the dodge nerf is perhaps not noticible to players who are new, or didn’t play vermintide, or the closed beta. but as a 3,000 hour vermintide player who has completed a full helmgart legendary true solo with slayer, these kinds of changes basically break the game for me.
in the closed beta, ogryn with pipe was pretty good, able to dodge and chain light-heavy for sweep-sweep, for example. now, due to the huge input delay after heavy 2 (backhand) and also the dodge nerf, you literally cant move enough and attack enough to keep anything off of you.
i suspect the basis for this is “we want you to use the slap special attack, so we took away everything else that was working before,” but taking away options should never be the design path.
compromise for ogryn, perhaps as a class trait: allow the player to pay for dodges with stamina if you run out of dodge count. this allows the player to consider spending stamina on blocking, push attacking, or dodging, depending on fighting style, weapon choice, and enemy array. players can see the stamina bar and see that they will need to let dodge count reset. right now, like vermintide, there is no visual indicator for dodge count. being unable to dodge doesnt just affect melee kiting, it affects last second chances to avoid disablers. this class is just so brittle and helpless now, even with shield.
bottom line: you can’t be a “melee front liner” if you have to hit trade in melee with no health recovery option and a low shield capacity. you will, at best, slowly lose due to attrition.
edit: ogryn should also have a “taunt” aura. enemies in half your coherency radius will switch to melee and try to fight you. bonus coherency radius from talent affects this. ogryn should also be immune or highly resistant to ranged damage while charging.