Your thoughts are accurate. I disliked the change to reloading when I read it, but it plays really well. The change to reloading can’t be considered in isolation from the other changes:
- Damage increased against bosses from 0.75 to 2.5 near range and 1.5 far range
- Increased Power boost from 0.75 to 1.0
- Increased dodge range and speed from 1.1 to 1.25
- Increased efficient dodge count to 100
The increases to dodge range and speed, and previous increases to walking speed with brace of pistols, are very nice. Brace of Pistols used to force a static play style when they were drawn. Current Brace of Pistols make you feel like a mobile gunslinger.
The damage increase vs. bosses is pretty hilarious. WHC + tag + ult dissolves bosses. Somebody should run the numbers and see if those 12 rounds do more damage to bosses vs 30 rounds with the previous damage multipliers.
Speaking of 12 rounds, that’s a lot. Blasting all 12 into a troll still feels like Salt’s gone absolute madman on the enemy. If that’s the defining feature of Brace of Pistols, it’s still there.
Summary of changes to Brace of Pistols: (1) the “mounted machine gun” play style has been weakened but not eliminated, (2) a new mobile gunslinging playstyle has been opened up.
The changes are great, they play better than they ever have. They’re better than they’ve ever been, despite niche uses being weakened.