The melee steamroll part is what makes destro side superior, melee always wins of range if they can tank 5 ranged classes same time and still kill 3 of them.
The classes on order are unbalanced, because developers screw up on the looks.
Dwarf Ironbreaker is the only order tank that looks like a tank, a swordmaster is a girly guy in a robe....
Well a lot of people don't like the looks of a dwarf, so they choose the far superior looking Chosen or Black Orc.
And even less people like the look of a Swordmaster, so Order ends up with half the ammount of tanks. And talking about orcs they are the only tank in game that can freeking heal themself by insane ammounts. Also tanks in this game are damn good compared to most games, because in this game you can't run from tanks in most cases. And the Order having more CC is bullshit too, Squig hunters, get aoe root, aoe slow, Sorceress get aoe root, Magus get aoe root, aoe knockback, Orc get knockback, root, slow, zealot get knockback, Desciple get bunch of slows, there are some other roots and slows too, just naming a few.
As for order counterpart classes being better, which ones?
Black orc = counterpart ? Ironbreaker = win for orc with their heal and superior dmg, only end game IB might get more CC but then again the looks of orc win more players over.
Chosen = counterpart Swordmaster well could call that even but chosen looks a lot lot lot more like a real tank and gets way more people.
Witch hunter = counterpart Witch elf = pretty even, on my WH I win mostly of the WE because I really hunt for them but if they would do the same for me it would be a fair battle.
Desciple of Khaine = Counterpart Warrior priest = win for DoK they get way more dps AS A FREEKING HEALER... can last way longer then a WP just because they kill faster, they can totally disable a target, then kill it while healing themselves, and buffing up making em able to tank 3 people while killing a 4th, now WP ain't bad either but DoK wins.
Archmage = Shaman = pretty even
Runepriest = Zealot = pretty even, not played runepriest, but killed, chased tons of zealots, and its a pesky class to kill with the ammount of insta heals they have, but thats just at lvl 25, RP look pretty much even.
Marauder = Counterpart??? it's probably white lion, but the looks of marauders win by far, making there be like 5 times as many marauders as white lions, and although the both classes would be pretty even and maybee WL would even have an adventage, there are simply way too few White Lions because the Elves look like a bunch of female guys And these 2 are damn good dmg dealers, they are not as squishy as Witch hunters or witch elves, but their dmg output is not much lower, and this is a big adventage for dstruction side having so many of those dd's.
Shadow Warrior = Squig herder, now to put it like this, SW dies from melee, so does Squig herder, but, in range the squig herder is superrior, just their looks, their way smaller, and harder to target, and they get a squig... the squig can add dmg from range too, while SW has nothing for the extra dmg output of a SH, they only get superior melee to them, but their melee sucks.... and the aoe root and aoe slow of an SH wins it of the bugged roots from SW so SH is way superior.
Engineer = Magus = hard to say for me they look pretty even both can put up a thing that shoots too, Engi does phys ranged dmg, which probably gives em an adventage over magus, but a big disadventage against melee, and the melee are in bigger ammounts on destro side. But they are pretty even, both die a lot, both do decent ranged dmg.
Bright Wizzard = Sorceress = pretty even, although BW seems overpowerd, they are not, there are just way many more BW. They both get CC, they both get damn high dmg, both mechanics work same way, so no as you say Order has adventage in ranged dps, absolutely not from their classes, only from the numbers of BW, but those guys get owned by witch elves really fast, and by marauders pretty fast, also tanks can just tank em and kill em off... so nope Order is in a disadventage without enough non squishy classes and especially without enough white lions and ironbreakers. Let alone the ammount of players total on each side. Having more players on your side total, helps a LOT in open world rvr, and helps a LOT in lvling up Cities etc. And why r there more players on the destro side, because, in tier 1 destro has so much adventage with having fat orcs lvl 11 kill 5 people all by themselves without going under half of their hp, that a lot of noobs reroll destro, and having 5 noob orcs is still a big adventage over having 3 decent other classes, because orc isn't a class that needs much skill, it's a really noob friendly class, because you have to charge, and even if you don't switch target according to the situation, you still disable it no matter how noob you are, because you just don't die fast enough... and even if you die it takes the other side A LOT of their dmg put on you so you absorb all that AP put into you instead of the other classes.