I get that master is supposed to be hard, no doubt about that and I like a good challenge. My view is just to balance other characters better so that all of them are, as much as possible, viable as each other.
I think there’s a distinction to be made between a strong and viable character, and strong players of good ability. A good player can compensate for the limitations of a poorly-balanced character. Thing is the game needs to be catered for the majority rather than the strongest players out there. Not dumbed down, but balanced enough so that peo[ple can get something out of using them.
My personal view of a balanced Horde character, is one which has an active role for the majority of the wave and doing something which benefits the team in a non-generic way. Del for example doesn’t need to be shooting, but his role requires him to build and upgrade; and once that’s done to actively maintain the base. JACK’s role is to heal and smelt weapons. JD is to deal high damage. These are all active roles. Trouble is, some characters’ skillsets mean that they struggle to be as active; and some characters are better at certain roles than others. As a result there are several characters who end up sat back using a Tri-shot, which is pretty generic. I don’t want to turn this into a “nerf JD” thread cos we have one of those. I think balancing characters is extremely difficult, so I don’t envy TC. The current Horde meta is very orientated around the same style and the same few characters.
The COG Gear is a character I don’t see very often, certainly not as an alternative medic. I think good players can definitely make it work very well in place of JACK, but this comes back to my point that good players can probably make any character seem viable,