I feel the main purpose of subclasses is to provide alternative playstyles, but some of the current ones could do better in achieving that outcome.
Some suggestions to boost weaker ones, to provide greater differentiation between subclasses, and to align their boons/banes with their concept:
Fighter - Black Jacket
Concerns: The weapons master. Giving up rapid recovery for quick switch + 1 more proficiency seems like a poor deal. Weapon switching doesn't occur often because enemies have static ARs, so for the same enemy there's no point switching (disregarding unique effects of weapons yet to be seen).
This subclass has been used for all-out first-striking with triple sets of dual pistols, rapidly switched, but this seems like a niche application.
Suggestions: Centre this subclass around weapon modals, and switching to utilise these modals.
- Advanced Proficiencies : Penalties from weapon modals are halved
- Alternatively, gain proficiency in all weapons automatically. Instead of choosing proficiencies, choose Advanced Proficiencies (gold instead of blue icon) in selected weapons.
Ranger - Stalker
Concerns: The melee ranger, but the radii are forgiving enough to allow use to ranged weapons as well. Bonus makes the ranger & pet marginally more tanky, but that doesn't quite gel with the subclass name (and the bonus itself isn't too interesting) + the issue of no melee-compatible abilities
Suggestions: Rangers are primarily single-target destroyers. Other than making abilities usable in melee,
- Gain +1 engagement (vs 0 for rangers, I think)
- Attacks against enemies engaged by both stalker and pet apply Marked Prey without cost
- Ambush : Exiting stealth within 3 range of an enemy applies a small short-duration Action Speed buff (to add stalking element without making high stealth absolutely necessary)
- Penalty - The Stalker deals less damage to enemies not engaged by both stalker and pet (including when pet has fallen), suffer bonded grief when outside 5 range.
Wizard Subclasses
Concerns: Chance-based (Evoker, Illusionist's empower) and random bonuses (Conjurer) feel unreliable. Ultimately the playstyles between some are not that much different beyond the selection of spells.
Suggestions: Alter bonuses to provide tactical considerations
- Conjurer - Empowered conjuration spells also conjure a decently strong familiar/creature based on element or type of spell (e.g. weapon conjuration summons a self-acting, weaker copy of the weapon)
- Evoker - No passive bonus to power level. Elemental Momentum : Casting an evocation spell of X element increases the Power Level for evocation spells of other elements. Each spell cast provides separate "Momentum: <Element>" buffs (effectively up to 3 given 4 elements), with all Momentum lost when a spell of the same element is cast again, or a non-evocation spell is cast.
Small note on single-class's relative weakness - Perhaps power level can be made more impactful for both passive and active abilities, making the difference in power level above multiclasses characters more pronounced.