Yeah, I pvp'd in WoW and the balance varies, and is more on a sort of set of waves that ebb and rise according to level and inventory. At certain levels, certain classes are better than others, like my Warlock stunk for 30-40 levels before it got to be fun. My druid was immediatly valid and usable pvp wise early on, and druids gave me trouble early on in pvp. Then once I got past 40 and even facing 40 druids, they seem to weakn off and become easy to kill. For most of the game, you can tweak through armor or enchants. There is no way obviously to balance world pvp.
WoW pvp wasn't bad, because I tried it and kept playing it, but it wasn't worth it when I had GW. You don't ever lose in GW because of level or because the guy has high level raid armor. I just got tired of being ganked by something that was skulls to me, then once I realize they were there, I'd handle them and as soon as I got them to half health, they'd run off like pussies. As soon as it became skill based, wow players chickened out generally. I just never felt cheated out in GW pvp like I did in WoW.
And I think the mechanics would only help other rpg games, especially online ones. The push for less grind is becoming more a common theme as it is, the map and targeting system could help any mmorpg and skill setup allows a lot of build variety. I'm not sure if you could transplant the skill system into every game, but I wish games had a class like a Mesmer with the sort of counter-based skills it uses. I'd play WoW again if they added a class like that.
