The Dash nerf is the final straw

After playing quite a bit with the new dash, my conclusion is that it was nerfed in the wrong way. The problem is that the distance that can be covered with each use of dash using an optimal build is huge.

It makes jetpack mostly irrelevant.

The AP cost actually does not change things that much, just favors crossing assault with sniper to get quickaim.

And I’m not even using frenzy yet, or gear to maximize speed.

I think the best solution is to cap the total distance that a soldier can run in a turn regardless of speed, dash use, or frenzy. It’s the only way to make sure. Visually it could be represented as a redline when selecting the soldier. It could be made dependant on the average of the soldiers characteristics corrected by stamina, or just a hard cap so that the soldier can’t run more than approximately half the length of an ordinary map.

The advantage of this approach is

  • no more running around the map at close to relativistic speeds,

  • instead of stacking as many buffs to speed as possible, the player has a choice as to how achieve maximum mobility. Invest in speed? Use specialized gear? Frenzy? Or use dash? Capping the effects of buffs gives more tactical options.

  • gameplay doesn’t change significantly for players who are not using dash exploitively.

Nerfing dash further, e.g. back to 50% distance, will not solve the issue, because it appears as a result of stacking different buffs together, as most other OP holes in PP (I started a thread on this here A proposal on how to rebalance skills)

In other words, even reducing the distance granted by dash to 50%, with top speed, optimal gear and frenzy the soldier will still be way too fast. At the same time it will make dash less useful for ordinary, non exploitive gameplay styles.