Personally I enjoy the new EM. I think, honestly, preference towards it is going to be subjective. The faster animation times, and subsequent increase in damage, are numerically objectively better for the set. Plain and simple, though. GB has evaluated it in the melee spreadsheet(which isn't gospel at all but a good test indicator for the intended improvements), and has shown as much. It IS better than live, from again, a numbers perspective. That doesn't mean BZB is wrong though in their feelings.