Epic never liked the Gnasher playstyle. I assume neither does TC and it’s former Epic employees. They’ve always put things in each and every release to minimize Gnasher gameplay. In Gears 2 they introduced the smoke stun, lowered the Gnasher firerate, and made it shoot the ground if you tried to fire out of roadie run. This was on purpose. In Gears 3 they introduced stopping power, the Retro Lancer, and the Sawed Off. This was on purpose. In Gears 4 they introduced a delay before shooting out of roadie run and a delay after sliding (they ended up removing the latter, I believe), vault kick knifing, grabbing, the Enforcer, and bad weapon tunings (Probably a lot more. It’s my least played Gears outside of Judgement and I stopped playing it over a year ago so it’s hard to remember).
The point being smoke stuns, delays, vault kick, grabs, knifing, stopping power, Sawed Off, Enforcer, Retro Lancer, floor shots, and slow firerate are all roadblocks put in place to weaken the Gnasher and to make sure nobody had to face anyone in a fair fight. I remember in Gears 1 my friends and I used to come up with timed strategies to take over the Sniper on Gridlock. One person flank. Two go up the front stairs. One person grabs frags. Everyone attack on three, two, one. We knew we would lose teammates but that was the cost of gaining ground. Now how would that situation play out? Just throw a smoke and run in and you can probably take out 2-3 defenseless enemies yourself.
It’s sad that the developers have never embraced the fact that the Gnasher, and the skill it takes to use and master, is what makes Gears unique. That’s why people keep coming back. That’s what makes it competitive. Outplaying people skill vs skill is what makes the game exciting not sitting on a wall with four teammates lancering.

