TL;DR below.
I am currently at work and I haven’t tested the DLC, and as I don’t post that often and will probably forget later/get consumed by the DLC itself, I’d like to state a couple of things.
Since I gathered a bunch of reds I jump between different careers, but I mainly play Witch Hunter Captain and Footknight, and Brace of Pistols being one of WHC’s signature weapons I’d like to chime in.
I used Brace of Pistols on WHC even before any buffs and I felt really comfortable with it. Since then it was gently pushed forward, then suddenly oberbuffed and reinged it a little bit. All in all I really like this change, even if it will warrant further iteration further on.
As I will never understand arguements like “Shade should melt bosses because you won’t have a reason to play her instead of HM” (justifying something without taking a closer look at HM and considering she’s balanced for granted), I’ll not delve into “crossbow -> something something, doesn’t one-two-three shot/isn’t as proficent at something in a cooperative game where there are literally 4 of you”.
I look at BoP on it’s own and I like the perks it got counterweighed by other disadvantages. Now you won’t immideately melt Skarrik with a single Strength pot, BH will have an actual synergy with reload speed talents, and it still packs a decent burst of firepower.
Speaking of Strength pots: on your recent stream I caught your suggestion of perhaps making certain map events difficulty dependent. I personally like that notion, it’s interesting if anything, not mentioning the powercurve introduced with all the recent buffs. But, on that same note, wouldn’t tailoring supply distribution on the map be something you can consider? As it seems now it’s somewhat random. Sometimes you have a decent run, sometimes you starve for healing on certain chunks of the map and sometimes you drown in all kinds of draught and potions.
Something like a semi-predetermined system with randomized elements would tie nicely with another notion you spoke of on stream: new book locations which incentivize players to take different routes on the DLC maps from the old optimal paths. Won’t an incentive to actually explore the map help diversify the paths a team takes, slow down the steamroll that usually occurs and give more confident players a choice to push on without as many supplies for a time and less waves tradeoff? And, I mean, it certainly won’t hurt to tweak the shower of supplies on Legend, considering all the heal-sharing and duping and all the careers with supplies. That would be one way to ease off the powercreep.
TL;DR Haven’t tried the new BoP but I like the direction they’ve taken with it, on board with map events depending on difficulty (mentioned on stream), and maybe a bit less supplies overall on maps, less randomized/scattered around the entire map to incentivize exploration. Shame to see beautiful maps like Bogenhafen (shush, I like them) tunneled through.