I am so far elated by the changes. My illusionist went from mana battery to petmage/weak wizard/mana battery/debuffer. I have a great pet that stifles, dots, roots, stuns, scales to my level, and benefits from my mental mtitgation debuffs. Plus, i have a great proc buff that i can put on my pet which makes it do decent dmg. My nukes are not very strong, but become respectable when i dot with nightmare and spasm, which reduce mental mitigation in addition to doing dmg. The dots are pretty good, my root saves my life, Mez has shorter duration but short recast, and lasts for the duration if it lands. I can stun a whole group, mez one, root another, mez a third, letting me control an encounter as long as I'm fast.
Fights are tougher, but when you finally solo that (green) heroic, it feels Goooood! I've never been able to solo so well. I got a debuff, i don't have to cast breeze every 15 seconds, And i feel much more helpful in a group setting. Suddenly, I feel sought after. It feels good join a pickup group and have people compliment me on my work. On a good day, i can turn a 5 mob fight into a one at a time slaughter, keeping the rest on ice and buffing the party's mana and attack speed. And folks love my personae. In a FG group, my pet was doing so much work, I could have just /sit and we would have been fine.
I couldn't be happier. I think out of all the classes, we made out the best. As far as my zerker and bard go, they're only L13 each, so i can't talk much about how they changed, since I'm so low lvl. But the stances seem like a good idea, and My L13 Warrior kicks a lot of tail, i plan to duel people with him for food items. Bard doesn't seem much different, just more attacks on the same timer, and no root :(