why is kerrigan ‘weak’ now? Cuz math.
pre-rework, the typical build was what? sharpened blades, fury of the swarm, bladed momentum, double-strike, aggressive defense.
a q, aa, w, aa, e, aa combo might run something like
210 + (120+90) + 114 + (120+90) + 326 + (120+90) for ~ 1280 dmg (using lvl 0/1 numbers)
current kerrigan actually runs a slightly different combo:
q, aa, w, aa, e, aa, q, aa, e
130 + 115 + 165 + 115 + 25 + 115 + 130 + 115 + 180
for ~ 1090 damage
… but that’s not counting for talents like i did on the first set.
lvl 4 talent choice adds 125-180 extra damage, lvl 16 adds ~190 - 420 damage.
So the whole combo has a higher yield but… the damage is spread out over a longer period of time. The time from e starting and its pulse going off (intended to combo off q) is a few extra seconds an enemy is alive, and while the damage from painful spikes is comparable to the damage double-strike provided, its damage added on after the stun combo, and not during, so that’s more time after the initial set for kerrigan’s attack damage potential to be realized.
as she is right now, she is arguably a bit overnerfed from the backlash patch from her fury one trick, when well, really, part of the biggest issue of that set was how much was stuffed into one talent. Kinda a telling issue when q procs Fury for aoe attack damage where I single attack could match the shield generation of the Siphoning impact talent, which doesn’t include the attack potential from aoe hits.
If anything, the fury talent should have kept up the aoe attacks either baseline, multicharged on the q (two attacks) but reduced the assimilation from shields to compensate for aoe damage. Instead of one over-performing build determining her balance, it should have been reigned in, and then the rest of the options rebalance around that instead.
anyway, tl;dr, kerri is ‘weak’ because her combo dynamics shifted to demand more keystrokes and a few extra seconds of time to see it realized. The extra time allows more room for error or adjustment by the enemy team, so players that don’t pick up kerrigan’s new combo timing could find themselves doing ~50% less damage than they would be before.