Why I dislike duelists nerf.

[Gi-Go]

It achieved nothing except made Maxwell much less fun for general combat. Raid bosses stayed the same, while weak bosses and regular mobs make you question your character choice. why even have minions when you do the same thing with or without them? To prove my point I'll describe my experience with (almost) every boss fight in the game and why pre-nerfed Maxwell appeals to me more.

Here comes text!

Tree guard.
Fighting alongside clones will save you 10/20 seconds, leaving them alone will take multiple rounds of summoning and will waste minion slots for workers. So the best strategy is to summon minions and fight among them.
It's the same fight as ever now, except you have bots on your team. Hit a few times and move back and forth. I'm so sick of this fight, i wish I could just let someone else do it for me. Like pre-nerfed duelists.

Spider queen.
This one is actually nice. Any damage buff makes this fight a lot faster since you have less minions to deal with. So duelists are actually worth summoning. Except not really, because you are better off using burning rope/tree method than them. I just wish I could use something different for once to destroy spider queen. Like pre-nerfed duelists.

Deerclops.
Summoning duelists might not even be worth it. You gonna end up in a harder and longer fight if nightmares deside to crush the party. If not, then congrats! you've harnessed the power of wigfrid with a hambat. Before the nerf clones couldn't even kill deerclops in one go, and summoning them three times was about as engaging as deerclops fight will ever be.

Eye of terror.
Clones are definitely not worth summoning. Just hurry up and kill him before cage spam drains your sanity.
You can use clones and sanity food but at that point you are making things more complicated than they need to be. Pre-nerfed duelists gave you variety as you either used cage, clones or both and ended up with an easy fight regardless.

Ancient guardian.
"Your powers are quaint. You must be popular with children". - Wilson with a spear.
Seriously, it's easier to kill this guy without using spells. Pre-nerfed duelists bullied minotaur, and he deserved every second of it. 

Moose/goose.
This fight just takes longer after the nerf. Participating in it was worth it already, for additional damage and zero risk. I liked it. It was a choice. Either to relax or to hurry up and be done with it. Duelists are still great for moose but I liked to have an option to skip this fight. Let's be real, moose is not a fun boss and his drops can be obtained from mooslings anyways.

Bearger.
Don't fight him.

Antlion.
Spank and tank or kite a bit if you have goggles. Just like any other character. Nothing about Maxwell stands out here. He is just wigfrid with extra steps.
Before the nerf however you had to cast clones precisely in order for them to target antlion and not sand spikes. With the small casting range this was a rather interesting experience. One less unique strategy due to nerf.

Malbatross.
Who?

Klaus.
That one fight where I'd agree with duelists being nerfed. Klaus is the only boss that actually punished you for participating in combat, due to his spells being tricky to dodge especially with duelists involved. It was better to just not fight him. Nerf made this fight logical - no arguing here. 

Dragonfly.
Everyone knows how this fight goes. Just takes longer/faster after the nerf depending on your gear.
Dragonfly desperately needed rework anyways.

Bee queen.
Now you have to wear specific gear and also stay close to Bee queen. But you still
Dont need to actually fight her. And I'm glad. Bee queen sucks! cheese her.

Toadstool.
By far the most fun boss. Everything about fighting toadstool as reworked Maxwell is awesome. The fight stayed mostly the same after nerf.

Shadow chess.
Duelists are immune to bishop which offered a special strategy. However, due to nerf their dash will cause bishop to target Maxwell, and they wont be able to catch up to him to take the hit for you. Another strategy is dead. Just do rook last like always.

Twins.
Cage takes the cake. Duelist nerf dosen't really matter here.

Crab king.
Duelists aren't strong enough to offer unique strategy even pre-nerf. Probably. I suck at this boss so I'm not sure if duelists even matter here. 

Celestial champion.
While it's true that pre-nerf duelists could solo this boss without Maxwell being involved directly, I struggle to see why that's an issue. You've come this far, I'm certain you can handle this silly boss. Just get in there and do some extra damage. Or don't. I don't care about this fight being cheesed. Easy boss. 

And that only leaves ancient fuelweaver. But the truth is I play on potato so I can't host worlds with caves, thus never actually tried him with reworked Maxwell.
I assume pre-nerfed duelists were so OP you could kill him without doing anything, right? Inform me on that guys.

TLDR: Maxwell was incredibly powerful and still is. Just nowhere near as satisfying to use now. 

[Bombobbit]

So the nerf is bad because you need to actually play the game?

[Gi-Go]

2 minutes ago, Bombobbit said:

So the nerf is bad because you need to actually play the game?

Yes. 

[DaZoul]

9 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Yes. 

bruh

[Gi-Go]

7 minutes ago, DaZoul said:

bruh

I mean... do I need to elaborate? Take a look at worker shadows, aren't they pretty much play for you? Let's go ahead and nerf them too.

[Masterblaster38]

1 hour ago, Gi-Go said:

Yes. 

Emm bruh.

Really? Then why you open the game in the first place if what you want is to not have to actually play the game?

[Gi-Go]

6 minutes ago, Masterblaster38 said:

Emm bruh.

Really? Then why you open the game in the first place if what you want is to not have to actually play the game?

Ugh, it was obviously a joke response to a stupid TLDR question. Just because I want to have other options, aside from kiting tree guard the same way for the 1000th time - dosen't mean I want duelists to play for me.