So while I’m purging Heresy in the depths of Tertium, with the occasional mission in the upper atmosphere, I’ve been examining the Abilities/Skills/Feats of the different classes. And after a Mauler Chain-axed my brains out on Difficulty 4 I had a moment to consider some ideas for some balancing/re-working the classes while waiting for my team to save me. (They didn’t. They got mobbed, Trapped, Poxhounded, Mutant slammed, and Bomber burnt. Hey it happens. lol)
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Ogryn : Not a lot to do here. The Ogryn is a pretty solid tank with an all around playstyle. My only decent idea for this Class would be to switch up the weapon that comes with the Tower Shield. Yeah the Maul is alright, but it would be a lot of fun to use the Shield and Knife. It would make that gameplay style a little more diverse and add some flair. Some people complain about their grenades but when you watch your buddie bean a Reaper in the face with the Box O’ Grenades and it bursts open like a pinata spraying explosive goodness everywhere you can see that the Feat was definitely worth it and makes the choice to take that Feat meaningful.
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Veteran : The Sharpshooter is also a pretty solid class, and personally I think it’s the best all around, and definitely the best for new players. They excel at range and can handle their own in melee with a frag grenade to help Crowd Control those Poxwalkers. But their Coherency Buff is crap. A few extra bullets…sometimes…when it feels like giving it to you or the team. Not really all that helpful. And I’ve never noticed if it works or not. There’s never a serious shortage of ammo. And if the people you’re playing with are halfway decent then they’re sharing ammo finds, and placing the ammo box when they see that the team is getting low. My suggestion would be change the coherency buff to something like “10% Accuracy increase to team members in coherency. This applies to Ranged and Melee.” Or something to that effect. Not only would it be useful to the rest of the Team but it also lines up with the Sharpshooters style.
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Zealot : The worst Ultimate ability in the game. You rush forward and do a bit more melee damage for a second. Not as cool as the Ogryn, not as much damage increase as the Veteran, and doesn’t really buy you breathing room like the Psyker. In fact if you aren’t really paying attention it can put you in the middle of a mob filled with gunners, maulers and ragers. I’ve even zoomed right through the Bulwark somehow, and launched myself off the side of a bridge. I’ve zoomed forward ready to smack a Mauler in the head for Big Damage only to hit a Poxwalker that was too close and it felt like a total waste. So for this I was thinking that copying the Veteran’s Ultimate might be a good idea. Change it up so that for a few seconds Enemy weak spots are highlighted and the Zealot’s Melee damage increases by 25-50%. This would be a melee version of the Veterans ability that would suit the Zealot, and they could alter some of the Feats to be useful to the team like the Veteran as well. Something like “Highlights weak spots for all team members in coherency.” Not a perfect fix, but I think it would make the Zealots ultimate ability feel more ultimate.
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Psyker : sigh…my first class to 30 was the Psyker. At difficulty 1 & 2 he feels like a God and I yawn as I turn entire Hordes to ashes, or Pop the Maulers head with glee. However at difficulty 3 &4 (yeah pass on 5 for now) my Psyker feels as though he’s almost a detriment to the team. The potential to accidentally blow yourself up and hinder the team with one less active fighter is a serious achilles heel. For some people this will be a challenge they excel at. For me it makes the Psyker feel more like work than fun. He has two main Feat builds. You can either add some mobility and some extra damage, or you can use 4 of the 6 feats to become a human flamethrower which also requires a Purgatus staff. So that build really locks you in to that play style. I think my suggestion would be parallel to the suggestions most of the community has already put forth. The Psyker needs a re-work. He’s just too squishy at higher difficulties to keep up with the rest of the pack. They’ve tweaked the Psyker once or twice already but it still feels lacking in team helpfulness. This isn’t the best of ideas, but some sort of Feat that buffs defense temporarily, or mitigates toughness damage so his measley 100 Toughness actually protects the player. Could be something there.
Anyway. The game has problems. I’m not gonna blow sunshine up anyone’s ass and pretend it doesn’t. But I love it. I don’t care about the Refining/Crafting. I don’t give a damn about the RNG store, and I don’t care about the repetitiveness of the missions or levels. I have Killed that one boss 50 freakin times and every time I come out of the stairs to the bridge I can’t help but stare at the Tanks guarding the bridge, or I look up into the never ending ceiling and I love it. I would love to see all the problems fixed immediately, but I’m going to stick around regardless, so I figure why not make some helpful suggestions. No one is going to listen an this won’t change a thing. However I had fun thinking this up.
Have a good day everyone! 