Thanks to the combination of rapid attack speed, long combo trigger range (~8m) and stagger resistance, right now large groups of Dreg Ragers (6+) can be only meleed safely (without risking chip damage) with a narrow group of builds, mostly making use of AoE stagger weapons such as Zealot’s Crusher and Ogryn’s Shield. When running ordinary melee weapons like Heavy Sword, Sapper Shovel or Chainaxe the best course is to usually shoot them before they close in, let your teammates kill them, use your ability to get an opening or otherwise circumvent the problem.
Given that all ragers have had their attacks made dodgeable in the first place specifically to encourage engaging them in melee, the last change to their attack speed is a regression. They should be safer to melee again. Reducing their attack speed would likely be the best solution, but giving them cooldown periods after their combo (like Monks in VT2) could also work if those were long enough.
In any case, I feel this enemy isn’t very interactive and don’t think that should be the case. Especially taking into account their newfound abundance they don’t make the game any more enjoyable for me when playing melee-focused loadouts outside of the few meta picks that simply don’t care.
Here, just to remind you of your own design principles:
