Battle Wizard

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Feedback
21

Well, I guess that depends on how you define effective.

That’s a fair assessment. I’d say they compliment each other rather than translating or fueling each other. Use melee to aggro and round up a boatload of enemies, double teleport through them and add in a conflag blast, and you decimate a horde worth of enemies in a few seconds. I’ve found battle wizard most effective when mixing spells and melee frequently, as opposed to a long stretch of spellcasting followed by extended melee. Battle wizard does best alternating a few attacks of each, and her talents mean you can enhance both of those things separately to fit your particular style. Put temp health on stagger and take a 1h sword and you can rack up enough temp health for venting and then go on a casting spree.

It’s super useful especially combined with Off Balance. Solo it can be used to round up a big bunch of enemies to burn, with a team you can round up and hold aggro, either for easier killing or to get your team out of a tough situation. Ever have your team pinned down by a horde/specials/boss and then a patrol wanders in at the worst time? BCR build can say “I’ll hold the patrol”, teleport into the middle of them, and keep them busy while the team recovers. She excels at salvaging situations where everything is going to ****, she can hold aggro, she can lay down ranged damage and CC, she can get in and rescue teammates when they’re surrounded, etc.

… seriously?! It does high stagger, good damage, and best distance of any of them. Here’s a few of it’s uses:

  • Rescuing teammates. Whether they’re right at your feet or a long ways away, you can fire walk to stagger, pick em up, and fire walk again to stagger more and buy them time to recover. Compare that to any other charge where at best you can stagger to start picking them up, and then they’re still surrounded in the same situation that took them down.
  • Decimating horde. Since the fire walk damage was buffed it wrecks hordes, and with double walk you can zig zag or otherwise cover more ground with fire.
  • Did I mention the stagger? It’s really good, and having two uses means you can buy yourself lots of spellcasting time, or stabbing time, give bosses that extra push off a ledge, or whatever time.
  • Traveling long distances - everyone else got boned and you have a boss and bunch of armor chasing you? Double fire walk buys enough distance to rez the entire team before things catch up. Pinned down by a gunner, gas rat, stormer, or something else behind cover or out of range? Close the distance and easily take them down. Or just get far enough out of melee that you have plenty of time to line up a shot.

I’ll grant you that Battle Wizard isn’t as good as the other two Siennas when it comes to just straight DPS, but I’d say she takes the cake when it comes to versatility and utility. She’s a support class, and is most effective when she’s supporting the team, not trying to outshine them.

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22

Catering to the playstyle the game currently promotes.

So is Pyro. Or Unchained for that matter. You can play Pyro super aggressively and switch between ranged and melee freely because of her overall kit. Venting isn’t an issue, melee damage isn’t an issue, temp health isn’t an issue and it all comes from sources that interlock like clockwork.

It does generate okay-ish temp health, but again, Pyro has alot less trouble venting. The question isn’t “does it work” but “do I have any reason to play BW over Pyro?”. Other than the teleport, Pyro has the upper hand in pretty much every regard: Higher damage output, better overcharge management, better melee, Pyro even has very easy access to 100% BCR (which you have alot more control over since it is tied to overcharge and not to “not casting spells”).

Pyro and UC just say: I solo that patrol.

Which is a very narrow and niche concept compared to the absolute rampage Pyro and UC can unleash at any time they wish.

Where does it do ANY kind of even remoteley meaningfull damage? Has there been an update I am unaware of?

So does FK’s charge, which knocks down non-armoured enemies. And can give him 100% BCR. Or 25%(!) more power. Firewalk is good at that, but not as much better as you make it out to be. FK with 100% BCR can do the same, charge in, pick up, keep blocking while teammates help fight you free. Get hit once and your ability is almost full again and you can charge again. HM has similar capability of helping teammates and she has equipment to mimick the effects.

It CAN wreck hordes. It can also spread them out since enemies avoid the flames if they can.

What you’re describing isn’t support, it is a very niche, narrow concept of either “stand around and hold M2” or picking people up from the ground. The game is, at it’s current state, absolutely in favour of dealing out dps in range and melee. BW’s already very narrow kit comes into play very rarely and even then, she is not THAT much better at that than other carreers (and I would argue she isn’t better at all, but actually alot worse, and noticably so).
“RV” is a support hero, because he can constantly support the team with ammo, bombs or potions, you can kit him to have very high survivability and clutching potential, without sacrificing offensive power. Don’t know why you seem to be so keen with these euphimisms. It’s not really a matter of “outshining” others, I simply don’t see how BW is contributing with “support”. Sure, you could support with CC and whatnot. Or you could just kill everything. I’d like BW to be more of a support character, but currently, she simply isn’t that much of a support to anything other than in situations where stuff is already going wrong. I’d rather have abilities to prevent that from happening, because that is alot easier and alot more engaging.

At the end of the day, I couldn’t care less if they changed BW. I have heaps of fun with Sienna’s two other carreers. But just take a look at what happened to WHC (which wasn’t too bad, but mediocre at best) after some very simple changes: lower cooldown, 25 health more, 5% passive crit chance, MINOR tweaks to level 15 talent row - boom, suddenly he is top tier.

BW is not only “bottom tier”, she is THE bottom tier. BW is, imho, the absolute worst carreer currently in the game, and very much so by large margin. It doesn’t take TOO much to fix that. She would be a support carreer if they added some kind of aura, like I’ve already suggested. Right now, calling her a “support” carreer is not only a stretch, what exactly is she supporting? Other people having fun? Well… I think they’ll manage just fine without BW having slightly faster spell charging and teleporting around (if the teleport works, that is) while dealing miniscule but infinite amounts of DoT and occasionally blocking.

23

well while i have fun playing BW sienna as is, atm, with doing dumb stuff with bcr and dashing around the battlefield with double flamedash like a maniac

she isnt on par with UC and Pyro and she really should be

she is missing some defining features, that gives buffs to her aspect of dealing dmg overtime
and/or buffs her ability to be a supporting char

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24

Thank you for making this point! Maybe I came across a little harsh and crass, I apologize if that’s the impression. I am not saying that BW cannot be played at all or that she can’t be played that it is fun. BW IS fun to play and has some very interesting concepts. These concepts are just not realized too well and not explored to a degree where it would give her enough profile to keep up with other carreers.

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25

I have an interesting idea that I suspect some (a lot?) may not like. What if… as a base class, the BW GENERATED heat for meleeing (# of heat points = damage dealt), your melee damage increases per overcharge break point (say 5% increments more damage per break point, up to 5). You still suffer melee attack speed penalty as normal for overheat. Blocking reduces overheat.

To discharge heat, you vent as normal, Ult (as a talent option), or mainly…by casting spells from your staff. If you have 0 heat, your staff does NOT work. Spells will reduce overheat based on damage dealt on a 1:1 ratio. Venting from spell casting should hurt you as with normal venting, giving incentive to use NB or temp hp generating talent.

I think that’s rather unique and interesting, and very unlikely to be implemented, but we’re just speculating here.

hit me with Pros and Cons

26

Too similar to Unchained. I could see an ability that discharges overheat from melee damage and while overheated, all attacks deal damage over time.

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27

Ye. bringing back vent on mellee from vt1 would be fun but I think FS trashed that in favor of tranquility wich is a more interesting/creative mechanic imo.

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28

Bw just needs the same treatment WHC got. Subtle changes makes huge difference. I have played BW a lot lately. I feel conflag is the only thing she is particulary good at(maybe flamestorm). Her ult is what makes her for me, it is up there with the best of them.(when it doesnt tp you just half a meter)

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29

It’s funny that you mention it, because I played with a Bright-Witch recently who chain-staggered a Bile-Troll into submission for our team on Empire in Flames. The movement speed is really good and the stagger effect might be the best in the game (IMHO). A couple little changes to stats/abilities would tweak her into a very good character.

She was lacking before the Big Balance Update, but I think she is almost where she needs to be to compete. Her ability to entirely negate a patrol during a horde (there’s literally no way to surround her because of the movement portion of her ult) is a huge clutch.

Then again, I don’t play her enough to be able to speak to all of her strengths/weaknesses on her careers, but I’ve seen her be hugely effective.

As a side note: after seeing her clobber a horde + a chaos patrol solo, I don’t think she needs to come up at all; if anything, Unchained and Pyro need to come down. Might’ve been because the player was a demi-god of coordination and skull smashing, might’ve been because the career was strong enough… again, I’m not the expert :slight_smile:

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30

I dont think pyro and uc needs nerf at all. (Maybe change crit on overcharge to ranged crit on overcharge for pyro.) but ye she have good utility, though the ult needs some tweaking too be more reliable. @Torantolis what was her weapon setup for that horde and pat? Conflag/crowbill?

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31

I agree BW isn’t far of, and the WHC-treatment is what she needs. She needs more definition. My suggestion is: give her 125 base health and pronounce spell-charging and damage over time more, that’s all she needs. Her active ability is doing what it is supposed to do, but very limited in choice when it comes to talents. She doesn’t have the rather usual “offense, defense, utility” choice, but rather “more teleporting, double teleporting, and useless lingering flames”.
I mean, WHC gets not only a passive crit chance bonus (which he absolutely deserves), but also a very good perk (crit headshots slaying) and a passive headshot bonus. That makes sense, that is his role and definition.
So to summarize my own suggestion:

  • 125 base health
  • 50% bonus to any damage over time. All charged spells dealing damage over time (so bolt staff bolt would also deal DoT) with a possible talent to push that even further (I’d suggest to put that into that everlasting flame-thingie, you know what I mean)
  • charged spells produce 25% or so less overcharge (with possibility to reduce even further)
  • high overcharge should translate something into melee, or give BW more offensive options when Tranquility is in cooldown to represent “switching to melee”. My suggestion would be something along the lines of any charged melee attacks dealing damage over time the higher Sienna’s overcharge.
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32

Good changes indeed. Less overcharge generated might be too powerful if u combine wth the trait. I think most here agree that more focus on DoT would make her more unique. 125hp would be welcome but I would be more happy with some other kind means of dmg reduction for the sake of originality (stam regen.dodge increase on tranquility or whatever)

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33

I like most of @Kekmaster’s thoughts, I think the health might be best swapped out for a dodge distance increase of some kind. After all, he is the “Battle Wizard”; maybe the mobility is to help reference her capabilities as a warrior?

I also enjoy the thought of focusing on that DoT. It could be a kit of very cool mechanics. Perhaps some of the following?

  • DoT increases damage dealt by other players
  • DoT tick-speed increase? Well, that’s effectively a damage increase… I dunno, popped into my head
  • DoT auto-marks enemies (I have no idea how this would work or even if it would be useful, but it could be cool to have the patrol highlighted so you know exactly where they are)
  • Flamewalk generates temp-HP for allies who stand in it (Maybe a 25 talent?)

@Fokkarl she was packing the firestorm staff (the one that spews death in a cone in front of it) I think she had the 2-handed mace. Not sure though.

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34

How about increased dodge distance with high overcharge? :slight_smile:

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35

What about Lava Walker talent? It seems like fire trail do nothing, and this talent increases time this nothing lasts. Tell me if I am wrong. I would recomment to replace it with health for ult talent or to make fire from BW ult mean something, like oil barrel flame.

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I leveled Sienna recently and enjoy BW by far the most of all her careers. Thats probably because i fell in love with the conflag back in VT1.

I think lingering flames is one of the most fun and gameplay altering talents in the game and I hope they emphazise it more in the future by making it baseline passive for BW.

One more important aspect to empower this style would be to give a DoT to Bolt Staff, which would also take some care of Bolt Staff feeling weak right now if you arent an intuitive ballistics god.

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37

Battle Wizard ult leaves a trail of fire that cleans out a horde if they touch it at all. Her fire-walk damage is actually pretty good considering how many bad-guys it can hit at once. The double-charge of it allows you to zig-zag across an entire patrol and they will all take 1/3rd of their max health in fire-damage alone. If you leave it long enough, even the CWs will eventually succumb to the burn, but that’s unlikely.

That being said, it’s true that it sticking around for a few moments isn’t really a momentous talent and I agree that it should be replaced by something with a little more flavor. Her double-walk is really insanely good already, but she could use some ‘freshening up’ in the talent department.

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38

MFW I lowkey like people saying BW isn’t good so they don’t nerf her.

Lava Walker(longer flame duration) is terrible because the active normally lasts for 6 seconds. But then Burn Out gives you a second use of the active within 5 seconds. So you get a second use of it and you can get a slightly longer burn time by choosing Burn Out. Some high IQ logic right there.

The problem with your suggestions, Kekmaster, is that they would make her really overpowered if they did that(even though they’re cool suggestions). There isn’t anything to really warrant a larger health pool. The increased DoT damage would stack too well with Lingering Flames. All the ranged charged attacks except bolt staff apply a DoT already. Producing less overcharge is okay but she already has that(although I never seem to have issues with it and it if I do need to I can sacrifice some life to vent). If more melee damage on higher overcharge was added, you’d be copying Unchained and giving less reason to play Unchained.

The reason Lingering Flames is so great is because normally Sienna’s burn DoT lasts for a tick or two(which is bad). You also apply a fire SFX to enemies and some little trash mob could live with fire SFX on them(but not taking damage) and look like they’re dying but just end up living and beating on you. It’s a good insurance policy, great for kiting, softening up enemies for team mates to get the killing blows for white hp, burn and forget, etc.

Her talents can be set up to have reduced overcharge all the time and she naturally has reduced charge build up and time. Her tooltips are a bit misleading. For example, Rechannel says: When Tranquility is active, Sienna’s ranged charge time is reduced by 40%. If charging a staff produces 10 overcharge(for example), then you would think you’d reach full charge 40% faster but still generate 10 overcharge. It actually works as if worded like this: “When Tranquility is active, Sienna’s ranged charge time and overcharge produced are lowered by 40%”. So things charge faster and overcharge you less.

Like most(or all) careers, some of her talents are pointless(like Lava walker). Her active should also be more reliable to use. Sometimes it just teleports in place. As a final note, Pyro is her worst career atm. The reason is because her 10% ranged damage the BW also gets and so her only recognizable passive is bonus critical strike chance. When they did nerfing, they nerfed her largely due to beam staff abuse. So they nerfed beam staff, her active, and heatsink all at once rather than 1 or 2 of those issues. This watered down the useful of critical strike(which has always been a dubious stat to rely on). Her active’s damage was nerfed into garbage; it’ll kill maybe 1 or 2 elites like storm vermin(if you’re lucky) when it used to be able to at least kill a chaos warrior and then vanish. The AI on it is also terrible. Kerillian’s trueflight is better in every way. Pyro has no utility or mobility. She’s also incredibly squishy.

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39

What does warrant a health increase in your oppinion?

That’s the idea. Lingering flames is a nice concept, but since it is just a single stack, it’s not that great, anyhow.

Wasn’t my suggestion, but I agree. There should be some translation between ranged and melee imho. Both of her other carreers have that and after all, this is a melee focused game.

It also stacks infinitely so there is no limit to it. Beam staff derives its pretty solid boss killing from exactly this aspect. That’s why beam is such a horrible choice on BW and especially with lingering flame.

In other words: For situations you shouldn’t be in in the first place. Ever clocked how long it takes for it to kill a SV? If not, do it.

She has absolutely no talent that reduces her overcharge “all the time”.

Are you sure about that? Because I just tested it and this is only true for staffs where your overcharge is “payed” befor you release the spell. In other words: Flamethrower, which I already acknowledged. In all other staffs, the overcharge is generated after you release the spell and the amount depends exclusively on the level of charge, not the time spent charging. I don’t know why you would think it is different, as this is easily verifiable. Equip, say, conflag staff, and then see how many fully charged spells you can cast with or without benefit from any of her talents that increase the charge speed. You will very easily find that this is exactly the same number. If you don’t believe me, use the “Heat Indicator” Mod, it will show you that the charge-speed bonuses have no effect. Just think about it: If what you said was true, then with all possible “overcharge reduction” abilities (level 5: 15%, level 15: 40%, three stacks of Reckless Haste: 30%, Thermal Equalizer: 20%) would mean that you could reach… uh…105% spell cost reduction when Tranquility is active. I am sure anyone would have noticed if that was really the case.

Yes. 40% critical strike chance at highest stack. And very easy acces to 50% attack speed. And she can generate temp health on levels equal to Merc Kruber with the level 25 talent.

It still does. Very reliably so. You can very easily gear it to kill CW every time without a crit as long as it hits the head (which it easily does and it never killed CW on bodyshots).

Horde clearing is alot better on burning head. If the head crits, it just obliterates stuff. I do agree to the volley being better, but not by a whole lot.

She does, however, have insane DPS. Something BW doesn’t. I don’t really believe that you have played Pyro alot. Pyro is still an absolute monster.

As squishy as BW, with the difference being that Pyro has access to (arguably) better temp health abilities and can potentially generate 65 temp health with use of the burning head. What does BW have in this regard? Nothing. Nothing at all. Her “mobility” is her active ability. Other than that, it is EXACTLY the same as Pyro’s.

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It’s less about an opinion and more about what fits the bill. She doesn’t really have a reason to have more than the average hp. She’s a Bright Wizard. Nothing about her design really screams “give me more hp than others”.

This and some of your other statements though don’t make much sense. You’re thinking strictly in a perfect world scenario. It’s cool if you get to sit back all day as pyro and nuke the crap out of things. But there are a number of games where things don’t play out peachy perfect. Players don’t always look out for each other or group smart or play the best. I can save someone from being surrounded by literally anything in an instant using an active. Then I can use it again to stagger or reposition somewhere advantageous. Packmaster, horde, patrols, doesn’t matter. Armored units like SV take minimal damage from DoT ticks without a strength potion. But you don’t go “OH THIS ONE THING DOESN’T DO EVERYTHING”. You go, okay. I’m gonna use a melee weapon or something else to take care of these other problems.

I don’t need temp hp if I don’t get hit. Not every game goes totally smooth, but it’s frequent enough.

She has mobility and utility packed into one move you can use twice. You can revive someone and teleport to the moon. Or teleport on yourself to stagger things. Bump bosses off edges(for the maps that you can do this). There are so many options. Saying their mobility is the same is just silly. I could understand if it was like a 5 minute cooldown or something, but it’s not.

hwat

https:// imgur.com/a/dLM9Uv4