I find the new weapons to be very powerful / big upgrades from previous lvl weapons. All of the magic effects are a big bonus to CC via frost or stagger via lightning i.e., Mistwalker and Himmin afl.

The frost staff does good dps and CC, ember staff does damage, stun, and AoE.

Prot staff is really fun, especially if you go full mage with dead raiser.

Demolisher is a direct, and big, upgrade to sledge.

The weak links by far for weapons has to be Krom and Jotun bane. My favourite weapon is Krom but the least functional aside from parry -> special. I was hoping it would replace Crystal BA, but doesn't have it's perks.

Jotun bane is lackluster, but at least it gives a dot and has the new special.

The heavy armor (all biomes) has always been mediocre at best; it's just armor with a movement reduction. Once you get a better handle on the mobs in the given zone, the armor isn't needed as much and the movement penalty isn't worth it. So good for zone start, but mixing and matching is the way to go later.