I wanted to share some suggestions, along with my reasoning for them, in regards to the Skullbreaker class. After 570 hours of gametime, much of it on Skullbreaker, I’ve noticed a few issues with him, mostly with his Feats. Skullbreaker is a strong character on all difficulties, but his Feats have poor synergy and encourage very few build types. I wanted to address this, as well as a few minor flaws I believe exist in Bull Rush and Intimidating Presence.
Ability: Bull Rush is a strong ability, but after playing with Unstoppable for quite some time I’ve found it nearly impossible to run any other level 30 Feat. Only moving 12 meters with Bull Rush feels incredibly limited, especially with its usual use cases of closing the distance with enemies or quickly reaching teammates in danger. Unstoppable increases its distance to 24 meters which gives the Skullbreaker excellent mobility, but this is a relatively underwhelming buff for a capstone Feat. Rolling this charge distance increase into the base ability allows for a more interesting Level 30 Feat to be added in its place. Depending on balance testing, the distance increase may need to be reduced a little to somewhere between 18-20 meters if it’s going to be intrinsic.
- Bull Rush: Charge forward 24 meters, knocking enemies back and gaining 25% Attack speed and 25% Movement speed for 5 seconds.
Aura: Many of Skullbreaker’s best melee weapons are often much more focused around Light Melee attacks rather than Heavy Melee attacks, meaning Intimidating Presence doesn’t often come into play for the Skullbreaker himself. This is also true, to varying extents, for the other class’s melee weapons. Changing it to a flat Melee Damage increase makes it much more versatile for both the Skullbreaker and his teammates.
- Intimidating Presence: +10% Melee Damage
Talents: This is where most of my suggestions are. My goal with these is to increase viable build variety at higher difficulties, as well as address a few areas where the Skullbreaker lacks Feat options available to the other 3 classes.
Level 5: Ogryn is the only class that lacks a way to passively regenerate Toughness independent of Coherency. Veteran has At Arms Length, Zealot has Enemies Within Enemies Without, and Psyker has Quietitude. Additionally, two of his Feats have a significant overlap and due to movesets only Best Form of Defense sees much use in the vast majority of builds that run it instead of Lynchpin. By combining the current functionality of Smash ‘Em Good and Best Form of Defense, builds focused around Heavy Melee attacks become more viable and it allows for the adding of a passive Toughness regeneration Feat.
- Lynchpin: Unchanged.
- Smash ‘Em Good: Replenish 5% Toughness per second when within melee range of Staggered enemies.
- Best Form of Defense: Replenish 20% Toughness on hitting an enemy with a Heavy Melee attack
Level 10: These Feats are fine. Heavyweight and Towering Presence are being swapped for a new Feat being added at level 15 to help facilitate build variety.
- Heavyweight: Unchanged, but moved to Level 15, switching places on the Feat tree with Towering Presence.
- Bombs Away!: Unchanged.
- Blood and Thunder: Unchanged
Level 15: Lead the Charge is generally considered to be one of the least useful Feats available to Skullbreaker, having few good use cases and being completely overshadowed by the other options at this level. The proposed change replaces it with a version of Heavyweight that affects fodder enemies, allowing for Skullbreaker players to either build for Elite sniping with Heavyweight and weapons such as the Grenadier Gauntlet or horde clearing with Biggest is Bestest and weapons such as the Ripper Gun. Bullfighter should also trigger on Specialist kills to bring it in line with the functionality of other Feats with similar triggers.
- Towering Presence: Unchanged, but moved to Level 10, switching places on the Feat tree with Heavyweight.
- Biggest is Bestest: +30% Damage (Poxwalkers and Groaners, Dreg & Scab Bruisers, Dreg and Scab Stalkers, Scab Shooters), +30% Damage Reduction (Poxwalkers and Groaners, Dreg & Scab Bruisers, Dreg and Scab Stalkers, Scab Shooters).
- Bullfighter: +10% Bull Rush Cooldown when you or an ally in Coherency kills an Elite or Specialist.
Level 20: Level 20’s Feats only need slight tweaks. An Attack Speed buff to Bloodthirst makes it easier to throw out heavy attacks without being hit during the slow charge up on most Ogryn melee weapons, and a slight change to Die Hard makes it more appealing to players concerned about death from health damage that bleeds through the Toughness bar, as well as generally giving it more uptime during a mission.
- Bloodthirst: +5% Attack Speed and +10% Damage Resistance per Bleeding Enemy in melee range. Stacks 5 times.
- Hard as Nails: Unchanged.
- Die Hard: +25% Toughness replenishment per 20% Health missing. Stacks 4 times.
Level 25: Compared to Payback Time, Knock ‘em down, beat ‘em up and Raging Bull are less consistently able to provide a noticeable damage boost, especially on higher difficulties. Changing them to have the same maximum damage boost, but with each stack giving a higher % increases their competitiveness with Payback Time’s flat 20% damage boost without increasing the amount of damage Skullbreaker can put out.
- Payback Time: Unchanged.
- Knock ‘em down, beat ‘em up: Staggering an enemy grants a stacking buff that increases the damage of your next Heavy Attack by 5%. Stacks are based on the size of your enemy. Stacks up to 10 times and last 10 sec.
- Raging Bull: Increases the damage against the next enemy you hit by 5% for each enemy you hit with your previous melee attack. Stacks up to 5 times.
Level 30: Ogryn’s existing Level 30 Feats don’t compare well to the Feats other classes get at Level 30. They aren’t bad, but they don’t increase the power or utility of Bull Rush as significantly as Feats such as Counterfire or Ascendant Blaze. As Unstoppable’s 100% Bull Rush distance buff is being rolled into the core ability, giving Skullbreaker the ability to break free of disabler enemies plays into his archetype of being a protective team lynchpin capable of bringing games back from otherwise certain failure. However, as the ability to charge through Ogryn enemies is still useful, rolling it into Non-Stop Violence gives the Skullbreaker an appealing way to use his Bull Rush more offensively.
- Bull Gore: Unchanged.
- Unstoppable: Using Bull Rush while Incapacitated by a Trapper, Pox Hound, or Mutant frees you.
- Non-Stop Violence: Replenish 10% Toughness per Bull Rush hit, and you cannot be blocked by enemies except Monstrosities.