EA Staff (Retired)
I like the patch and I feel all changes are for the better for the health of the game and balance with the very notable exception of the nerf to party characters. To be fair, party characters are still good versus weak AI, or Ops mode, since you can rack up kills much more easily but that would be odd for this to be the intent. In all cases, the BASE variant is better than the party variant in PVP unless you are one of the absolute best players in the whole community.
I don't have all the math for each one on me, although I did do it at home and many are similar. I do have Captain Partybeard's math on his shotgun, though.
Pre-nerf, both the base and the party variant did 40 damage with the shotgun. Both had 12 bullets, which was 6 shots for the base and 12 for the party (base used 2 bullets like most pirate variants, and prenerf party used 1 like sharkbite). Post-nerf Partyman has 10 bullets, and that translates to 5 shots, where base still has 6.
Post-nerf base now does 35 damage with the shotgun at all times, Partyman does 30 damage without meter and 45 with meter. This may not sound like much but I will explain why it is. And before I say this if you can consistently charge a full meter with a 5 kill streak with a nerfed Partyman than he's better than base, but for those who can't (who is almost everybody) he's not. Party characters prenerf weren't toooo much better than base (his 1 bullet shotgun was a major help, though), unless you can hit 5 kill streaks.
Your plant opponents, with few exceptions, will usually be at one of these life totals at max: 100, 125, 150, 175, 200. With the exception of 150, ALL other life totals base pirate gets a kill one shot earlier (at 150 they are tied). At 175 and 200, base can kill without reloading, and Partyman has to do his slow reload to get off the final shot(s) for 175 and 200 life totals.
Let's assume a 5 kill streak by the base, and by Partyman killing full health plants one each of 100, 125, 150, 175, and 200. Base gets kills at 3, 4, 5, 5, & 6, for a total of 23 shots assuming you get a free reload after each kill, with 0 reloads during firefights. Partyman kills at 4, 5, 5, 6, & 7, for a total of 27 shots and the last two kills require a reload so that's two reloads while in a firefight. Base is FAR easier to get a 5 streak with! I don't have the maths on other variants or even his sniper shots, but they are all reduced.
Now that you have the 5 kills, Partyman is insanely fast and does 45 damage with his shotgun (which yes, is crazy), but can he do enough damage to make up for what he lost? At 27 shots, he's lost 5 damage a shot for 135 damage. As long as he can consistently hit 5 streaks and during the 5 streak get off 9 shots, he evens out damage-wise. And yes he can get kills faster in Partytime but just getting to Partytime is so difficult for most players.
So again, unless you are just so amazing with Partyman that you can get a kill streak even with the nerfs, he's better for base but for the rest of us he's not even better than base in PVP. And again, all party characters rock in Ops mode, but I didn't go through Infinity Time all those hours to have a better character for Ops only and not PVP!
Personal opinion, here is what I think would be more balanced. Partybeard does 35 damage like the base variant outside of meter, 45 inside meter with speed. Instead of 12 bullets with 2 a shot for shotgun like base, he still takes 2 a shot and only has 10 ammo. He'll still have to reload against 175+ targets, but his benefits would make up for this as long as you were decent enough to occasionally get 5 streaks.
