Balance. From someone with over 50 hours across 4 playtests (counting this one).
Greetings!
The first thing I have to say is that I have very noticeably and meaningfully improved over every hour I have spent in the game so far. That is an incredible win for the team. You will have a successful game. Notably, I mostly restrained judgement on balance too much, because so much of the game really requires you to be good at it before you can understand it. The interactions between the characters are intricate, and the interactions between the various abilities (Dodge, Block, Parry, Feinting, various attacking, combos, special moves, super special snowflake stuff like hidden stance, etc) are also quite intricate.
Today I can't say I mastered feints, but finally was in an MMR range where they were required and meaningful and I feel like I have an understanding of that game now. In particular I was forced to do this because I learned that Raiders have no guaranteed heavies (None of the throws, even wall throws, will guarantee it, and GB doesn't guarantee side heavy like it does with every single other char in the game). After doing that for a while, I tinkered with Berserker, whom I played a great deal in a previous beta, but not against anyone good enough that feinting was correct. My parries are pretty good (100% heavies, low percentage lights. Maybe 10-20). My deflects are good when I am practicing them, but deflects are only key in certain matchups in my opinion, so I don't practice them super often. Dodges near perfect. GB tech rate probably 90ish%. Depends on how familiar I am with the matchup/animations. All of this is just for context.
I will disclaim one more time, it's really hard to talk about balance because everything is contextual and skill matters so much more than balance does. It's not until you get to the really high level (Which, admittedly, I might not even be at, but I think I am close enough to see it now) that power of chars is impacting outcome more than player skill.
That said, it just feels so much easier to kill people with Assassins. My skill and time played is roughly equivalent between Berserker and Raider (Lots) with 8+ hours of Conqueror/Warlord/Nobushi. When I play the conqueror I feel like I win with an average amount of work. When I play Raider.... I have to hustle for every win. It's very very tough when the only safe time you have to throw heavies is when your opponent is exhausted and you aren't. You have to work lights all day long, and play perfectly in order to win with Raider (in comparison with other chars). Berserker on the other hand, does a ton of damage, is super nimble, and his dodge mix ups are incredible. From neutral you can feint into a light attack, or you can feint into a dodge slash, or if you think they are on to you with the dodge slash you can dodge and then parry their counter to the slash you passed on. His mind games are crazy. Raider has his tap feint/dodge and dash/GB, but his capitalization on the GB is.... a light. His capitalization on the tap is... a blockable attack (assuming they can see through stun, which most good players will.)
The number of actual balance issues I see are these:
Warden zone attack feels like it just needs fixing. It tricks you by double signaling, it's insanely fast... it's just dumb.
Warden top light speed is not in and of itself busted, but as part of her kit it's really problematic. If you want to try and parry the top light, you have to immediately react. If they mix up by doing a heavy occasionally, you will parry early and they will just hit you. It's so fast that if you want to act on reaction, you can't wait long enough to make sure it's actually an attack (as opposed to a feint or heavy) before parrying. This functionally means that I think every char just has to only block top against Wardens. Feels a little rough that she has a safe zone to attack in, as long as she mixes up at least a tiny bit. I don't know exactly what I would change here.... just some comments.
Peacekeepers second light in her combo chain is unblockable. Her move set doesn't say it, and as the opponent it doesn't necessarily look that way, but test it. As long as she switches directions between the first and second light, the second light hits you. Don't know if this is intentional or not, but it's frustrating as hell to play against, because all the indicators tell you you could block/react/parry/dodge/whatever to this hit, but actually you can't.
That's the egregious stuff I know about.
Other stuff to look at is Warden/Conq bashes. They are both good, and really hard to dodge (although I know it is technically possible). I don't think Warden bash should be cancelable into GB, especially if Storm Rush/Warlord Head Butt/Everything else in the game that looks like that can't be.
Lastly I would say that Raider probably needs something. If he had better stamina drain to get the opponent exhausted, he could heavy more often. Or maybe make his side heavies fast enough that they land on a guard break. Kinda open to whatever (although stamina drain sounds more interesting to me personally). I would rather not gimmick 3 stunning taps in a row right now in order to exhaust someone so I can swing a heavy at them without planning on dying 
. Buffing the stamina drain on the knee strike (When you stampede throw someone into a wall) might be good enough.
Thanks!
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