One thing that I have been thinking about as I have mademy way back to Barin in my rotation is that there alomst seems RV and IB have gotten each others talens.
Ranger Veteran is a versitile character but certain weapons that go well with his playstyle underperfrom due to the lack of certain talents. RV is a melee/ranged hybrid but he is also somewhat squishy. This would lead me to think that his survivability needs to be connected to shields or mobility. He can use shields well with his current talents although he does not shine like the IB since he lacks a stamina regenerationg talen and that is fair enough. The alternative would be the one handed axe which has the best dodge count. But he lacks both temp health on kill and smiter which makes it not very useful.
Ironbreaker however has extra stamina and access to a stamina regenterating talent (miner’s rythm) so he can afford to get extra pushes of and gain advantage of mainstaya nd he has a crowd controlling playstyle that would work well with it.
I suggest swappping the RV’s and the IB’s level. 5 and 15 talents.
I’d argue THP needs a complete rework. I for one am fine with this careers, but hate FK lack of “on kill” talent, and have similar problems with other careers. As stagger is a mostly useless talent (exceptions are fire sword and shields) it should be merged with other talents. Or better yet, they could be all merged together (giving you THP based on what’s highest between cleave, stagger and kills for example) and the other options could be something different (healshare or heads/crits if you want to change as little as possible).
This would have the benefit of not having to swap talents anytime you change weapons - as the choice would be between default, headshots or healshare, for example.
No career needs mainstay + Bulwark. Both talents are absolute trash. I agree that RV needs smiter. But taking it away from IB isn’t the best solution. All careers should have access to a mostly uniform set of thp and stagger talents.
I’d say probably, but quite likely not very soon, and not as big, which is frankly fine. The core system works at the moment, we just need better THP system and a lot of polish. So many things are janky atm.
If I were to hazard a guess, it might be more likely to get deed rework before a second BBB.
FS said the second BBB would be focusing on talents (if it ever happens). It’s going to be much more work than the first BBB so I wouldn’t expect one any time soon.
Anyway, the next BBB should concentrate on the careers we have left out so far. The rest is bonus. I don’t agree with the communities needyness on Smiter and Cleave on everything -_- However, in the last BBB we had a suggestion for a rework of the Stagger Talent row which would “streamline” the process and offer between a more finesse based single target damage and a brute forced anti-horde talent. Personally, I think the way suggested there could work (which is oh-so-surprising as I was the author), may need some number tweaking.
Just take every career that has bulwark and sub it out for Smiter or Assassin, whichever is more appropriate for the career. I’ve given up on proper balance and this would be by far the lowest effort fix for the problem. Seriously FS if you don’t even do this much you’re just being negligent.
I’d go so far as to say Mainstay is outright good on some weapon/class combos (albeit niche), so it should be left available, but Bulwark helps nobody in reality. Ditch it so every class gets competitive options.
Enhanced Power offers really similar results while also boosting stagger, cleave & ranged damage.
Maybe there are some Mainstay breakpoints but they are probably incredibly niche.
They don’t need Smiter or Assassin either. I’d be alright with the stagger talents being removed, but only if enemy health stays the same as it is now. Of course most wouldn’t be though.
May as well make thp talents pre-selected by Fatshark for the player depending on the career and weapon chosen. Then just force thp on cleave for Slayer (since it works with every combo but 2 1h Axes or 1h Axe + Throwing, which is clearly terrible) and thp on kill for GK. May as well do this since choosing a thp talent is basically an IQ test anyway.
Or at least that’s what so many of us apparently want it to continue being.
I’m surprised Assassin isn’t the one that’s requested more, since it’s the really overpowered one. It would be absurd on something like Slayer with Dual Axes, Handmaiden, Pyro and any career with a high potential attack speed.
A lot of weapons work well enough with thp on crit/headshot for example, like the Billhook on WHC. I don’t really get why everyone seems to feel entitled to an equal amount of thp generation regardless of how good a career or weapon is at avoiding taking damage. Not everything should make as much thp as Dual Hammers, Mace and Sword, Rapier etc.
Mainly for weapons with high stagger pushes that make frequent use of their push attacks, like shields. It is pretty niche.
Assassin is only better at 45% headshot ratio, assuming 15% crit. It’s really not that OP. I’ve seen very little, if any, gameplay with over 50% headshot ratio. The only scenario where I’d see it becoming too strong is on pyro or on a career like GK or slayer that could hit some crazy headshot BP’s.
I want it to be reworked where it’s balanced for classes, and all choices have a niche to where they are balanced against one another. Not gonna attempt that conversation again.
Bulwark actually should exist, just not in its current state. My point was that no career, at present, should be stuck w/ Mainstay + Bulwark. They are so bad you still take Enhanced Power for melee builds. Mainstay should be done away with because the concept of the talent doesn’t work. Bulwark just needs some tweaking to have a niche with bash weapons.
Depends on the weapon. Smiter + low bodyshot damage is mediocre. For example, Zealot’s Rapier and Billhook breakpoints are bad. Finesse weapons benefit a lot from Assassin. Throw in some crit on top of that, like Handmaiden with Power from Pain + Spear and it should come out on top.
Handmaiden and Pyro would benefit from Assassin easily. Even Merc with the 1h Sword, Spear or Exec is another good candidate.
Don’t Assassin crits affect all of the targets in a cleave, which boosts it against unstaggered targets? The sheer opportunistic damage potential is very high.
How are you calculating players’ headshot percentages?
It can be made as balanced as possible, but it’s still going to be an IQ test with one right answer for the vast majority of weapons.
Which is something a lot of us consider to be a problem too. Even if there’s always going to be a top dog in a talent row, that doesn’t mean multiple choices can’t be made meaningful and relevant, or the other talents mechanically interesting in nuanced and easy to implement ways, which entice a player through fun-factor at least.
This already exists, it’s the definition of meme builds. If you run Cata QP you’ll see plenty of meme builds. (have you seen my BH build, for example?)
If talents were appropriately balanced, it would allow multiple options based upon playstyle as well as weapon choice. For example, cleave can theoretically work with crow bill on Sienna or 1H axe on Slayer. However, if thp on kill was appropriately distributed across mob types, you could also use on kill for those weapons depending on your playstyle choices. Between smiter and assassin, you can pick which talent you wish to choose based upon how much you think you’re going to headshot with a particular weapon or based upon certain BP’s you may hit with certain weapons. The idea that different careers having different talents provides more choice is simply misguided. In reality, the more options you have, the more difficult they are to balance and the more likely it will become that cookie cutter builds will be more prevalent. This is pretty evident when you have Mainstay as an option and no one picks it unless they just lack game knowledge because the talent design doesn’t work.
I did mention that as seen above. But yes HM w/ crit build, too.
Just from watching gameplay. Pretty easy to get a feel for HS percentages. Would be cool if someone could make a mod to track it though. Number of hits landed and number of headshots landed.
Ok turns out assassin is way stronger than I thought. I we did our math wrong when we were balance testing. Turns out, even for an average weapon (finesse = 2), assassin is better at 15% crit and 20% headshot.
What would you think about reducing assassin bonus from 1.4 multiplier to 1.3? At this point, it’s so strong it doesn’t really even reward skill.