'Outriders': Fans Are Furious Over Recent Class Nerfs

The recent balance pass in “Outriders” targeted the previous one-week old meta in an attempt to encourage more build experimentation and diversity. However, the game’s community is not taking these changes well, with some players calling it a major step in the wrong direction.

The balance tweaks saw a number of class passives and the existing bullet abilities nerfed significantly. The Trickster class was hit especially hard, with nerfs coming to four of their abilities.

The Trickster’s Twisted Rounds skill has had its cooldown increased from 16 to 25 seconds to cement the ability’s identity as a high-risk, high-reward playstyle. Players will now have to be more careful with managing their Twisted Rounds so as to avoid accidentally reloading or running out of ammo.

However, the developers have deemed bullet builds to be too strong as they require “much less investment to make them top tier.”

The Scion of Power, Disruptive Firepower and Outrider Executioner Hero skills for the Trickster have all been hit with a 15% reduction to their total values. The 50% bonuses provided by the abilities have been reduced to 35%.

The “Vulnerable” status effect’s intensity has also been lowered from 25% to 15%, causing a sweeping nerf to all classes that use the effect in their builds.

The Technomancer and Pyromancer have also received nerfs to their damage output. The Technomancer’s “Damage Against Poison” and the Pyromancer’s “Damage Against Ash” Hero tree nodes have been reduced from 30% bonus damage to 15%.

The community at the r/Outriders subreddit has expressed their discontent over the recent changes, especially since the Gold reward timer for some of the game’s Expeditions were also increased.

Fans have pointed out that the nerfs to bullet builds were uncalled for and that buffing the other build routes would have been a better choice if build diversity was the end goal. Many have also complained about how balancing in the game was approached, comparing it to the likes of “Destiny” and “Borderlands 3.”

Further fueling the discontent is the lack of buffs to any other build option at all, which has resulted in the complete opposite of the build diversity goal that the devs had originally planned.

However, People Can Fly said in the latest patch notes that these balance changes will be subject to change based on how strong or how weak subsequent builds end up.