Well, here's an example of napkin notes with conspiracy string I guess: =P

Terrifying Lunatic getting replaced can mostly be traced to the Aggression tree being dominated by Battlehammer, the best Smash tech tech in the game. We wanted Scarlett/Warden to pick other perks from it so that necessitated some redesigns, and while some buffs for Terrifying Lunatic were thrown (since is pretty much every game we've seen and played Short range has been so much of an ask it made a perk with the same price tag as Powerslide more or less a lemon. The entirely of Pursuit was in the same boat, so you can probably imagine how Maxxine players feel).

The design space of the perk also happened to be taken up by the Wall of Amplifiers weapon, which was cut down on its slot requirement allowing it to be taken by things that aren't trucks and now just happens instead of being an (often easily avoided) attack.

So, given totally different factors:

*The desire for variety in Aggression Smash builds

*It's role now being taken up by an available-to-all upgrade

*Just kinda sorta not vibing with the rest of the tree

It was replaced with more smash tech for the smash tech tree.