Vermintide 2 has a lot of bland or dead talents. This is a rework list for a variety of current design elements to help finish fleshing out the various careers. This list focuses exclusively on Kerillian. The main purpose is to:
Finish fleshing out careers
Make choices on tiers more competitive and compelling
Increase build diversity
Increase quantity of playstyle altering choices
More fun
Waystalker
Tier 20
Isha’s Embrace – Increases Kerillian’s health regenerated from Amaranthe by 50%
After reaching 50% life, Kerillian regenerates 5% ammunition instead of health (1 for Longbow & Hagbane, 3 for Swiftbow, and energy for Moonfire.).
Tier 25
Fervent Huntress – Killing a special or elite enemy increases movement speed by 15% for 10 seconds.
Killing a special or elite enemy increases movement speed and dodge range by 15% for 10 seconds.
Ricochet – Kerillian’s arrows now ricochet, each bouncing up to 3 times or until it hits an enemy.
Kerillian’s arrows now ricochet off objects up to two times towards tagged enemies (Only body shots?). Ricocheted arrows can pierce 1 additional enemy. (If too strong, balance by reducing the damage on each pierce or ricochet after the first. E.G. 100%->80%->60%->etc.)
Tier 30
Loaded Bow – Trueflight Volley fires an additional arrow.
Trueflight Volley fires an additional arrow and knocks back enemies in front of Kerillian (Maybe not Bosses).
Kurnous’ Reward – Killing a special or elite enemy with Trueflight Volley restores 30% ammunition.
Trueflight Volley restores 30% ammunition and 15% for each special or elite enemy killed by it.
Handmaiden
Tier 10
Focused Spirit – After not taking damage from for 10 seconds, increases Kerillian’s power by 15%. Reset upon taking damage.
After not taking damage from enemies for 10 seconds, increases Kerillian’s power and critical strike chance by 10% . Reset upon taking damage from enemies .
Oak Stance – Increases critical strike chance by 5%.
Increases max health by 15% and effective block/push radius by 60%.
Or
Reduce damage from specials and ranged attacks by 60%. Increase effective block/push radius by 60%.
Tier 25
Heart of Oak – Increases max health by 15%.
Kerillian can hold up to 2 charges of Dash.
Tier 30
Bladedancer – Dashing through an enemy causes them to bleed for significant damage over time.
Dashing through an enemy causes stagger and bleed for significant Damage Over Time (Gains stagger and affects armored enemies. Does not stagger Chaos Warriors or Bosses.) .
Power from Pain – Each enemy hit with Dash grants 5% critical strike chance for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
Dashing doubles the effects of all Kerillian’s perks and passives for 4 seconds.
Shade
Tier 10
Exploit Weakness – Increases damage by 20% to poisoned or bleeding enemies.
Kerillian’s damage is increased by 20% against enemies afflicted with Damage Over Time.
Exquisite Huntress – Headshots increase headshot damage bonus by 10% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times.
Headshots increase headshot damage bonus by 10% for 8 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times.
Tier 20
Ereth Khial’s Herald – Assassin’s Blade is increased to 75% additional damage when attacking enemies from behind.
Backstabs now apply Burns (Burns can bypass armor, hence that Damage Over Time choice. Stacks.)
Bloodfletcher – Backstabs return 1 bolt or arrow. Can trigger once every 2 seconds.
Backstabs return 5% of Kerillian’s ammunition. Can trigger once every 2 seconds. (If rounding to nearest whole number, this would be 1 Longbow/Hagbane, 2 Volley Crossbow, 3 Swiftbow, energy for Moonfire.)
Tier 25
Gladerunner – Increases movement speed by 10% (swap name placement with Spring-Heeled Assassin for the following talent designs)
Melee critical strikes cause Kerillian to lunge at the enemy she’s looking at (her crosshair is over). Lunges further for slower weapons and more distant enemies.
Or
Kerillian dodges 20% further from enemies attacking her. Attacking at the same enemy after finishing her dodge will cause her to quickly lunge at them. 1 second window. (Her lunge should be fast enough that the attack will connect. Make the speed of the lunge proportional to her attack speed?)
Or
Using the weapon special key (could be swapped for charging a heavy attack) while facing an attacking enemy causes Kerillian to quickly flip over them and face their back. 1.5 second cooldown. (Kerillian is in dodge state during the flip and for half a second after landing.)
Tier 30
Cloak of Mist – Infiltrate cooldown is reduced by 45%. After leaving stealth, Kerillian gains 100% melee critical strike chance for 4 seconds, but no longer gains a damage bonus on attacking.
Infiltrate cooldown is reduced by 45%. After leaving stealth, Kerillian gains 100% melee critical strike chance for 5 seconds, but no longer gains a damage bonus on attacking.
Shadowstep – Infiltrate causes Kerillian to blink forward, passing through enemies.
While infiltrating, increases Kerillian’s movement speed by 40% and applies bleed every half second to enemies she walks through (can stack or not). Activating Infiltrate again within 10 seconds causes Kerillian to teleport back to where she cast Infiltrate. (Make a neat visual effect for it that is quick, similar to Gutter Runners. Could also leave a subtle visual marker on the ground players casted at so players know where they will return to.)
Cloak of Pain – Hitting an enemy while under the effect of Infiltrate does not break stealth. Second attack does not grant bonus damage. Can only trigger once.
Hitting an enemy while under the effect of Infiltrate does not break stealth. Second attack from stealth grants guaranteed melee critical hit, but not bonus Infiltrate damage. Can only trigger once.
Sister of the Thorn
Tier 20
Incandescence – Radiance can stack 2 times.
Casting her ability causes enemies around Kerillian and Thornwake to be Blinded for 6 seconds. Blind causes enemies to miss all attacks. (Could add a light visual effect to Thornwake and around Kerillian when casting the ability. Could also apply a visual effect to enemies affected by Blind.)
Hekarti’s Cruel Bargain - For each Elite enemy slain near Kerillian, the cooldown of Radiance decreases by 1 second.
For each Elite enemy slain near Kerillian, the cooldown of Radiance decreases by 1 second. Radiance can stack 2 times.
Consuming Radiance grants Kerillian vastly increased combat potency for 10 seconds. Increase cooldown of Radiance by 20 seconds.
Tier 25
Morai-Heg’s Doomsight – Gain 3 guaranteed Critical Strikes each time a career skill is used.
Gain 2 guaranteed Critical Strikes each time a career skill is used.
Tier 30
Ironbark Thicket – Increases the duration of the Thorn Wall to 10 seconds.
Doubles the length and duration of the Thorn Wall.
Or
Increases the duration and length of the Thorn Wall by 50%. Heals up to 10 permanent health over the duration to nearby allies.
Blackvenom Thicket – When the Thorn Wall expires, poisonous thorns explode outward, causing nearby enemies to take 20% increased damage for 10 seconds.
Thornwake creates a poisonous flowerbed lasting 8 seconds that poisons and slows enemies walking over it. Enemies in the flowerbed for 2 seconds are rooted for 3 seconds. Each enemy can only be rooted once per flowerbed. (The poison DoT is low damage. Maybe enough to kill Slaves/Zombies on Cataclysm if they’re in it long enough. Enemies will not try to walk around it.)
Some things are phrased very intentionally, such as Tier 10 - Exploit Weakness - “Kerillian’s damage is increased”, stating that it will only affect Kerillian and differing it from the usual 20% damage bonus wording that doesn’t stack with others of its type. Helps increase the value two-fold: any Damage Over Time will work and one less ambiguous talent of “this 20% damage bonus doesn’t stack with others. Probably. We’ll let you guess if we didn’t state that in the tooltip. Every time we add one of these to the game it lowers the value of all of them but that’s okay”.
The fleshing out not only applies to adjusting talents in a row to make competitive and compelling choices, but also to make their function clear in the tooltips. Less hidden effects. Sharing important information.
Some of the balance in here is strange I feel. I don’t think certain rows need to be changed that drastically with other effects. Simply alter some of the numbers.
For Handmaiden’s lv10 talent its pretty much a pwr, atk spd, or crit chance buff your seeking.
Turn the 5% crit → 7.5% or 10%. Its offering a flat consistency to the character.
Let the power buff be easier to activate for up time that isn’t completely ruined by friendly fired. Not getting hit for 5seconds for a 5% pwr boost for example. Stacks 3 times. This one is slightly altered to make the effect more reliable and easier to get.
Nerf alacrity to be a push/block makes next 2 attacks 15/20% faster. Remove the pwr buff. Gives perks to push weapons like elven axe, greatsword, spear, etc. for faster attacks speeds.
Her lv30 talents are already quite fine. Power from Pain is the all-out damage build. Vanish is your safety/clutch option. Blade dancer is the weird one with little utility outside of hordes. Just letting it affect armor would be sufficient enough. Maybe increasing the width of the dash to make it easier to get more in a horde. Its quite narrow.
It already provides a ton of ammo if used well, in cata at least, buffing it would break it.
This is bound to not work simply due to stuff like terrain and whatnot, it will always just be extremely inconsistent and unreliable.
Having enemies not stick onto me through a dash and overhead me 0.1 seconds after i just dashed away from them does sound like a nice thing x)
This talent is mainly for killing hordes anyway and there the extra duration isnt needed.
Problem with the level 20 tier, and even her passives i suppose, is that any kind of backstabb business just fails to be overall useful, since she cant get around enemies without invisibility.
For instance if you run say bloodfletcher and then proceed to sneak around a horde to start stabbing you might get like 1-2 procs off then your stealth breaks and enemies turn to attack you.
Now you are alone balls deep in and you got barely anything to show for it, had you been using vanish you might have scored a few kills…honestly, the other two options would have to be insanely overpowered for vanish to not be the deal since they will be so hard to use.
I have this feeling this kind of forced movement is terribly likely to end like the chaos wastes boon that makes you dash on a push. Hated by most.
I´d much rather just keep the movespeed for easier positioning-stabbing.
A small cooldown nerf may still be in order at this point however the last round of nerfs have already done a fair bit and this is excessive now i think.
This…sounds kinda interesting?
Since they went out of their way to remove this little gimmick i have a hard time imagining them being keen on putting it back .(
That’s already the case, isn’t it ? Dodge range does depend on movespeed if I’m not mistaken…
More aimbot on WS ?
Why knock back dead bodies ?
More ammo regen, again ?
I don’t know where these “balance” changes come from. WS is already braindead as it is. WS can shoot longbow arrows into trash without giving a fig because of her ammo regen.
Every single line of this post is a buff, to the point I really wish there was a dislike button. Why do you think those buffs are needed/warranted ?
Edit : forgive me, I misspoke. There is a nerf to Radiant Inheritance and Morai-Heg’s Doomsight…
Trueflight Volley gives 30% per Elite or Special killed, currently. That means it takes only two enemies to give 60% ammo. Three enemies to give 90% ammo.
My suggestion would be a quality of life improvement, but also a nerf. You will always get ammo even if wiffed. Two enemies would still give 60% ammo, but it would then take 4 to reach 90%. The idea between that and Isha’s Embrace is to offload a portion of the ammo regen from a single talent. The difference would be mostly noticed when people consistently hit many enemies with it.
All in all, people often miss the bigger picture. Take Sister of the Thorn’s Tier 20. Currently only one option is worth using and the other two are not only bland, but not particularly useful. Adjusting the one and making the other two useful gives more for players to consider and enjoy.
Splitting what should essentially be one function into two also doesn’t make sense. It looks like gap-filler. Like Battle Wizard’s Unusually Calm/Centered talents that reduce Tranquility cooldown or increase venting speed.
Making lots of options “Increase damage, attack speed, or movement speed” is not interesting. It’s boring. Even moreso if the changes or benefits are too minimal to notice. Making bland or bad talents useful is not power creep. I understand some people are paranoid about buffs to anything because of how things like the Moonfire Bow or Sister of the Thorn released, but it makes no sense to leave things that have been in a poor state in the same state.
A final note is no one has addressed my first portion:
So many of the threads on the forums or voice elsewhere is about nerf, nerf, nerf, but not about how to make the game more fun. How to make talents more valuable. Competitive. Interesting. How to keep things fresh. Even if you don’t like the numbers in the original post, do you like any of the suggested mechanics? The numbers aren’t particularly important anyways, for what I was trying to convey.
To be honest there are some propositions that make sense on paper but that result in clear buffs that I don’t think are needed, like this one :
Then there are some that don’t make sense to me, like this one :
Overall I see the effort in trying to take useless and unpicked talents and do something with them, like this one :
But in all cases I think it is clumsy. If you increase Exploit Weakness’s damage, shade Moonbow will become even more stupid than it is now ; and I see no reason for a shade to apply burns… Bleeds, why not, but burns ? no.
And Ricochet is dead, it is one of those talents that don’t really feel good. The tweak you suggest would make it less janky but I don’t think it is a good way of handling it. Replace it with something like “Kerillian’s arrows ignore the mass of dead enemy ragdolls” and you have a clear buff to swiftbow horde spam ; or something like “Kerillian’s AoE radii are doubled but her DoT damage is reduced by 30%” and you have some more efficient horde control with Hagbane and Moonfire.
We also don’t seem to have the same perception of the game, this as another example :
I disagree. Radiant Inheritance is the broken, bland and unfun one to me ; and I play with Incandescence which does add more support and utility to the career.
That talent already has crazy high damage potential. Why would you want to make it easier? Just because it isn’t often picked doesn’t mean it isn’t already very strong.
Regarding the suggestions overall, I do applaud the attempt to make a lot of options more interesting and interactive. Number tweaking would certainly be necessary, but I might come back to go over more individual suggestions when I’ve had time to mull them over more. For now some general feedback.
I think making Kurnous more consistent AND giving an ammo regen talent is too far. Kurnous needs a harder nerf if you’re gonna give her an ammo regen talent. I get that what you’ve suggested is a nerf when killing 3 or more elites or specials with an ult, but being able to ult into the sky/at hordes whenever you want for ammo, the increased regen you get when your ult bugs out and only kills 1 special/elite, and the general consistency increase more than compensates that already, the Isha’s Embrace change on top of that is WAY too much. Perhaps 15% ammo for ulting regardless of what is killed, then an additional 15% per elite/special killed would be ballpark appropriate.
Another general observation. Dear god please don’t allow ways to make Moonbow MORE spammy than it is currently. I do think WS ought to have more of an edge with it over her melee classes than she currently does. I’d say the way to go about that though is to lower its base sustain, then modify her bonus ammo passive to actually affect Moonbow in some way.
It’s a good start, but probably still way too abuseable with a number of party comps, and it still seems awfully selfish in design. Would prefer it was swapped around a bit to better fit her supposed “support” identity. Something like:
Grants 2 guaranteed critical strikes to the whole party everytime Kerillian uses her career skill
That might still be too strong, the main concept is swapping around how it activates and who benefits.
Again the rest of them I might get back to after I’ve had more time to think through their wider implications.
And for those thinking I’m a salty butthurt player, at times I wonder if I am…
I do try to think “Would those buffs be interesting for the game ? Would this be fun to play… with the tweak of a couple numbers we could make Cata hard again. We could buff everything and buff the enemies too, y’know ?”, and then I picture the elves rolling their face on the keyboard, dropping 7 times on the War Camp and dying once, and still having all the green circles at the end and I think “No, it’s not about balance between players and enemies, it’s first and foremost about balance between the classes, and then balancing the player’s overall power level against the enemies.”
The problem right now is that there are classes and weapons that clearly stand out of the general power expected from a career/weapon. It’s like SotT rolled all-around 18s, and the others have 27 point-buy… Moonbow is a legendary magic weapon while Kruber’s looking at his sword he bought from Bob the blacksmith.
I think it is needed to hammer down the outliers, instead of buffing everything else, and I do mean everything, including enemies.
Problem is, some of the suggestions are not thought out in a way that makes them just sidegrades.
For example the already talked about Kurnous’s Reward and Isha’s embrace will be combined every single time because how easily you can just spam F on cooldown and gain passive ammo to just shoot everything.
Kurnous might work numbers wise if the values were nerfed but I don’t really agree with just gaining ammo by randomly shooting in the sky.
Some suggestions don’t fix the talents inherit flaws like, Radiant inheritance will still remain absolutely broken even with 20 second increase and Morai-Heg won’t care about 1 crit decrease as long as teammates can spam you 20 crits in span of a minute.
Then you have talents like shadowstep that sounds cool as a concept but I really don’t believe fatshark will be making full functioning reworks to talents at this point.
And rest of what I wanted to say is pretty much found in @Saryk and @alsozara posts. I don’t hate that you want to changes the talents to be more interesting but this post kind of missed the mark for me.
And that difference wont really be felt in cata i think, at least my own average runs with this usually goes that i shoot pretty freely, trueflight specials and then keep shooting.Only times i really run outa ammo is when shooting a boss but it still replenishes quickly enough.
The special population is just that high and with talents&some melee you can trueflight with only short delays to quickly keep full. And thus going by my own standard your change would be a buff since i´d effectively get 15% more ammo even for my worst trueflights used.
Sure i´d get less for my best ones but on the other hand, those are not really consistent or even all that common either.
…
This i fully do agree with but on the other hand, powercreep has been a longstanding problem and adding to that for the sake for making more interesting talents only to kill any challenge is counterintuitive.
I think i at least did partly touch on that with my comment on the shade level 20 row, and the bladedancer suggestion. I do even favor the shadowstep suggestion.
But i was trying to convey that several of your suggestions are either just blatant powercreep or bound to fail due to innate design problems that the career already has, like shade and her level 20 row for a good example.
Yes having a heap of things happen while backstabbing sounds right for the assassin but unfortunately this assassin lacks the ability to actually assassinate things on a regular enough basis. Thus pretty much anything, not just the options you suggest, are just bound to fail unless silly overpowered because she cant get anything worthwhile from them.
Goes for both option 1 and 3 on the 20 row and it’s a longstanding problem she had even before vanish was added.
…
So yeah as much as interesting talents are fun we are not here to play a musou game where any character even on the highest difficulty can slaughter armies in seconds. Which battlewizard already kinda does. To solve some of these more boring cases it´s more a matter of in-depth design that need to be addressed.
Blackvenom Thicket is pretty good right now, tbh. On Cata+ it’s pretty insane for safety and enables your teammates to do more damage with Stagger advantage and Shrapnel on everything.
Does your change take into account the damage support current Blackvenom Thicket gives?
E.g.
More safety to do damage, as it splits off enemies
Staggers them once when initially putting it down and again as it ends, granting Stagger damage advantage
AoE Shrapnel
This is the biggest issue for me, and one of the reasons Ironbark Thicket isn’t a choice for me. The Wall alone doesn’t do enough to enable your team to outkill the things you’re CCing.
It’s a shame there’s no way to see the damage you enabled via Stagger and Shrapnel on the scoreboard, as I think with Blackthorn it would be a high amount. Especially since you can Shrapnel Patrols and Bosses.
Whether this change takes into account the knockdown at the end, which interrupts Bosses/Elites and Staggers them is what makes the difference. Would you like to nerf that Stagger or not?
I would honestly prefer to see Bloodrazor Thicket become what you’ve described, but with a higher DoT damage and no more Stagger.
I appreciate the criticisms and constructive feedback.
Certain ideas like Kurnous’ Reward were to take some of the power from that with its ammo, put it in a bad talent, and then players wouldn’t be pigeon-holed into picking that talent for ammo regen. Spreading things out or making “hybrid” talents/talents with more than one function.
I believe there is a lot of room for creative and fun ideas to make playing the game more interesting. Attempting to conquer the same thing in different ways.
I understand that. I’ve been fond of the idea of having careers being just strong enough that they can clutch with enough skill and a pinch of luck. Some are obviously better at it than others, but yea.
Aside from the strength side of things, I think back to when they reworked all the careers for Winds of Magic and how it was so much better than the pretty boring choices we had before then. Fatshark never seemed to finish fleshing it out the careers though. We saw a bit of it in the BBB though.
I do think it’s a good initiative, game will likely only be better with people thinking up and proposing good changes as long as Fatshark are willing to adopt them. Just takes a bit of care to make sure one doesnt go and make something too good-
The suggestion for shadowstep for one is something i think can be fun without being overpowered, the suggestion for bladedancer meanwhile isnt so much an overhaul as adding something that borderline feels like it should already be there. Also probably good without being OP.
Some clutching is all well and good but when you look at someone casually dismantling a whole chaos patrol or blow a monster to pieces you start questioning how much of a threat the enemies actually are.
Overall i do agree, the WoM talent updates were good and helped bring life to many dead rows and bring about more options and build diversity. Overall that is, some cases like waystalker ended a bit more poorly with her in practice still having 2 - 4 rows where choices are basically made for you. Depending on weapon choices.
Fatshark made some choices too powerful, some too weak, some do not work at all and in other cases they didnt so much fix a problem as much as they just changed it. Like WS ammo regen into kurnous.
On that note, how do you feel about my suggestion to further nerf Kurnous to allow for your modified Isha’s? I do support the general idea of spreading out WS’s ammo regen a bit more, though there are some around here that believe piercing shot is so strong you shouldn’t also get ammo regen with it under any circumstance, I’m not personally of that opinion.
I am still against your modified Isha’s changes affecting Moonbow though, unless moonbow itself cops a massive nerf first.