Crushers recently received a big buff to their HP and spawn rate was reduced, this is a good step towards making them beefy dangerous individuals to deal with.
That said, Crushers could use three more changes that would greatly help make Crushers more interesting to fight; while allowing other weapons that would normally not stand a chance against them to have effectiveness against them, without diminishing Crusher’s status as a beefy, dangerous melee opponent.
Here’s a short video to better visualize what Crushers could be with the right tweaks:
Note the 3 heavily telegraphed attack patterns: the crushing overhead, the wide sweep, and the charge - each followed by a brief window for the player to counterattack.
Change 1: Attacks
Give the Crusher three telegraphed attack patterns. He already has the overhead, but give him a wide sweep and a Bull Charge. These attacks would ideally have a brief window for counterattack, and would give players a few seconds of breathing room as the sweep/charge attacks would knock human sized enemies over.
Other Ogryns would momentarily be knocked over, or they could be programmed to dodge the Crusher charge, similar to how the player Ogryn is able to knock human sized enemies down dodging. Sweep would have an internal CD so enemies aren’t constantly being ragdolled by Crusher though.
Bull Charge and the wide sweep could both be dodgeable attacks, Bull Charge by a side dodge and sweep with a backwards dodge. Both would deplete toughness (or Stamina if a player decided to block) completely if they hit a player making them dangerous attacks.
Bull Charge would only occur IF the player the Crusher is targeting gains a certain amount of distance from the Crusher. Once the player is within that distance, the Crusher only does Sweeps, Overheads and Push Attacks. Notably, the player could use this as a deliberate strategy to use Crusher’s Bull Charge for staggering enemies by purposefully creating space between himself/herself and the attacking Crusher. (Ogryns may be strongest, but they’re not known for being the brightest…)
Change 2: Armor
Give him a flak armor type weakspot, preferably the rear lower panel. This, when combined with teamwork or use of the attack windows described above would allow other weapons that could normally never damage Carapace to have limited effectiveness against Crushers. Anti-Carapace would still be the ideal choice, but players wouldn’t have as much pressure to focus on Carapace over other armor types so weapon variety can be increased.
Change 3: Resistance
With both the above changes, Crushers could gain more resistance to stagger without making players feel as if there’s not enough meaningful ways to counter them. This would make them feel more dangerous and engaging to fight.