I know the squeakiest wheel gets the grease, so I want to voice my concern once again with the stagger temp health talent. It’s been over-nerfed. This was done a while ago, so maybe I’m beating a dead horse.
I think the temp health talent changes (the ones where heal share was removed) were a notable improvement, but the temp health talent needs to be buffed – maybe not necessarily to where it was before, but in a healthy middle ground.
I think it was dropped from 8 to 2 temp hp gain, so why not make it 4 or 5? Too many weapons, particularly shielded weapons, are no good now because of the nerf.
This happens a lot with different games. There were some weapons that were way OP in Hell Divers 2, and then they overnerfed the weapons to the point where they were un-usable. I think we’ve reached a similar place in V2 with the stagger talent. That’s why I propose that it gets buffed to a halfway point between where it is now and where it used to be.
Yes and no, it affects different careers and weapons differently. On Warrior Priest, the talent is pretty much useless for weapon combos/builds that used to rely on it. This might explain why your experience of the nerf is different from mine.
Another argument I would add is that this talent buff wouldn’t be burdensome to other players in the way that Outcast Engineer’s trollhammer is. This is because it doesn’t give you an overwhelming advantage over other players in terms of getting green circles. If Bardin gets more temp hp from his shielded weapons on, say, Ranger Veteran, this doesn’t give him too big of an advantage.
Again, I have to circle back to my initial point, certain builds, careers, and weapons are more heavily penalized for the nerf than others. For some weapons, it’s painfully bad.
So, it’s NOT as though we need to go back to where it was, but it needs to be buffed to a nice halfway point, such that some weapons/careers/builds won’t be OP, but others aren’t useless anymore either.
Well, he probably is talking about non-modded, because on modded almost everyone uses the Tourney Balance mod which I think has it’s own stagger values.
If he is talking about modded though, it’d make more sense, because mostly only trash get staggered on Cata 3, you’re looking at a massive reduction to that stagger THP, where with a huge crowd density and high health, the buffs to THP on kill and on hitting multiple enemies are more reliable.
Yeah C3 DWONS, but still, most people use Tourney Balance mod with it’s own THP values. It’s not so much difficult as it is a slog where you bunker up and hold for every horde and memorize where to hold, boss triggers, and kiting patterns for arenas.
Still, not everything gets staggered with basically every weapon on non-modded. Stormvermin and maulers are easy enough to stagger, but to knock around chaos warriors and plague monks consistently on Legend and Cata, you have to optimize for it.
With a shield and a career optimized for it, you can get Stagger THP reliably, but fairly slowly. It’s weak, and since I don’t often need excessive stagger to get by, I’m using weapons that hit many enemies, or kill to get elites fast to get THP. The update effectively nerfed weapons that mainly stagger which used to be ways to optimize builds for survival over dealing damage.
I like all the other changes to THP, but the stagger THP needs a tiny buff. It was a bit high before, but now it’s so low that I usually don’t bother with shields.
Thank you for that. I agree especially about the tradeoff: the advantage of the shielded weapons is that you sacrifice damage output but you get lots of temp health. If the temp hp gain is lacking, then the whole purpose of the weapon just goes out the window.
I agree that the stagger temp hp was high before, which is also why I (like you, I believe) think something in between would fare best.
You mentioned in your first comment the Temp HP on kill, which I use on certain careers/builds, but overall is difficult to manage in non-twitch games and even in some cata twitch games too. The biggest reason is that temp hp on kill puts you in direct competition with your teammates – competition over monster kills, elite kills, etc. This is another reason why stagger temp hp is so good; you don’t have to compete with your team, and hence turn it into a toxic race for kills.
Since the buff, THP on kill works pretty decent with weapons that deal big damage in one strike.
I use it over stagger on 1H Axe, Greataxe, Greathammer, War Pick. So, for me it’s mostly a Bardin talent.
The only time I struggle with it is on Legend against skaven-only hordes which gives very little THP.
The only career I bother with shields on now is Engineer since the only reason I’m using melee on Engineer is just to get kill roaming trash or clear space.
Honestly, the Second Wind nerf has made playing some of my favorite setups completely unenjoyable. Using Fire Sword on Battle Wizard used to let you sustain yourself in the thick of a horde with just a few well-timed bashes, now it barely keeps you alive at all. On top of that, shielded weapons for Dwarf careers aren’t nearly as effective for THP anymore, which used to make tanking and pushing hordes genuinely fun.
It feels like FS just gutted the talent without thinking about the fun factor or how it impacts different careers. I understand wanting to balance THP across the board, but making stagger-based sustain so weak that you can’t even play aggressively like you used to? That’s a real step back. I’d love to see either a rollback or at least a serious reconsideration, this change has honestly made Second Wind the worst lvl 5 THP talent by a mile.
The first few games after the nerf did seem to me like it suddenly became almost useless. But that was because I had learned a play style where avoiding hits wasn’t that important. In other words, it was pretty much a cheap foolproof crutch allowing you to thrive without needing much skill or tactics.
The fun factor was also diminished at first for me because I used those careers when tired or wanting less intense gameplay. Something I don’t remember being mentioned is that hit trading for faster ult recharge was also indirectly nerfed by a lot, which sucks a bit, but was also probably a bit too powerful at those extremes. Someone got grabbed in a horde or pulled a patrol or something, my IB could just get clobbered a bit to get the ult back then immediately top up to max again. Felt like an exploit so I’m not too upset that’s been toned down.
But after adapting a bit it’s still the most powerful thp generator in hordes with high stagger cleave weapons for me. Ex, one H1 hit from shield & hammer on IB into a thick horde can give 25 thp. It requires more positioning to maximize the number of enemies hit if you need to quickly gain thp. I still think it’s a better balance now compared to the others.
I haven’t played dual hammers in a long time so not sure how well it does there vs cleave thp. It’s still ok on the 2h hammer with an aggressive play style but does require hordes to quickly get topped up again. So instead of being generally the best choice when available, it got pushed into the best choice of thp generation for the horde cc role for high stagger cleave weapons.
The first few games after the nerf did seem to me like it suddenly became almost useless. But that was because I had learned a play style where avoiding hits wasn’t that important. In other words, it was pretty much a cheap foolproof crutch allowing you to thrive without needing much skill or tactics.
I wholeheartedly disagree, Cape. Taking damage and getting hit is simply inevitable on higher difficulties, and temp hp is the one remedy a player has against those random hits you take from a single infantry after the horde has been cleared – you know what I’m talking about. lol. You also just take more hits after you take a few days or weeks off from the game and you get a little rusty. The whole “don’t take damage” pushback against my points is just asking for perfection.
Moving away from temp hp altogether was a great improvement in darktide, where the random hits don’t matter as much and you can just enjoy the game more not worrying about competing with your team for temp hp. Plus avoiding random hits, in Vermintide 2, also depends on your connection to a (sometimes unreliable) host.
Oh yeah, with EAC updates, connection issues seem to be more common. Peer to peer hosting in general causes latency issues, and it’s extremely punishing to take a single hit when you can’t avoid it.
That’s not quite what I was describing. With the old stagger thp I could play very recklessly during hordes without needing to worry about getting hit because the next attack would cancel the damage. Just bulldoze through without care. That playstyle was impossible on the careers that did not have stagger thp. So for me, it was a crutch I relied on for the times I wanted easier, less demanding gameplay. I play almost exclusively on legend, sometimes cata the few times I’m not too tired for it. From reading all the complaints on reddit/steam forums it seems to me that other people were also using it as a crutch, whether they realized it or not.
Avoiding unnecessary damage isn’t very difficult to learn when you need to, but you had no incentive to do so with the high stagger careers. So naturally those who relied heavily on that alone got a nasty surprise. Very understandable as you’re forced to adjust and learn to get to where you were before, and of course it’s going to feel unfair.
If you don’t consider constant vigilance part of the game, then sure, you’ll have trouble with those sneaky enemies you didn’t expect to be behind you. Take BH, previously considered one of the worst thp careers because it took more skill than the cleave or stagger available to other careers, and BH also didn’t excel at killing elites in melee which made kill thp weaker than headshot/crit. I had no problem staying alive and topped up, and avoiding more damage than headshot/crit thp could cover on BH. Stagger on the high stagger cleave weapons still outperform headshot/crit during hordes.
It’s also possible (for me on legend) to play well enough with poor ping by adjusting gameplay to proactive instead of reactive. Somewhere between 200-300 it gets too bad for careers with poor thp if the team isn’t quite good at working together. I very seldom get into games with pings over 150. Usually most games are between 60-100. So I may be lucky compared to others who have it worse. If you can’t get below 200, I agree that the stagger nerf was unfair because the step up in difficulty avoiding damage that stagger thp used to cover would be so much steeper than for someone with good ping.
By the way, I prefer high cleave weapons (except DD on shade) and I use opportunist on everything (even for DD) because it allows for more aggressive gameplay. When almost everything gets staggered even with light attacks, you can push less, dodge less, crowd control better, and do more damage while being more safe from taking damage. The only time I need to hold block is against monks/berserkers or unavoidable overheads. Otherwise its all attack with the occasional push attack if some enemies happen to slip through. Dodging is used mostly for positioning so swings land on the most enemies at once. This gameplay style has a nice synergy with stagger thp. I know most people like swift slaying and it could be that opportunist is what makes stagger thp work so nicely.
The game isn’t perfect. Just because one can “skill” their way around an issue doesn’t mean it’s not an issue. With time I’ve learned to adjust with latency and recognize scenarios where I’m going to take damage (e.g. getting boxed in by blightstorms/gas, having allies drag elites/monsters into me), so I’ve become more cautious about keeping health or THP high enough to survive those scenarios.
The truth is most enemies die or stagger at easy breakpoints with Veteran gear. The main advantage of a tank was the easy THP. All the Kruber and Bardin careers can stagger stuff, even Elf, Saltz, and Sienna can knock around elites. THP on Stagger pre-nerf served as a nice cushion, even if that’s not the ideal solution. With Stagger THP nerfed, the role of tanks and heavy stagger is diminished. A balanced adjustment between the old and current Stagger THP would help preserve the utility of tanking and tanking weapons without returning to the previous extremes.
Since the nerf, it’s changed how I play. I almost never use stagger THP and I find I’m contributing very little as a tank. That makes it a problem for me.
100% agree. The amount of THP we could get from this before the nerf was simply ridiculous. Couple shield bashes = full bar of temp HP. I could eat hits constantly and never worry about it.
Agree with this too. When using high stagger weapons it is still top tier for THP generation, just now it is better balanced and requires skill instead of just being a low-effort endless fountain of THP.
No, just no. There are two remedies for this:
Always check your 6
Listen for the “whoosh” sound that plays when you are about to get backstabbed
I agree it was OP before, but don’t let that obscure the fact that it’s underpowered now. I think a lot of people are missing the point that I’m suggesting a nice middle ground. It’s easy to read my post and say “it was OP before, and we’re not going back to that, therefore it’s best as it is” – when reverting to the pre-nerf level was never on the table.
In its current state, it’s the weakest temp hp talent, but yet it’s the only viable option for shielded weapons that otherwise don’t do much damage. So the upside to doing less damage is that you get to stay alive longer.
I wanted to reiterate my point before that getting lots of temp hp makes you a more effective tank for a lot of weapons and builds. This doesn’t ruin the game experience for anyone. We’re not talking about some engineer who is torpedoing everything or a grail knight who ults an entire chaos patrol on cata. And we’re not talking about a change that steals green circles away from others.
I think I’m being fairly reasonable here and am not saying anything controversial.