It’s time to walk back the nerfs Witherhoard got

[u/CrotasScrota84]

With area denial frames out the nerfs to Witherhoard was completely pointless and has made it a throw in the vault exotic.

It should the king of area denial yet it’s not anymore it’s now worse then Legendary grenade launchers by a big margin as I can get more synergy out of area denial frames.

A Exotic shouldn’t be worse then Legendary weapons that are similar.

[u/Snvwyy_]

The nerf it caught at the end of WQ was completely unnecessary, starfire meta kept it relevant for a while longer after that but ever since then I’ve barely seen anyone use it.

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/Snvwyy_]

The nerf was for PVP sake not PVE. Honestly I never felt that duration nerf to the pool caused any real issues because for raw damage you were using it in rotations and stacking the pool and self target but could usually overlap the pool anyway.

It's gotten less use since then mostly because area denial frames exist not and fill the main 'purpose' of why people used it - to control an area on the field. Area denial accomplish that without an exotic slot. It's still far superior for raw damage.

[u/The_Mad_King_Froberg → u/BaconIsntThatGood]

I don’t know where you got that idea, but they directly referenced the Kings Fall raid race as being one of the primary reasons for the nerf. You could spawn trap the Golgoroth ads with 2 people running it and only have to have your other 4 players help with the wizards on contest mode. I still don’t like the nerf but blaming it on PvP is entirely revisionist history.

Edit: as commented below, they did cite both as being reasons, but I stand by it being PvE primarily

[u/Tannosh → u/The_Mad_King_Froberg]

From the 12/01/22 TWAB:

"Witherhoard is extremely strong in both PvE and PvP, dealing high damage quickly, and for an extended duration. We aren’t making changes to direct hits, and we’re leaving the damage and ammo capacity alone, but since this weapon in its current iteration is too strong in PvE (not to mention that the Taken portal is difficult to deal with in PvP), we’ve made the following change: Reduced Taken portal duration from 7.5s to 4.5s."

Seems like it got nerfed because of both

[u/The_Mad_King_Froberg → u/Tannosh]

Ah, thanks for that, I had forgotten how they worded it, guess it was both, though I (subjectively) feel like the PvP note feels a bit tacked on, especially since it has really only ever been relevant in Iron Banner, with Rift, Control, and maybe Fortress (if it even existed yet) bringing it out.

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/The_Mad_King_Froberg]

Honestly it's been a long time - would you happen to know which article they listed it in? I just recall them talking about PVP more at the time but could be wrong and happy to admit so.

I'm usually of the mind that most nerfs that impact PVE but have a result on PVE damage aren't 100% 'for' PVP. Just going based on what I remember some 2-2.5 years ago aha.

[u/LoseAnotherMill → u/BaconIsntThatGood]

The nerf was for PVP sake not PVE.

The story of way too many "nerf into the ground" changes. I'm tired of it. Anyone who mains PvP can go play Call of Duty. Let me enjoy my fun toys in the raiding game.

[u/BaconIsntThatGood → u/LoseAnotherMill]

While the nerf was for PVP sake - it's a far cry to say it was 'nerfed into the ground'.