I understand that some people did not like the fire on release, but the change to the firing and method of triggering the freeze hurt Cryostgesia in two ways.
First, the Catalyst is not as useful. It is still useful, as orbs are nice and you can still kill the frozen after freezing them, but the game flow that came with the original iteration was much more fluid. Which is my next point.
Second, it slows down and hurts the flow of Cryosthesia. Before the change, I had a build on my hunter that revolved around Cryosthesia, and as a result I came to understand the flow of the gun. Forcing the freeze functionality to be a uniqe reload drastically cuts that game flow down and forces a much more passive playstyle.
I’m all for the AOE changes to Cryosthesia freeze, but putting the freeze shot behind a reload hurts the weapon’s game flow, and I believe it should be undone. Release to fire is not that bad, and it is still present on Devil’s Ruin, so I don’t see why it had to be changed to Cryosthesia’s detriment.
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For 3v3 it became fantastic. I love the gun now.
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I've only used it a few times since the change since gjallerhorn is taking my exotic spot but the freeze/aoe definitely felt quite a bit more clumsy. Like you said, it feels like you get a buff that you're supposed to play defensively when before the buff meant you could be more aggressive with the freeze (And do nothing because the freeze didn't last long).