Claim first: a duel outside the capital says almost nothing about class strength if gear or level differ at all. Rotation, hit timing, and talent order only compare cleanly when both sides are equal footing. Right now the Hunter and Mage trees are both freshly merged into single trees, 52 nodes and 54 nodes respectively, and neither guide I've read has rotation numbers locked beyond beta build 1.60.1.69893. That means any duel result this week could just be one build pathing through early nodes faster, not a real power gap.
Under what condition does this flip. If both players are same level, same gear score, and both are running a finished leveling or endgame build rather than a half-respecced beta tree, then the duel starts meaning something. Until Blizzard details the actual combat changes beyond the trees existing, I'd treat any open-world result as anecdote, not data.
What I actually want to know: is anyone logging duels with matched ilvl and matched level right now. Screenshots of talent trees plus gear would help more than win/loss tallies alone.
