So i play with her a lot and just want to talk a little about her, and no please don’t read it as a rant i think she is really a very strong dps hero in both melee and ranged but her talent tree could need some help here and there in my opinion
● Lv 5: her temp health talents are fine nothing wrong here. The temp healt on crit would be awesome but i see the problem with this beeing to strong so i think it’s good we don’t have this option
●Lv 10: here’s the place where my problems start
• ride the fire wind: well we could argue that ca. 10% more range power is not bad and thats true, but it’s so strange to use. Let’s say i’m at 5% going downwards and we pulled a patrol. This is a situation where i can’t say: “heay could you please wait like 20 seconds so i can get stronger”. I mean I see the talents place but i think the gameplay is so fast that a talent like this where 20 seconds is very much for example isn’t good because i have not time to wait for more power. → not a bad talent but awkward tp use, i would rather see a flat out boring but steady power increase
•spirit casting: 10% crit above 80% health well, i like this form of talents, i mean it’s very strong but has some risk because it’s gone after taking a single hit. High risk, high reward, i would’t change a thing here
•material sturdy: 5% more attack speed is flat out boring and also bad as a talent. A simple fix here would be to change it to give 5% crit chance for example. Than you have a weaker talent as spirit casting but at least the risk part is gone so it would be balanced in my opinion while also support the career theme. Of course a complete new talent could also be awesome here to get more of a choice between crit chance and ranged power
●Lv15: nothing to say here this talents fit her quite nicely. And also the crit power/headshot talent would be very cool here again but since this would probably be to strong it’s good that this isn’t an option
●Lv20: good talents but there are things that boggles my mind
• Deathly Dissipation: no heat gain when you killed a special for 10 seconds, awesome talent and a great idea for a talent while also having nice synergies with the career. Great job here i wish all talents would feel this special. The only thing that i hate sometimes is all staffs of sienna and also pyros burning head are very slow at killing specials, either because of charge time or because of low projectile velocity. There where so many times where i’m about to kill this one special with my burning head but some other hero is faster with his bow or handgun. So in a team with great communication this talent is nice but with randoms in quick play it sometimes feels bad. I think to lower the heat gain (or completly stopping it like now) by X% for Y seconds on killing a elite enemy would make it feel better.
• On the Precipice: 15% range power on high heat is goot talent on some builds, i like this talent, nothing to complain from my side
• One with the Flame: good talent for a melee build because of the 10% attack speed at high heat. I mean battle mage and unchained both can get 15% attack speed but these careers don’t have such a high crit chance so i think it’s balanced
●Lv 25: Oh boys here is where my biggest problem with this whole talent tree comes from
•let’s start with Freetflame: 5% movement speed for 5 seconds which stacks up to 3 times, excuse me wtf is this? There are other careers which have a flat bonus without the need to trigger something first. Of course now you can say “oh come on, with over 50% crit chance this talent is up to 3 stacks all the time” which is technical right but to get such a high crit chance you need some heat which slows down your attack speed by 15% at 65% heat and if you go even higher to over 80% heat you get other debuffs too, which flat out-counter this whole talent while still leaving you with lower attack speed and dodge range debuff.
So to use this talent you need some heat for buffing your crit chance but not to much for the debuffs, this is heat managment at almost impossible levels for all melee builds and also much work for ranged builds to such a degree this whole talent just ins’t worth it in my opinion.
To add more salt just look at shade. She has a straight up better movement speed talent and also has a high crit chance. So i think a buff to this talent is much needed, i would be happy if we can get up to +20% speed with 4 stacks and also the 5 seconds duration is very low maybe 10 seconds would be better (or is this already to much? I’m open for your opinions)
•Soul Siphon: 10% damage reduction for 10 seconds after killing a special or elite for 10 second stacking 3 times. Hmm im my opinion there are many better damage reduction talents on other heroes but it’s not sooooo bad since on higher difficulties elites are everywhere. I would love to make the trigger for this talent easier for us but overall it’s an ok talent
•the volans doctrine: no high heat debuffs is such a strong talent that makes all other talents in this row obsolete. I mean i love this talent and it’s 100% necessary for any melee build on her so i definetly want it to stay but this talent is so freaking strong even for ranged builds that it almost doesn’t matter what alternatives you get, the no-brainer will certanly always be this.
I think it would be good to switch it to another lv row with other very strong contenders or make the other talents is this row better so at least ranged heroes have a strong alternative (freetflame would be cool here but well i already wrote my problems with this talent)
●Lv 30: all quite nicely nothing to change here
•exhaust: loose all heat when you use your ability. Boring and the weakest in this row if you ask me but i think there are some people who like this talent so it’s ok
• bonded flame: 35 temp health every time when you use your ult, it’s a strong survival tool and also give you temp healt for venting. Good talent and 35 temp health is also balanced so nothing wrong here
•blazing echo: 100% cooldown back if the ultimate makes a crit. This talent is the whole reason why i play pyro, it’s so funny to throw your ability 5 times in a row at some monster and watch it’s healt bar get deleted. This talent can be a hit or miss, some like it some not but since there are alternatives for those who don’t like this rng thing it’s fine. Also if you have a witch hunter captain in your team this talent makes you a god since he can boost your crit chance to 95% for 6 seconds, i mean drink a strengh potion and when the witch hunter than uses his ability you will absolutly murder everything on screen in this short time
So the last problem i have sometimes with her is her ability. I have seen it way to often that our burning friend just nopes out strait up into the sky, after killing like 2 slave-rats.
If we compare that to waystalkers ability this also happens with her abillity but since she fires 3 arrows it’s not such a lost when one arrow nopes out. So an animation change where sienna fires a small barrage of 3 heads would be awesome and i know an animation change is much work so probably asking for too much here. And also it’s so disapointing to see that this spell stops even on one single stormvermin i would love it when the spell would penetrate these rats to be more in line with waystalkers arrows since i think the burning head feels just like a weaker version of it. The boss stagger and the synergy with pyros talents are nice tho
Edit: some grammatical mistakes
Edit 2: a simple talent fix for volans doctrine could also be to make a new passive for pyro which removes the -15% attack speed debuff at 65% heat. Than you can got up to 80% without gimping youself and thus make great (but not full) use of your passive + crit chance ability. No nerf to anything, and since this would make the heat managment easier, freetflame and soul siphon are a nice options now.
Also why sienna gets a significant debuff at 65% heat that’s shown nowhere, please just make the heatbar better with one more | at this mark