Skelly series:

- Removed fire weaknes.

This makes Skelly an inferior but cheaper alternative to Snarbolax. It also makes Skelly viable for FSC, though not perfect. Skelly is a good general purpose armour now, as the lackluster status defences prevent anything more. Snarbolax is better overall.

TL;DR: Skelly set becomes viable general-purpose Shadow gear

Magic Cloak series:

- Removed stun weakness

Makes Magic set a good general-purpose armour, and again, viable for FSC. The negative stun resist made this set vulnerable. Works for FSC and IMF if you don’t rely on class-specific armour.

TL;DR: Magic set becomes viable general-purpose Elemental gear

Drake Scale series:
[Damage bonus vs. Beast med]

- Added Poison resist

Drake series has always been a little useless.

It’s clearly meant to be a specialist anti-beast armour
However, Armour without Normal defence is basically useless outside of T3, and extremely vulnerable even within T3.
Beasts do Piercing damage
Gremlins do elemental/normal while Constructs do pure elemental
The single bar of elemental defence makes it only useful vs. constructs, as a single bar of Normal would do for Gremlins.
Piercing weapons which are super effective against Beasts are weak against Constructs and neutral against Gremlins.

So class piercing defence is overall the best anti-beast armour, seeing as it grants damage, attack speed, or charge time bonuses as well. Drake series doesn’t defend against the monsters it’s meant to kill, and the damage bonus is lackluster.

It’s rarely used in total defence sets, which focus on having a bar of defence in all areas. Meta supports the use of these, however, it’s meant to be a specialist armor, from what I can tell.

The devs probably know this, and they’re rebalancing it. However, adding poison resistance does absolutely nothing for the set.

Making it Pierce/Normal or even pure Pierce may work, and increasing the damage bonus vs. beasts would make it more useful.

TL;DR: Still useless.

Chaos set:

[Damage bonus: Low]
- Added Charge Time bonus
- Removed stun and sleep weakness

Chaos set is currently so worthless that it’s a trophy item, a costume item for the rich players who can afford to craft it. The damage bonus is negligible, even with the full set, and negative status resistances are hard to work with. Even in the Mad Bomber set, which has CTR and Damage Med to sweeten the deal, the negative status resistances cause most people to choose volcanic or other sets. The paltry Damage Low vs all monsters just isn’t worth it.

Removing Stun weakness is a strange choice. I think that they’re just removing Stun weakness from the entire magic line, so that’s why. it really doesn’t fit. It’s not a huge change, anyway. Sleep weakness was never an issue.

A charge time low bonus would make this set a little more palatable for bombers who like to charge their backup weapons. I think this set would see a lot more use with a global CTR, though it’s still doesn’t meet the precedents set by Mad Bomber.

TL;DR: Not quite enough, but the set’s moving in the right direction.

Justifier set:

[Handgun ASI Med]

- Added stun resist

This puts the Justifier Set on par with the Vog and Skolver; endgame class gear with a medium bonus and a single status defence. Perfect.

TL;DR This piece of gunner gear is now balanced with sword-class gear.

Shadowsun set:

[Handgun Damage Bonus Med]
- Added poison resist
- Removed curse weakness
- Changed piercing defense to shadow defense
- Increased handgun damage bonus

This changes the entire armour. It becomes Shadow gear with poison resistance and Damage bonus Med. It gives gunners an alternative to the Deadshot set, as well as differentiating it from the Justifier set.

TL;DR Complete makeover, now on par with swordie class gear.

Deadshot set:

[Damage Bonus vs. Undead Medium]

- Added Handgun Attack speed

Unlike the Drake set, the Deadshot set is an example of a specialist armour that works. Curse status only comes from two rare enemies, both of them undead. Shadow and Normal defence make it more useful all around.

However, with the changes to Shadowsun, it’s going to be outperformed. Everything depends on how much the ASI bonus is. if it’s Medium, then the set will be on par with swordie gear (the less-useful status defence makes up for the extra damage vs. undead). If it’s Low, then the set is just going to be eclipsed by Shadowsun. It’s worth noting that it’s a global damage bonus vs. undead.

TL;DR: A necessary change, everything depends on how much ASI it gets.

Nameless set:

[Handgun ASI Med]
- Added freeze resist

Basically puts Nameless on par with swordie gear.

Bombastic Demo set:

File:Equipment-Bombastic Demo Suit Stats.png

[Bomb damage bonus: Low]

-Added freeze resist

The problem with Bombastic Demo is that it lacks a significant Damage bonus. This means the only choice if you want damage bonus from your armour is Mad Bomber set, which has obvious drawbacks.

Furthermore, Bombastic Demo is Elemental/Normal. Volcanic Demo, Mad Bomber, and Mercucial Demo are all Elemental/Normal. There isn’t an existing bomber gear that isn’t Elemental/Normal. Thus, Bombastic Demo is simply outclassed by Mercucial (probably intended) and eclipsed by the virtues of its other two branches.

Adding freeze resist is a nice gesture, but it doesn’t fix the problems of the set or the entire bomber class.

TL;DR: Still useless. Aggravatingly so.

Pictures of relevant equipment and their current stats at http://spiralsnipes.tumblr.com/post/19618743318