Right. It seems to me that this will alienate both experienced players who play in groups AND new players. Why are those who have been playing this game for a long time and have built up a group of people we want to play with the ones being forced to the margins - or forced to pub-stomp and ruin the game for others? Pushing out your most loyal players - who are likely the ones you are actually making money off of right now, with the microtransactions - seems like a really bad idea, Gearbox. Explain?
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I am happy with Versus Draft and want to play it. If I understand the Battleplan then after this weekend it will not be an option (for groups >2) on any day other than Saturday.
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You’re not really forced to pubstomp, either. You don’t have to go HAM on people or whatever. Maybe just practice with characters you’re not that great with.
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And what about the skills that actually use venom for damage? Are those relevant at all. This may be useful if I were a melee Melka not a chance in hell
Edit
Just in case you missed it this was a further nerf to canisters, spike, and blade launcher as well. I get optimism but reality would like to visit as well
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We always choose weak characters (e.g., Mellka, Dragon, etc.) that we haven’t mastered yet when we gets low-level opponents. However, we still stomp. This is not a solution.
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Melee and ranged Mellka seems to be their goal. They want you to also use her melee as an effective weapon, but not full melee.
So full ranged isn’t a good option, and full melee will pretty much never be. Gearbox wants her to be played as a blend of close and short range. Which takes away a little bit of the diversity, IMO, but whatever.
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I thought their goal was to keep messing up Melka until they lost all the players who main her. Dang guess I missed it
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Oh it’s definitely not the real solution. It’s still Gearbox’s part. But there’s more to it than just picking your worse characters. You don’t have to go for every kill. You don’t have to build everything. You don’t have to use your best gear loadouts. You can mess around if it suits you.
It’s better than nothing.
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Are you talking about all the ones that make it easier to apply venom?
If so, then yes, this is also about that.
Look it’s pretty clear at this point that the dev’s really don’t intend for Venom to be Mellka’s primary source of damage. They’re looking for a medium where the dot effect makes it worth timing skills and melee for the best dps.
Doubling the duration is a step in the right direction for that.
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…Could hug you guys.
(But totally not like Whiskey)
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As always some good, some bad in here with hotfixes. It’s great to see Beatrix nerfed especially that rather large health pool and I’m curious to see her in action going forward. I like that you’re trying more stuff with Mellka to get her to a strong place but I doubt this is enough (I also realize there will be more coming for her especially in the next patch).
I thought Pendles’ Injection slow was originally 3 seconds not 2 but either way the 6 second slow he had after level 4 was a bit much.
I don’t know how to tag anyone on this forum so hopefully someone can hook me up and tag Joe or any other developers so I can get an answer to my next query. You said on Monday you’ll be taking away Big Head Rumble and Versus Draft but my question is will Incursion only playlist be returning or will we be locked into only a Bots Battle and Quick Match queue? In my opinion having only those 2 queues would be highly frustrating for all players.
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What you’re suggesting is we should essentially try to play poorly. Why should we have to do that?
“Better than nothing” is not what we should have to resort to. Gearbox is making these changes by their own choice - they should not be creating situations we have to “endure.” That is a really good way to kill a game, and this one has no room to tick off large segments of their (dwindling) population.
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I think you missed the part where ticks were increased to 1 second from .5.
Skills like spike (with parting gift) and blade launcher apply venom on each hit, ie it reduced the damage of those skills. Again
About Montana Wallpaper: I see my future desktop wall paper here 
About Betrix balancing: rly, you actually had to see it rolling to predict it’s going to be OP?! I mean 50% speed bonus, what we’re you thinking? Alani syndrome?
Also this
actually suggests it’s an increase 
Agreed. I remain completely baffled as to why their is no incursion queue of any sort. They have room for one-off, wonky queues like Big Head Rumble but can’t give us an incursion queue?
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KELVIN? ERNEST? WHISKEY? THEY’RE ALL GETTING SKINS TODAY? YESSSSSSSSSSSS I love all 3 of those characters. I don’t play Whiskey, but I buy his taunts because he’s awesome af.
Can’t wait to see the Kelvin and Ernest skins though, they really needed a change of wardrobe, here’s my finger’'s crossed for really cool things.
Also BOT BATTLES FTW!
can’t wait to play Big Head mode.
Awesome Update guys!
haha, shots fired! 
Not much of a buff for Melka, considering. Venom DPS cut got in half again (same damage per tick, ticks half as often, but over double the duration for the same total damage,) for a mere 12% increase in damage on her basic gun, while increasing a single regen helix choice that requires you to melee to get it for a very short duration (4 seconds, so 56hp total) and give up the possible +300 max hp choice on the other side that she sorely needs considering her low health pool.
Gun damage just got a slight buff, but the venom dps reduction (yet again) means it’s not enough for her to actually gain experience at a decent (and by that I mean sub-par compared to Benedict Ernest or any other good waveclear) rate like she used to.
If you thought Parting Gift, Blade Launcher, or Pool Shot were mere tickles before … it’s even worse now.
Melee damage is supposed to be easier to keep going on a venom’ed target, which it is now with the longer duration, but STAYING in melee range continues to make absolutely no sense if you want to survive.
I mean, I’ll give her another try, but I don’t think this is enough considering what’s been taken from her.
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Yeah, I said it’s still up to Gearbox. But restricting stompy ways is better than stomping as for right now. This is Gearbox’s problem, and they have to fix it, but it’s not like there’s nothing you can do.
The reason they removed queues like incursion and now Versus Draft were for managing population. So there’s still an issue causing the population to dwindle, but it could be a multitude of things. Also, Big Head Mode is out now, and they can’t have 4 queues. That’d be too much.
Again, the root problem is population. Which they can’t fix without marketing and help from 2k.
I mean, hell, if you don’t like Big Head Mode, that’s a shame, because chances are a lot of other people will.
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Just wish Bots Battle had been fixed so that you could really complete lore challenges, not to mention quests.
Speaking of quests, an ultimate skill is an ultimate skill. Players shouldn’t have to guess who’s ultimate skill will count and where you have to use it.
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