I know I am not the only one that thinks this when I say that class penances need to change. They do not provide a fun or engaging way to play the game and some actively punish team play and promote toxic behavior.
Examples by Class:
Skullbreaker:
“Don’t Stop Me Now!”- this is probably the only penance I have an issue with for Ogryn as it incentivizes to spam your Bull Rush off cooldown with little incentive or interest in using it tactically and for the team. The other issue is that unless there are a bunch of elites and you reset your cooldown, you won’t be getting it done. Even with the upgrade at 30 you only charge a distance of about 25m, which means you would have to charge 3 times in under 25 seconds.
Solution - Simply change it so it includes the sprint buff afterwards and lower the time to complete. With this in mind you can easily get from point A to point B.
Preacher:
Buying Time - I can see the value in this similar to the veteran one which asks you to learn angles and distances for your grenade throw, however, attempting to waste your grenades just to stun a sniper when you could just tag it for a kill is not only a waste of your grenade, a waste of your teams time, and a waste of everyone’s health if they don’t notice it.
Solution - Change it to stunning a certain number of enemies at once. This promotes tactical use of the grenade to get an efficient amount of value out of your resources while actively benefitting the team.
Just A Flesh Wound - This is completely and utterly a grief of a Penance. You are asking for the zealot to not only completely get himself killed, but to then speedrun the mission in under 10 minutes which is simply undoable even with a highly efficient team running on all cylinders.
Solution - At the very least take away the time restriction, This promotes the zealot player for living at low health which incentivizes a defensive yet aggressive playstyle akin to Saltzpyre from V2 by managing their buffs they get when low instead. It will still suck for the zealot not healing, but it can be doable or at the very least have an amount of time they need to be at 1 wound and then it completes.
Psykinetic:
Cliffhanger - Abysmally designed challenge. Requesting that 20 enemies get pushed off simultaneously with how weak the push is for the psyker is simply asking too much. This also puts the psyker and team in a precarious spot that could not only get the psyker killed, but also the other plays. Additionally this challenge is asking the team to not do anything while the psyker plays which isn’t fun for anyone.
Solution - Take away the 2 second time to complete and increase the number of knockoffs, so that the psyker can complete the penance throughout the mission. This promotes active positioning and thinking on the psyker’s part to find proper moments to get kills using the environment. This doesn’t hinder the team, and could actually improve the psyker’s ability to process different ways to handle hordes even into the end game.
Malleus Monstronum - This is a completely doable challenge, but you are asking the team to literally ignore the boss and sit idle while the psyker spends all the time trying to kill the boss. On top of that, a single bullet gone astray if more enemies come ruins the challenge for the psyker.
Solution - Change it to just have the psyker to a certain amount of damage to bosses using Brain Burst throughout multiple missions. The amount of damage can be easily increased to make it a lengthy challenge while not gimping any party.
Sharpshooter:
Long Bomb - The angle for getting this challenge is difficult but doable. The issue is the exploding part.
Solution - Allow the sharpshooter to cook their grenade. This provides an extra game benefit of choosing how/when you want the grenade to explode while still having the challenge. Otherwise you have people just tossing grenades in the air hoping the challenge resolves.
On Overwatch - This challenge is innately punishing for the team and the player. By requesting the sharpshooter to take no melee damage, they can’t be hit at all even if they have toughness up since a small portion of damage still goes through toughness.
Solution - Require that the Sharpshooter takes only like 50 melee damage from melee throughout the mission. This still requires the sharpshooter to be very smart with their positioning and ability to block and avoid damage, while not just ending the challenge on the spot. Doing this also helps promote a ranged focus class to know when to drop their ranged for melee and maintain their health throughout the mission.
Make Every Shot Count - Requesting no ammo remaining with 100% accuracy is asking way too much especially for a class that regens ammo throughout the mission.
Solution - Simply take away the ammo restriction while promoting the 100% accuracy. This will ask the sharpshooter to choose their shots carefully promoting smart ammo efficiency and high degrees of accuracy.
Overall, I like the idea of the penances, but in their current state alot of them are just awful to work towards. They aren’t fun to do and actively promote griefing your team and toxic behavior. I don’t expect this to be seen or to be considered, but it would still be nice to see something done about the penance system for the classes.