Bounty Hunter Active Ability

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
21

Sorry I had forgotten about your rework idea and was comparing to old Just Rewards. Honestly your Just Rewards idea also just looks gross to me. Current Just Rewards is a great option for extra special killing with some builds, and what you’re suggesting is just way way too limiting. Needlessly so. I really see no reason to adjust Just Rewards much at all right now, and if you were to I’d much prefer something engaging and flavourful like what they attempted in the BBB.

Also, your idea for Double Shotted is way too niche. Who’s going to take a talent specifically for Lords and monsters when you could very well get neither in a run.

22

I have just updated my post on Double-Shotted.

Currently yes. But as I’ve explained in another post, my version of Just Reward would be more specialized in its role, and wouldn’t tread on monster killing like current Just Reward does.

With this, it’d still have a long cooldown, and wouldn’t work great as a horde clear option. Crowd control is not something I’m sure suits BH. Personally I’m just really a fan of the idea of Buckshot acting like a secondary ranged weapon. Keep in mind that I’m proposing turning it identical into a blunderbuss shot, so it’d have all the same properties like shield breaking.

I’ve explained my reasoning for my proposed Just Reward changes above. I also think you’re focusing too much on the specifics. As mentioned, it could always be possible to have it activate on special kills as well, tweak the CDR granted etc.

Maybe, but isn’t that what Double-Shotted is currently like? With my proposed Double-Shotted, you could still get kills on CW’s. Ultimately worse than Just Reward, but you’d be way better for killing monsters and lords, which I think is a good specialization to have.

23

Yes you can, if its done well. i just think its a very fine line, its either very strong or too weak, or if done right, just right.
Piercing shot is a talent i like, it modifies the ult and gives cdr.

Other things i think are examples of where damage reduction is either too strong, or on the border of it and removing alot of choice.

  • burnout, basically straight up better then volans quickening
  • flaglants zeal and feel nothing
  • unending hunt
  • waystalker cdr talents
  • merc ready for action

and probably forgot some, but those talents are removing alot of choice, unless there are straight up better options for them. On waystalker there is nothing that can make me choose other talents over cdr unless i’m playing piercing shot (which gives cdr on hs). burnout is basically 2 big impact ults, kaboom would have to be changed for me to switch to it. flaglants zeal and feel nothing, both different playstyles, both very very strong and making you able to ult constantly. unending hunt, 50% cdr everytime, basically no activation mechanic, which gives stagger and crit to party. fervency can compete with it, but thats because it literally oneshots elites by light attacking, still close though. Merc, dmg reduction is strong, and especially because merc allows to get his ult up quickly its a very good contender of ready for action, but i would argue ready for action isn’t far behind if not better in certain situations. 30% dmg red just strong af.

These are cases where i don’t think its implemented well. If it modifies ult, has a certain activation mechanic it can work. On the other hand, when merc’s ready for action had its temp hp removed, it was trash. this is what i mean with adding cdr is a fine line. its either very strong and hard to add other options, or will never be used. Just difficult to find a bonus that would make it worth to talent into the ‘non cdr’ talent.

Like zealot: is it worth giving up movement ult, tankyness and/or constant attack speed uptime, for 20%? power increase for 5 seconds? i’m not sure, maybe in very specific scenario’s.

So i’m not saying its bad to add cdr to an ult talent. i’m just a bit worried that it will overshadow other choices or be an underpicked talent. I think there can be made synergies with non ult talents aswell which can make gameplay more dynamic, or just synergise with a careers passive.

edit: an example of this is happening right now in this thread: double shotted, remove cdr or keep it? What makes it too strong, the damage or the stagger it does? if we remove cdr, it will be overshadowed probably, if we keep it its hard to balance or find other options. Reducing might be a solution, but by how much?

24

I get that, but this is what I meant by overcomplicating things. Just Rewards is fine, so why make more work when the problem is entirely on Double Shotted and Buckshot?

No, I don’t think it is what Double Shotted is currently like. With no CDR it becomes a much worse option for special killing and CW deletion, two things it’s currently respectable at (which isn’t a problem, it’s what it does to bosses currently that’s a problem).

I don’t wanna be super negative here, I do like the idea of giving each Ult talent a specific role in theory, but I think in practice it’s too limiting.

25

I think it would be a breath of fresh air. It would become a matter of flavor and personal preference rather than “which one is better?”.
A stagger ult would sacrifice damage for more safety and support while offering something over WHC and Zealot.

Really just becomes a matter of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.

Do you want better bossing at the cost of horde clearing?
Do you want better horde clearing, stagger and more safety at the cost of elite and boss damage?
Or do you simply want to take advantage of Locked and Loaded more often?

26

While i like the ideas, wouldn’t just reward still be the better overall choice?

27

Right, but in this case you’d have talents that are specialized in certain roles, instead of being a generalist active ability with some CDR. I totally agree that most abilities shouldn’t have CDR talents, such as Mercenary, BW, WHC and so on. Either they’re just really boring increases or overshadow other talents. It’s my belief that high impact abilities shouldn’t be spammed, and instead talents should focus on making the abilities stronger, instead of more spammable. It’s also my belief that certain careers are made to ‘spam’ their abilities, like BH in this case, because one use of Locked and Loaded isn’t very comparable to one use of Mercenary shout, and to make up for it you have to have a lower cooldown so you use it more. It’s also important in this case to make careers different from each other, where 1 career focuses on using his active ability often instead of someone like IB who saves his ult for specific situations.

At the same time, if you’re reworking BH ult talents, then why not touch on Just Reward as well? I’ve explained why I think this would be better, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

It depends on how much you focus on that role. You think Buckshot in this case would be hyper-focused on hordes, Double-Shotted would be hyper-focused on monster killing, and that it would be better to loosen that a bit and make them a bit more well-rounded?

In my case, wouldn’t it be similar? Double-Shotted for monster/lord killing, Just Reward for general elite/special killing, and Double-Shotted acting as a secondary ranged weapon meant for horde clear? Again, I’m just really a fan of my Buckshot idea, so agree to disagree here. I also hard disagree on not making any changes to Double-Shotted at all. I’ve played with current Just Reward and Double-Shotted, and every time I just wonder why I even pick Just Reward when there’s Double-Shotted. It’s just practically better in every situation.

28

Yes, that’s a good way to put it. I think it’s much easier to balance and gives more build options that way.

29

Yea we have different viewpoints about this. i dont agree an ult should be spammable, regardless if it has a big impact in comparison to other ultimates (unless their default cooldown is low, handmaiden etc). I think in bh’s case they can make it more impactfull and have it do more damage, i see bh a bit like a shade but from long range (in regards to ultimates), they have high damaging single target attacks. if Bh’s ult is lacking or not portraying that identity clearly, then it should be buffed in damage or some other way (like modifying it, for example), not making it more usefull by making it spammable.
Thats why i didn’t want to go to in depth because i clearly don’t agree with some of mercs and whc’s ultimates and the entire system of certain careers can get more cdr by taking dmg or doing dmg is pretty weird to me aswell.

1 Like
30

In this case, isn’t getting cooldown reduction from talents like getting a base cooldown reduction? Like if Just Reward puts your cooldown to 30s on average, then can’t you think of it like having a 30s default cooldown, just with more player input?
Even then, differences in cooldown are going to be inevitable. Even now, Mercenary cooldown is 90s and IB is 120s. By default one ability gets used more than the other. And stuff like Handmaiden dash would be hard to make equal with something like WHC in impact, or Locked and Loaded with Mercenary shout.

Agreed. It’s honestly a big part of what makes the game a lot easier in my eyes. It’s crazy how much of a different it makes, when something like Mercenary shout has a base cooldown of 90s, but practically you use it more like every 30s. I honestly think it’d be better if that system was removed, but I doubt Fatshark would budge on something like this when removing it would make the game a fair bit harder, and how people have been used to it since it’s been in the game since launch. It’s also really weird how arbitrary it is, since Mercenary gets double the cooldown recharge from cleave than someone like RV.

1 Like
31

I mean, i can’t really disagree here. unending hunt basically just lowers whc’s default ult to 50 seconds.
I don’t really understand your point. Yes if an ult requires you to hit 10 enemies to get 50% cdr, then its the same as having access to the ult at the default time - 50% cdr.

Yea totally. its not consistent. i think the idea of taking hits to have access to your ult is a great mechanic to have, attacking is aswell. But currently its badly implemented and i don’t think its possible to rework or adjust it in a way that would be fair. But then again, maybe we are just too tryhard and maybe thats the fun mechanic that draws players in. It’s a casual game after all.
Also please lets not get into this last bit, this will honestly derail your thread :slight_smile: even more then already.

32

Probably but it would still be balanced.
Some players like base Locked and Loaded and just want to use it more frequently instead of being shoehorned into something specialized.

This is just my personal opinion, Just Reward is perfect as is; it offers consistent cooldown for players that just want to use Locked and Loaded more frequently.
Changing it to be reliant on special/elite kills would introduce scaling problems, making it less desirable in lower difficulties and a top pick in higher difficulties.

4 Likes
33

In the same way that Buckshot would be worse in lower difficulties due to lower enemy density, or Double-Shotted worse due to lower monster health and lethality?

I understand your point, but I just don’t really agree with it. All the way up to Cataclysm I see the choices being balanced. While in extra content like Onslaught you’d think Just Reward would be better, but then think that you could lose breakpoints due to C3, and that shotgun would also be way better due to high enemy density, or that Double-Shotted would be extra good for taking out monsters that would be a force multiplier during extra large and hard hordes.

34

It’s more so having something tied to enemy types/amounts seems odd, especially when the talent is already practically flawless. Why change something that is balanced and has synergy with blessed shot?

1 Like
35

I think that’s the crux of it. Just Rewards is the option that has one AP bullet and one shotgun blast. The versatility here is surely intentional, so making its CDR requirement be single target just doesn’t make any sense with the design of the skill. It can indeed help you push out of a corner in a way that double shotted does not, or be used for minor horde clear where desirable, so why would we shoehorn it into being exclusively the elite/special killing option?

36

Just going to revive this thread by tossing in my two cents regarding BH’s last talent row.

  • Doubled-shotted
    Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that when they buffed the talent and gave it the 40/80 CD reduction, they also doubled the pellet damage for doubled-shotted only. In other words, they quadrupled it’s damage in comparison to the regular fire. Simply removing the double damage perk from doubled-shotted, and keeping the CD reduction to allow sniping would be enough if you ask me. Slurping some purple kool-aid and landing like 9 headshots in a row in cataclysm to kill a monster (with half it’s damage in comparison to now), would be completely fine.

  • Buckshot
    There’s never really been a big issue with the buckshot talents, it’s just that buckshot by itself is just completely awful, because it just doesn’t work at all. It deals barely any damage, doesn’t penetrate enemies, doesn’t have any spread (completely defeating the purpose of the talent) and deals no damage to armor. Picking the talent is a downgrade to his ultimate, which says something. Simply fixing the buckshot component would go a very, very long way in regards to the current and every other buckshot version we’ve had so far.

  • Just reward
    Just reward is decent as it is, but suffers from the buckshot component doing literally nothing. Fix buckshot and just reward fixes itself. The only thing Just reward needs is bugfixes/QoL, which is a cooldown tracker for the CD trigger and being able to proc when the ultimate is off cooldown.

This would keep the general “roles” I believe their intention was when making these talents.

  • Just reward for general purpose
  • Doubled-shottedfor big boys you can safely headshot
  • Buckshot for horde deletion.
1 Like
37

Locked and loaded? Or are you talking about double shotted?

38

Oh wops, my bad, ill edit

39

  • Just reward: Fine as it is, at most it could be buffed to 25%. Otherwise, leave it as it is

  • Double Shot: Only allow it to prof a single 40% CDR, still best option for killing monsters without being broken

  • Buckshot: Lower cooldown by 40-50%, make both buckshots equivalent to either blunderbuss or grudge raker shots and have each special or elite killed (with ult, generally or maybe with blessed shots?) increase the number of pellets by 5-10%. Maybe make that each use of ult that kills 5 or more enemies adds more pellets

1 Like
40

I personally don’t think Double Shotted needs such a drastic nerf, if any at all.
It has a niche; boss killing. But it’s not “easy mode” or “brain-dead”.

Outside of bosses you could potentially spam hordes with it but it’s not very effective due to the reduced mass limit; for perspective Double Shotted can only kill 6 fanatics compared to Just Rewards 33.

What about elites and specials? BH is a ranged career, he has Crossbow, Volley, Repeater and BoP for that. Chaos Warriors? Just Reward can one shot them too.

Reducing the cooldown to a flat 40%, knocking it down to a 42 second (35 with trinket) cooldown might just kill the talent. The only thing going for it, is niche boss killing and potentially taking out 2 chaos warriors with 1 ult. Just Reward can do everything else potentially better on a safer, more consistent 30 second cooldown.

Double Shotted is fine, at the very least a 50% nerf seems unwarranted.
Just Reward is fine.
Buckshot needs another jab at.

Maybe a stagger ult, a very short cooldown shotgun ult or an ult that buffs other areas of BH, like not consuming ammo for x seconds after ulting. Preferably something to shine some light on BoP and Repeater Pistol.