I decided to test the claim about the hp bars being just a ui change to show fewer pips rather than a change in hp values by checking the lower difficulties to see how my storm performed in freeplay.
in easy, nothing could get through even an 8th of my shields, absolutely nothing. a scar sniper shot couldn't even chunk 1/16th of the shield bar.
in normal, it could chunk 1/16th if i just stood there and took the shot. the small fire from the little scar footsoldiers would barely move the blue bar. i can solo the world events without any evasive action at all.
jump to hard, and the small arms fire suddenly chunks 1/8th of the blue bar per shot. 4 little guys shred my shields in less than a second. the damage output of the enemies in hard vs normal is a tremendous jump. that was not the case prior to the day one patch.
im not yet lvl 30, so i cannot compare any of the grandmaster difficulties.
This leads me to believe that this may not actually be a change to our health (armor) values, but an error in the damage multiplier for the difficulties past normal. I'd be willing to bet that current hard mode is what grandmaster or maybe grandmaster 2 was pre-day-one-patch.
