Shattered Kingdoms

There have been a bunch of balance tweaks in the past year or so. I'm curious how people think balance is between the classes currently. Which classes need a buff? Which need a nerf? Making a rough list of most powerful to least powerful might be helpful.

And not to be a jerk, but please only post your opinion if you feel that you have a solid understanding of game mechanics and pk strategy, and if you are not a newb.

swashbuckler - weakest
warlock
scout
bard
necromancer
Rogue
Hellion
Paladin
Sorcerer
Shaman
Barbarian
Mercenary
Priest -strongest

Strongest being defined as the least in need of tweaks. Weakest being most in need.

I'll get to my list in a bit, but I just wanted to say LOL in response to this list's order.

Strongest to weakest:

1. Shaman
2. Sorceror
3. Mercenary
4. Barbarian
5. Necromancer
6. Hellion
7. Paladin
8. Rogue
9. Priest
10. Warlock
11. Scout
12. Swashbuckler
13. Bard

My focus on making this list was surviability, utility and pvp potential without the need for cabal/tribunal abilities.

I think the consensus for awhile has been that swashbucklers need tweaking. Warlocks have been tweaked but i've not yet seen a display of how those changes have made them more viable. After that, I think scouts and bards are more often than not used as slaves for a few abilities (herbalism, songs of healing) rather than being capable independently (Recent log of arrows sucking, few bards have ever solo pked). Necromancers are powerful but need a few obvious tweaks. Hellions, Paladins, and rogues are pretty good IMO.

Priests are the best class in game followed closely by Mercenaries. Everything else is just filler.

Mercenary can also be the weakest class. Specialize can easily be screwed up. Situationally, the ability of each class can change though. Rogues though, are way too easy to counter.

I laughed at your list because you ordered it in the exact opposite order that Baldric asked for.

Trag, curious why did you put bard under swashie?

I would rate priests pretty highly in the list, but I would also not wish to have them touched in terms of tweaks. Would rather work from the weakest class upwards than to peg down the strongest.

When it comes to priest ranking, it's highly dependant upon the faith they're in. The faith spells are by no means balanced in any way, and there's a fair number of those spells that are basically useless (the most commonly pointed to one being Meissa, but I can guarantee that one probably won't be touched because I personally argued to Dulrik that it's useless and that pretty well means he's going to set his heels in and dig, because he and I are never allowed to agree).