Snare's for pulling/kiting, not runners. And if mobs are sub 51 they don't summon so you can just quad kite.
I agree Ranger is pretty homeless at the moment. DW is nice, triple attack is nice, and being a wisdom class allows you to use divine stance, but there's just better classes to benefit from all of those. They built in the ranged auto attack toggle shit and made ranged, from what I've heard, very underwhelming. I'm guessing they'll look to rectify that. Coupled with the fact that Rangers don't get really crazy weapons until PoP era really, they're just a shittier version of rogue with some okay spell utility.
I honestly think clerics are one of the most underwhelming classes right now, as all I really see them doing is countering a need to have a slower with their very good heals. And that's again where Shaman comes in too big because it slows AND heals.
I've only played ~10 or so classes and only 3 to 50 and then about 8 of those to 30ish. But I've played in a group 90% of the time and had other people play all sorts of shit. My breakdown would be on their CURRENT state:
Bard: Great utility, hungry for spell slots, not a huge dps boost to most builds. Slows/Runes/Dots/Charms/Mezzes they're as good as you want to play them.
Beastlord: Pet's getting buffed, their dps even with pet is lacking as there's not a lot of OP Kunark era Mnk stuff in game yet for them to use. Maybe tied with Ranger for worst spot right now.
Berserker: The melee dam kings. Berserker Stance is THE damage stance. Don't let anyone try to confuse you with offensive stance or strike stance nonsense. That ain't it. Berserkers are the true paper tanks now except they also slowly shred themselves! Blood Siphon runes or whatever are an okay mitigation device, but if you're pumping the deeps and you don't have a sustaine combo with a HoT or Lifetaps or Heals themselves, you're racing the mob to your death or theirs. Berserker gets great PoSky weapons, but comparable to some of the knight 2handers when all said and done. The problem with Berserkers is they NEED endurance to stance in berserker stance, but then they also NEED health to recover as they're hurting themselve constantly. Burning the candle at both ends. That's why Pal/Ber is a good combo as LoH or just spellblade heals help mitigate that. At that point you're forced to throw in a slower to allow you to stay in Berserker stance while dpsing bosses which is where the Pal/Ber/Shm atlernate to the Pal/Mnk/Shm meta comes in. It's just required. I had some people in my guild play Pal/Enc/Ber and love it, but I think that's too much management for most people, but probably a much more fun experience blasting through things.
Cleric: They heal good. That's about it. I'm assuming they get turn undead on a 5 minute timer so that could be cool for AA's in The Hole, but basically they're the only non-slow option class for melee stance focused characters who can't sit in defensive.
Druid: I like where they're at. Great HoT with a DD heal, same heals as Druid, 3rd best dots, 3rd best nukes, tracking, Charm animals (every raid but sky), snare and harmony, stuns
Enchanter: Hopefully getting some AA's. A dire charm with a raised cap for max ranks would be nice, but they're VERY good. Inversion and OverChannel makes them CC kings. Charm pets do, indeed, fuck at higher levels. Clarity/Haste always nice. Their nukes suck, their dot(s?) suck, but their utility is like Bard with less work.
Magician: Pets are good-ish. I played this to 50 and my Water Pet was doing 35-40% of my Sky clears in D0 because I had to stay in defensive for a little bit for 2-3 bosses. Pulls 125-175dps when buffed with frenzied burnout. T9 water pet had 8.5khp buffed, almost 500ac, and like 450 attack. Absolute tonkers. Damage shields make them a pain to manage sometimes but I never got Mend Companion which would easily mitigate that. Aggro in this is very weird compared to TLP's and it's nearly impossible for your pet to tank aggro over you, so pet tanking may not be an option yet. Mage DS is S tier, except when you're slowing every mob, their nukes are 2nd best, and some of the conjured items have Focus 2/3 AND raw hp/mana/ac and are probably worth mothing.
Monk: Didn't play it, but everyone else did. Feign, Mend, Block, Triple Attack, Higher Skill Caps, they're great for melee based builds and provide some utility. Mend is really nice and a 90 second cooldown, but later on a decent moted healer with a single T5+ Sup heal will outdo that easily for 5% mana cost. Provides a great balance of offense/defense so definitely a good one to slot in. No OP Kunark weapons yet, so they're a little underwhelming compared to knight weapons.
Necromancer: Good spot, maybe get some DOT love, but they can spec into taps and just blast. Their pets are about 65% as good as Mage pets and do stuff like lifetap/harmtouch/snare for laffs, but it ain't nothing. Charm undead upgraded at the highest level lets you grab some absolutely ass beater of pets from Fear/Hate. Vampiric Embrace is a nice innate if you mix it in with a melee combo.
Paladin: This is your Righteous Fire. This is your Death Knight. This is your easy mode. Good heals, Smite lowering LoH down to something like a 3 minute cooldown in constant combat (at the cost of about 80% of your max mana over that time 3 minutes), great weapons, good defense. Lots of cool anti-undead shit like Slay Undead which pales in comparison to THJ's version and I think more of a gimmick, especially when they get a Perma buff that starts at level 15 that hits undead for a base 100dmg proc and can be upgraded with motes. Pacify and stuns give you extra utility so you can do almost everything. Except damage. Your weapons are good, but you don't have much for damage output against non-Undead besides melee swings and smite which is based off your max mana which I'm doubting people are stacking specifically.
Ranger: The lowest tier class perhaps. Like I said above, DW is nice, but several classes get it. Same with Triple Attack. Expanded tracking is huge QoL but not a must-have. All their spells are druid jr shit except some giga +attack buffs they via personal spells and innate AA's. They don't have any OP class only weapons. Ranged stance isn't where it needs to be at and the current bow selection is lacking. I imagine them getting buffed first if anyone.
Rogue: I'll say I think Rogue probably does a good job as being an alternate to Berserker/Mnk for juicing your melee builds. They get poisons on here that you DO NOT make, are just choosable passive stances basically and do things like lifetap procs, snares, SLOWS, DDs, SPELL SLOWS, SPELL INTERRUPTS, and other stuff. They're IMMENSE aggro though that won't matter for most. Rogue's also get sneak which is always a huge QoL for navigating around. Can backstab from any angle (10% bonus if from behind I believe) and backstab with any pierce from ANY equipped slot. Mainhand, offhand, ranged, or either of your two ANY slots. I think rogues are a slept on 2nd slotter for a lot of builds.
ShadowKnight: I played this to 50 and played several variants to ~30. They're shadowknights. They're cool and fun, but really you're just hoping to get a big dick weapon and proc Vampiric Embrace. They are VERY AA dependent to feel "good+". Once you get full Soul Abrasion to get your Vamp Embrace to 200% effectiveness you need to get SOME spell crit CHANCE to really feel the benefits of the class. Once you do that and cap out the spell crit AA damage, they feel very, very good. Like, never leave defensive stance unless I pulled 4 mobs and a boss at the same time, good. They added a self buff alternate to Vamp Embrace called Scream of Death which is a lower value lifetap proc, but it's AE. So when you're mowing down groups of 4-8 mobs at a time it's very, very nice sustain. Feign Death in this is SK Feign Death. That is to say it sucks 35% of the time. You'll fail. Long recast. Stay alive!. SK also needs a lot of spell gem slots for all sorts of utility and if you're a caster-boi you'll want your dots and spikes on there as well. I played SK/Shm/Mag and I was pulling 250-300dps myself WITHOUT panther with just vamp embrace and spellblade Drain Spirit with a PoSky SK weapon. They put up some good numbers. Add in puma to that and that's another 50-75dps. Paladins will make your initial start smoother and easier, but at the highest end SK will kill shit quicker and that's what you'll want. HT at 50 hits for 1001 damage. That's nothing, but there was talk of combining it with Leech Touch to make it lifetap and become a pseudo LoH.
Shaman: Slows/Heals/Buffs/Best Dots/Panther/Canni/Pet. They are very good, the strongest priest for sure, but I'm not a believer that they're mandatory if you have a healer+slower combo already in your build. They gave them two HOT types in this game but both have a downside. One is a 60% (?) melee attack slow and the other is the a 60%ish snare. So you get a HoT and if you're sitting still, not a problem. Moving place to place and topping off? You're better off sup healing. Slows are god tier but I suspect slow mitigation to bosses, especially in higher difficulties, is coming. Stat buffs are good and certain stats like dex in this ACTUALLY do stuff, but mostly I think are just a small bonus. Carnage self buff is a nice 55 dex/str or whatever it is permanently but currently gets removed by random debuffs from mobs. Dots are great, best there is, and you can roll realistically 3 of the big boys at once. Spec into dot crit and crit dmg and you're getting some giga ticks. Pair that in with a slow 2hander you can recast between swings and you're doing very efficient dps. Malo is nice, but with OverChannel not as mandatory outside of OW sky or D3+ raids. Panther is broken, I expect it to be nerfed. 154 base damage, procs every 3-4 seconds. Gotta be changed. Canni spell is mostly worthless unless you love pressing buttons because you'll never press it in combat as out of combat regen is just too good to care. You can min max it and get more mana back while OOC, but it aint worth the clicks. Canni AA, however, is very good. 3 Minutes 2k life for 1k mana. What's better is Pal/Ber/SK can switch to Mage Hunter stance before they hit it to take only 1000 damage. 1k life for 1k mana is a prettty sweet deal. Add in the bug with SK's reave taking a 1 minute off the Canni AA every time it hits and you've a mana machine. This is where I think SK/Shm/X blows Pal/Shm/X out of the fucking water. I do believe this reave thing will PROBABLY get fixed, but HT right now at lvl 50 hits for 1001 damage so at least this gives us some benefit somewhere besides pure damage from reave itself.
Warrior: Had several guildmates play this class. It's pretty decent. Lotta extra hp/ac/endurance. Lots of stances and you get plate AND dual wield. Just a beefy base to work around. They get giga hp regen in and out of combat to help cut down sitting on your ass time. They've got some great PoSky weapons as well and Indicolite is still the top tier armor, even with Lustrous around. A very solid base that I don't think lacks unless you pair it with two more non-healing endurance classes. At that point you're hurting which is why I hope they add some sort of leech from procs and extra procs shit or something to help warriors stay up. They were part of the "meta" of War/Clr/Brd in the closed beta but that meta wasn't efficient it just didn't die. All three of those classes got nerfed since then with warriors taking the least of it.
Wizard: I played a Wizard in a combo to ~30ish so limited experience, but they definitely blast. They're the berserkers of spells. You do big fucking damage and you can do it in a lot of ways. Rains, DDs, AE, stuns (????), you're fucking doing it. Inherent spell crit and spell crit dmg AA's. Inviolable stance which only Brd/Wiz get allows you to be UNINTERRUPTBLE while casting at the cost of 2x mana and 1x endurance. That means while MOVING. You can Quad Kite with EASE now, and I did see people doing this in OW Fear. They also get a wizard version of Canni where they stun themselves, but they get mana back. Teleports are permanently memorized for all loadouts and are a huge QoL, you start getting them at 18. Wizard is a really good addition to any spell damage DD based class combo.
Basically Ranger/Beastlord bad. Couple classes could use some more buffs. Some classes scale early (Pal, Ber) and some scale far (SK, Wiz). I hope they do the lower classes justice without having to gut the stronger classes, but most people don't seem to understand the power of some of these classes as it exists so it's just whatever people are going to find in a youtube guide at the end of the day made by some doofus who's probably 65% wrong. But it's information that's available and that's what's going to be consumed and parroted first. I didn't get to do as much testing as I'd liked as I didn't get into closed beta and some of those guys got easily all 50's, but they're more vibe gamers than hardcore gaming analysts. So even I can only take what I hear from my guildmates/groupmmates and what I witness happen myself, but there's all sorts of shit that's possible that isn't going to make 5k hits on a YouTube video.
