New Career Suggestions: Sienna & Saltzpyre

I was thinking that this shower of piercing bolts would have more of a group of elites focus compared to Burning Head’s horde/single target focus, though making it an area of denial effect could be interesting (both of these options could be potential ult talents that modify the ult, so one could increase damage while one increases radius and/or duration). FF would be a problem, not exactly sure how it could be kept team friendly (giving it a visual indicator on the ground like Conflag’s circle and making the bolts have a lower radius for friendly fire detection like Drakegun would help). Visual obstruction shouldn’t be too bad so long as the bolts aren’t too big.

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I mean, it’s as much of an option as just making a new character. And since Fatshark has stated they have no intentions of adding any characters to the roster, I think it’s clear Sienna will stick to being a fire wizard.

For new career suggestions, lets look at what Engineer Bardin has brought up.

He’s obviously titled ‘Outcast Engineer’, so that is a certain break from normal dwarven society. Fatshark will no doubt still keep up the whole ‘Looking for Karak Zorn’, so what this amounts to is ‘something changed in his past, but he’s still Bardin Goreksson, Dwarf in Self-Exile’.

His classes are Ranger, Ironbreaker, Slayer and now, Engineer, all well within the Lore of the Dwarven Armybook.

Markus Kruber had Mercenary, Huntsman, and Foot Knight, each of which could roughly translate to a type of soldier in the Imperial Armybook.
[Free Company Militia/Empire Solider= Mercenary, Huntsmen=Huntsmen, Foot-Knight= Unmounted Empire Knight.]
Except, Markus Kruber also got an out-of-armybook career, Grail Knight, which comes from the Brettonian Armybook.

Kerrilian also showed that, with each of her Careers in Vermintide 2 coming from different Armybooks.
[Waywatcher/Waystalker=Wood Elf Armybook, Handmaiden=High Elf Armybook, Shade=Dark-Elf Armybook]
Now, we’ve not seen a clue of her additional Career, but, logically, these two examples of Careers going out of the base Armybook mean that its a possibility for others.

Saltzpyre has three careers with equivalents, too.
[Witch-Hunter=Witchhunter, Bounty Hunter=Pistolier/Outrider. Zealot= Flagellant]
With the above said, I could indeed see ol 'Salty ending up with the Warrior Priest Career. Yet, I could also see them reaching into another Armybook for an alternate one.

In fact, this ties together with an alternate Career with/for Sienna.

Our Wizard of Aqshy does indeed have another path open for her. Two of Sienna’s careers do not possess direct equivalents in the Armybooks, which only have ‘Battle-Wizard and Battle-Wizard Lord’. So Unchained and Pyromancer are Fatsharks own creations, but they can reach out for another Armybook, to which I think nearly all Wizards have the capacity to use, if they had a teacher.

Thus, I think it would make sense for Fatshark to double-dip into the singular book that both of them could use for an alternate career.

Vampire Counts.

Saltzpyre’s Fourth Career as a Vampire, and Sienna’s Fourth Career as an Apprentice Necromancer.

Special Abilities? Perhaps Salty could have a rush that impacts on a singular enemy, and drains an amount of temp health from them, while tossing enemies away in a small radius. Or, as someone else suggested, a short ‘invisibility’ or intangibility, changing into mist or a swarm of bats or somesuch thing.

Sienna could perhaps raise a handful of zombies, or skeleton warriors. Alternatively, they could go with a direct-line attack, as per the ‘Gaze of Nagash’ spell.

For weapons, I’m half-hoping Sienna picks up the iconic necromancer’s scythe or Saltzpyre gets access to a one-handed longsword, perhaps even Claws.

Talents are where things get into a doozy. Saltzpyre as a Vampire could maybe mimic the Zealot, gaining bonuses after a use of his special, or while he possesses TempHP. Perhaps a Talent could be chosen in his tenth row on his specific Bloodline, unlocking something related to the Blood Knights, A Lahmian, or Strigoi. I find it unlikely they’ll mix a Necrarch possibility in, unless they decide to give old Salty magic.

Apprentice Necromancer Sienna would be difficult to slot into the ‘Heat and Overcharge’ system. They could simply keep up her ability to utilize Aqshy, but how would that fit into her Necromancy? The simplest way would likely be a quick palette swap, changing ‘Heat Overload’ to ‘Dhar Overload’, change the flames to black or green witch-fire, etc. Alternatively, they could simply keep the flames the way they are, and have her using her abilities through a necromantic book.

Her Talents would have to work into overcharge as well. Perhaps a Talent that applies something like a Danse Macabre on risen zombies or skeletons at high overcharge, making them move faster. There are already chance-based effects on death, so why not adding a summoned zombie from a slain enemy in close combat at a scaling chance based on Overcharge? Balefire, one of the abilities of a Corpse Cart, gives a negative for foes casting within a certain distance. Perhaps forcing an additional teleport from a Leech, or a Blightstormer, if they start to cast within a certain range?

There are of course, many possibilities, but I like these oneS. Not just for the possibility of Markus shooting Sienna for funny voice-lines.

‘NOT A NECROMANCER MARKUS-’
‘YES YOU ARE!’

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Maybe but since I don’t know exactly why FS don’t want a new character in the game what buttons must not be pressed.

While I agree that it would require work to be done its still something I would like to see.

Edited: I’ll return with some Aqshy based ideas for Sienna.

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It’s simply the amount of work involved. To create a new character, you would have to go back to every one of the existing missions and write a massive amount of new dialogue that involved the entire main cast, not only the new character. Similarly, you would have to design at least three new careers and a set of 10-15 weapons for the character to use.

The workload far exceeds the scope of a DLC. Maybe the amount of work involved would be the equivalent of an expansion, but the expansion would have to be just the new character – no new missions, nothing new for the old characters. I sincerely doubt most players would be satisfied with that.

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Maybe, although to be honest I would get that expansion in a heartbeat. Probably on release day.

Me too! But I can just imagine the accusations of laziness and cash grabbing if a new expansion had no new maps, weapons, or even cosmetics for the other characters. I don’t think many players appreciate how much it would take to fully integrate a new character into all of the 22 missions (23 if you count A Quiet Drink). And, of course, since the Back to Ubersreik missions are supposed to be a magic-assisted memory dive, it would take some heavy rewriting to somehow shove a new character in there.

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I actually think this will be the easiest part.

Let the new character simply not be part of the original mission in VT1 so can make “oh, that’s new!” and “what happened here?” comments that the other characters can respond to. Just because its a memory dive doesn’t, in my opinion, need to mean that all the characters have the same memories of it.

EDITED

Some ideas for Sienna careers, as I said that I would provide.

Magmite - Essentially a tanky Sienna with a magma feel to her with a damage soak and that any attacker that striker her when she has her ult gets ignited, blocked or not.

Fire Dancer - When using ult Sienna burs into flames and takes damage when standing still but in exchange she gets increased movemen, attack speed and power and leaves a trail of fire behind where she goes.

Pyre-Soul - Essentially a kind of Sienna-version of the Zealout in that the more damage she takes, the more powerful her fire attacks becomes stronger and burns longer. Not sure about the ult, but I like the name. :slight_smile:

Ashess - Based around that dealing fire damage to enemies gets that damage returned as health to Sienna accoriding to some X-Y formula. Can also be used with a talent to provide health for other members of the team if desired.

Fire-touched - Based around a zealous devotee of Aqshy. Her ult is “Wildfire” which is that when the ult is active, Sienna’s fire damage can spread among nearby enemies and keeps burning for maybe 5 seconds or so from when first ignited. Perfect for taking on large numbers of tighly concentrated enemies.

Daughter of Aqshy - Transform into a smaller version of the guy linked below for a maybe 7 seconds or such with a great increase in power and output of flame damage.

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I do wonder if a summoner-type career would work in Vermintide. The Outcast Engineer’s crank gun shows that Fatshark are comfortable with tweaking core mechanics of the game for new careers. If Sienna got a fire elemental summoning career, maybe the career skill bar could work as the pet elemental’s health bar.

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Could be, although I personally think that outsourcing the core gameplay is different from giving us a new tool for an old trade, so to speak. So I am not terribly enthusiastic about summoning features in this melee-focused and skill-based game.

When you have someone like Kerillian being a Shade, I don’t see why it matters if Sienna did another school of magic. Just call her special or make something up and call it a day. Give us more fun. The only thing I could see being an issue is her weapons, but an idea I had for another Bright Wizard career could be applied in the same way.

An idea for another Sienna career could be supportive, since she has yet to do that. You add a visual affect to her weapons and change the burn buff she applies to a more napalm-y/magma effect. Enemies she burns can light other enemies on fire if they touch(buh-bye hyperdensity). More effective against armor. Things you could do:

  • Enemies are immolated and burn other enemies near them.
  • Fire barrier that prevents damage and ignites attackers
  • Fire wall
  • Fire circle to trap enemies
  • Fire circle to ward enemies
  • Blessing team with burns on attacks
  • Slow enemy animations down that are napalmed
  • Give her a shield and/or shield projection with fire
  • Revive ally and maybe grant green hp (if you think I’m nuts, this one is similar to Rise from the Ashes: https://warhammer-quest.fandom.com/wiki/Bright_Wizard)

That’s all fire theme, but I think the way to deal with other lores of magic is to add/change the visual affect of weapons and burns, then change how this altered burn operates (Like, Sienna is playing Shadow Career, all burns are triggered to be replaced with the new “Shadow effect”). In the end, you could probably be creative enough with fire to just avoid those logistics and make something fun anyways.

One of my friends is a huge warhammer buff and he told me that wizards can do 2 different schools of magic but it has severe side effects such as suffering from madness. It’s pretty rare but possible.

I would love to see Sienna as either a Grey or Gold Wizard and it would not bother me at all if she suffered some debuffs to compensate for her new storyline.

After all, the careers in V2 are possible outcomes each hero takes after the events of V1 so who’s to say Sienna didn’t learn another magic after V1 anyways. Maybe she thinks fire just isn’t enough to battle against the Skaven/Chaos.

I don’t know if Christoph Engel survived in V1 but if he did, I see no reason as to why he couldn’t have taught Sienna how to be a Grey Wizard. There are survivors in V2 this time around. Maybe one of the rescued was a wizard.

@OenKrad is kind of right though. Sienna, so far, is all fire based. At least the other heroes are getting something outside the box for their new careers.

Why not Sienna?

I would love to see a Sienna using the Winds of Ice magic of Kislev. It wouldn’t be to far fetched for her to have family there, just like how Kruber can be a Grail Knight. Or maybe Olesya could do something to help her, as it does sound like she is from up there (from the ingame conversations). It would also be completely opposite to what she got going now, but still not that far off with the way her stuff works.

It would also be relatively simple to change her staffs from Fire to Ice (I think), though it would require a lot of new visual effects.

The whole idea is that her damage would be able to slow and possibly freeze enemies, with some of the options having a high amount of armor piercing, but overall a less damage to compensate.

E.g.:

  • Flamestorm Staff: Less damage, but it would now slow enemies it hit and cause a bit of stagger (like it does now).
  • Bolt Staff: High AP but a bit less overall damage. With the charged attack you would thow a large spike of ice instead. It would still a great choice for sniping elites and specials.
  • Beam Staff: Less damage, but it will slow and after a short time (dependent on HP?) it would freeze the enemy for a decent amount of time, making them easy to kill. The Alt-Fire would deal more damage the more slowed/frozen the enemy is.

Or something like that.

Her Ulti could be something like “Form of the Frost Fiend” (though in a light version, where she doesn’t change all that much), Blizzard (that slows and damages enemies around her for a set amount of time) or Ice Maiden’s Kiss (freezes enemies in a cone in front of her).


For Saltzpyre I would like a Warrior Priest of Sigmar, though I wonder if that would make him unable to use ranged weapons or not. They could give him “Blessings” as his secondary weapon, or at least let him carry a book that would let him cast the not-spells.

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Ubersreik is right next to the Bretonnian/Empire border, and we know that people emigrate from one to the other (or to Marienburg/Wasteland)

Kislev and Estalia are way further from each other

Her entire backlog of lines refer to fire or burning in some form or another, fire is a core item in her being making her wield another wind would mean devs would have to replace all her fire references with new lines to fit the new wind, worse yet, without fire most of her past crimes woudn’t exist, shes guilty of burning a lot of (ex)friends, all ubersreik five have guilt in their past and their entire journey is one in search of redemption, taking fire away invalidates her guilt.

Making a new Wind dlc career would be way more work than the current dlc career.

Normal Career:
New Voice line
New Backstory
New skills
New animation (Low amount)
New Weapon (2)

Pure Wind:
New Voice line
New Backstory
New Gimmick (Heat Bar)
New skills
New animation (High Amount: Element, Weapon…)
New Weapon (More than 2 if she can’t use her old staff)*

Mixed Wind:
New Voice line
New Backstory
New Gimmik (2 different Heat Bar?)
New skills
New animation (Medium amount, Element and weapon)
New Weapon (2 but weapon would be locked behind career)**

*If for example she get Wind of Azyr (Celestial)

2 staff that portray the Wind of Azyr, no access to any of the Flame weapon (1 melee weapon left)
The only DLC weapon that could be used after the career is introduced would need to be either

  • Non-Magical
  • Wind of Azyr (Meaning it can’t be used by the other career)

**If for example she get access to both the Wind of Aqshy and Azyr

2 new weapon (most likely have Azyr Wind in them)
New DLC weapon would have to either be from:

  • Non-Magical
  • Wind of Aqshy (Meaning the other career can use them)
  • Wind of Azyr (Meaning it can’t be used by the other career)

Edit: Corrected the amount of non Magical Weapon is very hard to guess with all the illusion, but if we take the basic one, there is only Sword and Dagger, but Dagger also has a Flame attack so this put us to only 1 Weapon without any Magical Attribute (Note that there is still Aqhsy’s symbol on the Blade)

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Thank you, you saved me the trouble of typing out a similar response.

A new wind of magic would be cool as hell, but it would also be way more work than the DLC careers released so far. Making Sienna something other than a fire wizard and giving Kerillian a caster career are both fun ideas that I think are just not feasible in practice. Both would require a longer development cycle and, by extension, a higher price for the finished product than the current DLC careers have had.

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A Kerrilian caster could maybe work like the Gattling gun of the OE ?
So that she has normal weapon but it mean she only has one magical weapon (Maybe Saltzpyre could have that for Warrior Priest, Magic Hammer/Tome as an ability while the 2 weapon from the DLC would be Hammer and maybe twin comet flail ?)

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I get the more work thing. I wonder if they could use something like a new winds of magic career as an opportunity to create a new framework which would be used for these more involved careers (like new winds of magic or caster Kerillian). A framework that would help streamline a process of how to make existing assets work with things that are pretty different. I think with things like this, sometimes it’s a matter of how you approach it or how creative you can be with design and implementation. Sometimes it may be truly unreasonable, but I’ve seen seemingly farfetched things pulled off before.

I guess in time we’ll see what Fatshark does.

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I’d love to see a Tome with appropriate miracles taking the career skill slot for Warrior Priest Saltzpyre.