Flowchart's summary is good, but you should read the announcements that he linked, for completeness. Here is another place for you to read them, in one giant page.

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Release/all

They still sort of are, you don't get to directly fight them even in the event, just 2 "corrupted" versions

'Almost saying that I'm not Autofire when I'm sick.

@OP

Just as a tip, I wouldn't suggest that you heat your 5* shields at all. They don't get much better as you level them up, and Radiants are rare enough to warrent it.

Radiants aren't terrible, but aren't too great either sadly.

The new guns made magnuses amazing and Iron Slug is now like, super viable.

New armor lines are the only thing that should confuse you, however if you just care about your damage output then glass cannon gears already are around.

We have about 3 reoccuring events now: Kataclysmic Confrontation, Shroud of the Apocrea, and March of the Tortodrones. One is a grindfest for black kats, one is a spooky game of tag with Mr. Tentacles, and the last one is pretty much pay your crowns to your party leader so you all can die a few times to overtimers, greavers, and giant tortoises. Last two are incredibly fun, however turned into a grindfest because they're limited time only.

The game's meta is still pretty much "wear chaos gear and bring a blitz", however now you can do more than just charge-attack that gun. So that's a plus I suppose. If you're someone who just plays for fun, I'd recommend just keep playing for fun.

Pretty much. Also, they released a preview of it last May and just released it last month with (supposedly) the same bugs and all.

I'm also returning after a while away, so salutations.

I don't know a dang thing about PvP, but at least for the clockworks the most important new guns are the crazily updated Magnus/Tundrus type and the added Shadow Autogun. Magnus/Tundrus has very heavy knockback, but it knocks the monster backward rather than away- that is, it knocks monsters whichever directions their backs are facing. > < Projectile collision seems to still be a bit flaky, but despite that they're right up there with Autoguns and Alchemers now.

The 3 new Blasters, 2 new Pulsars and 1 new Antigua probably don't need explaining beyond what you can see on the wiki and in-game. Catalysers have been turned inside-out, with sticky bomblets now being the uncharged attack and having drastically reduced damage. In addition, the bomblets also inflict 1 damage upon sticking and now they break stone blocks, detonate blast cubes, etc. The giant pile of new armor items seems to mostly just make visiting Basil for weapon recipes a little more frustrating, especially if you're not a gun specialist.

I think the global gun animation changes are emphasising Autoguns a bit more than before, but it could be just me, so take with a grain of salt. Oh, and those changes include breaking the easiest, laziest switch-shooting technique, forcing us to learn to do it the harder but more powerful way.

Sadly that's a truth for almost every competitive game with a PvP aspect, some people just need to prove themselves on a game or get obsessed with being the best of the best and they feel enraged when they should be playing games for fun, not to try and self-proclaim yourself #1 player of all times probably holding your ego up up till it reaches the sun (and then it will probably burn as you claim yourself to be a god)

That is the reason I stopped getting into lockdown, I like playing guardian but hardly anyone plays with me. I try to shield others but they don't even care about my shield and go out of the protection of my aura to get their glorious kill, (or death) Everybody plays alone, even while I almost always get some decent damage as a guardian (often 7-9k) I still get criticized with comments like "Nice UVs noob, why no more damage?", completely ignoring the fact that I actually cap and try using my class like it was intended...

But honestly it's kinda the game's fault for not being properly balanced that guardians and Recons became underused classes, after all my guardian shield can be broken by a single hit of a damage max GF/DA/Acheron, how much protection can I provide to my allies if I can barely protect myself from a single attacker? :/

I cannot speak much for Recons but from what I've experienced it's a bit more difficult to use class and it also requires good timing and fast reactions wich is something that me and my little red bar cannot accomplish >.<

SO YEAH, LD is still as crappy as always! but now with a little more gun.