals
Sheilds first: it should be a warrior's job to keep aggro (not that it means much in the high DPS meta rn). That said Mage's sheilds would be a fantastic way to give allies a buff that mattered, perhaps not as strong as the individual shield of course, but people run pets for shields all the time and this would make mages feel better to play and useful when their damage output isn't the highest. Heals aren't worth discussing with pots sadly, put pots to auto and nobody cares.
In general a new buff is needed exclusive to the mage class, one idea Ive had is stun/slow resist instead of the philosophy of every class gets an ability to remove it. "Free Spirited" or the like, paired with a movement buff instead of as a Mage having to spam Gale Forces to stay up with your party, as well as improving class utility as support.
Please for the love of God rework Curse into a viable buff for your party!
Time Shift is alright, no need to fix what isn't broken, though I must say running in to drop a Clock as a Mage feels bad because you're taking Warrior's work and nessisitating to throw that out the window to use your spell
4) Class identify for Rouge without looking at the raw numbers, my impressions and improvements:
Shadow Piercer and Razor shield are cool.
SSS is mage's job, if this had a reduce hit chance by a % debuff instead of just damage and impact upgrades it would feel better, maybe a concussion swirl animation above heads
Aimed Shot... okay where do I begin? Increased crit chance makes me like this spell as I am a big fan of skills that aren't simply trade mana for damage, however that said this is what this spell is. Given that this is rouge this is actually fine in my books.. if noxious bolt wasn't the same exact spell. If noxious bolt was reworked into a DoT "bleed" spell that reapplied on basic attacks (reopen wounds) up to a maximum duration, this would be a far better feeling effect for feel reasons as above and making basic attacks more useful.
Shadow Veil could easily be reworked into one of the coolest skills, given that rouges are squishy, having an invincibility to aggro buff for 2-3 seconds with a critical buff would be stellar, debuffs should be warriors forte, group buffs sorcerer, and a self buff to not get killed and more damage is on theme for rouge
Entangling Trap has such a cool placement animation holy sh*t! Great work
From my playtesting of the skill the main use of it was to hope it proc'd the AoE mob pull and spam it, while running back and forth to hope it gets walked over. I like the skill it takes to have it trigger and area control, that's dope, but could be a hair larger area to pop and larger chance.
My MAIN theory-crafted idea for rouge is Wounds/ or bleed for simplicity. I would like to see wounds be rouges main gimmick, not exchanging mana for damage. Imagine a class based proc that would reapply based on skills, say the dagger leap between enemies or basic attacks under the reworked the Shadow Veil (now giving 2-3 seconds of invis crit %+) have a chance to proc bleed, razor shield keeps the Wound debuff timer frozen while in effect (since this proc chance should be hard to proc and maintaining means damage), with Noxious bolt (now bleed bolt or whatnot) would reset to the maximum cooldown. This would make rouges have high single target dps while requiring an active playstyle, like a mini game that isn't press Aimed Shot Nox Bolt and wait until you can trade mana for damage again.
PASSIVES
Having the same ones for each class is boring, they have the potential to be so much more, for example the long idea of the Wounds on rouges, instead of being small improvements to stats or gold luck for crying out loud, masteries and passives could be builts for classes. For example, a thorn proc for mage that makes the reworked party Shield buff into a thorn sheild, reflecting back a portion of damage. Or say "Menacing Aura" for Warriors, basic attacks while in Juggernaut have a chance to taunt! So many damn cool opportunities instead of more movement speed and 3% crit! Masteries should remain small improvements to your favorite skills like cooldown or mana cost, though some Masteries are definitely better than others honestly
For your average Joe who doesn't have millions or rich friends, making each class have a purpose/feel good to play/and effective TOGETHER would be much more an incentive to play in parties than class teams buffs. Having a unique build for your Toon would be the best thing that happened to this game, gear wouldn't need to have crazy procs to be relevant, but better stat procs as icing on the cake your character is, not the other way around. Your gear makes you, not your thought into how you spec'd your class. To recap my ideas are: Warrior's the one who helps keep everyone alive (with say aggro that changes to the highest dps so constant retaunts being useful) and debuffs, mages with buffs like sheilds etc and heals for a true support class feel (I don't even like pots period, feels bad to use like you're paying gold to play without a friend), and rouges with high dmg output and their wound DoT skills or otherwise, maybe a critical strike build. The conversation about class balance stems from the fact you don't have much incentive to play as a team if you have big number dmg, and some classes doing less damage than others (AS THEY SHOULD DAMMIT). If the classes worked together that raised the damage and effectiveness of the party as a whole there wouldn't be the bad feeling of "why am I playing this class if it sucks and is useless". Hence all the whining about this and that OP OP OP nerf nerf nerf. Balancing should come from class design first, items second. Love the game, any response if this is useful, considered, or unusable and why would be greatly appreciated Cinco
This took a while to type haha
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