The fact that this ability is being messed with at all is not a good thing at all. Especially now that the slash damage meta is a thing right now. The ability was fine and balanced and it’s one of the few on the throwing side that people actually enjoyed. If the stagger is removed, the hatchet wont really have anything to answer a target that’s charging them like it used to, hence the “Social Distancing”. On live you can, stop Burnouts, Vault Kicks, and other similar gap closing charges.
Crazy thing is that people are making suggestions to drop this or drop that. I say nah. Leave the ability alone. Like they’re adding a QOL change by adding the ability to not let the move kick you back like the Blundy does. Yet that feature is somethin that differentiates the 2 skills. It forces you to have a choice to make. Do you use the ability to defend or to aggro. And if you aggro with it, will it kick you into a crap position? You CAN cancel the kickback with a block, but you can’t throw hatchets if you choose to do that. If you choose to throw hatchets, you can’t block to cancel, but you CAN dodge cancel… but you’ll waste your dodge roll and your stam leaving you vulnerable. Literally all of these tradeoffs and choices that you have to make where you use the ability for offense instead of defence. Make the ability not kick you back and ALL of that advanced player thought goes away. But yeah, let’s make it NOT kick you back because casual JOE the PVBot Farmer is whining that it’d be better if “it was like the Blundy’s net shot.” They aren’t even remotely the same and the main draw of the Social IS the stagger, NOT the slow. The slow is there to make you not COMPLETELY defenceless if you end up forced throwing a Social at a gritted target so that you AT least get some breathing room on top of the kickback, but with the light changes, that kickback isn’t as strong as it was and that’s, again, kind of ok because it’s not a get outta jail free card. IT NEVER WAS. It’s a hatchet, not a rapier. This is why healers wanna run it, instead of rapier, but it’s not the same. You gotta LAND throws to be able to off-hand it. We call that balance.
Meanwhile, the perks and buffs don’t really all happen at the same time unless you really make it a thing which is niche. You cannot really chain the stagger into anything. No one-shots. No schizos are doin easy cheap combos with it. Can you combo it into some things? Yeah, but you gotta LAND IT and that ain’t easy even at close range. Especially at close range and if the target moves even a little (this is actually a good thing). Like the root, the target’s gotta be 6meters away. The movement, you gotta have a debuff on your target. The reset, well, they gotta be 6 meters close… Oh, and let’s not forget that the throwing hatchets are actually pretty difficult to land. They have travel time AND a narrow hitbox (that’s actually a REALLY good thing). Like legit, leave ability alone. Don’t buff nothing. Don’t nerf nothing. Go take your heavy handed changes somewhere else.
And POOR HEALERS by the way. Not only did you nerf their weight class, which woulda been fine, you also introduced a weapon that they CANNOT get away from because it’s tracking is overtuned (great sword), you made them really vulnerable to great axe bloodlust as well, and you killed their defensive offhand in the rapier. They really don’t have better options. They COULD use the hatchet, but they’d have to land the throws to benefit and if ya take that one ability from them too which they coulda used to defend themselves with all of it’s nice pros and cons… lol That’s just cruel. Doesn’t matter if they can cheat death on a 2 minute CD that doesn’t reset upon death if they can’t get ANY room to breath for a reposition. No, I did not say get away. GOOD healers don’t “get away”, they reposition and KEEP HEALIN.
Who cares about increasing Social’s damage… that does nothin and it’s mean. Worried about the utility? Mess with the cooldown. Mess with how the reset works. For the LONGEST time Social Distancing would refresh ALL hatchet CDs. You know how many hachets we had this past meta during that time? Not that many and that’s WITH an overpowered broken version of it.
LEAVE throwing side alone. Leave hatchet alone.
Go mess with mages. They’ve been cryin in these forums lately. And their cries are valid. No one slots them in wars because other stuff just does it better. Like legit. Stop listening to the loudest noobs and PLAY YOUR OWN GAME? If not, just watch even some 30 minutes VODS of REAL players that play EVERYDAY! Not Redbyrd, NOT Xaryu, but REAL PLAYERS that PAY YOU MONEY literally every month for skins and extra accounts and do actual mutators AND/OR wars AND/OR OPRs all day EVERYDAY. They exist. You have telemetry data. You’re AMAZON. You know when I take a deus… Quit playin ignorant and go mess with things that MAKE SENSE.