My goal with the changes wasn’t to try and balance the class by removing those options but by putting them in a framework that is more conducive to to balancing them from a mathematical perspective . Part of Heavy Hitters current value is that all of the melee damage nodes are right next to each other. And the change very specifically works to give a lot more of those damage nodes over to FNP and separate them from HH with a different branch in the middle.
Fatshark has a tendency to try and make “Safe” Melee options by giving those options Impact. You can see this in the Arbites with their Forceful Branch. True Strike, Hard Knocks, Slam, and even Brutish Strength are all nodes that I moved to the right side of the tree along with FNP Keystone node, because those are damage bonuses that I believe “belong” to that branch.
I think this, along with some Keystone specific upgrades can keep the Branch Viable. FNP Players could still grab damage nodes from HH and vice versa, but the fact that those branches are on either side of the tree is a form of natural tree taxation. It naturally just cost the player more points to get bonuses from such a wide split. (To your credit, I didn’t specify that I had moved those nodes over in the post and the image is grainy. It might be a bit too much to ask the reader to look at a grainy image and compare node pictures to one another. My apologies; as I said in the post, this is the cost of rushing to finish).
And in regards to Gunlugger being moved to the middle of the tree, again, the goal wasn’t to take away option but instead to make it easier to balance those options. Darktide is a game about Ranged and Melee options. Every class should want options that let them have their cake and eat it too because ultimately, at some point you are going to have to rely on the weapon that isn’t the focus of your build. The trick to finding a good balancing point for that playstyle is giving it different value propositions. This is why I also argue that the Ogryns damage bonuses class wide should be reworked not to be flat percentile bonuses to all enemies but specific bonuses for specific kinds of enemies. With the Rumbler 's low ammo, spamming Rumbler shots into a horde becomes less valuable as an option to players if it’s less effective. And not getting potentially 112.5% extra ranged damage (“Soften Them Up”, “Payback Time”, “Strongman”, “For the Lil’Uns”, “Coward Culling”, “Bash and Blast”, “No Hurting Friends”, and “Reloaded and Ready”) against every target in an encounter will probably do more to balance that playstyle than some kind of specific nerf to the damage of the Rumbler. Let Ogryns eat their cake. Just make sure the slice of action is proportional to what everyone else is doing too.
[I edited the post to make the suggested revised placement of each individual node a lot clearer. You should be able to find it under the edited skill tree image. I am specifically wondering if the clarification assuages some of your mechanical concerns.]