A Late feedback on Patch 3.4 Heleborgs Tutelage & related change

In Patch 3.4, Mercenary Level 10 talent Heleborgs Tutelage received a change/nerf. It no longer gains multiple stacks when shield/blunderbuss bashing into a horde.
This results in two things. First, it nerfs the shield bash/blunderbuss + Heleborgs Tutelage builds (ofc). Previously you get from 1~3 stacks with one bash, to only 1 stack. It’s already a micro-management heavy build if you want to use the crit to maintain blunderbuss ammo since even with Black Market Supplies you only get 1 ammo back with Scrounger. And with the removal of crit/headshot guaranteed stagger, the crit it provides do no bring significant stagger advantage(although push does not consume crit & will crit infinitely). Overall it nerfed an unpopular, mid-strength level build that has synergy with low popularity weapons, which is unnecessary and it hurts the part of fun build elements of this game in my opinion.
Second, it nerfed the shield bash career skill recharge (intended or bug idk). Shield bash attack has 3 hitboxes and in old patch, all three hitboxes contribute to cooldown on hit, making shield bash a very efficient ult build-up tool since 2 out of 3 hitboxes have extensive wide range and infinite cleave. Current patch, only the inner hitbox contribute to cooldown on hit, outer hitboxes do not. And since the inner hitbox has a very limited range, in a real game it can only hit 1 enemy. As the result, this patch reduced the ult regen speed on shield weapon significantly, from about average to way below average(actually the worst since most of the time you do bash - push combo). From a game design perspective, removing an embedded weapon mechanic(in this case shield bash attacks) that has weird interaction with other base mechanics(in this case cd on hit) is understandable. But consider the current state & popularity of shield weapons, I think it’s unnecessary and rob away some fun/strong part of the whole shield weapon category.
So in conclusion, imho, these changes were quite unnecessary. The interaction of talents & weapon mechanics are always the best part of builds and making fun builds are an important element of the game. And for balance perspective, these nerfed builds/weapons are rarely seen and consider strong/overpowered in any skill level.

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