We are almost a month into Shadowkeep and the latest Destiny sandbox and having played PvP almost exclusively since release, I have some thoughts on the current sandbox and where it can be improved.
I want to start with Warlocks because that's what I've been playing this expansion after running my Hunter in Y2. I'm currently about to complete my 6th Valor reset and have genuinely enjoyed playing the class, but also it's really spotlighted for me the drastic deficiencies they have vs Hunters and Titans.
D1 did a fantastic job with the rock, paper, scissors balance of classes and their abilities and neutral games. D2 at launch tried to make everything generic across the board, but as the sandbox opened up, it hasn't translated well.
Titans. They now have access to Shoulder Charge across all 3 subclasses. They have the best base melee and grenades in the game as well as better suppression than the Hunter class built for it. Throw in their barricades, which are hugely effective in objective based game modes and they're incredibly strong outside of weapon play.
Hunters. High jump. Dodge. Shade Step. Invisibility. Smoke Grenades that can snare, poison and ping radar. The ability to instantly load/reload any weapon or recharge melee simply by dodging. Thrown knives. The class has lethality built into it's neutral game and gives play advantages everywhere.
Warlocks. Healing Rifts that don't allow any extra damage and Empowering Rifts that give a slight damage buff, but both require locking yourself to one spot with a bullseye on you and can't be cast in combat because you're dead before the animation begins to finish. Blink, Arc Soul and... that's about it. Worst base melee in the game. Horrid range and melee speed from what was the strongest melee class in D1. Grenades are okay, but nothing stands out as great.
The class has nothing remotely on par with Shoulder Charge, Dodge, Smoke Grenades, invisibility or the base melee abilities of other classes and where a Titan barricade can be cast in combat to save them, rift cannot.
What I would like to see is Warlocks have their D1 melee advantages returned in both range and base melee speed. That change alone would greatly offset the advantages the other classes hold, particularly Shoulder Charge and Dodge.
That's my thoughts on Warlocks. Beyond that I would like to see:
-Fusion Rifles returned to bolt travel time vs hit scan. I see all the FR complaints and while I personally don't have a real issue playing against them, I also realize they are [i][b]much[/b][/i] more forgiving to use than they used to be and particularly at range (Erentil) since they only require being on target on the trigger pull vs the bolts having to actually travel that distance. I believe a lot of the frustration stems from that alone as players feel they should have successfully moved out of fire, but since it's hit scan, the bolts still kill.
- Base primary time to kill is too fast. Not overall, but the fastest killing weapons are too quick. I don't believe anything should kill in under .70 seconds. I actually believe weapons are fairly well balanced across all classes as far as there being great options in all weapon classes, but right now there are dozens of weapons that are as extremely lethal as Thorn and Red Death were at their peak in HoW. I also believe we're at the dawning of a massive Scout Rifle meta.
I don't think scouts as a weapon class should be nerfed, nor pulse rifles, hand cannons, fusions or any other weapon class. But I do think across the board, the fastest kill times need to be dialed back .15 of a second.
- Blade Barrage is an easy button. If it does, it shouldn't have any damage resistance during cast. BB is so quick to cast, it's almost impossible to kill without them at least getting a trade. They're basically D1 FoH and Nova Bomb on steroids. FoH required giving up Shoulder Charge for Unstoppable and even then it's success/kill rates had nothing on BB.
-less heavy in Comp modes. At most one round like trials in D1.
Other than that, I think play is pretty stellar right now obviously since I've been living in Crucible since launch. I think the overall weapon balance is again really good with every weapon class able to not just compete, but excel and the change to roaming super damage resistance really brought them back in line to where players need to think about where and when they use them now.
Thank you.
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Let's give Warlock their self resurrection perk back so they can just break the game again