My personal philosophy for enjoying a class is that all skills are interesting and worth considering, even if only for a specific build. Keep that in mind when you read on, so you can take my suggestions with a grain of salt if your philosophy doesn't match mine.
I'll just do a list of my thoughts overall for each class's skills:
ELEMENTALIST
- Clay Golem: I'm looking forward to trying the new one out. It was the last skill I invested in, mainly because I'd already maxed what I wanted :D. My problems before were that it was super weak compared to my PCs. If I only had a 4 person party that might not have been a problem... just the increased action economy probably would have made it a serious consideration for investment. But you (correctly!) gave us a minimum 6 man party by the mid game, so action economy wasn't that big a concern. It needs some kind of oomph.
- Stone Skin: I didn't bother with this because I never, ever, for any reason, wanted my mages in close combat, and I generally had ways to keep them out of it. IMO making it damage enemies doesn't fix the underlying problem, since I still won't see a use for it... why bother with whatever damage output I get from shock when I can just Cone of Cold everything nearby into oblivion? One option would be to place some melee-mage friendly items into the game, so that melee mages become a consideration.
- Damage spells were fine. I would suggest slightly increasing the cast range of Fireball every other power level, and having its blast radius grow every other level, rather then every level. I'd also suggest that Lightning Bolt have an increased distance every other level. Cone of Cold is fine, just the increased chance of freeze and damage is enough to keep it competitive the entire game.
HOPLITE
- Shield Wall: I had no use for this, ever. It might have been cool if you could ever have more than 2 Hoplites total in the game (I chose to make Valbrand an Elementalist so...).
- Shield Bash and Shield Mastery are great. I loved that Branton was practically untouchable in melee once he got Shield Mastery 3, and then he'd counter for massive damage. Great thematic fit for a shield-line warrior who's built around enduring damage and countering.
- Throw Shield is a fun toy. I didn't feel pressured to grab it on level, but I used it occasionally and I had enough points to max it by end game.
- Impale and Pierce are meh. If Branton had EP available he was using it for Throw Shield. Not sure what to do with these.
RANGER
- Sniper Shot is fucking awesome. I loved being able to 360 noscope from literally across the map.
- I never used Poison Arrow, Wounding Shot or Piercing Shot. The first two because I already have Sniper Shot and nothing lasts long enough for poison to make a difference, and the last because I already had two elementalists and had AoE damage well in hand. These could easily be replaced/reworked.
- Improved Aim and Killer Sense are perfect passives for Hana, they fit her great.
PRIEST
- Really well done. I wanted each of his skills, I was always low-key stressed that I couldn't max them all. Great job here.
BARBARIAN
- Brawler was a fun passive but difficult to activate since it doesn't count diagonal adjacency. Maybe have its activation range increase once at power level 3?
- Relentless was fine I guess. Very forgettable. Generally if Helga went below 50% I didn't care if she did more damage, I wanted her topped off immediately.
- Battle Cry is fantastic. Requires thought and very powerful if used correctly.
- I never bothered with Rampage. If I was killing a mob with Helga the rest were going to die within 1-2 rounds no matter what, extra damage meant nothing.
- Charge: lots of fun to use. Like using Helga as a wolfgirl lightning bolt!
I never got the Necromancer so I can't comment on those skills unfortunately.
One thing that hurt the melee classes in general was that you almost never wanted to spend your level up points on Mind, but their EP costs scaled exactly the same as the mages'. Further compounded by not having a passive EP recovery skill. As a point of comparison, by end game Valbrand had 321 max EP and could spam spells to his heart's content, while Helga had 90 EP and could cast three times, total, without resting or using an Energy Potion. I ended up in situations where I could see a use for one of the melee skills but didn't want to push the button because I wanted to save it for when I really really really needed it. I don't know what route you take, but something needs to be tweaked if you want to see active melee skills be more impactful. One thing that might be interesting is to give each of the melees a skill that gives them a method of regnerating EP. For instance, maybe Branton has a skill that gives him EP every time he's attacked in melee, Hana has a skill that gives her EP every time she crits, and Helga has a skill that gives her EP every time she kills an enemy. Something along those lines.
I'll just do a list of my thoughts overall for each class's skills:
ELEMENTALIST
- Clay Golem: I'm looking forward to trying the new one out. It was the last skill I invested in, mainly because I'd already maxed what I wanted :D. My problems before were that it was super weak compared to my PCs. If I only had a 4 person party that might not have been a problem... just the increased action economy probably would have made it a serious consideration for investment. But you (correctly!) gave us a minimum 6 man party by the mid game, so action economy wasn't that big a concern. It needs some kind of oomph.
- Stone Skin: I didn't bother with this because I never, ever, for any reason, wanted my mages in close combat, and I generally had ways to keep them out of it. IMO making it damage enemies doesn't fix the underlying problem, since I still won't see a use for it... why bother with whatever damage output I get from shock when I can just Cone of Cold everything nearby into oblivion? One option would be to place some melee-mage friendly items into the game, so that melee mages become a consideration.
- Damage spells were fine. I would suggest slightly increasing the cast range of Fireball every other power level, and having its blast radius grow every other level, rather then every level. I'd also suggest that Lightning Bolt have an increased distance every other level. Cone of Cold is fine, just the increased chance of freeze and damage is enough to keep it competitive the entire game.
HOPLITE
- Shield Wall: I had no use for this, ever. It might have been cool if you could ever have more than 2 Hoplites total in the game (I chose to make Valbrand an Elementalist so...).
- Shield Bash and Shield Mastery are great. I loved that Branton was practically untouchable in melee once he got Shield Mastery 3, and then he'd counter for massive damage. Great thematic fit for a shield-line warrior who's built around enduring damage and countering.
- Throw Shield is a fun toy. I didn't feel pressured to grab it on level, but I used it occasionally and I had enough points to max it by end game.
- Impale and Pierce are meh. If Branton had EP available he was using it for Throw Shield. Not sure what to do with these.
RANGER
- Sniper Shot is fucking awesome. I loved being able to 360 noscope from literally across the map.
- I never used Poison Arrow, Wounding Shot or Piercing Shot. The first two because I already have Sniper Shot and nothing lasts long enough for poison to make a difference, and the last because I already had two elementalists and had AoE damage well in hand. These could easily be replaced/reworked.
- Improved Aim and Killer Sense are perfect passives for Hana, they fit her great.
PRIEST
- Really well done. I wanted each of his skills, I was always low-key stressed that I couldn't max them all. Great job here.
BARBARIAN
- Brawler was a fun passive but difficult to activate since it doesn't count diagonal adjacency. Maybe have its activation range increase once at power level 3?
- Relentless was fine I guess. Very forgettable. Generally if Helga went below 50% I didn't care if she did more damage, I wanted her topped off immediately.
- Battle Cry is fantastic. Requires thought and very powerful if used correctly.
- I never bothered with Rampage. If I was killing a mob with Helga the rest were going to die within 1-2 rounds no matter what, extra damage meant nothing.
- Charge: lots of fun to use. Like using Helga as a wolfgirl lightning bolt!
I never got the Necromancer so I can't comment on those skills unfortunately.
One thing that hurt the melee classes in general was that you almost never wanted to spend your level up points on Mind, but their EP costs scaled exactly the same as the mages'. Further compounded by not having a passive EP recovery skill. As a point of comparison, by end game Valbrand had 321 max EP and could spam spells to his heart's content, while Helga had 90 EP and could cast three times, total, without resting or using an Energy Potion. I ended up in situations where I could see a use for one of the melee skills but didn't want to push the button because I wanted to save it for when I really really really needed it. I don't know what route you take, but something needs to be tweaked if you want to see active melee skills be more impactful. One thing that might be interesting is to give each of the melees a skill that gives them a method of regnerating EP. For instance, maybe Branton has a skill that gives him EP every time he's attacked in melee, Hana has a skill that gives her EP every time she crits, and Helga has a skill that gives her EP every time she kills an enemy. Something along those lines.
