I've given some thought for flinch and here is my piece:
I rly like the mechanic, but for such short play with small amount of ppl it is very hard to say if the nerf was just right (nerf for saberist) or too much. In my opinion tho, I think we removed TOO much from the saberist. Flinch is basically a buff for gunners from what I could see, so it nerfed saberists. When you also add the fact that the perks against gunners were removed too, it once again takes a lot stuff away from the saberist. All that they got was dmg reduce buff and I am not sure if that is answer to our problem. It is a bit boring buff, while perks brought these tiny little spices that you could use to modify your saberist build exactly the way you liked. 1.4 limits and narrows the choices a lot. Variety, at least to me is one of the most important things in this game, and we are removing them right now.
I'd say keep the perks. Staff and duals had good perks. Purple was a bit op, but it isn't a bad idea for a perk, if it could be adjusted a little (for example purple not having the perk's effects when using deflect-ability). Obviously red perk is no longer needed for saberist due to the dmg reduce buff. I didn't like blue perk since that kick was op in the first place. For cyan I don't have much to say since I never rly used it (and hardly fought against it as a gunner), so I guess the perk wasn't op at least. So basically all we need to do is come up with new perks for red and blue, not sure what to do with yellow style since it never had a perk.
So basically:
Keep most of the perks against gunners (or adjust them/come up with new ones), maybe nerf the dmg reduce from the current one in 1.4, not sure. Keeping the perks can't be too bad, ppl still play the game in 1.3 even without flinch. Now that flinch is going to nerf the saberist, I think removing perks is overkill, and replacing perks with a universal dmg reduce is a boring answer which takes the variety away that perks brought for this game.
EDIT: since taking a walk is the best way to brainstorm, I came up with his:
How about a system of pro & cons, where yellow (at least this style) is neutral with no pros nor cons. But duals and staff for example; you get the current perk but the dmg reduce is removed. Red gets even bigger dmg reduce, but you are as slow as strength 2 wookiee (a big con, maybe make red cheaper?) Ofc this would only apply when you are holding the style. This would also make yellow a very important base style while others are for modification of one's play style. So you can hold yellow and enjoy no cons and at right times switch to another style (just one example of how to play, yellow still isn't necessary). This takes a lot gameplay wisdom and skill. The variety that this style of gamplay brings would be huge, you will always be able to weigh your options to what you are fighting against, or have all-around build which doesn't excell in any situation, but neither suck completely in any situation.
Oh yeah and one more thing: these perks dont exist in duel mode
