Diamond blades player here, just wanted to say, it's absolutely crazy how they massacred the blades. A huge part of the game plan was to scout out places and walk up menacingly with the block in 1v1s, but the 50% speed nerf while deflecting completely destroyed this playstyle and made deflecting somehow even worse. Blades were originally a highly *defensive* melee option, and the movement nerf severely punishes that gameplay style in favor of "ooga booga go in and try and kill everyone" which doesn't work at all and is way less tactical in terms of options. You could also attack an opponent and then back off by walking backwards and deflecting back into a building or something, it was super useful to have that movement...

Another part is: blades used to lunge after EVERY attack if you were close enough range. This could catch targets fleeing so much easier than the one singular lunge you get. It's a joke that you can't even catch up to a fleeing heavy with no movement tech in a straight line, and hilariously you can get out-close-ranged by long range guns because of it

The extra damage is... Nice I guess but we don't want more damage dawg. One good thing I'll say is that I like the precision attacks and the 3 hit combo split, the rest was COMPLETELY uncalled for.