For every big project in life there is a vision, be it for a new car, a new skyscraper, a whole city.

This vision describes what you want the thing to be, it sets the Basic structure you want to work with.


This is also used in one of the biggest projects in ESO, the class balance.

There is always an idea behind every well designed spec if there is no vision for one class you'll see it, like you can with stamdk on PTS right now.

So let's get started with the vision of each spec, but before i get slaughtered here are some things to remember:

1. the vision does not represent how well it turns out in the game 
2. stamina classes are generally more streamlined than magicka classes as they have to use the same weapon skills, this makes it harder to describe the vision perfectly
3. this post is highly focused on PvP, i won't touch PvE issues for the reason that most visions don't work with PvE


Sorcerer
Magsorcs are build around killing an enemy with a delayed burst and in order to be able to have a long enough offensive window they can access shields which will prevent them from getting oneshotted. Also while playing defensively the toolkit still gives them the opportunity to change the tide of the fight with hunting curse having a second explosion, frags being able to proc and becoming an instant cast.
To support the ranged playstyle of magsorcs they also have 2 strong tools to create a gap and keep it up during a fight with a meele opponent: streak and mines and the atronach as a big Area denial ability.Pets bring a more summonerish feel to the class but don't really help the class identity as they aren't mobile and their AI can't keep up. 


Stamsorc
The class focuses on mobility which gets supported by streak/Bol and hurricane and with this mobility the class gets access to a huge portion of it's sustain with dark deal, being more mobile mid combat than your enemy is what stamsorc has over other specs. 
Here several things work together both passives and active skills, hurricane deals damage in a huge radius which continues to do so when you dance around your enemies, surge fell in love with hurricane at first sight and doesn't want to leave ever. Normally mobility comes at a cost for all classes mainly damage wise but with DD stamsorc got a way to work around, without needing too much regen at the cost of damage you can spec into damage and sustain great as your mobility helps you to make good use of the main sustain skill of the class. However the offensive vision of the class is reduced because there is no great offensive ult that supports the mobile playstyle and with the addition of bound weapons there's only 2 skills in the toolkit that deal damage and the vision for how to play offensive is lacking. There is no direction whether it should be based around having dots on the enemy to keep pressure on an enemy while you're kiting or to overwhelm them with a big burst.And this is what makes stamsorc feel whacky and overly reliant on weapon skills which don't add a layer of identity to classes



Nightblade
Stamnb
A completely different approach of killing an enemy, not with delayed burst(well until casttimes happened to be a thing) but with sheer pressure with strong skills, you don't need to kill an enemy in one hit (you still can do that very effectively) you can unleash an offensive pressure that your enemy won't be able to outheal with incap, followed by empowered suprise attacks and assassin's will hitting for more than any other non ult ability and the hardest hitting execute starting to deal full damage at 25% health.
And to support this playstyle of, engaging and crushing an enemy with a prolonged time of frontloaded offensive pressure that not many will withstand, you get access to great tools that give you the opportunity to decide when to fight and with how your frontloaded burst works you only hinder yourself if you stay in a long fight that's why cloak and shade are your best friends on a Nightblade, you decide when to fight and when you start the fight your class is at it's biggest advantage.
This took a huge hit with casttimes and the removal of many debuffs from the offensive toolkit of stamina nightblades, keep in mind however this post is more vision based than performance based.

Magnb
Here we have a rather similar vision for both specs of one class, being elusive and killing an enemy with a huge spike of burst, however magnb focuses more on that huge spike of burst rather than stamnb that tries to just break through the healing/ defence of your enemy within your incap duration. This is done with various things, first magnb has access to 2 stronger dots (Crippling grasp and shade) and with assassin's will having the highest tooltip of any non ultimate ability in the game. But as the natural difference in mobility hurts magnbs elusiveness their vision got changed from avoiding as much damage as possible to healing back to full while you deal damage to your enemy and kite them. Also their sustain and their main damage source work hand in hand as they are both build around light attack weaving.


Templar
Magplar
They went from hiding in their paper house that was once tried to be used as their identity to be ultimate fighting machines that simply overwhelm people who come to close. This change came at the cost of giving up the idea of being tied to staying in a house which has never been supported enough to set it apart from other classes.And now templar is locked to an one-dimensional playstyle that has overcome any weakness it once had. The only thing that survived this time is the offence which is still focused around a backloaded burst coming from dropping a crescent sweep into the explosion of backlash which has been fueled by the damage over the last 6 seconds. But a defence that was ment to be very reactive with clear gaps between when you are on the offence and when you play defensive has been removed and was replaced by simply having both at all time with spikes of damage or healing if you really want one thing now.


Stamplar
Not as much blessed by the changes to its magicka counterpart but still happy to leave his old carton called house for a live on the run. Playing around the PotL explosion with the highest damage spammable in the game purging not only bad effects from himself but also the people responsible for them from the battlefield. However as with other stamina classes the main heals don't come from its own class but rather from rally and vigor. Stamplar also doesn't know where it wants to fit in playstyle wise be it more mobile or more like a tank. (Again this doesn't rank its actual viability but more it's distinguishability from other stamina specs) 

Warden
Magwarden 
has a very different vision than any other classes, the vision here is, never go alone, always have a friend around that's what a magwarden wants.
Many tools the class offers are build to be used with an ally around, be it how you access major mending, how you gain ultimate, how to unleash the most healing and how to move around the battlefield. This comes at the cost however that being one of the best supporter in the game their offence took a hit as it never really was intended to be the only source of damage you have in combat, there is always your friend around and he will help you and the more you work with him the stronger both of you will be. This means that the attempt of running a magwarden solo completely contradicts the vision of the class but this completely contradicts the vision of the entire game "play how you want"


Stamwarden 
This brings us to the true brawler vision. No matter if you are solo or in a group you want to be in a fight and you get the highest reward if you stay there. You bring massive damage, you bring support and you bring heals to the battlefield. And as a warden wants to stay in the fight he has tools to prevent ranged builds to get him out of his comfort zone, with shimmering shield they have a tool to use their range to an advantage. However the class isn't designed to be a stand your ground warrior, you want to move during the fight and engage from different ankles to make the best use of your class skills, with 2 cones, one being a heal and the other a strong aoe you want to decide whom to hit with them rather than hoping that your enemy walks into your face or your teammates to be in front of you to get healed. This is supported by easy access to major expedition and reduced effect of snares. 
Offensive wise Stamwarden made a step up this PTS from being completely tied to bursting people to having 2 Dots in its toolkit. However birds function dondon't work with the rest of the toolkit as being 12m away from an enemy isn't what you like to do.



Dragonknight
When you look at a magdk you know it wants to go in the middle of a fight and stay there until everyone else is dead and to support this the whole toolkit is build around, dealing damage, healing yourself back up again and when you go offensive then you get even more heals, you don't want to be passive, waiting for your enemy to make a mistake, the only mistake they did was getting in a fight with you.


You control the fight with roots, CCs and snares while your dots further increase the pressure on your enemy, and your main spammable only gets stronger when you combine it with your hard/ soft CCs or if you chose molten whip with your already building up pressure, your sustain tool is made for fighting (at least in theory) you get resources back for using your ultimates, which means when you go offensive or have to retreat your class supports you and helps you to stay in that fight as long as you can.
There are so many small and bigger synergies inside of the magdks toolkit that it has it's own unique playstyle that gets stronger the more you focus on using it.

Stamdk
Ever since Orsinium this spec got pushed towards a poison based pressure playstyle, overwhelming people with pressure from dots and wearing them down with class abilities to kill them with a high damage leap, as this requires you to stay alive aswell the spec has high staying power and raw survivability enhanced by the sustain and healing buffs coming from its class toolkit. Now there was an attempt to help this identity but it completely failed and when comparing it to its magicka counterpart you can easily see why, the skills don't work together, their new spammable is not only worse than other skills but also doesn't bring anything to the table to work with the dots given to DKs by its class or the poisoned status effect that goes hand in hand with stamdks passives. 

The whole point of discussing all that is to show that class identity is a fragile thing and over the past year we have stepped away from class identity on specs that had a good identity before (which might not have been the top classes) but they had something to set themselves apart from all other specs in the game both how they play and how they make you feel when you play them.class identity got ruined by handing out skills which don't work with the class like stone giant or who are simply so strong to remove the key weakness you played around like on templar what  opened up the box of Pandora.
Also streamlining things and adding things like casttimes on ultimate hurt class identity.

Specs like magnb or stamnb who are built around combining a strong ultimate with a strong follow-up on an enemy in only 2 gcds to burst break them.
But if this doesn't work anymore their whole identity is gone resulting in buff demands which will only further remove class identity (compare templar and previous house identity that never worked)