I thought was pretty straight forward, and explained the pros and cons of each advanced class.

Yes. They always have except for a few rare moments in the history of the game. Melee is fundamentally harder then ranged due to uptake cc roots snares etc. Melee requires better position and mechanical skill. Range can have dummy parse games where they go untouched. On the melee side its much more rewarding gameplay if you can do it. This is why you see 90 percent of Maras do no damage. Jug tanks are the easy in your face class simple rotation god tier dcds. Not saying there isnt skill on jug tanks but if you put a noob on a jug vs mara they will contribute more on the jug Edited August 3, 2021 by TmoneyTime

I would say around the time electro-net came into the game, there was a shift. before that, every ranged class was fairly easy pickings. It's not just electro-net, but that was the first really big melee killer. Also, it used to be that only melee had reflect or virtual zero dmg (UDR) cds. Or they could just stealth out. Barrier and reflect kind of changed that meta, and net prevented stealth. for a time, bubble stun made melee classes aids as well.

 

Basically, ranged classes were at a severe disadvantage for quite a while because they lacked mobility or cds - I mean ranged had it way worse than any melee ever has. What we've had for the past 5-6(?) years is a literal and figurative arms race. And the movement abilities have gone beyond what the engine (or maps, apparently) are capable of reliably rendering. All of those movement buffs in turn call for more snares, roots, and immunities.

 

My hope is that ability pruning that players are complaining about on the PTS (only guardians have been tested last I checked) is that mobility abilities, roots/snares, and immunities will be the primary things that are pruned. Some of that could be addressed simply by removing some of the idiotic set bonuses (debilitator comes to mind and the tactical that grants 2 mind mezzes but the latter isn't used much in pvp).

 

TL; DR:

Unfortunately, pruning CC, movement, and immunity abilities doesn't guarantee class balance. In fact, it stands a good chance of turning things back into 1.x where ranged classes couldn't get off a single cast and couldn't kite at all. The only thing it would definitely improve is the performance of the game engine. Balance requires a deeper dive, but it should start with removing abilities that the engine struggles to "render" on the "average" computer rig and broadband connection.

Edited August 3, 2021 by CheesyEZ