Ranger's Parting Gift needs a bomb to exist — give RV one at spawn, the way Bombardier already does for the Engineer

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Short version: Outcast Engineer’s Bombardier hands him bombs at the start of every level. Ranger Veteran’s Ranger’s Parting Gift is also a bomb talent, on the same character, and gives him nothing to work with. One of those talents is guaranteed to function. The other is a coin flip on the loot spawner. I’d like the second one to get the treatment the first one already has.

The side-by-side

Outcast Engineer

  • Utility Belt (passive): carries up to 3 bombs of any type.
  • Bombardier: bombs gain the effects of both frag and incendiary, and he starts every level with bombs already in hand — including every Chaos Wastes level.
  • That starting count has been tuned more than once (5.4.0 dropped it, 6.0.0 dropped it again), which is the point: the mechanic exists, it works, and it’s a number in a file.

Ranger Veteran

  • Ingenious Improvisation (passive): 10% chance not to consume a healing item, potion or grenade. Needs a grenade.
  • Scavenger: 20% chance for a special kill to drop a potion or a bomb instead of an ammo cache — so realistically about a 1-in-10 shot at a bomb specifically, per special.
  • Ranger’s Parting Gift (lvl 30): Disengage makes the next bomb thrown during the ability free. Needs a bomb.
  • Bomb capacity: 1. Bombs at mission start: 0.

Three separate pieces of kit that reference grenades, and zero guaranteed access to one.

Why this actually matters in play

Bomb pickups are random world spawns. Plenty of runs have no bomb anywhere near the route before the first horde. Plenty of others have exactly one, and it goes to whoever is walking in front. Quickplay drops you into half-looted maps constantly. Chaos Wastes is its own mess.

The result is that a level 30 capstone is regularly dead for the first several minutes of a mission, and sometimes for the entire mission.

Look at what it competes with on that row: Exhilarating Vapours (attack speed and THP regen for everyone in the smoke) and Surprise Guest (stealth doesn’t break when you leave the cloud). Both of those work 100% of the time, every map, no prerequisites. Parting Gift works 0% of the time until the level generator decides to be generous. That isn’t a build decision, it’s a scratchcard.

And the talent’s whole identity — the free throw — is the duplication, not the bomb. It’s designed as a multiplier on a resource the career has no reliable way to acquire.

What I’m asking for

Any one of these fixes it. Cheapest first:

  1. Mirror Bombardier. With Ranger’s Parting Gift selected, Bardin starts each level with 1 bomb. Identical implementation to the one already shipping on the Engineer. One bomb, not two — RV can only carry one anyway, so nothing stacks and nothing hoards.
  2. Let the ult make one. If Bardin has no bomb when Disengage is activated, Parting Gift gives him one, on a cooldown, the way Ingenious Ordnance does for the Engineer. This ties the talent to the ability instead of to the loot table.
  3. Firm up Scavenger instead. Guarantee the first special killed each mission drops a bomb, or stop making bombs share their roll with potions.

Option 1 is the one I’d pick, because the code for it already exists and has already been balance-tested on this exact character.

The objections, pre-empted

“Bombs are the Engineer’s identity.” Ranger Veteran was the bomb career for years before the December 2023 Engineer rework. When that patch landed, “OE is a better bomber than RV now” was an immediate and very common reaction on these forums and on Steam. I’m not asking for anything to come off the Engineer — keep his two bombs, keep the 3-bomb belt, keep the dual-effect explosions. I’m asking for one bomb on a career whose talents already assume he has one.

“It’d be too strong.” It is one bomb, once, at spawn, on a career that can hold exactly one, gated behind a level 30 pick that costs you a real team buff. The Engineer gets strictly more than this and nobody calls him oppressive for it. If Versus is the concern, exclude it there — Adventure and Chaos Wastes are where the talent is dead.

“Just find one.” That advice works right up until the map doesn’t have one, which is a lot of the time, which is the entire post.

If there’s an actual design reason for the asymmetry, I’d genuinely like to hear it, because from out here it looks like Parting Gift is simply older than the Engineer’s bomb rework and never got looked at again when the rest of the game’s bomb economy moved on around it.

Cheers.

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litterally the most used talent by a longshot, cant remember last time i didnt see it on a RV.. what are we talking about

what a nightmare, having to actually fight a horde without ult and bomb?! impossible

same with potions, while we at give shade a guaranteed conc pot cant be that theres a possibility of fighting a monster without one

right. no one :face_with_monocle:

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well then remove two bombs given to OE barding, as the same applies to him. I suppose you drop them right away to “actually fight a horde” right ? and on other classes you press right mouse button on level 30 talents to disable them, to “actually fight the horde”, right ? thats what you do and that is what you’re advocating for here, right ?

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im talking about game balance and not your opinion of how to play the game. One class gets bombs and another one doesnt, thats imbalance. most careers have right away usable lvl 30 talents, and this one not, thats imbalance. If you have nothing to say on the matter, ty for you opinion, you can take it with you

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shade doesnt have any talent gated behind purple potion, rv bardin does - no bomb, no lvl 30 talent

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please do, and while were at it remove his 3 slots back to one like everyone else, he can keep his dual effects

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Cant tell if you’re being sarcastic taking away one of his defining traits

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hmm before the rework the engineer didnt regenerate bombs, and actually i think it is still too good and should be removed.

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im not talking about bombs regeneration. You havent played in a while or what ? Im talking about the talent where his bombs gain effect of both fire and normal bombs and he starts a level with two bombs. I dont think its OP giving how people perform on that class. I’m saying that it would make sense for RV if lvl 30 parting gift talent selected, to start a level with one firebomb as well, otherwise plenty of time that talent is useless, and it isnt fair in comparison to other heroes and careers where their lvl 30 talents are usable right away and this one has to pray for a bomb.

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The Tourney Balance mod made a neat change to Parting Gift, RV can only get the free bomb throw while Disengage is actually active. If he doesn’t throw the bomb during that window, he loses the opportunity.

I think that’s a better implementation. It makes Parting Gift something you have to use deliberately, rather than letting RV simply press his ability whenever convenient to bank a free bomb.

If Fatshark made that change and then gave Ranger Veteran one starting bomb when Parting Gift is the equipped level 30 talent, I think that would put the talent in a pretty fair spot.

Engineer already gets a strong version of bomb utility through Bombardier: every bomb gets both the explosion and firebomb effects, and he starts with two bombs. That guarantees Bombardier provides value even in situations where the team is rushing, bomb pickups are scarce, or a modifier disables pickups entirely.

Parting Gift, meanwhile, is also a talent whose entire function depends on RV already having a bomb, yet he isn’t guaranteed one at the start of the mission. One starting bomb would simply guarantee that a level 30 talent built around bomb duplication can actually be used at least once without depending too much on RNG, whether quick-play randos share/rush.

Fatshark already seems to recognize this principle with Bombardier: if a talent fundamentally depends on having bombs, giving the player an initial supply makes sense.

Also, please make it so Chaos Wastes Infinite Bomb potions don’t duplicate Morgrims and so that RV can’t duplicate Morgrims. I’m tired of the bomb cheese meta in Chaos Wastes.

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That must be hyperbole. I see Exhilarating Vapours as often as Parting Gift.

If anything, I think that says more about Surprise Guest being a bit weak than it does about Parting Gift being especially strong. Surprise Guest could probably use something extra, like additional cooldown reduction or another benefit to make it more competitive.

The one place where I do see Parting Gift picked almost exclusively is Chaos Wastes, because it’s currently full of bomb boons and has plenty of opportunities to abuse Morgrim’s Bomb.

Outside of that, Ranger Veteran isn’t exactly a high-damage career unless you’re getting good value out of Parting Gift or using Grudgeraker to blast hordes, and that’s fine. He’s a 100 HP support career.

I don’t think Parting Gift being popular necessarily means it’s that much better. Generally, I’ve noticed that given the option, the average quick-play player will choose the “give me more kills/damage” talents, even if it carries significant risk.

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not at all, of ten RV players about 10 have parting gift, when they use vapours its a notable deviation.

i dont know where you find these mystical vapours enjoyers

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You’re treating my anecdote like it’s absurd while presenting your own. Ironic. Acting incredulous about someone else’s in-game experience is just performative. It is a forum, and sadly, I think using rhetoric to make the person you’re arguing with seem like they’re making wild claims has become quite common, but it just makes those doing so seem insufferable to people legitimately sharing their experience.

“10 out of 10” is also just personal matchmaking experience. Me saying that I see Vapours frequently is equally anecdotal; neither establishes anything.

And it’s beside the point anyway, because popularity doesn’t establish that something is the best-designed or most effective option. As I said earlier, in quick play I’ve noticed players often gravitate toward builds that amount to more damage and kills, even if they carry more risk.

Earlier, you mocked the idea that Ranger Veteran might need a bomb before the first horde and compared it to giving Shade a guaranteed concentration potion. But @grenudi already pointed out the important distinction: Shade does not have a talent whose entire function is gated behind possessing that potion. Parting Gift is.

If Parting Gift really is overwhelmingly selected despite sometimes being completely non-functional at the beginning of a map, that could just as easily indicate that the other level-30 options are not especially competitive. I personally think Vapours is competitive, and I see it used fairly often, but it’s a team-oriented buff that provides health rather than immediate burst damage. Unsurprisingly, that is less attractive to the “gib me kills” type of player than being able to recycle bombs.

The actual question I’m interested in is:

Should a level-30 talent whose only effect requires a bomb, also then guarantee access to that bomb?

I’d argue yes.

Right now, it’s inconsistent with Engineer’s comparable talent, and it leaves Parting Gift dependent on map RNG and team behavior. Some maps give you easy access to bombs early on. On others, you may have to go out of your way, fall behind the team, or hope someone else doesn’t grab the bomb first.

That’s why I often take Vapours in quick play. I’ve had plenty of runs where I get very little value from Parting Gift simply because I don’t get a bomb for a large portion of the map, if at all.

@grenudi may have muddied the point a bit by using words like “imbalance,” because that makes it sound like the argument is just that Parting Gift is weak and needs a buff. That isn’t really my issue with it; in fact in Chaos Wastes it’s pretty OP.

My issue is consistency. If a level-30 talent has one function, and that function requires a specific consumable, I think the talent should give you access to that consumable.

Parting Gift being a popular option or not doesn’t really answer that.

I can understand the argument that the RNG is part of what keeps it balanced, but that gets shaky when bomb availability varies so much depending on the mode and map. In Chaos Wastes, bombs are much easier to come by, and there are boons that can make them even stronger. On some campaign maps, bombs are easy to grab without leaving the group. On others, getting one can mean falling behind or taking a stupid risk while the team keeps moving.

So not starting with a bomb doesn’t really balance the talent so much as make it inconsistent. Sometimes it works almost immediately. Sometimes you can go a large chunk of the map without your level-30 talent doing anything.

There’s also the simple annoyance of having to ask teammates for bombs just so the talent can function. Having to type in chat or break the silence with the crappy steam VC gets old fast. It’s one of the main reasons I’m much more likely to take Parting Gift when I’m playing with people in Discord than when I’m in quick play.

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Are you guys seriously suggesting buffing one of the strongest ults in the game?

If you want guaranteed bombs, then also take Scavenger. And if you want to give him a free bomb at the start or whenever he ults, how do you even determine which bomb it should be? Some people prefer fire bombs, others explosive bombs when they gift their parting enemies.

And regarding OE: leave the old greybeard alone. He earned the right to bring his own stuff with him.

The dude built a machine gun with endless ammo in his room, built some half-finished exoskeleton capable of shattering the world every 15 seconds, and somehow figured out how to make bombs explode and burn at the same time. Making his own bombs and bringing them along on a mission is hardly the unbelievable part.

Technical limitations are just opinions to him.

And the bombs he can make during a mission aren’t really bombs anyway. More like firecrackers.

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heh

Pawelpl55 16

2 Likes
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@Bib Scavenger doesn’t guarantee bombs. It gives special kills a 20% chance to drop either a potion or a bomb instead of an ammo cache, so that’s just adding another layer of RNG to the exact problem I’m talking about.

As for which bomb it should give you, I don’t really see that as a problem. Make it a frag, make it incendiary, or pick one for balance reasons. The specific bomb isn’t the point; the point is giving Parting Gift access to the resource its entire function depends on.

The Engineer comparison is also getting a bit beside the point, because I don’t think anyone here is seriously arguing for changing Engineer. The bombs Engineer regenerates actually do the same base damage as normal bombs. I’ve been using the source code as a reference for some modding work, and the main reason they feel weaker is that their explosion radius is halved, which means its effective spherical volume is only about one eighth that of a normal explosive bomb (0.5^3 = 0.125). As an aside, I do think they’re a bit weak, though the +50% explosion radius Trinket trait helps quite a bit with that.

But in response to “don’t you touch my heckin’ engineer” you’re talking about how OP you think he is while saying he “earned the right to take his bombs with him” doesn’t add up. I’m not interested in changing Engineer, despite arguably being OP, I think he’s mostly in a good spot. It’s mainly the damage the crank gun does to monsters paired with 11 trollhammer shots.

@Riku Genuinely considering your statement of near 100% Parting Gift players hyperbole reads differently to me than describing my experience as finding “mystical Vapours enjoyers”, but fair enough if you were also being genuine. At this point, though, our views on each other’s tone have less to do with the topic and probably more to do with the fact that we simply wouldn’t enjoy each other’s company. You’re not really engaging with the actual proposition anymore.

@Pawelpl55 The video is showing the power of incendiary bombs in a modded scenario where an absurd number of elites are spawned at once, in numbers you generally aren’t going to encounter in normal play outside of something like Deeds combined with Twitch. It’s a very specific setup involving three incendiary throws. That isn’t representative of the normal situation.

I’m going to point back to what I originally proposed, because I think people have gotten stuck on “buff” versus “no buff” and are treating this as though I’m simply asking to make Parting Gift stronger:

Taken together, I think those changes make sense: make the free throw more restrictive and deliberate, while guaranteeing that the talent can actually function at least once without depending on map RNG or another player handing you its prerequisite.

So far, most of the replies seem to be arguing against “buff Parting Gift” in the abstract rather than engaging with that specific tradeoff. Nobody is really acknowledging that Parting Gift can be a strong talent while still having situations where you get little to no value from it. That’s the inconsistency I’m talking about. In Fortunes of War or Chaos Wastes, it can be extremely powerful. On a campaign map where the team is rushing and soaking up utility, you can end up getting nothing from the talent at all, and I’ve had that happen plenty of times.

A starting bomb also has almost no buff potential in situations where the map already guarantees easy access to one. Its main effect is raising the talent’s floor in the situations where bomb availability happens to be poor.

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might has to do with the fact that you write 2k word essays over a minute topic, aint nobody got time to engange in a conversation with someone who either cant or dont want to summerise his thoughts in a digestable manner.

dismissing a nieche scenario, while also building an arugment on an nieche scenario.. peak

map with no bomb is rare, map with no bomb AND no bombs from scavanger? like hell you should play lottery. as for teammates not passing on the bomb, i can only repeat myself, its part of the game, shade wont do remotely as much burst without potion, not healing a zealot is advantagous, knowing classes and passing on stuff is good, rewarding gameknowlege is good, rewarding awareness and teamplay is good.

autopilot making your decisions is bad

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I think you’re still conflating resource management with resource access.

Calling them all “niche scenarios” is a cop-out because the scenarios aren’t equivalent. One is a deliberately constructed modded scenerio; the other is a normal gameplay condition where bomb access can be delayed by map layout, team pace, pickups, or RNG. Lumping them together under “niche” avoids engaging with the actual difference. I also dont think taking scavenger should be a requisite to get utility from the talent.

The Shade comparison also still isn’t equivalent: potions enhance Shade, while Parting Gift does nothing without a bomb.

And one starting bomb isn’t an excuse to play on “autopilot.” The Tourney Balance version I mentioned actually adds more timing pressure by making the free throw expire with Disengage.

That’s really the whole point: guarantee access to the talent’s prerequisite, not remove the decisions around using it. Again, access to one bomb from the start doesn’t make it more powerful when bombs are alredy accessible. It helps in scenarios where they’re not. Its not going to make it OP.

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shade without pot. 15-25% dmg to monster.

with pot monster dead.

RV without bomb. aoe stagger 10s invis, increaed ranged dmgshot.

rv with bomb: aoe stagger, 10s invis, increased ranged dmgshot + free bomb throw.

the fact that in one scenario a character has spent a talent point that does nothing is meaningless to me. it is effectively the same.

in near most cases there a perfectly usable bombs on any given map, hence the scenario where none exist is already Nieche. scavanger acts as an accellerant not an “requisite”.

a scenario where you neither find a bomb on a map AND dont get a drop from scavanger is near nil id wager.

the ult does a ton with or without a bomb, youre focusing on the skillpoint you invested solely, but completely ignore that its one of if not the most bang for your buck skillpoint the game.

no im not. talking about mangaging resources is meaningless with parting gift, no dwarf worth his salt is using the bomb ever without it. same reason why engaging with “its just one bomb” argument is redundant. its simply effectly not true.

none of which is a tragedy. youre just claiming consistency should be considered for the sake of it, and try to support your argument by a nieche scenario that is at best unlikely.

fact is the game has random aspects

BH needs to kill elites for dmg reduction, few elites sawns = low dmg reduction

GK needs grim? too bad grim is 15km away

i know that you cant comprehend my line of thinking, but teamplay where everyone understand their assignment, being aware of not only your but EVERYONES strenghts and weaknesses, passing on items as needed and running like a well oiled mashine, is the best gameplay in V2.

the moment you provide these automatically you romve the aspect of cooperation, hence autopilot, you dont get rewarded for being aware for other peoples needs, “just play your character”. more characters should have unique consumable interactions with that exact requirement.