Every special is a panic button.. lol your argument is valid but only because you aren't seeing the whole picture. Of course you aren't going to be stupid and START your special while being shot at, because you are the only class that doesn't get a defense boost.. The gunslinger gets the throwing knife, arguably the worst melee in the game.. and also gets some of the worst grenades.. to compliment that half of your skills incease the effectiveness of your special.. this class and the sunsinger are the only two classes that gain an additional throwable weapon. The bladedancer has abilities that force it to be in close proximity to people, which is why it gets blink strike. but, like you said, it requires some skill because you can be deadly but you are also vulnerable.. again, more of your skills in either subclass help with your special more than any other class in the game. The sunsingerget's two grenades and the best melee..it can revive, and it's special is as good as the Defenders because you get just as much of an overshield as armor of light except you can still shoot with it active. Also, like the defender except better, the sunsinger get's an overshield for HITTING someone with their melee (flame shield), whereas the Defender has to KILL someone to get the same effect (disintegrate). The void walker has the 2nd best melee, get's blink which is a skilled man's shoulder charge, and it's entire class is built around it's melee energy drain which reduces the cooldown of their grenade..also it has the greatest grenade, axion bolt. the Strikers greatest PvP ability is obviously shoulder charge, but one thing most people don't realize is that if you choose shoulder charge you don't get enhanced defense during FOH which means it's not nearly the panic button everyone makes it out to be.. especially considering the voidwalkers special is the same thing except it has range, and every other special usually ends with 3-4 kills where the Striker would have to get all those kills at once, every other class can get them overtime. The Defender gets flash bang grenades, which really are great if you're playing as a team.. or if you are doing the raid.. they also get a bubble shield which is useless for PvP unless you're playing against idiots.. The defender's entire build is shaped towards helping allies more so than helping the Defender because the greatest abilities the defender possesses are passive ones..THUS, requiring more gun skill than any other class. As an aside, I'd like to point out that every single human being I've talked to about this game agrees, this is the consensus view.. the only people that disagree are people on this god forsaken forum who want to argue that their class isn't as good as it should be... most of them are balanced, but the plan was supposed to be for the Hunter to have the best specials but not get many because their abilities aren't as good; the Warlock get the best grenades, but have a weak melee and below average special; and the titan was supposed to have the best melee, but what ended up happening IF you watched as the game progressed: the hunter's special got buffed because the warlock was too powerful, and the defenders bubble shield wasn't strong enough so they buffed that as well.. neither buff fixed any problems. They also made hand cannons a primary instead of a secondary..and they got rid of "secondaries" all together and replaced them with "special weapons"