The Balanced buffs are basically never used. Just about their only use is for 9-piece sets because there are (almost?) no other instances of a complete setup using items of only one level.
Not that a useless buff is necessarily a problem, but I would like to see it become useful. I see some ways of doing this:
- a very large buff to the stat increase, enough to put a 9-piece set somewhat near a different normal setup (would have to account for Keen Edge, Smashing Hammer, Shield Wall, and Armor Boost being less effective)
- a change to have the Balanced buffs activate if all worn items are within a certain number of levels of each other. This would probably have to be a ratio rather than an absolute number because a 100-level gap in items worn is quite common at EoC but almost never happens at the lowest levels. One possibility is to take the ratio of the highest level worn to the lowest, and have the Balanced buffs work if that ratio is less than or equal to a certain amount. Technically that's the way the buffs work now, except that that ratio is 1. A ratio of 1.05 would allow a level 1900 player to have a 90-level gap (1900/1.05 = 1809.5, would round up to 1810), while a level 50 player could only equip down to level 48 (50/1.05 = 47.62, rounds up to 48). This might appear to favor high-leveled players more, though.
A more radical departure could be to remake the buffs into Balanced Finesse (ATK and DEF) and Balanced Power (ARM and DMG). Balanced Finesse would give a boost to ATK and DEF if those two values are within 10% of each other, while Balanced Power does the same for ARM and DMG. This promotes the use of "balanced" setups that favor two stats equally. These calculations would be done based on stats seen in your profile so you can fine-tune them.
Either way, since these buffs are useless now, I don't see any harm in moving them up the skill tree were they ever to become more useful. It's hard enough to come up with new buffs every 200 levels, why not re-use the (admittedly awesome) graphics and also not worry about having to come up with more buffs? Two birds with one stone!
Aside: who would be in favor of having ALL stat additions and transfers being taken into account on the Profile page? I mean buffs like NMV, Constitution, etc. We would probably need two separate values for DMG: one without DD (for PvP) and one with (for PvE). It would take current kill streak into account. With a zero kill streak, or DD not active, the two numbers would be the same.