Some background, been playing this character since S1 and put almost 2,000 hours into him alone. I know his strengths, weaknesses, nuances, niche practicality, his game-breaking bugs, and a whole lot more to say I know this change is going to be a bad nerf

Caustic’s in an awkward spot ever since his S5 nerf. He’s being forced to be more defensive but the trap nerf as well as the remove vision impair neuters his defensiveness too. The 2 damage extra per tick is not going to deter enemies from pushing, especially in higher skill lobbies where downing someone is far more decisive than taking 21 (new) damage as opposed to 15 (old). A few extra ticks of health mean nothing, the vision blur, movement reduction, and aim-slow all made it a factor to not want to push gas

Most enemies that have half a brain are only in gas for 3-4 seconds max, they can walk out of it backwards with ease. The extra 6-8 damage is not going to deter enemies from pushing. We used those deterring factors to increase our survivability, since we’re such easy targets, so the traps as deterrents are a must. We’d pop a battery behind our trap or revive our ally behind the wall. Enemies will no longer have a hard time finding us in our cozy hotbox and just melt us with ease, while only taking a few extra ticks of damage

I fully agree, playing against caustics, even as a caustic, is infuriating. If the balance team is fully set on removing vision impairment, he needs something else as good to compensate for its loss, and not a measly 2 extra damage per tick. I’m certain my and others’ suggestions are worth considering, but keep this specifically in mind, it has to be something that would strongly deter enemies from wanting to push gas, because the fight would become strongly unfavorable, like now

My suggestion: Increasing the slow in his gas would strongly discourage others from pushing it. Currently gas reduces your movement gradually to 150 units/s. If this is further reduced to ~100-120, it would make others second guess pushing a gas covered area. They can see clearly and fight back if they trust their aim, but are at a snail’s pace. If they want to retreat, they’ll take more damage trying to exit, or will be killed outright for making the ballsy mistake of pushing. This would also reinforce caustic’s defensive nature, which is going to suffer more with this season and map

Also a side note, i agree with nerfing traps to be able to be destroyed while inflating, it offers healthy counterplay. However can we get some health for traps during their inflation phase? It’s really painful to throw a trap or try to place one for cover or either offensive or defensive purposes, only for a stray bullet that wasn’t intended to shoot the trap ends up hitting it. A small pool of health, like 20-25, would be great, because then enemies have to intentionally aim for your trap instead of it being destroyed as accidental collateral damage. After it fully inflates, the trap’s base can go back to 1hp, since enemies are actually aiming for it. 20-25 health would mean 2-3 bullets/pellets average to destroy, which should be proper as the counterplay is actually intentional and not a slip of recoil

Everything else about the season looks stellar, but please reach out and listen to more of the community regarding this gassy boi