I loved the Grenadier Gauntlets and their light attack chain. It was a lot of fun! Punching fools and giving them super mechanic arm uppercuts was the most fun part of the game for me.
I named my Ogryn Mike Tyson and revolved my playstyle around punching with him. It was so awesome!
Thing is, the Gauntlets suck at being a melee weapon. Before the launch, bleed helped make the gauntlets viable, because they literally only do 10 damage to the second+ enemy hit in a sweep. Even when you fully charge the melee attack, your horde damage is zero.
The stagger is nice, but I could do the same with bully club or shield and still have a lot of damage with it. The smashes are already weak on single target, but that’s what the grenades are for.
But now, bleed doesn’t even apply to the Gauntlet’s heavy melee attack.
You can’t even get toughness from the level 5 talents with them anymore, from what it seems. I have been neutered, and I’m sad.
Edit: I see now that bleed/toughness doesn’t apply to the second heavy attack (Sweeping from left to right), but it does apply to the down smash and punch. I’m glad that’s at least in tact.
I can’t block with my fists, I do no damage to hordes, I can’t push with them… there’s no reason to punch with them now, which is a shame because I freaking loved it so much!
Why is the melee so weak on them? They’re extremely risky to use because you already can’t block with them, so I had to get my dodge slides perfect in order to make good use of them, so I feel like they should at least be as good as any other melee weapon in terms of damage (Hell, I’d take even shield’s damage over this…)
It’s just, you took one of the best part of Ogryn (For me, I can’t speak for others) and I feel like a large part of the charm I had for this sweet build is gone.
I’m not mad, I just… really hope you bring back punching as a melee weapon at some point. Now I just feel like my arms are made of pool noodles, despite being a super jacked dude with mechanical fists.
I know there’s the club and knife, but it feels 1000x better to punch the bejeezus out of things.