Wow... I'm really hoping that reading through all of the great posts in this thread gives you folks at NF some food for thought on the upcoming NerF and the direction of future character balancing as well. Your player base is crying out to you in the most professional manner possible to put an end to the disappointing choices you have been making to basically ruin much loved and hated characters like the Prisoner.
I propose that instead of NerFing all these great characters, you create true counters for them. Perhaps more characters that wear Passive Aggression as it is or more characters that can disable it with some new passive for instance. Having a few more wear this passive would also help eliminate the need to ruin the Siege passive.
We all know there are better ways to resolve these issues. It's obvious that you should know this as well. The changes you have decided to make and possibly go through with will continue to negatively affect the playability of your game if you don't take some time to listen to what all these good people are trying to tell you.
We can all agree that adapting and overcoming is one of the key skills we all have to learn in all that we do at some point. Being lucky is only half the battle and should always go hand in hand with being good too. Being fooled on the other hand, is something that has surely happened to most of us, but being fooled repeatedly is something that will not continue to be acceptable. You will ruin the game if you continue to devalue our initial investments.
The main point here is that no one really wants to see you taking the easy way out, even if you feel that changing some coding and having to deal with some complaints was a hard choice to make... it should however, raise some serious red flags on the development and programming sides when your most dedicated players, that you are so fortunate to have supporting this game, voice their opinions in such a manner.
I really do think you guys should reevaluate some of your decisions and take some time to reflect on what the loyal people who have supported this project have to say before you go live with an update that has such a drastic change.
My hat's off to the community, I really do hope they're listening!