I have been dabbling with Sienna’s Battle Wizard carreer the last couple days and I really do think it’s the only carreer in the game that really isn’t too viable, especially considering Sienna’s twoother carreer choices which are probably among the top tier carreers in the game. To me, her main problems are a lack of true syngergy among her talents, an underwhelming skill that really doesn’t fit Sienna’s overall playstyle (and has a surprisingly long cooldown for what it brings to the table) but to me the most obvious is her passive. It simply doesn’t work out.
The two conditions that have to be met for it to trigger add up to each other and block the niche the other would open. Not casting spells in itself is an astonishing and almost baffling design choice considering both Sienna being a ranged character overall as well as the lore connected to her. Sienna, a literal pyromaniac whose whole existence revolved around setting things on fire, gets “tranquility” when she doesn’t cast spells and sets things on fire. It is both very counter-intuitive and -productive in my oppinion.
But I get the idea: you stop casting spells to get your cooldown faster. Okay, that makes sense, let’s mix things up and give Sienna an incentive to melee.
Except it doesn’t, because you also cannot receive damage. While it is certainly possible to fight even on Legend without ever receiving damage for quite some time, the game treats things so many things as “getting damaged” that are simply not that it is, again, both counter-productive and -intuitive. Getting shoved by a mauler for 0 damage? That’s a reset. You artfully dodge the packmaster’s grab for 0 damage? That’s a reset. Slayer Bardin landing next to you for 0 damage? That’s a reset. Merc Kruber HEALING you temp health with his skill? That’s a reset. Ranger Bardin using his skill? That’s a reset. And this already ignores “real” damage you can’t avoid, like the occasional stray bullet from FF or a rattling that fires through obstructions. But I digress.
Also, for a carreer that makes her whole shtick about getting that overcharge down to allow for more casting, she really cannot do anything with it, as it is either her passive or overcharge venting - because again, say it with me folks, if you vent for 1 tick of damage, your passive resets. Essentially what you do is: stand around and wait. That’s a fun character concept, right? Casting spells and then standing around waiting. Or you could, like, do it like any other of her carreers and use your temp health to get rid of that pesky overcharge (temp health actually being something BW could potentially SWIM in with her lvl 5 talent).
It does seem to work, but at least for me, overcharge venting damage sometimes resets my passive and sometimes it doesn’t. Will do more testing to find out why that is so (something to do with hosting and not hosting?).
Now, to me it is kinda obvious the “don’t cast spells” thing was added later, as it is the only rational way to explain her talent that increases her charge speed while the passive is active, being that you get ONE spell and your passive resets.
This topic is meant to discuss how to improve the situation, because I see ALOT of potential in battle wizard. Her skill could indeed make her a very pure ranged character that can teleport away from danger and keep dishing out those ranged dps while her team keeps the hordes away from her.
To start things of, my suggestion would be to remove the “don’t cast spells” condition from her passive, reducing it to “not receiving damage”. But to me, that simply doesn’t do it because you’d still have to worry about clearing overcharge by venting and when that does damage, well, it kinda defeats the purpose. My suggestion would be that as long as the passive affects Sienna, give her the overcharge clearance she has now, additional ranged charge speed (on top of what she can get via talents) and attack speed.
Discuss and suggest!