I got another odorous hot take to dump here, if only to clear it from my brain. You’ve been warned.
“What’s the problem with CDR talents”.
Considering the meta across all difficulties is to spam CAs as often as possible, CDR talents become a ‘must pick’, especially those that trigger off Elite/Specialist kills. Currently, FS has been trying to balance these out by changing flat increases into increased regen overtime, which definitely knocks them down on higher difficulties without hurting lower ones, but doesn’t change the fact that these talents ‘feel’ necessary.
Idea: Make CDR talents ‘tax nodes’, and/or make them exclusionary. Use them to bolster underperforming CAs/Auras while becoming unavailable for other options, or positioned in a way that all options get them without flexing, if the CAs/Auras are already considered ‘balanced’.
Some Examples:
Vet: Right now, the only issue here is that there’s a lot of VoC spam going around. This sucks double-bad because VoC doesn’t have to flex if it’s going straight down the tree, while the other two CAs are taxed x3. There’s a lot of ways to fix this, increasing the Cooldown of VoC or reducing the efficacy of Tactical Awareness, but that’s still assuming that Exec Stance and Infiltrate should be punished, are these CAs really that potent?
Since Exec Stance has its refresh mechanic and VoC is the one we’re concerned about, Tactical Awareness could be moved to underneath Infiltrate, arguably the one that ‘needs’ it the most, considering its larger CD.
Alternatively, you could swap these nodes. This wouldn’t fix the VoC Spam issue, just the added tax on Exec and Infiltrate, but you could always nerf VoC some other way.
Psyker:
The two big issues here is that 1.) Psykenetic’s aura is extremely potent, making the entire right side of this tree woefully unfavored and 2.) You can get both it and Seer’s Presence.
Consider splitting Psykenetic’s Aura, and moving them underneath both Kinetic Presence and Prescience. You can nerf one or the other or both, to balance out these auras (For example, KP’s PA would only trigger on Elite Kills, while Presci’s could be specialists kills, tweak the numbers to compensate if need be.)
Hell, you might want to nerf it regardless just because of power creep, I’m not opposed to giving it the Brusier treatment.
(Also, to clarify, you’d need to replace PA’s current position with a new node. Might I recommend “Quell Peril on Perfect Block”? )
You can buff Seer’s if you want (I wouldn’t, because Seer’s here would give you +1 node to play with and I think that’s a buff in its own right).
Zealot:
Zealot seems designed for high CDR, considering they have 3 CDR talents. But having to account for stacking CDR is a balancing nightmare.
Consider moving each tree’s respective CDR ability to a tax node under its CA, buff them if necessary, now that they can no longer stack.
This would also have the added benefit of giving Relic the least popular CDR talent, as it’s also the ability that 'aught be spammed the least. Considering it’s high CD and duration.
Ogryn:
Okay, I don’t think this idea would work for this operator. Considering the right half of the tree is currently the ‘most’ potent, a two node tax for CDR doesn’t seem unfair to me. And Point Blank Barrage, while needing the CDR a bit more, isn’t really a “I NEED THIS RIGHT NOW” CA, maybe I’m weird but I never felt the pain of its 80s CD and the two node tax, and more the pain of my low ammo reserves. I’d need a glugger main to verify this though, as my experience with PBB is limited.
If necessary, it could be a post-PBB tax node (Since loyal protector has its own CDR node). Or it could be swapped with one of the Blitz Tax Nodes to make it more easily available if one determines the tax on BR and PBB unnecessary.
Actually, if you really wanted to nerf the left tree a bit, you could simply move this from the middle tree to the right tree, requiring an additional tax node for righties and middlies. But I’ve no idea what to swap it with.
