I really like the analysis that you have made so far and I would love to give my input of the characters that I have played. Actually, looking back on it, I have actually played with every single character, so it looks like I will be analyzing all of them. Here goes:
Ambra - I agree that she is relatively fine to me where she is. The nerf hammer hit her pretty hard, and I felt that she needed it. The change I am most happy for is the reduction in the beam range, so now you can actually kite Ambra. She is still a little strong considering her survivability if you ask me, but at least she’s actually manageable now.
Attikus - Everyone says he is severely underpowered. But I wrecked teams when I was using him. I made some arguments in another thread and uploaded some videos to show that if he is used right, he can be very effective. That said, his overall movement speed and his movement speed while punching need to go up a bit because it is pretty easy to get away from him.
Benedict - One of my favorite battleborn and the character that I played the second most number of matches with. Great escape tools, hard to hit, strong weapon damage, annoying homing missiles. This guy needs no buff. He is fine where he is.
Boldur - I remember my first time facing against a Boldur and he was going to town on my team. So I decided to try him out. Turns out, that player just did really well against the noobs on my team. Bolder isn’t that good, lacks any real closer or escape tool beyond his short range dash, has rather poor health regen while his shield is up, and is often just spending half his match trying to use his shield to avoid constantly dying. He is a poor man’s ISIC. I think he does need some slight buffs.
Caldarius -This was my favorite character. His mobility is just so good! However, his attack damage is very low, so I spend a lot of my matches poking and running away. Kind of a waste of that mobility. This means that he has a hard time helping with the objective or killing people. If you don’t play with an organized team, getting wins with him can be quite tricky. His ultimate is also annoying because you need a lot of open space above you and where you are targeting (the slightest beam or tree 18 ft above you cancels your super and starts the cooldown). And for that limited usage of his ult, it does some of the weakest damage among all the ults (Thorn’s ult has the same range and pretty much the same AoE, no open space requirements, is near instant, does a lot more damage, and can leave a blight field after it lands (at rank 10)). I love Caldarius, but I would love to see his damage output increased so he isn’t spending half the match running away. Also, flashbang grenades are really good.
Deande - Another favorite of mine. Her damage is quite weak. However, unlike Caldarius, this isn’t really a problem for he as she is still pretty effective with her lower damage output. The problem with Deande is her lack of any useful AoE or CC for dealing with minions. Because of this, killing minions takes longer for her than with most other atteckers (and even most defenders lol). Compare this to Rath whose Melee strikes hit in a much wider arc. Burst dash is pretty bad to me without the AoE, and even then, its damage is very underwhelming. Also, I don’t know if it is just in my head, but she feels very slow. It feels like most other characters usually outrun her, which is funny considering she is an assassin type character. Beyond that though, Deande is a nice character to me.
El Dragon - El Dragon is strong, very strong. But he doesn’t quite take the damage that he dishes. He is also quite fast. It works very well for him. Even after the nerf, he still seems to have insane DPS, so maybe there is a problem there? I can’t really say, but he may need further tuning.
Galilea - She is top tier. She isn’t as easy as before the nerf where she just jumped wildly into encounters with no tactical sense. She actually requires skill now (so you will actually see players go negative with her). But with proper skill, she is insanely good. Really high DPS? Check. Gap closer (with stun)? Check. Great defense? Check. Shield for blocking while getting healed? Check. Escape move (her ultimate)? Check. Team support (desecration field’s debuff plus healing if upgraded for it)? check. She is an attacker, defender, and support, all in one. She is literally a jack of all trades. No, scratch that. She is a master of all trades.
Ghalt - He became a monster after the buff. I didn’t feel that he needed the buff, but Gearbox and numerous people online disagreed. Now he just tears people up. In all the games I have played since his buff, I have only seen a Ghalt player go negative once (6-7), and that was with the rest of his team doing much worse (like 0-11 bad). His DPS is insane now. And at rank 3, his range is also greatly increased, making it hard to escape the terror. And when you think you have escaped, his hook pulls you right back. Couple this with the stun of the traps that he will usually pull you into, and you will usually die to him. Does he need a nerf? I don’t really think so. But is he top tier now? You better believe it.
ISIC - What you said is correct. He is fine where he is. I feel that he feels like a proper defender. He tanks a lot hits, patrols an area, protects teamates, and can punish people who get close to him (if they aren’t high DPS melee characters). His ultimate is also really awesome if used properly. I really like ISIC.
Kelvin - I don’t have much to add besides what you already said. He has massive health that can become even more massive, but without good teammate support, he still feels very frail, despite being a defender. I would like to see some more tankiness to him.
Kleese - A good supporter once he has set up. He works really well in Incursion for controlling the chokepoints, and can give your teammates near constant shields. The problem is that he himself is very frail and it takes time for him to setup properly. If he is unable to setup properly (which is difficult without a good teammate support), he is very underwhelming.
Marquis - High damage, good team help with temporal distortion, and he can do this from a far distance. Other than the stupid AI of the predatory strikes, as you mentioned, Marquis is fine as he is, a really powerful battleborn.
Mellka - I don’t know what others have thought of her, but she was my least favorite battleborn by far. Her damage is underwhelming, she has no good escape tools, claw lung has a short range (so it is easy to avoid), and the poisonous canisters from reloads are pretty gimmicky (it doesn’t add much). I just think that she is very bad as it is right now, but that might just have been due to my misunderstanding of how to use the character.
Miko - Great healer. Annoying to deal with if he just follows a character like Galilea or El Dragon. But he is fine where he is.
Montana - I think his damage is fine. As well as his tankiness. This is because he is so easy to target from range. An assassin like Rath should not be taking on a defender like Montana from full health and shield 1v1 with no turret or teammate support. He should be left for the ranged characters or to be picked off when he is weakened (that is usually when I strike). With reduced minigun damage, Montana basically because a walking sponge that does nothing but get shot at and eventually die. But that’s just my opinion.
Orendi - Agreed, she is at a good spot. I would like her regular attack to have a slight damage increase though, as she can pretty much only dish out damage with her skills.
Oscar Mike - The most generic character in the game, and yet, he is very good late game. Frag grenade is great once it is incendiary. His ultimate is also amazing. And his gun has good DPS. Oscar Mike feels right to me too.
Phoebe - True strike does need to be fixed. It also needs a reduced recovery time and increased lunge, at least that’s how I feel. Otherwise, she is very strong and does well in Meltdown.
Rath - His ultimate needs a nerf pronto. It is pretty much a guaranteed kill on nearly every opponent. Just knock them up with catalytic smash, then hit deadwind for an easy kill. And it comes back every 50 seconds. That nets you a lot of free kills late game. Before rank 5 though, he is a bit underwhelming (needs increased life steal imho).
Reyna - I have to disagree with you on Reyna. I would like to see an increase in her damage and usefulness. As a support character, she already feels the most underwhelming. She provides a temporary, and rather weak, overshield that only lasts for a few seconds. Then she is on cooldown and cannot help her teammates for another couple seconds or so. She can only help one teammate one time about every 16 seconds. You also have to aim the overshield beam, so it is easy to miss or hit the wrong teammate (one who doesn’t need it when another one is near death). This is not like Miko who you just hold the healing button and turn towards your teammate and it automatically connects. In the thick of things, it is very easy to mess up and cost your teammate their life. This wouldn’t be as bad if she could at least support herself better. But she cannot provide an overshield to herself without having a teammate nearby. Unlike the other supporters who can support themselves on their own, Reyna cannot. So if your teammates dies, Reyna becomes a sitting duck and a free kill. Couple all this with her pathetic damage output, and you have, what is to me, the worst supporter in the game. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of fun with Reyna, and priority target is amazing for your teammates. But if I really wanted to help my teammates, I’d be better off taking one of the other 3 support characters. Oh, I also forgot to mention that her ult is terrible too, at least without mobile bubble at rank 10. It knocks enemies out upon casting and protects teammates from ultimates like Oscar Mike’s. Beyond that, it doesn’t do anything useful. Anyone can walk right into it and it doesn’t follow Reyna if she moves, at least until rank 10.
Shayne and Aurox - Really, really good character. Easy overshields at rank 1 plus cloak means that it is hard to kill her. However, her DPS isn’t as high as Galilea, Phoebe, Thorn, or some of the other DPS monsters out there, so I don’t feel that she is leagues above the rest. I think she is fine where she is, but that could just be me.
Thorn - One of the best characters in the game and my third favorite character to play with. Her DPS is insane with blight field and her ult. Volley arrows cursing opponents just increases her DPS even further. She lacks a shield and needs to sit back to accomplish her work, but she, like Marquis, will wreck havoc in Incursion. I have so much fun with Thorn and I would love for her to remain the same (no nerfs or buffs).
Toby - This character is frustrating to work with. He plays like a sniper who sits back and patrols an area. This is because of his force field skill and his relative frailty. This would be fine, but his weapons do not complement that play style at all. his weapon fires slow beams and needs to be charged up to do any real damage. Arc mine is very good, but it is so easy to see and shoot down, so it really only helps against minions. His hit box is also huge, so he is easy to hit from across the map. He can be effective is used well, but his weapon projectile speed needs an increase. Even the increase from passing through the shield does not help enough. People move a lot and it is hard to hit them with his slow shots.
Whiskey Foxtrot - I wouldn’t mind seeing his weapon damage increased either. Scrap cannon also feels extremely useless to me. I don’t know if it was lag that I was experiencing each time I played, but it kept doing no damage to enemies that were point blank in front of me. And I know that I hit them because I would go flying backwards with the upgrade I had that made hitting an opponent with scrap cannon launch Whiskey Foxtrot backwards. Sticky grenades are nice, and his ultimate does a lot of damage if you are able to aim lol. Overall, he is fine to me.
I hope I didn’t end up rambling too long, but I thought that I’d just share my thoughts on each character as well. And I also had an overall great experience with the open beta as well. The two weeks I have to wait for the full game feel like forever right now. Haha.
