Just rename The Burning Head to Homing Flamebolt or something

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Because clearly we’re not getting an actual burning head. What’s the point of referencing a tabletop spell if you aren’t going to go further than giving it the same name?

This is a fireball. It’s a ball of fire. It doesn’t look like a head. At one point back in the oh-so-early beta, I recall hearing that it was a flaming skull (a laughing one at that). Well, it’s long gone now, and seeing how we are now two months past release, it’s clear you aren’t planning on adding it back in. I’m being realistic and not asking for the old visual to be brought back. That’s too much work, I guess.

Can we just be honest about what Pyro’s career skill actually is and change its name? All these lore callouts are worth very little if there’s no substance to them.

Come to think of it, all the careers are little better… They share names with things from Warhammer, and they sort of look like them, but the characters don’t act any different at all whatsoever, and the fluff backstories you have on the main page are completely irrelevant. But changing their names to reflect what they actually are won’t be enough. The Burning Head, however, is just four lines of text (considering the 25 talents all mention its name).

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Plus isn’t it supposed to have a percent chance to induce fear/rout? My only experience with it is from Dark Omen and Shadow of the Horned Rat. While I enjoy it, it’s not what I was expecting aside from the random bouncing behaviour and homing.

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From WFB 8e:

A cackling visage, wreathed in flame, appears before the Wizard. With a final screech of glee, it bounds towards the enemy.

The Burning Head is a direct damage spell. Extend a straight line, 18" in length, within the caster’s front arc and directly away from his base. Each model in the way (determined as for a bouncing cannonball) suffers a Strength 4 hit. A unit that suffers one or more casualties from the Burning Head must make a Panic test. The Wizard can choose to extend The Burning Head’s ‘bounce’ to 36". If he does so, the casting value is increased to 13+.

And perhaps just as relevant, from WFRP 1e:

A phantasmal flaming head forms in front of the caster. The fiery head shoots forward, laughing insanely as it burns a trail of destruction in its path. It flies in a straight line, causing 1D3 hits at S 4 of burning damage to anything it strikes, although flammable targets suffer an additional 1D8 wounds. an I test is permitted to dodge out of the way; success halves the damage caused by the Head. Any person or creature suffering 1 or more Wounds from this spell must make a fear test or flee. The Head dissipates harmlessly once it has gone more than 48 yards.

Vermintide%202%20Burning%20Head%20Comparison
Vermintide%202%20Burning%20Head%20Comparison1600×800 351 KB

Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of how it used to look like, taken from a stream recording.

Funny thing, I believe it was called “Homing Firestrike” or something while it still looking like a skull, then at the same time they removed the skull, they changed the name of the ability to “The Burning Head”. Slightly baffling.

It may not induce panic, it may not cackle (although I think this could be an interesting bit of sound, letting your teammates know when one has been thrown), and it may not always travel in a straight line, instead homing directly to enemy heads, but it does still hits multiple targets and bounces around.

I, at least, would like to see it re implemented into the game at some point; I was very sad when it was removed. The original effect was a bit dumpy looking, perhaps being the reason it was pulled, but it’s very possible to spruce it up or even just redo it. It fits the lore, hell it fits the current name of the skill, and an actual skull is certainly more interesting than a boring old fireball.

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Would be awesome if it really was a skull that cackled as you launched it!

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Yeah I was really hoping when I saw it was her talent that it would cause enemies to flee temporarily. In a lot of ways the end time games are perfect for spiritual successors to the original pc/psx RTS games and rout mechanic would add a lot of flavour.

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I thought to go make another thread, but it turns out this one is still open. Well, works for me!

Hey, now that the game is slightly less of a stinking trash pile, can you maybe do something about this?

Really, don’t bother about it being the burning head. Your artists can’t make a flying laughing skull that makes a noise? You don’t want to revert it to its beta visuals? Fine. Just don’t call this ability something that it’s really not. It’s just kind of sad and pathetic. There’s enough of those things in this game. It’s not like this is even close to how The Burning Head should be - so why bother?

Sienna’s stupid lines are going to be completely inexplicable, but then, they already are, unless you know what the spell she’s using is meant to be. I’d take the skull laughing replacing all of Pyro’s ult lines, but that’d imply creating a new sound asset and generally doing more work than changing several lines of text… so nah, don’t even bother with that either.

There’s no way you can mess up changing what I believe is 4 lines where the ult is referred to by name.

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