All these BRDs do have one point.

The class changed too dramatically.
That's not really an excuse for being bad, but on a design level their argument holds water.

They could've implemented things that change the class less drastically to achieve similar results without making it feel very different. Granted, people would complain about that as well, but the ability to run and gun like BRDs did just wasn't going to stay because it provided too much mobility and too much virtual dps. I mean, BRDs did not suffer the dps side effects of having the move out of an aoe, for example.


I thought limiting auto attacks while moving would be an elegant enough solution to force BRDs to stand still, and provide a relatively minor dps loss for moving. Alternatively the inability to engage an ability while moving so stutterstepping is a skill that BRDs/MCHs would need to learn would also have been a solution.

It's also pretty shitty that in a video they specifically showed off the machinist's mobility when it's not a real feature at high levels. So people were expecting that the ranged classes were staying mobile, when they really weren't.