It wouldn’t even be so bad had they not spent years destroying all the good classes. Let me remind you of most of what was lost
Highlander: Used to have 3 additional skills, arguably their best 3 skills, all have been removed, Vertical Slash, Skull Swing, and Crown. (Also Cartar Stroke but that sucked anyways) Crosscut and Moulinet were technically made less fun by having their combo skills removed, but since they are scaled up it’s hard to claim they do less damage even though they probably do. Still they were never as good as the 3 skills removed. Skyliner also got nerfed, sure it’s SFR is higher, but used to be a skill with low CD and 5 OH, now it’s a skill that you hold down and it can hit up to 4 times for basically nothing.
Peltasta: One could argue this class is overall buffed because Hard Shield exists and didn’t previously, but Guardian and it’s awful uptime are so much worse than it used to be, and Peltasta lost 3 skills as well, 2 of which were their best ones. Butterfly went to Murmillo to become it’s best skill, but Umbo Thrust just got deleted from the game, meanwhile the main issue with Peltasta now is how offensively pathetically weak they are. With common skill Hard Shield, why would you ever run this worthless class?
Barbarian: Lost Cleave, Giant Swing, Warcry and Helm Chopper. Cleave and Warcry were incredible class defining skills core to Barbarian and they’re gone now so pointlessly. However to make matters worse… Frenzy a skill that used to be super good, now has a harsh defense nerf attached to it and unlike in the past when it had no negative effects, you can’t turn it off now. You put points into that skill and you kill your ability to PvP. This class is trash.
Corsair: Lost Double Weapon Assault. Idk how much this actually matters, this class was always weak, but this was a class defining skill so worth mentioning amongst the other big changes.
Fencer: Okay this is a big one, people have always been overly negative about Fencer, but now it’s justified. Fencer used to have a ton of skills, 11. It makes sense to cut some maybe because of how insane it is. #1 thing to cut, Attaque Composee. It’s just a worse Flanconnade. Well IMC got rid of 4 skills, none of them were Attaque Composee. Fencer was always great because it had a ton of block/evade skills. Lunge, Flanconnade, Attaque Coquille and Attaque au Fer all got removed, 2/4 of these had defensive effects, and 1 removed weapons (good riddance I hate that effect, but still, lowers the defensive power of this class, they got nothing good in return.) Let me remind you, the skill they should have removed that does nothing remains. This is the most nerfed Swordsman.
Doppelsoeldner: Look, Double Pay Earn was super cool, but it’s fine it’s gone, it was niche. Doppel was a combo class. Mordschlag-Punish, great combo, IMC removed Mordschlag, then decided to lean heavily into Punish on this class… It’s horrible. Zwerchhau, as well as the main 3 combo skills all lost their extra effects, so they are just normal attack skills now with no real reason to use them. Oversimplification of this class nerfed it because they didn’t make it stronger than others. On the upside, even though Deeds of Valor does less damage now, it no longer makes you melt to everything. This class was nerfed, but more than that is was made boring.
Hackapell: When moved to the Swordsman tree, this class lost a ranged skill, minor, but still annoying for the PvPers. However it retained it’s more importantly skill initially, but did eventually lose it. Storm Bolt was the strongest skill in this class, and it was required to make Skarphuggning good. Now that it’s gone, Skarphuggning feels horrible. This skill is pathetic.
Wizard: This class used to have a sleep skill.
Cryomancer: Frost Pillar used to pull targets in, it also didn’t have a cast time. As is now, it’s the only reason to play this class and it’s still too weak.
Pyromancer: This is a small loss for this class, but a massive loss for the rest of the game, but Enchant Fire used to be an auto attack buff, now it basically does nothing.
Elementalist: This class used to have a very strong CC. It now has no reason to ever be in PvP.
Sorc/Necro: Jewelry is not updated, and Bokor is ruined so these classes are hurting despite not having anything removed from skills. That said the scaling for cards was boosted on only 10ish cards, leaving the others to feel weak in comparison, so now Blut and Mirtis and bad… That’s awful.
Shadowmancer: Shadowthorn used to be terrifying, it had a set up move and then you use this and it does multiple hits of over 2000%. It’s harder to set up this skill now and it still only does 2538%. A little was removed from this class, then it was forgotten.
Onmyoji: This is probably something most are happy about, but it’s still a massive nerf, this class lost Genbu Armor. Didn’t keep it and get a nerfed version, just outright removed the skill that made the class work.
Bokor: I don’t want to touch Bokor with a 1000 foot pole, so lets just move on to other real classes. RIP Samdiveve. RIP Zombies, RIP Hexing.
Quarrel Shooter: Caltrops used to be really strong, they would all hit, 1 time vs a horde of enemies under Aiming, deleting every single one. Now it’s a circle that does damage over time. It’s still an okay skill, but nothing like it was.
Hunter: It’s attacks have all changed and are now just worse. Bring back Rush Dog.
Wugushi: The original Wugushi before Crescendo Bane was amazing, but it wasn’t too bad after either, I always hated Crescendo Bane, it’s not fun, but back in the day it was 10% per level and doubled poison property damage. The current version of this skill gives you 12% at lvl 1, and then 2% each after, if you waste 5 points on it, you get 20% faster tick rate. So not worth, do not take this skill. I put the points in Latent Venom, it’s so much better. However back in the day, this class had the best mobbing skill, like Caltrops, you could wipe out entire hordes of CM7 monsters by combining Jincan Gu with Aiming. The skill was incredibly laggy, I crashed other people all the time, so it was likely removed for that reason, but at 1 time this was the coolest skill and the best for mobbing. Now it’s replaced by the frog which is good, but boring in comparison. Bring back bugs on some level please. New C3 maybe?
Fletcher: 2 skills removed, 1 skill added, the main point here is that Broadhead was good, meanwhile I can’t even get Catena Chain Arrow to do anything. This class is lame and weak and frustrating.
Falconer: Used to have a skill called “Hovering” it made your downtime feel less bad because of the high CDs. It was removed and we got Tomahawk, but Tomahawk is weak nowadays and the fact that it’s so weak just makes me miss Hovering. What a good skill that was.
Cannon/Musket: I’m sadly not informed enough on these classes to speak here, I can tell Cannoneer got crapped all over but I don’t have full details. I just know Cannoneer used to be an assassin in TBL, and now it should stay way out of PvP because it’s worthless.
Cleric: Here’s where we get the passion. Cleric used to have Safety Zone. It was strong, didn’t get a nerf, just got removed.
Krivis: Zaibas used to last a long time, it was such a powerful skill, Krivis also used to be able to extend buff durations. It was a core identity skill that got scrapped.
Dievdirbys: has not had it’s damage updated in 100 years. We just got a big boost for many classes, and Carve Attack is still in the hundreds. Carve Owl Skill Factor is 60-202% depending on level 1-15. They want this class to suck because Laima Statue would actually be super good.
Paladin: They removed Resist Elements, it was underrated and super good. I miss it.
Monk: Double Punch has had many versions, all better than this. I loved it as a low CD skill, and it was okay as an auto attack modifier, but the current version is a channel and it’s terrible. Golden Bell shield changed but hard to really say how much that matters, it wasn’t core to the class I guess.
Druid: Now we get to the biggest, most important skill removal of all time. The one that set off all the others. You guys not fighting against this, is the reason you get nerfed so harshly all the time. You’re IMCs toys. This class used to have a skill called Transform (still has it but now it doesn’t do anything at all) With transform, there was an attribute, you could only use 2/6 but they provided you stats based on your type and size. If you were a beast type you got a crit boost, a medium type, attack boost, large got 75% hp, Insect got 40% defense, small got evasion and plant got… Who knows. This allowed you to customize your character to be really interesting and different from others. You also get 100% hp boost on transforms from Henge Stone, and had the amazing skill Sterea Trofh for temporary invincibility. Also Telepath was pretty cool. None of that exists now. This class became nothing but a 50% boost for your other classes skill. Check out that Exorcist laser! It’s sad how far this class has fallen, even Lycanthropy SFRs are left in the dirt and now it gets the 100% hp boost, but doesn’t recover it in the time you are allowed to be transformed. I’ve never seen a harsher nerf in my life and I watched Skarner in LoL get ■■■■ on 3 times. RIP the greatest class this game ever knew.
Plague Doctor: This class used to be all about now getting debuffs, and regening tons of hp. It was kind of overpowered if not for the fact that Clerics were the worst tree offensively. Disenchant, Methadone, and Bloodletting were all a huge deal and got removed. Beak Mask stayed and feels horrible to use. I scrapped this class to play Kabbalist instead since Ein Sof is just a better version of Heal Factor now, and even then I am so desperate to get the Ein Sof common skill and swap Kabbalist out for Monk. Both these classes are awful despite having what I’d still call the best skill in the game currently.
Miko: Was always Diev 4, but Diev sucks now, and Miko drastically changed identity, Idk if that’s for the better, but lets say it is, even so the attack skills feel worse now.
Zealot/Bullet Marker: Last one since covering Scout would require me to have super good memory and I only have memory for Bullet Market, which lost Full Metal Jacket and Smash Bullet, which were both amazing skills. I’d have much preferred them keep FMJ and put tase on it, and remove Napalm Bullet. Keep Smash bullet but rebalance it if needed. But this is where we are, so moving on. Zealot lost 1 skill and it ruined the class. Blind Faith used to do an absurd amount of damage based on your mana, but as things scaled up, it became weaker and so they changed it and now it’s still the best damage skill in the kit and it’s so pathetic that the class is suffering. Also still drains your mana harshly for no reason with a massive CD.
It’s not just that Premium classes are too good, honestly they feel kind of lame to me. The problem is that IMC has spent years burning the other classes to the ground to make sure they feel pathetic and weak and useless, so when the Spiderman villain class comes along with all his lasers, people can be like “OMG it’s so strong, compared to my shitty class” It’d be so nice if IMC would give back the stuff they robbed from other classes over the years. If some stuff is too game breaking, I’d accept that loss, or how about adjusting it so it’s not? Still IMC doesn’t really work on number decreases, they do fun decreases, usability decreases. It’s not just do less damage or being less durable, it’s have less fun and function less. Which sucks, because balancing is actually so easy if you know what you’re doing, but devs never really do. It’s like they hired their marketing team to do the balancing instead.
