The weapon changes are so widespread it's hard to know what the plan was...

I hear you - what way would you like them to increase difficulty?

1. Noted. I'll incorporate this into my next video. 2. Exotics *should* be situationally good: chatterbox and chameleon should be best in slot *in close quarters when you can maintain their talents*. Otherwise, they are very, very weak. St. Elmos and oreo are basically always strong just based on their base stats.

1. Sorry I've lost you! 2. The game is 5.5 years old, but the st. elmos and oreo and even the current iteration of striker aren't even close to that old. 3. The game isn't dead. It's getting a new DLC. If the game wasn't going to receive any further updates, then I would agree with you. 4. None of the changes force you to start all over again and make a new build. 5. I stick with this game because I enjoy it and I feel that I still have things to say about it. And also because there aren't any new games that are interesting to me. No big deal.

What's this about letting a clan member flail? I haven't heard this story.

There's a lot here, so I'll respond to it in a future video.

Respect.

@@SCarter02767 pvp is 💩

Let people play what they want to play. What’s the fascination with dictating what people play and this compulsion that all weapons must be used.

@@janekamonsiri could be. Hopefully they can hang on long enough for the DLC!

@@eirikdraagen thanks!!!

@@temomass777 but that means they're buffing everything in the game tho - that's a lotta work! They did buff a fair amount of things tho ironically

100% agree with Temomass. Let the favorite weapons be. Don’t act dictatorial and force people to use what you want….if 99% of the people are running elmo with striker - what is the problem!!! Do I have to use the G36 just bcoz you put one in the game?? Release better weapon and gear and we will gravitate to that….for example - I love umbra and I love the buff to it. So now I will use it more. But striker did not need to be nerfed due to that. (Yes it is not a significant change - but then why make it)

@@MultiplicativeDivision A nerf that puts Elmo into balance isn't Dictatorial. It'll be just as viable as everything else and shouldn't run your enjoyment of it. I have a theory as to why they nerfed the striker backpack specifically that I'll get into in another video. Another theory is they wanted to test the waters for a bigger change in the future. Based on the player's reaction that we've seen so far, the nerf probably won't make it to the live game.

@@yamii.2152 movement rework meaning no chicken dancing?

@@gbfree25 apparently, he cares, cuz he's telling us we're playing it wrong! Lol This is a conversation about what's the best. Of course, you're free to play the game any way you please

They've definitely done a better job balancing XP when they did the rework, but it still needs work - I agree!

How has the game gotten too complicated? Are you talking about the upcoming modifiers or are you talking about the sheer amount of changes in the PTS being overwhelming?

​@@d15p4tch6all of the above, you make the perfect build that works for you, they change the game again. It's way to much upkeep and it takes away from playing and enjoying the game.

@@EDN-ii1yk good points though I have to point out that you say on the one hand you want new content, but at the same time the new gear that we got was just filler. So which is it, and do you consider reworked gear sets "new content"?

@@d15p4tch6 I don't consider reworked gear new content

@@brandonbrown8516 how so?

@@AhnoldRunningMan depends on what you consider *new* content. They are working on that new DLC, that's likely where they are concentrating the new maps and story content, if that's what you're talking about. It seems, especially with the 5xp events, that people are perfectly fine running old content as long as "number go up" even though that number means nothing

@@darshans6321 based take

I only use st elmos and oro in raids/ incursion. Open world lady death, shield splinter and anything but oro/ st elmos

No, they weren't, they could have easily buffed everything that NOBODY USES. Clamouring for a nerf so other guns get a chance is half assed and lazy.

@@Custom60625 buffing 98% vs nerfing 2% is obviously going to take a lot more time. It's not an efficient use of developer time which could go towards new content

@@d15p4tch6 eh, considering the allotted time that they've had to do things they have done a horrible job. We've got more bugs than when I started playing this game 3 years ago. Nothing but regurgitated events and manhunts. Nerfing is the furthest thing they need to do in this game, especially 6 years running. It's crazy how many people are just going to comply with the crappy service that we've been getting from these devs. They should actually be asking us what we want and they should be having us take a poll of the ideas they have so we can actually make this game better for us. The devs come off as a group of people that don't even play this game and they're just throwing shit to see what sticks on the wall. Look at the dev team in China, granted it's not exactly the same game in terms of how you acquire items but it's definitely better in concept and they have way more options with builds, guns, and apparel.

@@GeardoGaming I'm glad someone noticed 🤣

@@aaronsinspirationdaily4896 y tho

@@d15p4tch6 the reasoning is sound, I don’t agree with the nerfing and buffing logic as it doesn’t achieve anything material for the game, devs or players and the exotic season event he describes would be awesome compared to the junk we are fed right now. The game isn’t stale because of gear. The game is stale due to a massive lack of steady new and engaging content. The buffs and nerfs are a distraction from this core flaw in the entire game. Content is king. Even KZbin publishers know this. Other, older games get this and built platforms that allowed for relatively easy delivery of new content. Look at Warframe for example. Much older, much more successful and absolute tonne of engaging content. Only one thing will save Div 2, that’s a steady stream of new content. It’s why everyone gets so excited for Div 3. It is the hope of new content. Although, the state of Ubisoft now puts this as very unlikely.

@@aaronsinspirationdaily4896 Not saying Tux's idea is bad, but it's also based on buffing/nerfing logic: introduce OP seasonal gear, then dial it back when season ends.

@@aaronsinspirationdaily4896 I mean, like Martin is saying, Tux's idea *is* based on gear, not really content. Otherwise, your opinion seems to be shared by a lot of people in these comments: the biggest thing they want is new content, and I get that!

@@d15p4tch6agreed. It’s just a better way to do it. I’d rather the game have lots of content. I’m certain we’d care less about buffs and nerfs if that was the case. I’ve seen it in games with lots of steady content. Discussions on buffs and nerfs are very muted and only amongst the perfectionist optimist elitists, which is totally understandable. The fact that such a large portion of the playerbase see this round as just plain stupid and unnecessary, speaks massive volumes about the state of the game. No, most people don’t agree that strikers is massively overpowered or was making the game boring or stale. To assert this is true is gaslighting when the facts don’t support it.

I'm talking about balance amongst the different pieces of gear in the game, not balance between enemies and players. How powerful players are has always been a dev determined situation and is completely separate, and can be wildly different from game to game. I'll go into this in a video soon. Games like Civilization have difficulties that are so hard I literally haven't tried half of them. Then, you've got something like this game most would consider Legendary pretty difficult, but heroic and below super easy. Dark souls is really hard AFAIK, but some other games might be easy. Let me know if I'm not understanding your point right. You've got a bit of a conspiratorial idea of the devs, saying that they are doing this as a trick. I see it in a more positive light in that "hey, Ubi isn't giving us very much money, what can we give the players to chew on while we work mostly on the DLC?" - "Let's shake up the weapon and talent meta and give them some more interesting options to do in the meantime" seems equally, if not moreso, possible than the devs being malicious. I don't think any of those trivialize the game. I think that they are clearly better than 90% of everything else, so they become the go-to. Regardless, more to your point, Golden Bullet is temporary, so it's a nice change of pace. If the game was always easy though, it would get stale very quickly. That's why people don't play on normal mode all the time. Also, everyone loves a good BRRRRRRT, whether it's overpowered or not. ALSO also, if enemies get the golden bullet, you *can* get taken down very easily. Its more high risk- high reward than just high reward, though it definitely leans more in the latter direction.

@@axelwhite3087 it was only on the PTS, hopefully it comes to the live game. Pretty crazy how everyone is freaking out about a PTS, right?

@@martinmiller3765 🤣 you may be right!

Obliterate is definitely debatable, but I'm with the devs on this one. In most cases (striker backpack, negotiators backpack, etc), there's no other source of total weapon damage, so it was multiplicative. That means at max stacks it was doing just as much damage as Glass Cannon without the massive 50% incoming damage penalty (assuming you're not using damage skills). That's pretty strong. Meanwhile, gunslinger was much harder to manage and yet it was less damage. I think essentially switching the two around makes the entire stack of talents a bit more balanced. I'd argue that, if the devs wanted to show us who's in charge, they would've just pushed through seasonal characters. If you want to see these changes as deliberate malice by the devs, I don't think I'll be able to change your mind, but I also think that you're deliberately choosing to view it negatively of your own volition.

@@grumpyoldman6503 i kinda agree with that because i invested a lot of exotic in weapons witch are now not on top of the burst dps board... fragile armor is a pain in the ass as well tbh... but at some point this game needs some balancing...

Fragile armor is absolutely unacceptable, I agree. That's something we can all be on the same side for. I *do* understand however, that the devs are dealing with the biggest fires first - they know that FA is a fire, but it's lower priority than everything else - and that's frustrating. I didn't touch on cynicism because I think that it's driven by speculation. You can craft a narrative in your head about why the devs do what they do, but we literally have no idea. I'll be touching on this in another video, so I think I'll leave most of that discussion there: what "true content" is, what the dev's plan is, etc.

@d15p4tch6 I don't think they are fighting the biggest fires though. At least, not from my point of view. And I've played *A LOT* of div2 since WONY and seen a lot of dev behavior from now until then as the basis for my judgements. I think they changed what they did because they were forced to back out the seasonal stuff, and they basically wanted to mulligan our gear from what they perceived to be the meta, by fiat nerfs. The entire point is they clearly don't give a wet fart about how much time anyone has put into the items they are kneecapping. They wanted to blow that ALL up with the seasonal characters idea.

"Waaa! I can't get kills, plz nerf" is the most petty reason I can imagine for wanting something changed in a game. Especially when there are plenty of solo options available for the same content. You want to drag everyone and everything down to your level. I'm sure if you play TFD you are a bunny hater too.

Yeah determined is a joke, I just leave legendary missions it someone is using it

@@grumpyoldman6503 well looks like i caught one of those guys i was talking about ! Look kid, determined is an aimbot, it’s like a cheat ! Like i said, i don’t mind if people are not good enough to use a bugged talent or a cheat if they are on their own but in a group it’s really frustrating for the other players because they see all the ads getting killed by someone who has no skill at all and can clear the entire map with the tv off ! It takes away the fun for the other players in a group... Btw, if i start to use this bugged talent, trust me, you can use whatever you want, you are not gonna be able to touch even 1 ad... And i'm not a bunny hater, again, it’s cool to farm on your own... i'm sure that you are the type of player you wants to see the scoreboard at the end of a mission just to see that you have done more kills than anybody with a bug lol... If you think that you're that good, you should use the nemesis or the mantis instead or even the perfect version of determined just to see how the talent should work...

I don't like it when NGN does it in his videos either. Any story immersion he's trying to accomplish is completely gone for me when I see it.

While I *do* think Determined needs a nerf, I don't mind when someone else kills everything in legendary. That's just not the metric that I'm getting satisfaction from. If you're not getting kills with memento, maybe switch to something else - that way you'll be doing more damage and not worrying about memento stacks. Just a suggestion. I absolutely understand the frustration - why run anything else when determined is so effective is a very demotivating situation to be in.

The problem is expertise and not respecting the investment that it represents when it comes to nerfs specifically. The last paragraph is correct. Making a change that erases gear from relevancy when the grind is so much is the most bone-headed move a dev could make. It's not the striker pack Dispatch- it's oreo, elmos, scorpio, lefty, sniper rifles, and LMGs people have dumped hundreds of exos into they don't want changed. Or give refunds of some kind. Just assuming it's a non-issue like you do here ("haha! It's your dumb fault for investing in a striker bag in the first place, and did I mention I hate striker?") is a terrible hot take.

@@grumpyoldman6503 we agree dude. We agree. If it's balanced, it's fine. If it's unbalanced, it's not. What specific weapon has been reduced to irrelevancy by these changes? My opinion, to sum it up is that balance is good. That requires buffs and nerfs. Something being sub-par is not good. That goes double if that item is something people have put expertise into. You might have a good point about scorpio - it might just not be viable anymore if these changes go live. I believe that we'll still find ways to use it, we just might have to tailor our builds differently to get it to work the way we want. Maybe we'll have to run Umbra with it to get the debuffs at the same rate. Maybe that just won't work. We'll have to wait and see. For the oreo and the st elmos, they are flawed in their very design. Their talents are boring and have no good way to be used. The oreo for example: there is no good way to put a status effect on yourself to get the ammo to use the talent, and even if you do, I don't think it would even be that effective. What, are we supposed to deliberately get stuck in place by a true sons jizzer to get ensare bullets? Are we supposed to run thru fire so we can shoot fire bullets, even though we literally won't be able to ADS and won't be able to hit anything? The talents need to be changed. When the talents become useful, they'll become even more powerful. A nerf was always in the cards for these two weapons. Does that excuse the devs for putting out poorly designed weapons? No. But this is the situation we are in. Same goes for expertise - I've always hated the system and thought it was a bad idea. PROPHETIC.

@danielAcroft you only having time to make one optimized build doesn't mean that that build has to stay at the top forever. If your striker build is balanced with other types of builds, like it should be, then there is no issue. I'd be curious as to what nerf from the patch notes was as "significant" as you seem to think it is. So every patch there should be a TON of tiny changes, rather than a few large ones? That might be a good approach. But will people try new things when there are little changes, or will they stick to what they know and already use? If there are tons of tiny changes every patch, we're going to have a lot of information to sift through to see if everything is truly balanced. In addition, the quantity of changes is what drives developer cost, not necessarily the magnitude of each individual change. Maybe you're right!

@@d15p4tch6 I can’t play the PTS because I’m not part of the PC master race lol. I can watch mathematical breakdowns of the striker to striker (.85% per stack rather than 1%) and tweaks to St. Elmos (15% down from 20% for both CHC & CHD). I don’t play the Striker backpack unless I’m doing legendary missions when I need all the DPS I can get. With these changes, to get back to the same CHC I’ll have to move the (non optimised) CHC/CHD mods around which will take down my overall DPS again. I play this build when I’m playing with folks who know what they’re doing in legendary. I play a shield/regen/hybrid thing when not because I can pick people up but neither are optimised. When I play legendary solo, I will sometimes have to use skills because I actually can’t clear it with DPS. Probably I’m not good enough but the slightly sub-optimal build makes a difference (finally got a St. Elmos with DToC which totally helped). To be clear I was *not* saying that I expected nothing to change because I only had time to optimise one build, I’m pointing out that changes to meta (after a very long time) impact folks with less time and less experience a lot more. The other thing about the way the nerfs have previously been made is that they just make the meta worse and you have to figure out the next meta. That just means everyone grinds for whatever that is and moves on. That *again* takes folks with less time a lot longer. If they’re really trying to make a pass to remove the meta, did headhunters fury get nerfed? Did they nerf regulus? Personally I don’t mind some nerfs here and there but I’d much prefer they spend their time fixing the existing gear to make it worthwhile. I like playing rifle builds and have a full red build for that but it’s even harder to play. Dipping striker *and* all the weapons that folks use because they’re the ones that are used are a function of a lack of competitive choices. Where’s the rifle that’d make people want to play a rifle build? Of course, I’m more than happy for anyone to have their own opinion and they’re welcome to it. Unless the community makes a bunch of noise, I’ll likely get to play this version of D2 and maybe I’ll be good with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@DanielACroft agreed. This is why people said- don't nerf, buff other things to be compelling such that I'd want to use them in the first place. Breaking Pont with a 50% buff from the pack is still trash because build and spend is trash. Those are the sorts of things that need 2 change. Strikers is the most DPS but *you need that dps* in group play. I don't feel like a walking God in legendary in an all red striker build. If anything looks your way, you die. The NPCs are way, way stronger than us. If you catch them flat footed, you can burst them down. With good play you can turn NPCs into target dummies, but that's really on the CC guy and not your DPS output to first order. Strikers too strong for heroic? Ya maybe but I hate 4 man health scaling and why I don't group there. But there are a LOT of other builds that also run rough-shod over heroic and I don't see them getting nerfed, in fact some if them even got buffs. It's wild. And the shit like Sacrum Imperium and Reassigned were untouched. Devs should be embarrassed IMO.

@@elfmz wow! That's a really nice thing to say, thanks!

Respectfully lmao it was condescending righteous and naive

@@trickyBasterd the part about expertise was a bit harsh tbh but how was any of it naive 🤔

@@d15p4tch6 see my comment under your video

Me too, 10 seconds can give a lot more uptime. Definitely the weapon resuffling feels very confusing - hard to see why exactly they touched almost every single weapon. Interesting point - what is something that got bigger numbers but actually needs a functional improvement?

@@d15p4tch6 Changing rifles to auto-fire was a good move, they should do it for all guns. Making us able to select all weapons in Specializations and/or separating spec mods, faster rocket launcher for technician. Faster grenades. Adding stagger to our melee attacks. Reworking some skills like burster firefly and bombardier drone. Letting us put perfect talents on whatever we want and modify all stats. List goes on. So even though I enjoy a good buff, If I had to choose, i'd pick mechanical/QoL improvements and bugfixes.

@@martinmiller3765 based. Love it

To infinity and beyond baby

@@scooternut7198 just talking about *weapon* mods: CHC minors gave 1/2 as much as CHD minors (6/12) but CHC mods gave just as much as CHD (5/5). PTS put the CHD mods on the same efficiency as CHC mods. "Project Dissolve" ROFL Honestly, there have been so many changes, I'm finding it hard to track and decipher. However, you shouldn't have to re-grind for gear IMO - maybe your Ceska isn't good anymore, but you should have other good brand sets to put in its place. Idk about you, but I have one of every weapon in the game (except pistols cuz they suck) and pretty much one of every gear/brand set for almost every slot, so getting a new build together shouldn't be hard. The exceptions to this being that I don't have Aegis or rigger etc lol I think overall they did a halfway decent job of balancing some things that were close, but left a lot of severely underpowered sets alone- maybe because they didn't have the mental capacity to completely rework them.

@@AhnoldRunningMan I haven't actually tested them in battle with this much handling, maybe it would work out... Hopefully!

Or 50% dmg ? If 1.15×1.15=1.3225 that's 32.25% more dmg what is going to be 2.5000 ? Why the "1" in 1.3225 goes away ? If this "1" goes away, "2" also goes away ? That means that 2.5000 is 50% more dmg ?

@@mamba96 you are so close! Great work. You get 2.5x your damage in the first example. If we are going to translate that back into a % increase, we need to subtract 1, then multiply by 100% (reverse order of how we translated % into a multiplier). So for that case, it would be (2.5-1)*100 = 150%. Same process that you did correctly for spotter and flatline!

@@d15p4tch6 ok so now i understand why "1" in 1.3225 goes away, it make sens know. God imagine that i'm french and i'm trying to do some maths in another language ! Hope you are ready for this because i'm not done yet, i have so many questions ! The 1st is : - now i know that striker and obliterate give me 150% more dmg. Is it for every bullets from the base weapon dmg of any weapons without crit dmg ?

@@mamba96 yes, that's right - you'd take your base damage and multiply it by that if it wasn't a crit. Remember too that there's also damage to health, damage to armor, headshots, and damage to targets out of cover! Also, very impressive to be learning this in another language! I only know English, unfortunately 😞

@@d15p4tch6 yes i know about health dmg, dttoc, dta and hs dmg. Don’t worry, like i said, i've got many many other questions 🤣🤣🤣. I'm gonna work on that and we'll talk about it tomorrow ! Also do you have any knowledge about skill dmg calculations ?

@@grumpyoldman6503 it seems to be that in all cases, the % is divisive (an inverse relationship), so your accuracy "cone" angle will never be zero. So 100% would be a factor of 2, or reduce the base cone down to 1/2 it's original angle. 200% would be 1/3, etc. Stability is subtractive, so 50% stab makes 1/2 the recoil per shot, and 100% completely removes it. But it only affects vertical recoil.

@d15p4tch6 make sense and comports with observations vs when it was harder to stack relevant amounts historically (or there was no benefit to doing so). Shotguns start at a penalty (high base angular max bloom) and have to stack even more to end up where another weapon starts with zero investment. Seems like that fact + low optimal range is a combination punch of "fuck you".

@@grumpyoldman6503 🤣 I'm dying. Yeah shotguns got the long hard shaft this patch - fewer mod slots and no boost to optimal range means they're doomed to eternal close range, barrel-bashing fisticuffs and cheesing stacking talents...

Damnit grumpy, water isn't wet...wet is a state of saturation, water makes things wet.

@@brassbat New Talent: "Water": enemies affected by "Wet" status affect take 25% amplified damage

@@toddbowman9438 weapon handling includes accuracy, stability, swap speed AND reload speed. However, very often you don't need all of those (though it never hurts). Every weapon of course benefits from reload speed. Predominantly, SMGs - accuracy, rifles -stability, shotguns - reload speed, LMGs - reload speed and accuracy, ARs - stability. This of course depends somewhat on the weapon used in that class. The Classic M1A doesn't need accuracy or stability, whereas the Lightweight M4 can benefit greatly from both.

@d15p4tch6 thank you

🫡Yup, like my Chameleon. It needs accuracy to clean up it's mechanics. I use either the Zwia Eagles gloves or 2 pc Overlord (Fox's knees+1 more). It instantly becomes a lazer comparable to the St. Elmo's but with all it's buffs that Elmo's doesn't have 👍

@@bigjay52 agreed that adding accuracy to the chameleon is goated! Lol

I know, right?! You get it!

I think I might just wait until the actual live update comes so I don't have to do the maths twice. But I also don't want to miss out on the opportunity to do maths... #dilemma

Reassigned lol I guess maybe theyve got some secret statistics that's telling them it's widely used.... XD It seems like, with buffing the 3rd attributes on some, they're trying to encourage us to spec into 3 pieces. But the bonuses are so random (golan status effects, hello?) that it feels bad and still isn't good enough by a long shot.

@@a.lo70x7 I'm really liking the Lightweight M4. The LOVA-C looks really cool but handles terribly, even with 80% stability 💔

Umbrella gear set more better RPM up to killing Crit Damage Talent are crazy… or Striker Gear set max damage to hit crit damage number like for?

@@natebarman8973 Umbra has definitely arrived in the PTS - the damage and ROF is significantly better, and the competition for the chest slot got worse. So it got a buff, while its competition got a nerf. Plus, its viable with rifles, which most of the other damage gearsets aren't, because most of the rifles are automatic now.

@@nicklebrane9207 umbra doesn't give you optimal range or accuracy