I haven't played in awhile but i am feeling some difficulty.

I feel alot weaker then pre launch where just a few shots drops my character. the spread and accuracy seems down alot as well. i like to run a run of the mill tac with a plas or storm bolter. but im getting demolished anytime i enter a scrum. lot of getting one shotted happens too. i don't remember this being a problem before the launch but it is one now. if anyone has any build advice or something along those lines it would be greatly appreciated.

also if there is any advice on uping the smoothness of the game i do get hit with frame spikes regularly which could be the problem

Keep up with the bolter, it's arguably the best weapon in the game

You're not dying in one shot, no weapons can do that. It's probably lag

Hmm... lass cannon, plasma cannon, kannon, rokit, klaw, fist.... hello?

All of those weapons were capable of one-shotting you before the patch

They released a patch last week that made EVERYONE have less health and less armor, so it's not "just you" or any of those subjective feelings. You are objectively dieing faster now

I built a tactical, I stayed with a pretty unmodified bolter, added the first tier of armor, then dump all my points into shields and shield recharge. It tends to make me very tanky in a ranged firefight as i can duck and recover my shields quickly

The update forces us to take on specialization as opposed to being a jack of all trades as in the older days of EC. We now have to concentrate more on offense or survivability as opposed to being great in both. Wargear costs more to use but grants higher bonuses.

Its good that the update had forced us to remake our loadouts cause are old ones would no longer be very good.

I have threr load outs for tacts 1 is base bolter relic armor and the overcharged generator for hold the points or cover an ongoing cap as with is I have no nades, mods or medkits (works well aginst eldar and most chaos that don't go mon + t3 armor forgot the name for chaos)

or I go full on assault mode with artificer +210 lp cost seal with plasma gun with textured/stabilizing grip along with frag bundle and med kit good for clearing out points or for damageing/ killing enemy blob rush when they are camping or decaping (good for orks and those chaos that take mon + t3 chaos armor). I also go artificer, grav gun with mods and melta bomb and med kit for AV