I already made a thread about the Survivalist aura being perhaps a bit much, but I’m gonna list over the balance changes I see in the patch notes and comment on what I think is good, bad, and mid. I won’t be discussing what I think is missing, because ADHD made me forget, and everyone else here knows more than me about missing changes.
- Ogryn: Feel No Pain nerf
I don’t get this one. I always thought it was the weakest Ogryn keystone compared to the others, and now it seems even weaker. You don’t even need FNP to become immune to ranged attacks, as long as you’ve got some chaff in front of you to krump.
Combined with the nothingburger of changes to The Best Defense, Smash 'Em!, and Steady Grip, Ogryn’s overall damage resistance in the heat of combat remains relatively unchanged. A whole fifth of your toughness is still a massive amount per heavy attack, especially when you can continually dodge bullets.
As an aside, Dominate’s Rending nerf feels justified, and Trample is now competitive with Pulverize. Knocking over 25 enemies and gaining a whopping 50% damage boost sounds very promising. Mobile Emplacement continues to be a dud talent, as the mobility from unbracing and just standing next to the guy you’re shooting is more valuable defensively than an additional 20% damage resistance.
- Burst Limiter Override buff
For a similar reason, I don’t get this one. BLO was always a solid keystone for Dakkagryns and those running single-fire weapons that didn’t need Heavy Hitter. With the increased trigger chance, I think it’d be feasible for stubber users to literally never stop firing - it seems like this change was intended to make Ripperguns more viable, as their ammo economy is quite poor, but I don’t think it succeeded.
- Veteran
Being honest, these changes are pretty boring. All of them are fine, and I like that the grace period on MF is longer. The class is still strong, although top right tree may be a little more enticing - but not as valuable as TDR, I’d say.
- Psyker
Scrier’s Gaze and Warp Charges being fixed makes me a very, very happy reject, but the changes to Disrupt Destiny are interesting as well. Looking back on it, it WAS annoying to lose all your stacks because the marks weren’t working, so I can see it being a strong keystone - however, 4s is entirely too short a duration without a constant firefight. Lingering Influence will reign supreme in meta builds over Perfectionism. Empowered Psionics is unremarkable (except smite damage buff, WHY) as is Kinetic Presence.
- Zealot
Momentum nerf was uncalled for and I don’t think it was unbalanced to begin with. While a strong keystone, you aren’t always gonna have max stacks, making it less consistent than Martyrdom while a safer bet, and Fury was a strong alternative for crit-based builds. Stun grenade buff was unexpected and I don’t really have a comment, while left Piety remains strictly worse than the alternative.
No changes were made to crit-based cooldown being ludicrously good and the value of the tree being all over the place.
- Enemies
Being able to dodge ragers was a long time coming, it felt completely BS to get hit way outside of their range, and the Bulwark nerfs make the game much more fun to play. Stun on getting shot by trash mobs is good, and reduced invulnerability after toughness break is fine as well.
New Tox Bomber is kind of annoying but overall not as big of a threat as the original Scab Bombers are. He seems to be harder to hear than his counterpart. Enemy buffs are cool but don’t seem to change all too much.