Effusion

Try it naked?

The patch changed it to +2 pl (up from +1) for your school and -10% (down from -20%) recovery for other schools, as well as changes to a number of specific spells (mostly related to cast times) and the transmutation specialist ability (still benefit from gear aside from armor/weapons while transformed). The fundamental problem that different specializations have different benefits (how much they get out of increased power level and the special ability) and costs (which schools are lost) that aren't balanced remains unchanged.

Nothing really changed. Evokers are good for blasting, illusionists are okay-ish if they don't plan to rely on weapons, and the other three shoot themselves in the foot with their lost schools.

Cool.

Most notably their only regular attack ability, barbaric blow.

It was always like that. It has a shorter recovery time than other spells though so it's only 0.5s slower.

Probably because the barbarian is generally better at getting last hits with their splash damage.

A lot of the stuff that was over performing has been balanced down, difficulty has been tuned up, and now people are waiting for the patch that fixes things which are under performing. This means that some classes are in a weird place where they've gotten their nerfs but are still waiting for their buffs.

It really should be a universal rule that CC and debuff abilities last at least as long as they take to cast.

Devoted is definitely a meta knowledge based subclass. At least you didn't pick one of the weapon types that only has one unique.

Parrying daggers (also capes and offhand gauntlets) weren't exactly rare afaik, but they were for dueling rather than warfare. They were (arguably) more effective than a buckler for that purpose because one can catch and control an enemy's blade rather than just deflect it.

Would that not just shift the problem from favoring dual wielding to favoring 2h weapons, or reduce the number of 'optimal' attacks for damage builds? I think it would make more sense to have full attacks do reduced damage while dual wielding but still hit twice, or have 2h/single weapons do extra damage on full attacks.

Might is deliberately not strength though, which is why it can apply to spells. If you want to have a faster swinging 2h character then increase your dex. The stated idea behind the stat system is to make stats a choice of how players want their character to handle rather than something that just has to match up to their class/weapon. The thing is to me, I don't care how dexterous you are, all the DEX in the work is going to make a weakling able to handle a heavy weapon more quickly. That's what strength is for. I don't care how dexterous you are, if you're a weakling, it's going to be more difficult to pull a bowstring or reset a crossbow's string than if you're strong. Agility will only take you so far. And sometimes what you need to do things more quickly is NOT dexterity, but actual strength. You're thinking in terms of dnd stats, not poe stats. Might is not the same thing as strength. Muscles don't make a lightning bolt spell hit harder.

Might is deliberately not strength though, which is why it can apply to spells. If you want to have a faster swinging 2h character then increase your dex. The stated idea behind the stat system is to make stats a choice of how players want their character to handle rather than something that just has to match up to their class/weapon.