I’m talking specifically about leftmost abilities and their state after P13. It’s… not good all around.
Ogryn: you can pay additional 1-2 points to have your very same bull rush, just with a bit more oomph. You also can’t focus on staying power or on offensive power separately, the path through nodes will have you take toughness replenishment and then offensive upgrade as the only possible way. Out of entire Ogryn skill tree these subnodes are the most underwhelming ones: two of them only do things when you use your bull rush (and those things are not terribly great), and the third one nets you a lasting bonus (again, not particularly amazing), but you have to pay 2 points to grab it.
Psyker: pretty much same as Ogryn: 1-2 points on shriek subnodes, one of which is utility and the next one is offensive. Direct damage subnode is simply a joke, and people wanting to focus on soulfire have to pay 2 points to get to soulfire upgrade. At least peril resistance is something that all Psykers grabbing shriek can use (unlike toughness regen for Ogryn, which isn’t always useful).
Vet: oh the poor vet. Even if we’re not talking about bloat, the whole point of Executioner’s Stance is to pick Relentless, otherwise you’d simply get an overwhelmingly weak ability even if you’re crazy enough to grab all subnode except Relentless. This is just terrible. If Fatshark insists that Volley Fire is so great that it must cost 2 points, they should at least set the layout in the same way as for Zealot’s Chorus ability (2 nodes to just proceed through it). But anyways, Exe Stance is largely nonfunctional without Relentless.
Zealot: aaaand zealots are fine. Note how they simply got their old ability back in just ONE node and there’s only one subnode that just doubles it? Absolutely no points tax. No weird pathways with some bonuses spread all around. No lazy shite “oh you might do 200 points damage in an area, rejoice!”.
PS: There’s one very common theme here: subnodes that really aren’t related and shouldn’t be linked together in a sub-tree are made related and linked. Subnodes that are STRONGLY related (looking at you, Relentless) are made not related and not linked.
What’s that I don’t even.