AGS, rework Light/Medium/Heavy Armor bonuses.
Currently the bonuses attempt to make a difference between the categories by pushing more damage/healing onto lighter armors and more CC/damage reduction on heavier armors. In reality what is happening is heavy armor players getting the advantage of damage reduction while doing nearly identical damage output.
There is zero incentive to play light armor. In fact, there are punishments for playing light armor
The reason for this is how the balance team has decided to implement the damage bonus vs damage reduction bonus. Here is a reddit post outlining this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/newworldgame/comments/qaxcwy/heavy_armor_vs_light_armor_massive_bug/
Basically, the math applies the armor bonus additively on the base damage, while damage reduction is done as the final step in the damage applied. At level 1 with 0 points in attributes, this works out well. However, at 600 gear score and 450-500 attribute points allocated into your build, these damage bonuses are negligible. Why is it that someone wearing light armor takes nearly 3x the damage of heavy armor, but only outputs 1.08x the damage after adding up all the attribute points and weapon perks? This is entirely unbalanced and is the root of so many of the balance issues between weapons
Light Staff and Heavy Armor Meta
Currently the PvP meta is to run life staff in heavy armor along with whatever melee weapon of choice you want (generally Great Axe because it is also broken and I’ll get to that later). The reason for this meta is because the healing output between light armor and heavy armor is nonexistent. Even with the PTR change attempting to incentivize light armor healing with a 30% base increase is meaningless. This is due to the scaling of attributes I mentioned previously. The difference in output at higher levels is not enough to make up for the incredible damage reduction offered by heavy armor. So all you see in PvP is life staff/heavy armor (which is nearly unkillable due to how those two concepts interact). It makes the experience unfun when 1 person can solo 4-10 people due to broken game design favoring one playstyle over another.
I understand the healing and tanking need to be strong to do higher level expeditions and bosses…but this is not the way to fix the issue. The incentive should be to have each weapon specialize in its strengths and synergize with the armor choice that has a greater impact on those strengths. Light armor offers such minimal healing/damage bonus that these PvE healers feel compelled to run heavy armor and are actively hurting their team if they don’t. In my opinion, healers should heal. Not be tanks. Tanks should tank. Not be DPS.
The Egregious Magic Nerfs on PTR
This is something I find hilariously inept on the balance team’s part. A post by a very well respected, long time MMO PvP player, details this better than I could: Each weapon should 'feel' OP (in regards to PTR Ice Gauntlet)
This comes back to the armor bonuses again. People believed the magic classes to be too overpowered…why? They dealt roughly proportional damage to the majority of players that was dealt back to them. Why this is problematic is because the majority of players run heavy armor. For a mage to do proportional damage to a heavy armor player, means that they are doing 3x the damage to a light armor player. In other words, mages were overtuned vs light/medium armor, but in a good balance with heavy armor. The nerf to magic is absolutely not the correct decision because now you have a weapon that is underpowered vs the majority of the player base. How is a magic user supposed to fight a heavy armor player when the heavy armor player can 3-4 hit the magic user, but the magic user (once before could 3-4 hit kill them) now takes 3x as long? The nerfs cut the damage output of magic by upwards of 50% due to all the very heavy nerfs all at once. This is not balance. This is favoritism.
The Heavy Armor Great Axe Players
This is almost a symptom of the problem, but nevertheless is a major factor. As stated multiple times over, heavy armor is the preferred playstyle from the development team. So you’d think that everyone running heavy armor would be less mobile and do less damage than the lighter armors, right? This is where the Great Axe rises above the rest of the melee weapons. Not only is the damage comparable between heavy/light armor as is, but the Great Axe players specialize in gap closing - something that is the only redeeming factor for light armor players. Great axe has a pull (Reap/Whirlwind), a rushdown (charge), a root (gravity well), an overall movement speed buff to catch anyone attempting to run (bloodlust), and to top it all off they have a spammable lunge on every light/heavy attack that TRAVELS FARTHER THAN A LIGHT ARMOR ROLL. See here for evidence: https://www.reddit.com/r/newworldgame/comments/qswvx0/great_axe_lunges_further_than_a_light_roll/)
It seems as if anyone playing heavy armor great axe is supposed to be allowed to have all benefits in the game with none of the drawbacks. They have tankiness, they have damage, they have CC, they have speed. How is someone in light armor (that takes 3-4 hits from a great axe while needing 9-12 hits to kill them) - someone who cannot even roll away to disengage anymore - how are they supposed to overcome those odds? Magic was one of the few answers since it was the only thing that could fight back on an even playing field vs these broken builds. But now that they are nerfed, the only thing that can beat a great axe player…is another great axe player. Everything else is underperforming and its a direct result of armor bonuses not being effective in creating balance.
Final Thoughts
Please stop reworking classes. Stop Nerfing. Start looking at the real root of the problem which is armor before you continue to create a game that discourages variety and creativity. Once you address the armor issue and allow all the weapons to feel like they arent useless in 90% of player interactions, then you should slowly start working in specific weapon balances. Because as of right now, any and every weapon besides great axe in heavy armor is just not viable.