I absolutely understand that not every class has to excel at everything, but compared to Gunlugger and the majority of veteran tree, both Zealot and Psyker don’t have a lot of talents that meaningfully impact ranged build options.
Zealot has like a few talents that really benefit ranged playstyles:
- Sainted Gunslinger - reload speed on melee kill is useful but it’s placed in an awkward middle spot that makes you spend talent points that could otherwise be put into better skills such as holy revenant/until death
- Emperor’s Bullet - the only useful part of this talent is the attack speed boost but because of the “empty your mag requirement” it pushes you away from using large ammo capacity weapons and instead emphasizes weapons like shotguns, the revolver or the bolter, basically anything that can be dumped really quickly with maximum impact
- Anoint in Blood - 25% damage up close is something you never not take, but it is quite boring as far as talents go.
- Voice of Terra - 2.5% toughness on ranged kill only really works for weapons that have high output for clearing trash and does jack for anything else.
- Dance of Death - actually one of my favourite talents for a ranged weapon zealot build, it enhances your ranged weapons based on your performance in what a zealot should be doing most - fighting in melee.
- Ambuscade - 20% damage for ranged backstabs. With how backstabs most often happen when coming out of stealth, why would I burn that ult to fire at an enemy when i could melee them for way more damage? The only feasible time you backstab mobs is when you’re already close behind them because most of the time the hordes attack you head on.
Out of all these skills, I’d say only dance of death is interesting and fun, the others are either mandatory (anointed in blood) or kind of useful but requiring a lot of talent points to get when there are way better options available. I think these talents should be buffed or changed to where they directly improve a zealots close distance ranged weapon performance if they play into their niche of being a melee specialist. For example:
- Guaranteed supression on close range kill after melee killing an elite once every x seconds
- If the ranged shot staggers but does not kill an elite/special enemy, finishing him off within x seconds returns % of ammo back to the weapon (has an internal cooldown)
- Hitting an enemy with a special attack gives your ranged weapon increased rending for x seconds after swapping (think can opener mixed with agile momentum)
I feel like these hypothetical talents build on the fantasy of playing a zealot and enhance his viability in close ranged gunfights dramatically - these ideas could be utilized to buff underperorming talents to give other sides of the tree more reason to be utilized, while also opening up blessing selection.
As for the psyker, there isn’t a single talent which is directly intended to benefit only non-force weapons.
- His bonus damage from peril is universal for all weapons
- Malefic Momentum only benefits force weapons, not the other way around (basically worse agile engagement)
- All the other talents lean into baseline mechanics (toughness from peril, extra dodges, critical hit benefits etc)
There is no single talent that is directly beneficial to just ranged weaponry other than maybe scriers gaze. What I would love is talents that take the skill of balancing peril and the fantasy of enhancing yourself and your equipment with warp powers. For example:
- Talent for each hit with a ranged weapon giving you a stack, upon reaching 10 stacks discharge a guaranteed brainburst on the target (basically buff kinetic flayer because it’s ass) Brainburst damage scales with current peril.
- Reduce reload speed depending on peril - less peril equals faster reloads, minimum 10% max 25%. (makes quickswaping to your blitz and managing peril event more in depth while also giving you a somewhat always active benefit to every ranged weapon)
- Restore 2% ammo for every 50% peril quelled (I am not sure what exact rates would be ideal but I do think having an innate ability to restore ammo to yourself would make gun psyker really fun and lean into the idea of psykers having little to no problems with managing their resources for ranged attacks)
- Buff Malefic Momentum to benefit both force and non-force weapons (further emphasizes smart blitz swapping and / or mixed force/non force loadouts)
- Talent for allowing ranged weapons to generate peril on special attack (a mini-scriers gaze would allow for more uptime on peril-based buffs when using ranged weapon, allowing gunpsykers to feel the effect of those bonuses more often without having to burn down the ult or having to spec into warp charges for constant gaze uptime)
Additionaly, I feel that most if not all weapons should be looked at and receive a unique special attack and / or interaction for psykers, similarly to the las-pistol. Peril Based special attack knockbacks with increased stagger and range would give them some unique identity and niche,
Some weapons (For example, shotguns if we ever get them back on psyker) could have alternate effects with their special ammo loads
- Soulblaze instead of fire kantrael shotgun that benefits from soulblaze talents
- Agrippina shotgun slugs causing a shockwave of warp energy upon impact working similarly to venting shriek
- Lawbringer wide-shot special could cause enemies to receive a few-seconds long stun similar to smite effects.
These few examples are just off the top of my head, I bet we could lean even further into interesting warp-special attacks.
This was quite a ramble, but what do you guys think? Is there place for more interesting build options for ranged weaponry on these classes?
Also, apologize for any grammar or spelling errors lmao.
