Just a simple survey. Note that by "more fun" I don't mean "easier", I mean more challenging and enjoyable. Which would you rather fight with? Which would you rather fight against? Don't answer based on what you thought would win; think about which one would be more interesting and thrilling.

I answered the last question based more on archetype than primary skill (i.e. Cosmic and Druidry aren't at all balanced, but guardians and druids are.)

Anyways, druidry, for all its power, is a really boring and one-track skillset. Attempts to upgrade thornlash (100% sap incompatible) and ecology (worst druid spec) to get some variety have been met with vetos all around. My favorite was the Shadowdancer envoy saying that nothing druidic should see an upgrade. Pot, meet kettle! I have a lot more fun on guardian and knight combat alts, with the added bonus of the guardian not being in Glomdoring.

The balance is a little bit trickier. Not all skillsets scale evenly with player skill. The average incompetent knight will beat the average incompetent wiccan or druid, but you get diminishing returns with increased player skill. A second-tier druid will beat almost all other second-tier fighters with the benefit of a demesne, but you have to be extremely good for every tiny improvement beyond the basic saplock. A wiccan with hexes has the best top-tier variability and opportunity, so an extremely competent wiccan will beat the snot out of an equally competent warrior or non-psionic mage. The warrior and mage, however, have more meaningful stat bonuses, so they can distinguish themselves from the extremely competent druid or bard with the purchase of artifacts.

Well, all of the primary skills except Knighthood are almost entirely made up of passives, so none of them are particularly fun to fight with - it's the secondary/tertiary skills that are fun. So I voted for those based on archetypes.

Wicca for most fun to fight as (in my experience - I haven't played all the classes so I wouldn't know), Knighthood for most fun to fight against, all but Music for balanced.

I didn't want to upgrade thornlash in the way you suggested because it'd lead to a lot of incredibly obnoxious writhe-whoring when fighting druids - and because I just felt it was unnecessary, druids really don't need another strategy to kill with. And how is that pot meet kettle - I haven't suggested any upgrades for Shadowdancer skills apart from the useless things like the coven spells, and those certainly don't give us any additional methods for killing people. (Other than changing useless skills, though, you are quite right that Shadowdancers don't need upgrades.)

They may not need one, but flexibility's what makes combat fun. Druids only have one viable strategy to kill people, and just because that strategy is strong, doesn't mean they don't deserve options to keep things interesting. Saplocks aren't nearly as scary as they used to be; more importantly, they're quite limiting in their circumstances. Thornlashes were introduced in response to the need for a less demesne-bound combat option for druids - but it's still terrain-bound, which is nearly as bad, and it went from OP to nigh-useless pretty quickly. Druids sure could use their other options tweaked into viability...

Er, on topic: like fighting against guardians, liked fighting as a druid best.

Contrary to popular belief, adding new methods with which to kill DOES make a class stronger, even when said skills do not augment the class's other methods.

Would you be so kind as to list them all next to a list of options for other archetypes? I'll accept even minor variations, so long as we're talking reasonably plausible methods.

Ahem. Flame waaaar.

Oh, I know that sap is the only viable druidic kill method. But sap is SO good that druids don't really need another one.

They do because druid combat isn't fun; adding more win conditions to Druidry wouldn't be a power-level change but rather a redesign targetting making the skillset more interesting.

I think Druids are meant to rely largely on sap, anyhow.

I think wiccans are meant to rely largely on toadcurse. Shall we proceed to nerf nightkiss and hexes?

I doubt that, Sham. I think thornlashes and more generally bleeding were meant to be viable alternatives. Sap isn't nearly as powerful as it used to be. With the half-second delay, curing it is quite reasonable. Sap also requires a demesne to stick solo. Out of demesne, a druid is very badly off, and on the wrong terrain, fully useless. How would giving them more options make them "too powerful"? It's also a strange estimation coming from a Hexe Shadowdancer...

As far as fun goes, my list would be:
Primary
1) Wicca
2) Druidry (if you're in the mood to make/mind a demesne)
3) Wildarrane
9) Druidry (if you'd rather not babysit terrain and such)

Secondary
1) Stag
2) Moon
3) Acrobatics
Acrobatics is handy sometimes, but there's not really much to it (literally: it's a really sparse skillset at the top end). Moon is fun enough, covens and fun skills like Waning, but Stag Sacrifice has got to be the most fun to just play around with, and Sylphas has a thing for antlers.

Tertiary
1) Glamours
3) Dreamweaving
4) Ecology
5) Hexes
6) Healing
7) Astrology
7) Runes
Runes is bleh. Hexes I liked better because of the greater variety to it. Healing is fun for saving a ton of money. Glamours is just sexy.

In general, I don't like fighting in Lusternia. I love the tertiaries, mostly, but the primary skillsets are basically just passives. And things like Music really annoy me, when buff songs don't even give a message, last I checked.

What is it about Knighthood that makes it so much fun?

Also:

Knighthood seems to be more fun to fight against, but why? Who you'd rather fight against apparently comes down to personal preference or your own class.

And asking which skillsets are balanced proves to be totally pointless - People just seem to agree that Music isn't balanced, which is true.

combos and variety, its what makes everything fun.

That's a very good point. I think part of why I do tend to prefer the other IRE classes is that they seem to have more to do. None of their primary skills are passives, for example. And even if a class only has one or two ways to kill, there's more to do. I mean, as a Sentinel, I used to love playing with snap/web combos, even if they were pretty much worthless, just because Sentinels can't usually combo anything like that. I haven't really found anything like that in Lusternia. I love many of the skills, but mostly as individual abilities, and not full skillsets or classes.

If you haven't tried knighthood yet, Sylphas, it's not too late. Can 48.15% of the participants in a forum survey really be wrong?

As semi-dormant as I am, I'd need to rune my weapons, and I don't have the money, and I don't like the randomness.

I enjoy Knighthood. A lot.