This is all really side from the fact that all support/healer classes are getting nerfed badly in the next UAT test build. I don't play painboy now and I probably never will again. Their stats on the last Twitch stream showed that all support classes are pulling by far the lowest kill to death ratios, so what Brent was saying about them usurping other classes' roles is perplexing at best. Painboy has nothing in their toolkit that seriously compares to the other support classes, but perhaps when they are all gimped that won't matter as much. What agitates me is the fact that the Painboy is getting their armor severely gimped compared to live, where they are severely underperforming, and they are getting absolutely nothing to compensate for the armor nerf. Warlocks are getting a few psychic powers, and sadly enough Sorcerors aren't even though they perform worse than any class on live in terms of KDR. In fact, Sorceror melee damage is being nerfed. Their sword penetration went down by 40 points down to 100 (same as chainsword) and the damage dropped to 100 for a force sword fast attack. Considering that the argument is that they are usurping other class roles, this makes 0 sense in light of these statistics below. Granted we don't have their healing/support numbers available, but they had best be good considering that their KDRs are flat out bad and they have no capture keys or anti-vehicle capabilities. For reference painboys have a global average .85 kill-death ratio and sorcerors have a .71 kill-death ratio. Why a -50-75 armor nerf was considered necessary along with severe global and support-specific melee nerfs is beyond me. I will say the one bright spot on UAT is that the cost of the (mandatory IMO) dead shiny syringe has gone down to 80 LP.
That alone would make them viable. Would even make the sicky sluggas neat if you can shoot teammates and so heal them, even if its the tiny amount it is now.
