I think the tax node, Banishing Light should be built in and 2 more side nodes added for more buff variety.
Ideas:
Rile Up: 15% attack speed and move speed buff to allies while channeling, if you do at least 5 pulses you and allies then get a lingering 7.5% attack speed and movement speed buff for 10 seconds.
Holy Fire: Every pulse applies 1 burn stack (and then 2 for every other pulse) to affected enemies.
The other thing I would change is removing mutual exclusivity between Holy Cause and Ecclesiarches Call, instead making the new Rile Up node and EC mutually exclusive with each other, otherwise if you could stack them things would get very wild and overpowered.
These changes would overall lead to more variety in what the Relic could be used for, as well as removing the tax node it has now leading to slightly more cost effective builds.
To be perfectly honest, Chorusā strength warrants two points investment - similar to Voice of Command (though VoC in itās current state warrants even five or more points since itās broken OP but well). The problem I have with it is that intead of having Banishing Light as an optional upgrade, itās mandatory. Even if realistically everyone would be taking it, we still should have the choice to skip it.
Aside from that, as uninteresting as the upgrade nodes are, I would rather have the rough edges on Chorus sanded off rather than giving it any buffs or whatnot:
Knockback effects still cut Chorus short
Disablers can still catch you which will also cut it short, and itās harder to avoid them with the Chorusā heavily limited mobility
And the worst sin of all - Chorus in fact has a significant activation time between pressing the button and ability going off, during which stagger/knockback effects will cancel the activation
All those point detract immensely from the ability, but the worst part is that aside from the last one they feel incredibly unfair whenever it happens (eg. teammate blows up a barrel next to you and the knockback cuts the Chorus short, Poxhound lands on a teammate nearby and the AoE stagger effect cancels your ability use). I think those issues should be remedied in the first place in order for the ability to feel good to use.
With that said, if those alterations were not to be then having Banishing Light merged into the base ability itself should be done instead.
I also like the ideas you provided, especially Holy Fire. If the flames inflicted on enemies in such a way were golden to boot, that would be a dream come true indeed. Honestly, itās such a cool idea Iād even say it deserves itās own thread in a few months, just to remind people about it once the uproar of Havoc and new weapons dies out
It even sounds quite balanced - the way you presented it - with the slow buildup of burning stacks and a total capped at 13, itād be just enough to clear horde without having it perform as a second Incendiary Grenade.
I adore the āHoly Fireā idea, everyone always complains about Chorus not being actively aggressive and locking you in place so you canāt kill things. Having a full channel specifically wipe out chaff for a talent point sounds utterly fantastic, and Iād love to see the rays of the god emperor literally burn away my foes as I shove it in their face.
(would be really cool with the flamer against monstrosities too, dump a mag then start up the chorus and stun lock them while keeping the fire ticking, this just seems like a massive synergy win and I want itttt).
These ideas are cool but tbh chorus is already very very powerful rn, especially in havocs. Maybe instead of gold toughness AND stagger, you should have to select one or the other? Could make it so it does gold toughness, stagger, rile up, or holy fire ā but only ONE of these effects, and selecting one locks out the others.
if any upgrade to chorus in itās current form is mutually exclusive with stagger, it is essentially removed from the talent tree. the amount of cc self-inflicted onto you by chorus (no attacks/nades, sprint, slides, blocking, pushes and so on) means its unusable without the aoe stagger and toughness replenishment
instead of removing overtoughness from chorus address the core issue of overtoughness being unbalanced. the only reason its so op is because it acts as an additional, separate layer over normal toughness. make it simply extend the toughness bar the way itās supposed to and its no longer a problem.
so, stagger is mandatory. overtoughness isnāt though, but if it wasnāt as stupid as it is right now then i think it wouldnāt even need to be mutually exclusive with other modifiers. just the point investment would be enough.
I disagree with many of the opinions here.
Keep it as is as it makes the gameplay fun. It is a co-op 4 player game. Why remove fun abilities for ābalanceā when there are no PVP elements present.
I do agree that adding some varieties to the tree and subtree EG: holy fire etc would be fun and that can be balanced by removing the pushback effect.
I would instead like to see a 2.5% health restore effect for each pulse waves, contingent you have the Beacon of Purity aura selected as well. This can be added be one of the side tree abilities.
What I like about chorus is that I get to play as a holy man, an exorcist with godās might (emprah), therefore the stagger is the important component of chorus for me, and Iād be okay with if Fatshark removed toughness/regen/golden from the effect.
I just want to emphasize that Iām talking about Chorus in general, not how it performs in Havoc, which is a whole other subject.
Without stagger it would just be a less useful VoC on a longer cooldown, there would basically be no reason to let the ability run for its whole duration.
As for the Rile Up and Holy Fire ideas, i like them, but if i had to pick between them and stagger i would still pick stagger simply due to the fact that i would rather have CC than killing power.
An idea i think might work out a bit better would be the option to swap out the gold toughness for one of the previously mentioned ideas, so something like you stagger while the team kills more efficiently, or you stagger and burn the staggered enemies, basically sacrificing the survivability from gold toughness for killing power.
Are you trying to make the argument of āno nerfs in my PvE gameā? I want to make sure I didnāt misunderstand you, cause this argument is brought up time and time and again by inexperienced players, and Iām honestly tired of people being so dumb stubborn on this matter.
Stealth and Charge are both powerful abilities, which you will find way more frequently in Auric/Mael runs than Chorus. Gimping Chorus will not make it be picked less in Havoc, it will just make it less desirable in Auric/Mael.
Havoc values a certain type of ability way more than another. For Vet and Psyker that is unfortunately the ability that is most popular already for various reasons. Zealot does not even suffer that problem right now.
Some of the Zealots I meet in 40 already start to run Charge over Chorus.
Guess I just donāt get the joke. Spamming VoC every 5-10 seconds on Auric Maelstrom is fully possible for just 3 points investment, having the same alongside Psykineticās Aura is likely mind-boggling levels of broken. Even if we did count it as 5 points, that shouldnāt be possible at all.
Yes, I was being very facetious, but I feel that the main problem is the CDR. Fatshark has always had a CDR problem, and they just donāt learn from all the other previous instances of it happening and their flailing ways of fixing it always affects the things that shouldnāt be affected or doesnāt affect the things that should be affected, etc.
Ah yes the Inexperienced players comment.
TLDR: Games need to be fun to be enjoyed and not just the <1% core fanbase for it to survive.
Many times the fun factor gets ignored for the squeaky wheel gets greased first crowds.
Also note it would totally make the skill useless. I remember open Beta days and how Zealot suffered pre-changes and the same crowds clamoring about its lack of utility now calling for it to be changed again. (PS did reach level 30 in closed Betas with it )
TLDR:
For the HC crowd out there: I would recommend asking for more harder game modes and potentially modifiers instead to ensure you have a challenging experience. I acknowledge there are some exceptional players out there. I believe HAVOC is an attempt at that and if you can form a HC private party you should be allowed to unlock some brutal game modifiers to scratch that itch.
Remember: Without fun and a sense of accomplishment the game pops will die.
You are banking on PUBS having the 100% META builds down. Not your private play groups.
Contrary to popular belief many people enjoy mixed builds and not following META train.
IF you feel it is not enough of a challenge, Do a 0 Skill tree build and run with it.
Jokes aside: Public match making is a mixed bag at best and hence you will rarely have this when not playing with regulars or Discord buddies.
Thereās a healthy level of skill requirement that stands somewhere between casual moron and autistic sweatlord. Both extremes are terrible. For example, spamming VoC is on the casual moron side of things easy, current gunner situation in Havoc is on autistic sweatlord side of things punishing. Neither is fun nor healthy for the game.
Wholeheartedely agree. I feel like the gameās being torn apart between catering to the sweatlords and the casuals, getting less fun for your everage Damnation enjoyer in the process.
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