I’ll admit, I’m a bit confused by some of these points.
… Yes? If I am understanding you correctly, I believe we are not just in agreement; this was actually my point. “Anyone and everyone” tends to group up and run through a map, making it difficult to stay OUT of Coherency. Especially because it is risky to do so; Trappers in particular can be deadly to an unlucky person running solo - but it’s also bad news if such a person runs into Dogs, happens to round the corner into a pack of Elites, etc. Many teammates in fact know this and will helpfully try to catch up to you, so there’s at least two people running in a group at all times, to avoid things going south fast. Loner seems to be most useful as an ace in your pocket in situations where you DO end up getting isolated; trying to move away from your team can be both very dangerous AND actually be very difficult.
I’m also confused about this point. The Penance isn’t for killing Specials; it’s for killing Ranged enemies. But, also, this is almost a distraction from my point; while it may be valuable to have someone going around and assassinating enemies, making the Penance key specifically off of ranged enemies is yet another prerequisite in a Penance that already seems to have atypically strict requirements. As other people have pointed out in this post, many of the other new Penances don’t require you be even be using the ability optimally; just that you be using it consistently.
I’m afraid I’m especially confused on this point. You NEED to run solo for the Penance. The requirements are: killing ranged enemies, with Backstab, while being outside of Coherency, while under the effect of Loner. Using your teammates for bait IS theoretically possible … but very hard to do. You can’t simply dance around an enemy while it’s melee-attacking a teammate to stab it in the back; you need to be outside of Coherency. If you are engaging in a ranged fire-fight, and if all your teammates are holding still and not advancing to the point where there’s even one person in Coherency with you, and if you are able to circle around the ranged enemies without them seeing you and turning to face you, then you might be able to use your teammates as bait … But this seems like such an edge-case that it still feels like a major departure from the design philosophy of the other Penances.
This one, I do understand! The two abilities really do seem like they were built to be Synergistic … However, here I’m afraid I simply disagree. Loner and Shroudfield are separate abilities. With the way the Talent tree is set up, it is entirely possible to have a build with one and not the other. Most of the new Penances seem to tacitly acknowledge this; to my knowledge, there are no other class-specific Penances that all-but require you have two separate abilities at the same time to get significant Penance progress. Which makes “Behind Enemy Lines,” again, seem like a significant departure from design philosophy.
I’m sorry; maybe my reading comprehension isn’t as great as I’d like to think. But I simply do not see why all this makes the Penance easier to achieve. It all seems to be adding up to a Penance that is not just difficult, but unusually difficult for the type of Penance it is supposed to be.
The “unusual” part is honestly the thing that stands out most to me. I’m fine with difficult to achieve Penances … But it feels strange that this one particular build - Loner Zealot - should have SUCH restrictive requirements when they appear to be moving away from that, overall, in their design philosophy for the build-specific Penances.