Please FS give Reaping talent from Necro to Pyro. It does not make sense that Necro has it and it could make Pyro more playable and it also fits her much more. (Necro should have something more oriented to skeletons)
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I agree on both suggestions
Granted I’ve always been ambivalent about Pyromancer’s identity as it’s just a fancy way of saying adding % damage to her attacks and I feel it needs a better identity, Reaping might actually make it more interesting thanks to the added cleave
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no with this high crit chance it would be just OP. Pyro does only need a rework on the level 25 and level 30 talents. The THP on ultimate is too good in combination with “Spirit-Casting” and at the level 25 Talents “Volan`s Doctrine” is also mandatory. If these 2 would be passives and being replaced by other talents that would be all what she needs. But for sure no reaping with a 55% critical strike chance … that is just shouting out shouting things out without thinking about it.
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Yeah, if someone could somehow try testing reaping on Pyro in the modded realm you can, I’m 110% sure you’d find it would be laughably overpowered nonsense that trivializes everything. On Necromancer when you get a higher crit chance with with WHC’s ult, it’s already ridiculously powerful having 40% of your attacks do high damage and clean sweep through armor.
If you put that on Pyromancer (who can currently 1-shot a stormvermin with a headshot crit on cata with most of her weapons) she could conceivably one-shot 4 or more Stormvermin with Crowbill heavy, and most of the time, you could just spam overcharge to get 50% of your attack to not only crit but now cleave through swarms of armored elites.
Pyromancer isn’t underpowered at all, it’s a great hybrind melee/ranged glass cannon DPS career. She just needs no overcharge slowdown to be part of her normal abilities because, without it, she is almost worthless. Then replace Volan’s Doctrine with something, not sure what, maybe slower overcharge for people who want to use more ranged.
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I still disagree on Pyro’s identity being melee sienna. That should be unchained.
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Yes, she is a hybrid.
She would not be OP, she would still have a very weak survivability. Like OE, she has nothing to save her in difficult situations. With Reaping She could at least compete with other Sienna’s careers.
You can easily build her around her staves with heatsink and beamstaff, fireball staff and coruscation staff
she literally has a panic button which saves you her ult gives you thp. IMO bw is much more squishy.
She has enough survivability only issue is her clutch potential and that she is very limited with talents, thats why i would prefer to have thp on ult, and volan`s doctrine as passive and have instead other talents which are more viable and give more versatility.
Tbh that’s the problem in and of itself. You kinda described all 3 of her base classes.
Like there’s the sentiment that Unchained is her melee career, but give Unchained a Corusation staff, and even without the boost to ranged attacks she’ll still **** everything to death with those flame pillars with comparatively few difficulties
I do wish pyromancer had more of an identity. FatSharks mistake is giving all Sienna’s careers access to all melee weapons and staves Instead of limiting some staves to certain set of careers like the soul stealing staff.
Necromancer aside, I can understand wanting her careers to have more of a unique flair cosmetically or have more weapons unique to each one, but in playstyle, they are all different, though naturally, they all have a DPS and DOT thing going on with the fire.
Battle Wizard is mainly a ranged career.
Pyromancer is a hybrid of melee and ranged.
Unchained is more of a melee tank.
They’re all flexible on whether you play with range or melee depending on how you set them up, but they’re all very much their own thing.
You can do this with Pyromancer too. I just played Cata Twitch mode yesterday at 199% (30 vote/15 between) 45 seconds between spawns and the Pyromancer joined late with the coruscation staff and easily did more damage than a Bounty Hunter XBow and me playing Slayer. That’s just the coruscation staff.
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Reaping for Pyromancer sounds like a bad idea. Actually, Reaping for any career sounds like a bad idea. Considering how traditionally badly balanced anything with crit-based trigger conditions in this game is, the talent was bound to be overpowered. I know no other game where EVERY character can have at least 15 % crit chance and there is a reason why most games would avoid this unless you make crits so bad it doesn’t make a difference.
So no, Reaping should not be on Pyromancer. Or Necromancer. As for Pyromancer, I’ll repeat myself. Remove Volan’s Doctrine from existence, the talent should have never existed in the first place. Then change Pyromancer’s identity away from crit-based playstyle. Use the chance to discern Sienna’s careers more with one being more controll-based, one being more ranged-based and one being more melee-based. Unchained and Battle Wizard would only need minor changes for this. Pyromancer needs a rework though. But there is a simple possibility to give her some unique gameplay not in the game so far.
There are quite a few games like this that work well enough to maintain a large player base. Many action RPGs allow DPS players to reach like 70% crit rate or even higher in some cases. Many Path of Exile DPS players go for a 90% crit rate. In Grim Dark around 15-25% crit chance is considered good.
Verminitde isn’t an action RPG but it borrows a lot from them and I think the crit system works. Maybe what needs more consideration is how certain traits and abilities trigger based on crits, like Swift Slaying, which stands out as the most powerful melee trait by far, and most of the others besides Opportunist are meh.
I think a good number of players would be unhappy if Pyromancer’s “crit-based playstyle” was gone. One of my friend’s most played careers is pyromancer. What you’re asking for is such a major change to the current dynamic.
Currently, Pryomancer would only need a small change to make the crit playstyle work well by putting Volan’s Doctrine on her innate abilities since she only has like 2, the 10% ranged power bonus, and the crits on overcharge.
Then make a level 25 talent to reduce the overcharge gain rate by maybe 10% similar to the Heat Sink trait so you can use more ranged if you like. If a few of the numbers on the other talents were tweaked, that would help too, since Spirit Casting with Bonded Flame probably almost always beats out the other two talents in the level 10 row and level 30 rows which is why so many pyromancer builds look nearly identical.
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Sometimes things have to be lost. Then again, removing crit-based Pyromancer is not a loss. Because if you like that playstyle you can play Witch Hunter. Or Bounty Hunter. And it is not like there is some short coming of crit playstyle. Nearly every character can be played crit-based because of the high values. On the other hand, reworking Pyromancer could give the game something new which is not in the game yet. A beneficial situation.
And that is the one change I would hate to see. Volan’s Doctrine should not be existing. It should be removed while reworking Pyromancer. Using unlimited magic without no drawback is a bad designed system. This is all of FSs fetish from the last BBB to concentrate to much on mobility in the game. Not seeing that with the ability the players have in addition to the panic button, push, dodge and block makes it very hard to challenge them outside of spamming enemies. This smoothing out of everything is detrimental. The game needs a bit more clunkiness and some more slow downs where justified in order to make weapons not longer feel like massless toys and making players flail their arms.
Pyromancer needs a major rework and more interesting identity. Zealot too, but different topic.
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You can play tank with Ironbreaker, Foot Knight, Warrior Priest or Unchained. That doesn’t mean you remove one. Just as you can make builds for many characters centered on crits, the same could be said of most other types of talents too, including ones that make you tanky. That doesn’t mean it’s to the extent that it completely trivializes the game.
Darktide did it fine, and in Vermintide you still have limits that aren’t in Darktide from overcharging like losing health from venting. Just saying things that are bogus doesn’t help make your point.
I think clunkiness holds back games as much as floating around through the mission. Limiting a player’s ability to move quickly and efficiently with artificial slowdowns isn’t the solution. Movement in games often evolves from the use of the environment, and that is something Vermintide 2 lacks. It’s a very linear environment that you don’t interact with much besides cheesing enemies on ledges. The game has enough means of trapping players into corners without making overcharge obnoxiously reduce your speed.
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Though critical hits are designed basically to circumvent certain gameplay elements like armored damage or damage cleave. It basically makes the game even more of a LMB simulator and simply doesn’t make for much enticing gameplay. That is also the reason why it is popular. Because it is on the high end of the effectiveness scale while being on the lower end of the difficulty of application scale. Which … isn’t exactly good game design. Look at the most popular WHC Cataclysm talent. 100 % melee crits, just LMB away the SV horde. I am simply more interested in more different design approaches and I would be more than willing to part for example with a tank career although it is my preferred playstyle.
Can’t comment on Darktide as I haven’t played the game. Though FS mentioned they did intent for Darktide to have more ranged gameplay. Under these circumstances it makes sense to remove the drawbacks. For Vermintide though, each time we see ranged spam without those, it makes for a very boring experience for teammates like Coruscation spam, Griffon Foot Spam, Crossbow spam, Javelin spam. We should add some more drawbacks instead of removing the actual working and interesting ones.
Nobody is talking about artificial slowdowns. But these not being in place is being exploited and abused. Why are Javelins spammed? Because in contrast to Longbow they have no slowdown, not for aiming (unless you wait to long) nor for reloading/summoning. Trollhammer Torpedp has no slowdown while you reload a multiple kg heavy shell. A weapon that gives you basically 20 free bombs per mission, without some movement penalty. Unlimited air-w@nking also is a thing. I am not asking for making the whole game slower. I am asking for elements to reduce the spamming of ranged attacks and LMB melee, in order to make the co-op game being centered more around co-op, instead of a dps race of four players. The game is certainly not on the clunky scale but more on the floaty scale. Swift Slaying simply feels awful like you use toy weapons. Watching a Zealot windmilling through a map also doesn’t look good.
Psshh amateur numbers, I’ve seen games reach 255% Crit chance. You’ll Crit your Crit’s Crit consistently.
You’ll get no disagreement from me here. Pyromancer always overlapped way too much with the other careers and outside of WHC who does something interesting with the critical headshots, Pyromancer’s is just there as a boring DPS boost
And thematically it’s always been too close to Unchained.
Always figured between Pyro and BW one should focus on AOE while the other focuses on single target staves. Or burst vs DoT
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Crits’ general impact is inconsistent; discouraging left mouse button spam. WHC’s ability crits offer a fleeting power boost making it exciting to use and Pyromancer’s are only at high overcharge.
Every time I have a conversation on these forums, people bring up every annoying weapon in this game that is spammed for brownie points.
We’re talking about Pyromancer, Coruscation staff aside, she’s not an OP power fantasy career. In fact, she seems hugely underrated by most players, none of the other stuff you brought up is relevenat to how she plays with Volan’s Doctrine. Balancing high crits at the cost of having overcharge for ranged requires a bit more sense of timing to use effectively. She has lower health than WHC for similar damage output.
But that’s exactly what overcharge slowdown is and Volan’s Doctrine counters it nicely.
Vermintide is a game that encourages mobility and you have to keep moving through missions to avoid getting stuck on your own and stay with the team. There are already features in place to keep staves from being spammed, it’s just a matter of ensuring the right amount of overcharge for the attack and managing the speed and cost of reducing it.
That’s an interesting problem that isn’t unique to Vermintide. Most co-op games suffer from DPS taking center stage. I don’t know the solution without basically removing DPS careers from the game and replacing them with something else.
I would agree she doesn’t have much of a unique identity, but if anything, what helps make her unique is a crit-based career that has to alternate between ranged and melee. Changing her from being a crit-based career to something else could help, but what would that look like?
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If abilities would be less often available I would agree. But most career skills have 90 seconds or lower cooldown, not counting active cooldown. And Overcharge isn’t exactly difficult to keep. Even if you are not familiar with Pyromancer having a constant 30 % crit chance isn’t difficult which makes it very reliable and consistent.
But the connection is right here. You mentioned it yourself. These weapons are annoying because they are powerful while being highly mobile because they don’t slow you down. The same concept for Volan’s Doctrine which lets you use a 40 % crit chance without the associated cooldown. Also, the amount of overcharge is meaningless in a game where an overcharge buffer exist. It is roughly 3 seconds and then you can cast again, no matter how high the cost are. For Unchained this is balanced with the fact that you are for this three seconds an one-hit wonder. For Pyromancer on Doctrine? Not an issue, she can keep spamming her staff while keeping all the benefits with extremely low risk. High power should come with moderate risk or drawback.
It is not the dps that is the issue. It is the mobility coupled with all the defense mechanics. If the characters were actually a bit less mobile even more dps would not be an issue. The problem with Vermintide is that the player has so many options to avoid damage that the concept of a glass cannon does not exist within the game. The only two careers coming close are an Engineer with zero awareness or a Pyromancer without Volane’s Doctrine. But effectively, there are no glass cannons in Vermintide.
Personally, I would go in the direction I mentioned multiple time in this thread. Going slow but heavy. But with a community that is highly dependent on mobility, I see issues with acceptance. Make her a slow-moving ballista. Let her keep the overcharge penalty but give her a ranged damage buff from 30-50 % when she is above 80 % heat. Don’t make the curve linear but exponential. You have a chance for devastating damage but you need to play around the decreased mobility. In order to circumvent this her level xx talents would center around this passive. One talent would deal a very low constant AoE damage while being on high heat giving you some help with lower help horde enemies. One would increase your dodge distance by up to 50 %, making you a mobile ballista but you need to be aware to where you dodge. And the last would be a boring attack speed buff, so that you can still fight normally at high overcharge though you still have the slow movement. Although not sure on the third talent. Depending on cruelty of developers, you could actually get even more extreme. Then you could use as third talent that your ranged damage increases even more, up to 75 % total bonus, however overcharge slowdown is also increased. Or the third talents makes melee attacks decrease overcharge so that she can get down easier to more mobility at cost of her power. This would make for a melee/ranged hybrid playstyle. There are actually some options if you center her passive around ranged damage instead of simply crits.
Though numbers need to be adjusted. Could be to much or not enough, seeing that Necromancer already got that sweet 30 % ranged damage bonus.
Basically the concept while fighting would be Fire Ballista. Pyromancer would in this way be the ranged anti-horde career.
Slightly more consistent, 30% isn’t reliable. Neither is a coin flip. Getting the extra crit chance tied to overcharge makes it less reliable than a flat bonus. It’s give and take.
The weapons you mentioned are OP, pyromancer is not and slowdown debuffs from overcharge isn’t analogous to slowdown from having to charge an attack or reload.
There is a limit based on how long the overcharge lasts and high overcharge restricts your ability to use Staff until it is cleared.
This is again hyperbole and remove the hyperbole and the logic doesn’t make sense.
If a cooldown is meaningless, then why have an overcharge buffer at all? Because it does restrict.
A few seconds to reload a weapon makes a huge difference and, and it is not 3 seconds to clear overcharge without venting.
So the alternative to offering ways to avoid damage is slowing them down and reducing mobility and speed? I don’t follow the logic you mean reduce a player’s capacity to dodge or block?
To me the fewer defensive options, the easier you have to make the game, because only need to worry about blocking if they can’t dodge, or vice versa. A game that offers more than one defensive mechanic requires greater mastery.
I maintain glass cannons do exist in Vermintide, I think most players have to sink an excessive amount of time into the game to effectively avoid damage. It’s pretty difficult to go through a match without getting hit.
It’d be much less accessible if it were otherwise. As is, enemies outpace you and have many tools to force players to be careful about positioning and movement such as gas, fire, pushes through blocks, visibility restrictions, ice-skating to get you if you don’t time a dodge right, etc etc.
Interesting idea, especially for a mage-type. I’ve always felt Battle Wizard should be more like what you’re describing. Less mobile, but with intense powerful attacks that take more time to charge and good game sense. Pyromancer’s design makes her seem like she’d be a lightweight DPS type.
I actually prefer playing characters that lack mobility but compensate for it in other ways. They do require more awareness and careful timing to master because when an action takes longer, you have to have a good sense of timing to pull it off. I feel like Ranger Vet can be one of those characters in melee because he is squishy and his melee weapons can be sluggish. Trying to use him with two-handers is difficult, but a fun challenge.
However, I feel cosmetically and thematically that’d require a huge change to the character. Even the basic artistic design of the character suggests a highly mobile type. Maybe I’m just used to Pyromancer being a crit DPS character, but it seems like such a huge change that it’d take.
Back to your issue with Pyromancer, or perhaps Vermintide in general, I understand. There’s a lot of fun in mastering careful timing and slow powerful attacks vs floating through the mission. I still there’s room for both playstyles though assuming they are balanced well enough. You can always temper a speedy character DPS by reducing their damage through various constraints, but it will never be as rewarding or have as high a skill ceiling as one that moves slower and requires more careful positioning and timing.
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