My Personal Ogryn Feedback

[TheRabidOgre]

I’m really excited for this update so far. The talent trees are great and there’s clearly been some optimization because while the game still loads a bit slowly on my computer, it’s now within the realms of what I expect for loading times (my computer is a bit old at this point).

I haven’t had a lot of time to test things out, but there are some things I already wanted to put out there.

I’ve been a Bullgryn since the beginning. I can’t get enough of my Shield + Grenade Gauntlet combo. It was awkwardly supported in the old system so I hoped for a full Bullgryn specialization someday. With the new talent system I thought I’d be getting that as an option, and I sorta did, but there are a few awkward places.

A) Taunt
I’m glad to finally have a Taunt, but it being a trade-off as an ultimate ability feels a bit weird as it’s currently designed. Even with the range upgrade, but unless I’m missing something it doesn’t seem to reach very far, so I guess it’s more for bosses than distracting those distant ranged enemies?

That’s okay, I guess, but then there’s a passive talent which auto-taunts anyone I block, which is easy to do on bosses (not so easy on ranged enemies that will ignore your block to hit people behind you). It seems weird that a basic passive on the tree does a decent job of replicating an ultimate ability. Maybe the upgrades for the Taunt could be a bit punchier?

An upgrade that knocks down enemies hit? One that heals nearby allies when you Taunt? An upgrade that makes the Taunt pulse after a few seconds to catch wave-based enemies?

B) Taunt vs Emergency Mobility
A situation I found myself in earlier was when a Trapper showed up at a really bad time. My normal instinct was to hit my Charge to get me in range and/or knock them over. Obviously, on some level that’s just the sort of thing we have to get used to when we have access to different options now, but it also made something more conspicuous to me.

Since the shield doesn’t block grapples (nets, dogs, etc.), a Shield/Taunt build actually makes me even more vulnerable to those now. The obvious answer is teamwork, but that’s an optimal answer. Emergencies happen, and that’s when your options really matter. In fact, when it comes to the Taunt alone (regardless of Charge as an option) I earlier Taunted right before a dog slipped through and pounced me, and even though my team noticed quickly, having everything on me due to the Taunt had me really messed up in that short time.

I’m not saying any of this is game-breaking. There’s a learning/adjustment curve here and I know I made mistakes, but I think I can already see a situation where the best Tank isn’t necessarily taking the “Tank” Talents right now.

C) Shield Talents
Something that stands out to me about it is that there are no “Shield” talents - which makes sense. It’s only a single weapon. There’s no guarantee you’ll be using it and would be weird to enforce using a single weapon. I think it holds back the potential for a lot of really interesting defensive talents, though, like being able to straight up block a hound’s pounce or shield bash off grapples on a cooldown.

D) Heavy Attack Talents
I noticed that the talent tree is riddled with upgrades to Heavy Attacks, but the only one I noticed that affects Light Attacks is just one that upkeeps a buff to Heavy Attacks. I get that smashing things is part of the fun of an Ogryn, but it feels contrary to the idea of having choice in the tree. It looked like unless I go full gun build, I will basically have to take a Heavy Attack upgrade somewhere.

I already felt like I was being discouraged from ever using Light Attacks, because even in crowd control situations where I might need the faster attacks, the Toughness replenishment from hitting them with Heavy Attacks instead was usually the better option.

I have absolutely no issue with any of the Heavy Attack talents, but it would be nice if maybe they were consolidated into one branch of the tree, and another branch either buff Light Attacks in some way, or at least avoid any specifics. As it is, it feels weird that if I start swinging without holding my attack, I’m not benefiting from multiple talents.

[Heretical_Cactus]

The Shield rework hasn’t happened yet iirc, so maybe at that time, but honestly buffing the shield in that manner would not make it a better weapon, it would just cement it as a crutch pick.

[TheRabidOgre]

Ah, well that explains a few things. That will probably smooth out some of those corners then.

[Adama]

The heavy vs light attacks is just balanced a bit differently and unintuitively currently. It’s not Heavy vs Light. It’s heavy vs survival tree basically. If you wanna go heavy, you have to go the left keystone tree, you don’t have a choice really. While if you don’t want heavy, you go the middle where all the toughness red/regen talents are, those are not dependant on heavy attacks (or lights for that matter). It’s only basically the first few talents that are all heavy and I agree there should be one light attack toughness regen talent at least. Then again, you can pick the heavy regens and use it when you lose too much toughness. Anyway, the middle keystones with some dips elsewhere let you get up to like 70+% toughness reduction and 50(?) toughness regen.

What I dislike about the ogryn now is that the Range build is VERY lackluster. If you have a psyker in your team, you wont ever ever use it. Everything even on damnation and auric will be dead before you even kill a single elite/special. It’s nice, it feels strong for what it’s supposed to do if you full spec it, but you become a literal glass cannon that psykers and veterans all do better. There is no point in going that tree. Especially when you have the Middle keystone that makes you unkillable, or the left one that makes you a killing machine.

Also, I don’t know, but I find the taunt completely useless. The mobs die so fast, there is no reason to taunt them, cause the ones you taunt are dead withing like 2s of you taunting and new untaunted horde is already near you. You can’t effectively taunt specials (imagine taunting 4 dogs or 3 ragers… good luck with that) and taunting monstrosities is barely necessary. And the 25% dmg increase is the only viable thing on it. Compared to the bull charge that replenishes your toughness, stuns enemies etc. They really need to buff the taunt. It’s a noob trap the same way the shield is. Well if you are experienced, shield is pretty viable, but a lot of people just hold the shield and do nothing. Taunt promotes that useless gameplay even more. But we shall see with the shield rework.