Difference Between Apocalypse and Forsaken?

DoktorWario:

Forsaken's also a lot more poorly balanced than Apocalypse... Namely, Spirit Pack and the Warding gift that lets you make technological items cease working in an area are incredible, and on par with Apocalypse, whereas most werewolf powers are drastically weaker. Forsaken's also notable in that their rage and crinos equivalent forms are almost entirely drawbacks.

How does that make it 'poorly balanced'?  I agree it makes it signifcantly less powerful than Apocalypse, and I agree that RAW makes the hybrid form mostly a drawback, but I don't think makes the game poorly balanced with itself or within it's own world

Comparing 5 dot Gifts to lower level Gifts doesn't help establish what's unbalanced either.

Werewolf Gifts don't scale like Vampire's Discilines, or any other "magic" abilities in the nWoD.  At lower levels they tend to be minor utility effects but become extremely potent at high levels.  When a character starts with the built in advantages a werewolf has, like regeneration and shape shifting for stat bonuses with no cost, it doesn't serve "balance" to give their low level Gifts the same benefits as another supernatural's special powers when that supernatural doesn't gain similar advantages by virtue of its creature type.  The squishier you are the better your powers need to be, werewolves aren't that squishy compared to most other starting characters.

Apocalypse wasn't designed with other supernatural player character races in mind, it was only concerned with what was going on in its own self contained line (barring Dark Alliance Vancouver and Under a Blood Red Moon.)  There wasn't a design decision to standardize the oWoD across gamelines, so abilities that worked properly in their own setting would be abusable in another game's setting.  Paws of the Newborn Cub could have made the Week of Nightmares last about 5 minutes in most of the oWoD games I witnessed.  Admittedly, Alpha's Howl (from The Rage) can do something similar.

 It's worth noting that gaining the Renown to earn a five dot Gift is often the point of a whole story.