What the heck happened to the staff special

[Cunin]

The patch of course.
And we are in EA so those things happen.

But, it is a markedly slower and has a significant knock back to mobs, a knock back that pushes them a surprising distance back

I assume this is meant as a boost to offset the significantly lower dps?

But the practical effect is that each shot has to travel further and further to damage the mob (as they are pushed further and further away).

This reduces the dps even more on top of the slowdown from lower speed. Not great. And that impression is with a Melinoe that has killed all bosses a couple of times.

Then did a fresh start and the effect there is really severe.

For a starter Melonie the staff is basically broken, more or less reduced to melee. And the staff is not all that great for melee to begin with.

I assume they wanted to get rid of the Poseidon special machine gun setup. And this is of course EA.

But I do wonder if anyone at super giant games even tried a fresh game with this patch?

Because the staff is the 'forced starter weapon' for a rather substantial amount of time and Stygius this is not, it is not a good first impression for the game now, quite bad one actually.

Edit. Yep, did a 2nd starter run, that knock back is little short of catastrophic for dps, so it is a pure utility ability now.

[Fate]

Hate this changes. They killed Special: no more +power from Momus, double special now has -40% range LOL. They just forcing to play melee with +30power(=double damage), +50 Attack speed or Double hit. If the core mechanic was from the first game with two dashes it would be ok, but here ranged builds are more viable.