I empathise with your feelings of frustration, I truthfully do. And while they are valid and justified, I also consider that a handful of your comments are plainly preposterous.

Chapter one: “One Tap is gone RIP Cowboy”

Sorry, but no. Cowboy is an annoyance to hunters, and his one tap is by far the only good thing he had. He’s a good kiter, his ability to go to pallets was annoying, specially when you think you’re about to hit him. He can save time to decode by being near the hunter, his sole presence makes the hunter just not pick up the survivor.

Now, on top of that, he gets a mild boost when lassoing to pallets and additionally he can now lasso to cipher machines. His kiting just got much better. If you thought the only thing that made cowboy good was the one tap, you were not a good cowboy. And I mean that, bringing him down to just the one tap lassos is a disservice to his abilities and his versatility. Which kinda brings me to my second point.

Chapter two: “Now he doesn’t take skill”

Excuse me, what?

I’ve seen this comment a lot, “he doesn’t even take skill now, one taps were very hard to do”. Yeah, but now he doesn’t take skill? IMO you need to be an even better cowboy now and it truthfully needs skill. Now you need to be way more precise with your lasso rescue. You need to aim at the survivor and calculate your time to start it. One taps were hard yes, but it was just calibrating the lasso, now you have to ACTUALLY AIM WITH PRECISION, which is harder.

On top of that, considering that now excitement counters his lasso, you have to be very good at hiding so that the hunter doesn’t notice you and doesn’t use his excitement (if he even brings it).

Chapter three: “Even if his kiting got better, his harassing got worse”

I have seen this few times worded like this, but most of the survivors feel the same way but express it with different words. With that said, I'm about to make a statement that will probably make a few people mad:

I’m sorry, but harassing isn’t a survivor type and shouldn’t be prioritised.

There are meant to be four types of survivors: kiting, rescuing, support and decoding. “Harasser” is NOT one of them, and no survivor should be meant to be played as this unofficiated type. His harassing was good, yes, but it’s not all he is. He’s a SUPPORT character, it’s great that he can rescue with this lasso when the hunter has them ballooned, but he shouldn’t be the kind of survivor that will instantly take him away from you as soon as you pick them up.

Cowboy can still lasso them and take them with him, he can VAULT WHILE CARRYING SOMEONE and he can DROP PALLETS WHILE CARRYING SOMEONE. He can prevent a survivor from getting hit by lassoing them while they’re being chased and they even get a boost. That’s what a support character does, he helps you in your kiting and not getting downed, not to literally give you half your health back and boost away when you’re already 20 meters away from the hunter after you were JUST BALLOONED.

He’s a good character, and now his support is better. He’s meant to support other survivors not harass the hunter. Add to that that his kiting just got better too. He’s versatile, he can still rescue while you’re ballooned, and he can kite more effectively.

Epilogue

As a conclusion, cowboy is a very versatile and effective survivor. His kiting got better, his supporting role god prioritised, and his balloon rescue hasn’t changed that much either.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, if you only thought cowboy was good because of his one tap, you were not a good cowboy and were awfully bringing him down to something he wasn’t meant to be. Now instead of just chasing the hunter to harass them, you can actually focus on cowboy's true potential: helping in the chase of other survivors or kiting better with his mild kiting buff.

Bringing him down to just the one taps is a disservice, and I think people should appreciate his other qualities.