Hello everyone!
While there’s a little break in content updates, I think it’s time for everyone to look deep inside themselves and ask a question that really matters:
“What careers do I like and hate the most”?
And for this purpose I decided to create these 2 polls.
Most Favourite Career
Mercenary
Huntsman
Foot Knight
Grail Knight
Ranger Veteran
Ironbreaker
Slayer
Outcast Engineer
Waystalker
Handmaiden
Shade
Sister of the Thorn
Witch Hunter Captain
Bounty Hunter
Zealot
Unreleased Saltzpyre’s Career
Battle Wizard
Pyromancer
Unchained
Unreleased Sienna’s Career
0voters
Least Favourite Career
Mercenary
Huntsman
Foot Knight
Grail Knight
Ranger Veteran
Ironbreaker
Slayer
Outcast Engineer
Waystalker
Handmaiden
Shade
Sister of the Thorn
Witch Hunter Captain
Bounty Hunter
Zealot
Unreleased Saltzpyre’s Career
Battle Wizard
Pyromancer
Unchained
Unreleased Sienna’s Career
0voters
Your personal criteria can be anything, be it gameplay, character personality shift, visual design etc.
Additionally, if you feel like it, you can share your reasoning behind the choice in comments. I won’t judge… much.
So, my choices are Zealot as the hated and Unchained as favourite.
To my opinion, Zealot has some questionable design choices that promote even more questionable decisions. Like, asking your teammates to shoot you at the beginning of the map. Game literally doesn’t want you to do that (characters rant about friendly fire), yet this is legit way to build precious stacks. Or kicking waystalkers with wrong talent. And Chaos Wastes don’t have sinergy with Zealot’s kit as well. Also, adding THP into stack calculation turned him into literally no risk high reward guy. Seems kinda dull to me.
On the other hand, I always adored the idea of an armored wizard. You know, when a supposively fragile robe wearing magician turns into an hard hitting tank still capable of casting juicy fireballs. And Unchained is exactly the one who can provide it. There are still some questionable gameplay desing choices as well, but the overall career is done right to me. And visual part is astonishing. I’m taking off my hat, whoever did this, you’re amazing!
So, that’s about it. I hope it helps developers to confirm or correct their course towards new content making and interacting with the community.
Thank you for your attention and have fun!
I have been Kruber player since forever so mercenary is the logical choice for me. Regardless of the sometimes overturned kit its always felt pretty fun to play and having clutch enough abilities to survive anything.
Honorable would be WHC and HM.
BH is easily my least favorite. I absolutely despise the kit and the playstyle it “tries” to promote. Could do for a pretty massive rework in my eyes.
It feels funny to read this because BH is my favorite thing in this game, possibly in any game ever going by absolute playtime. Slap small rat and then blast big rat, repeat. Best sniping build in the official difficulties, too. Kinda just appeals to me personally.
Least favorite right now is Zealot. The whole career hasn’t aged well with the addition of all these green health regen effects in the base game and especially Chaos Wastes, and getting stacks from being behind a wall of temp hp wasn’t particularly engaging to me.
Picking a favorite career was hard but I went with Mercenary. That career is just fun to play and I like a lot of Kruber’s weapons.
Regarding my least favorite career two different criteria came up in my mind: careers I hate playing and careers I hate having on my team. I went with the first criteria and voted Bounty Hunter. I just don’t really like ranged careers in general, and that is the one I like the least. When it comes to careers I hate having on my team it’s got to be Sister of the Thorn, though elves in general annoy me since they all seem to have moonfire bow or javelin these days.
No. To grow as a person, to become a true pinnacle of humanity one must experience suffering of a choice with no alternatives.
Also I had no idea that it was possible. Not gonna change it anyway, it’s too late.
Conceptually, my favorite career in the game is the Sister of the Thorn. In design she’s interesting through and through, having a varied set of perks and a set of talents that are almost universally useful in one combination or another. She can work with any weapon in Keri’s arsenal, the setup being entirely dependent on the player’s own approach. The problem of course is that some of the stuff in her package is overtuned and she ends up dealing a truckload of damage in the right hands while being fairly difficult to kill, but I don’t think the whole situation is that hard to fix. A couple of perks and talents need to be adjusted and she’d be just fine.
An honorary mention for my favorite career goes to Pyromancer, in the specific context of expeditions. I borderline hate this career in the normal game mode. Her kit is very dull, being practically devoid of perks and having overly restrictive or boring talents that don’t really give you much to work with. In expeditions however, assuming you get lucky with your boons you can turn her into what she was meant to be, namely a glass cannon that sets the whole world on fire.
My least favorite career is the Outcast Engineer. His kit has the aforementioned problem of being overly dull and restrictive. Most of his talents are either meme talents or dead talents. Fundamentally though, my problem with the career’s current design is that it’s a very static one in a game that is very dynamic and all about movement and adaptability. Where virtually any other career is kiting or weaving in and out of combat while switching between frontlining and sniping, the engineer is either stuck with his butt to a wall hoping that some random rat doesn’t flank him or make it past the gunfire, or even worse, he’s running around reloading/cranking. He’s way too much of a reloading simulator currently, with very little offered for it.
You know, I agree.
If it weren’t for the stupid base numbers on everything and the absolute inconsistency of calling her a support class, SotT would actually be a good career.
Had they just released her without saying anything and with less stupid numbers, she’d have been fine. Her wall still isn’t the best design-wise – intended to handle density while inting the team when faced by density (eats cleaves, prevents shots, packs enemies up in cranked positions ; or is absolutely useless as enemies walk around it) and despite the massive shrapnel debuff being objectively good, bloodrazor is often a better choice because of its big numbers and its use when enemies are sparser, – but her other talents are all interesting and worth picking depending on how you want to build. Probably the career with the most possible synergies with her build diversity so far.
Favorite? Outcast Engineer
Horde? Haha minigun goes BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTT
Patrol? Haha Trollhammer goes bthoomp
An exceptionally powerful career that flies in the face of mobility is key. While very risky as a result and harder to micromanage I LOVE cutting a beastmen horde to ribbons.
Second favorite? Grail Knight or Bounty Hunter. Speccing into melee specialist or ranged specialist with a side of boss deletion.
Least favorite? Unchained. High risk play style of managing heat to fight where even two small hits on cata spell doom. Ult is basically useless except as a save because the risk of suicide is too high comparatively. Unless you play safer, but then the Ult is worth less than the ~20% additional melee power you could have. Also dying super quickly to gas/gun rats feels terrible.
Second least favorite? Pyromancer. Ult is bland feeling, kit is entirely based on getting some crits from high heat. Or other bland buffs based on heat.
Why is my favorite career a micromanagement mini-game and my least favorite a micromanagement mini-game too?
Because OE is high risk high reward. UC/Pyro feels like a steroid was applied as a bandaid fix. No “highs” instead just a game long buff of ~40% melee power / ~24% Crit chance etc.
Wow I didn’t realise there was so much BH hate around. He was my number 2 pick for favourite class. I really like a lot of his core design. A bit of a melee/ranged hybrid who is rewarded for actively swapping between melee and ranged as much as possible. I find this a much more engaging gameplay loop than any of the other ranged careers who mostly just spam their ranged weapon.
I do kinda agree he could use a rework though. His potential boss damage is a bit silly, and his ammo regen is way too feast or famine based around whether or not you take scrounger.
The battle we’ve been waiting for, WHC vs Merc. Who wins?
WHC is my favourite because WHC with Rapier is probably the most cohesively designed experience in the game, and I love the evasive/damage avoidance playstyle with a frontline and precision focus. Eternal Guard, Charmed Life and Rapier turn WHC into a precise, opportunistic killer that can handle anything. I haven’t really found anything in this game that can match it.
OE is my least liked because I don’t enjoy ranged-centric gameplay unless it’s also precision based, like Huntsman with Longbow. Just a personal preference.
I feel a bit alone amongst all the krubs/saltz people because for my favorite I picked Ranger Veteran. Though both merc and WHC are very high on my list also I just plain love the ranged versatility RV offers, while also being a class that can provide ample support to teammates with stealth revives and consumables. The amount of cata-viable loadouts is second to none. Classic hobo with a shotgun and 1h axe? Check. 2h axe and crossbow? Check. 2h Hammer and handgun? No special is safe today. Last resort + 1h hammer + throwing axes? Absolute meme, but still gets the job done.
My most hated one? Any Sienna career but UC is the worst. Why? Well, while they are powerful picks and all I can’t stand the micromanagement involved in constantly venting and charging to kill a single elite on Cataclysm. Two of the three careers mandate constant overheat to be effective, but as mostly ranged hero you’re also expected to deal with specials. This, at least to me, makes Sienna a very slow-paced character compared to other similarly oriented ones. Playing her feels like walking in a tar pit.
If the design was more heavily into melee/ranged I would not mind too much. Problem is he tends to be just ultimate bot in the current iteration. Hence also my rework comment.
He was partially the reason I picked up V2, just looked cool especially with the Repeater Pistol blasts.
Playing around his guaranteed crit is neat but his over reliance on Scrounger, poor THP sustain & synergy with rapid fire weapons like BoP hurts him.
Go into modded and slap BoP on Huntsman with a typical Repeter Handgun set up and damn it’s good fun.
To me, WHC and Merc do feel like the most “core” careers of the game. Strong melee focus, occasional ranged usage to deal with specials, and nothing fancy – and also the ones I enjoy playing the most.
I like playing anything though, except for Pyro. It’s not that she’s bad, cause I’ve seen what players who are good with her can get out of her, but I find her a hassle to play for an underwhelming result.
While I kind of agree on paper, I find BoP to be one of his best ranged options in practice. Its ability to kill consecutive elites/specials quickly is unparalleled in his arsenal, and he certainly has the means to sustain it. Unfortunately said means largely boil down to farming ammo in hordes by looping melee kill → shoot over and over, which isn’t really what you want to be doing in a horde, though it can certainly work it just starts to feel a bit forced.
I feel like Merc’s copped a few very minor nerfs and has largely gone under the radar now for a while. Dude is crazy. He can easily stack +40% raw power on top of paced strikes, extra crit chance, and better cleave. That’s without even touching on his control/support capability. I’d enjoy playing him more if I didn’t feel a bit like I was cheating TBH. Why is MtM so damn strong? Its condition is laughable, it’s there every time you need it with no player input required. Also why does he generate as much ult as FK when being hit, and have the highest ult generation for hitting things? Defeats the purpose of making an ult have longer cooldown.
Same goes for WHC to an extent, though I adore WHC in design and playstyle. He’s high skill ceiling for sure but pretty low skill floor as well so he makes me feel like I’m doing better than I really should be.
Pretty much this + it’s still really reliant on Scrounger.
Kinda wish there were more build options for him, e.g maybe opting out of his guaranteed crits for more ammo mitigation/sustain.