The Ranger.
All alone in the wilderness.
The Ranger has a simple problem. There is nothing he can contribute to the party that another profession can't do better. Bow attacks are weak, pets are awkward and underpowered, nature spirits do a magnificent job at making your enemy kill your allies better or contribute so little that they aren't worth a skillslot, traps are only good for absurdly slow, niche play, and the limit to a single stance and a single preparation is vastly inferior to the way other professions can stack enchantments,
Every role that the Ranger is supposed to fill is accomplished better by someone else. If you want area damage, a Crit Barrager is a better choice. If you want an Interrupter, Panic or Migraine run circles around Broad Head Arrow or Magebane Shot. If you want an NPC bodyblocker, spamming minions, spirits, or summons is far superior to bringing fluffy. If you want party-wide buffs, don't even think about those pathetic nature spirits, because they are either so worthless that there's no reason to add the slot, or they will help your hundred foes more than your seven friends. And if you want to inflict conditions, tough luck, because all the afflictions actually worthwhile in PvE are beyond the Ranger's reach, or done far more cheaply through other means.
Now, I'd personally love to call for a complete overhaul of this class, but seeing how the Dervish took nine months, that's not exactly viable. Fortunately, a better way already exists.
Use Kieran Thackery's bar from Hearts of the North as inspiration for a better Ranger.
-Duel purpose skills, one consistent ability, one situational effect.
-Chains that allow the Ranger to access important conditions like Deep Wound and Cracked Armor.
-Create a Marked mechanic using the Assassin attack chain code to let the Ranger set up high impact shots.
-Give him abilities that buff his own mechanics that are neither Stances nor Preparations.
-Link more abilities to Expertise, or split the primary in PvE to actually improve the class's potency.
-Provide more contingency abilities with area effects.
-Craft a few useful support skills that actually aid the party, and are cast in a reasonable time frame.
Make the Ranger actually think about tactics, rather than spamming the Barrage key over and over and over again. Reward those clever tactics with reasonable damage, useful conditions, and occasional spikes for precise shooting. Give pets and bow attacks actual synergy rather than having pet builds rely on melee weapons. Reduce nature spirit casting time and recharge, and give them abilities that actual help (I'm looking at you, Equinox. You are bad, and whoever coded you should feel bad!) the party. And consider making traps viable in single play somehow, but solve the basics first.
The Elementalist
Can't start a fire without a spark.
The other big contender for a serious balance update, but actually a little easier to redo. The Elementalist's problem is also simple. They cause damage, elemental damage in particular. Elemental damage is reduced by armor, Chaos, Holy, Dark, and Untyped damage are not. In Hard Mode, where they enemies have very high armor, the iconic nuker profession's nukes are nullified, while the damage of most other casters is not.
Secondly, Elementalists have to do way too much to get way too little. A mediocre Ele setup requires high Energy Storage to give you enough power in the first five seconds of combat to cast all your buffs and still afford your skills, passive energy management skills to keep the ether flowing (because E.Storage stops contributing jack after the aforementioned first five seconds), boost skills to make your armor-impeded damage actually deal any harm whatsoever, and usually a glyph devoted to active energy management or active boosting. That's half your bar, a good portion of your attributes, and several seconds of setup time, and you haven't even cast a single damage spell yet. Meanwhile, other professions have excellent damage skills that they can fire and forget thanks to armor-ignoring damage, allowing them to fit in other abilities, useful PvE skills, or echo their own superior skills.
Fortunately, changing the ele is fairly easy.
- Reduce the energy pool of E.Storage slightly via split, and give it an Attunement functionality, returning a bit of energy for every elemental spell cast.
- Make the Attunements pure Skills, and give them armor penetration instead of energy.
- Tweak casting times, recharges, and skill costs to make the ele competitive with the pacing other professions can manage.
…..And we're pretty much done. Since Eles are nukers, they are easier to recalculate. Get a good bead on how much damage someone should be able to pull off, and apply that to the elementalist via armor penetration. Condense the amount of skills necessary for the nuker to nuke. Then adjust their pacing to ensure they can continue the fight and always have something to do. While we're on the subject, though, it would be nice to have a few enhancements to the class. Most of their skills do the exact same thing, and thus most are redundant. Giving them a few more skills with alternate functionality, a few more that encourage using two or more elements rather than a single one, and a few more that offer more tactical depth than just throwing nukes might be welcome.
Less immediate, but still relevant cases...
Paragons: Chants are inferior to Shouts. Like the pre-update Dervish, the Motigon suffers from the need to stop attacking to use buffs, and stop buffing to attack. Meanwhile, Imbagon play relies on shouts, which suffer no such drawbacks, to yield better results. Chants also have absolutely lousy targeting, with the paragon becoming less effective when the party is more diverse. Either improve motivation skills to allow the Paragon to contribute to any party instead of having to constantly change his bar if he's in caster, physical, or mixed groups (and no one uses signets enough for Lyrics to work, seriously), or convert chants into a different form, perhaps a toggled ability that provides a continuous bonus, thereby letting the Paragon help his friends while still hurting his foes.
Monks: Worst energy management of any caster, terrible smiting prayers, and the only primary attribute in the game which offers no benefit to any secondary skills. Nothing in the Monk's arsenal can compare to Spirit Siphon, Lyssa's Aura/Power Drain, Signet of Lost Souls, or the way Soul Reaping lets Necromancers go “Lol, energy”. If other caster classes can be perfectly viable without relying on secondaries just to get by, the Monk should be able to manage his own energy without using other professions as a crutch. And while they do fine in the support category, Monks have very little diversity; smiting prayers are practically worthless except for a single elite and get no benefit from Divine Favor, and their primary attribute can't boost their signets, their offense, or any secondary/PvE only skills. Improving them a little would give monk players other things they can do.
