Slayer?

[Danielgafforio]

Bardin slayer improvements:

Although the Slayer is a fun character, I believe he could receive some improvements in some talents and stats.

*Increased HP from 125 to 150.

*New advantage: the level 25 talent “barge” is now part of bardin’s advantages.

TALENTS

LEVEL 10

*A Thousand Cuts: (improves) Wielding one-handed weapons in both slots increases attack speed by 10%. Dual weapons count as one-handed. With each hit Bardin gains a focus stock, when reaching 40 stocks, the next melee attack in the air has increased damage. Each Focus stack increases damage by 3%. (Attacks while jumping also consumes stocks)

*Skull-Splitter: (improves) Wielding two-handed weapons in both slots increases power by 15%. Every 0.8 seconds of charging a heavy attack the Damage increases by 5%.

*Hack and Slash: (rework) for every 5% critical chance Bardin has, he gains 4% mitigation and 3% movement speed.

LEVEL 20

*Impatience: (improves) Each stack of Trophy Hunter increases movement speed by 10%. If the career skill is ready, the movement bonus lasts for another 6 seconds after it ends.

*High Tally: (improves) Increases maximum stacks of Trophy Hunter by 1. After hitting more than 20 times with 4 active stocks, increase maximum stacks by 2. (From 4 stocks to 6 stocks)

*Adrenaline Surge: (improves) On max stacks, Trophy Hunter grants cooldown reduction for Leap. Jump stun now deals damage. (I don’t know how much damage would be balanced, 25? 50?)

LEVEL 25

*Grimnir’s Focus: (buff) Hitting an enemy with a charged attack reduces damage taken by 40% for 15 seconds. (I believe this time buff is necessary for him to compete with the “Oblivious to Pain” talent.) Taking damage reduces the career skill time by 15%.

*Barge (rework) (now this talent is a passive), new talent, “WOUND RESISTANT”: all damage received is dealt over 5 seconds, each trophy hunter stack the damage received is reduced by 7% (3 maximum stocks).
When you drop below 40% health, gain 1 temporary life per hit.

LEVEL 30

Dawi-Drop: (improvement) Increases attack damage while airborne during Leap by 150%. Each trophy hunter stack extends the duration of the damage bonus by 0.6 seconds after the ability ends.

[Ensrick]

Most of these are great ideas, I like the 25 new talent idea. A similar thing to Warrior Priest’s Implacable would be neat on a tough dude like Slayer. For the English translation, I would call it Iron Skin. I especially like the idea of certain actions such as the use of career skills or kills being able to extend the duration of bonuses.

Though I have to say, Slayer is already a very survivable and very high-damage career. Mostly what you’re asking for also increases the bonuses. Essentially, you’re also asking for a massive buff to a career that is on par with Elf for how often people complain about selfish players using him as a way to recklessly rack up kills while using LMB spam.

Using Adrenaline Surge with Crunch makes it so that your ability is on pretty much 100% of the time as long as you can keep Trophy Hunter at max stacks, which is easy, especially with Swift Slaying and/or the 1-handed attack speed bonus perk.

If you take your ideas, which mainly enhance the game’s original talents, then fudge the numbers so that it’s not such a huge buff, then I’d call it good. The only one that really needs a buff to be more useful is Dawi-Drop, in which case, your idea with Trophy Hunter works better. I also thought it might be interesting if you land the strike it just gives you another use of your career skill similar to Waystalker’s Piercing Shot, but capped at two or three extra uses.

Take High Tally for example:

@Danielgafforio

Increases maximum stacks of Trophy Hunter by 1. After hitting more than 20 times with 4 active stocks, increase maximum stacks by 2. (From 4 stocks to 6 stocks)

As is, you’re not just reworking the talent, you’re buffing it and it’s already pretty good. If instead you increase the max stacks by 2, but reduce the attack speed bonus from 10% to 5% (making it total 25% at max stacks instead of 30%) and decrease the duration per stack from 2 seconds to 1, and then add “after hitting more than 20 times with max active stacks, increase maximum stacks by 5”, it’s more balanced™ while also making it more interesting in the way you suggested, and it makes the talent more geared towards synergizing with the fast 1-handed weapons. It would have a baseline of 25% bonus at 5 stacks (instead of 30% at 3) and a maximum possible bonus of 50% at 10 stacks if you manage to get in a total of 30 strikes without letting the stacks wear off.

Another Example, your idea for Skull-Splitter:
Instead of granting 15% power and giving Heavy Attacks more Damage, just reduce the power bonus to 10% and then make it so that every 0.8 seconds of charging a heavy attack increases the power of the attack by 5%.

Or, alternatively, because I wouldn’t want a situation like melee builds with Ogryn in Darktide where only Heavy Attacks are used, you could make it offer no extra power passive bonus, but similar to Bounty Hunter’s Blessed Combat, make it so that every light attack increases the power of the next heavy attack by 2% up to a max of 30% and every heavy attack increases the power of the next light attack by 4% up to a max of 40%, this way it works good for making light attacks powerful too.

Or, if it is preferred to trigger like Blessed Combat, 6 heavy attack kills grant up to the next 6 light strikes 15% more power. 6 light attack kills grant up to the next 6 heavy strikes 15% more power. Elite kills grant another 15% power buff lasting for 5 seconds.

[GreenColoured]

@Ensrick

about selfish players using him as a way to recklessly rack up kills while using LMB spam

Unlike the elf examples this would very much be players role-playing as a slayer.

And FS’s design communications do kind of push players towards that mentality whether it’s optimal or not. Shame it’s the cause of many a Quickplay team wipes.

[Ensrick]

@GreenColoured

Unlike the elf examples this would very much be players role-playing as a slayer.

I love RPing as a suicidal angry meatball.

[Danielgafforio]

@Ensrick

Another Example, your idea for Skull-Splitter:
Instead of granting 15% power and giving Heavy Attacks more Damage, just reduce the power bonus to 10% and then make it so that every 0.8 seconds of charging a heavy attack increases the power of the attack by 5%.

Or, alternatively, because I wouldn’t want a situation like melee builds with Ogryn in Darktide where only Heavy Attacks are used, you could make it offer no extra power passive bonus, but similar to Bounty Hunter’s Blessed Combat, make it so that every light attack increases the power of the next heavy attack by 2% up to a max of 30% and every heavy attack increases the power of the next light attack by 4% up to a max of 40%, this way it works good for making light attacks powerful too.

So, the level 10 Skull-Splitter talent, it would be cool for the damage to stack up as it charges because it would create a difference between the engineer’s hammer and the pickaxe (which has almost 2.4 seconds for the charged attack), I don’t think people would stop the spam of light attacks from the great axe, because of 8% power in a charged attack, after all the only weapon that would benefit from charged attacks would be the two large hammers, pickaxe.

[Danielgafforio]

@Ensrick

Or, if it is preferred to trigger like Blessed Combat, 6 heavy attack kills grant up to the next 6 light strikes 15% more power. 6 light attack kills grant up to the next 6 heavy strikes 15% more power. Elite kills grant another 15% power buff lasting for 5 seconds.

This is interesting, however I prefer to start from the principle of not copying mechanics that I already have in the game, I think that the idea of carrying the attack until the end makes a big change in the slayer’s game, both with the big hammer and the pickaxe (exploding in damage)… I think a talent like this would be interesting for the pickaxe to look good “”“op”“”, but I don’t like the idea of the engineer’s hammer causing more damage when charged… the time of the loaded to increase damage is very interesting at this point.

[Ensrick]

Fair enough. In this case, a bonus on charging an attack does encourage more new play styles, just as long as it doesn’t trivialize the use of light attacks.

[GreenColoured]

I have literally no idea what Barge and Dawi Drops suggestions are saying but I will concur that they need a rework for being objectively awful

For Dawi drop I always wish it made the leap do tons of damage on landing, and the amount of damage and aoe would be determined entirely by the weapon type. While equipping a bomb will have Bardin slam the bomb on landing causing an enhanced explosion he is immune to. Having throwing axes equipped while have him throw several during his flight path all over the place like a carpet bombing run.

Barge should be Wraith walk that sends targets flying and stagger

[Danielgafforio]

I didn’t realize it was in my language, look now, I fixed it👍

[Danielgafforio]

fixed the language problem

[GreenColoured]

Hmm…while the Barge replacement is certainly more viable, I’m not totally sure I want it to completely replace barge, I like the concept of the talent even though it’s currently garbage, I’d rather FS take a crack at making it useful first before outright replacing

Not 100% certain about Dawi drop without trying it out

[Ensrick]

Ah, he said to make Barge a part of his innate skills, not remove it entirely. Given Barge offers a relatively small benefit, I’m okay with that.

[GreenColoured]

Ah that makes a little more sense

[ZinStonehead]

Slayer is already one of the strongest careers so buffing him is not a good idea…

[Danielgafforio]

slayer is an unnecessary career, it needs more shine

[GreenColoured]

Many of his talents could use a rework though since he has probably the most useless talents, so it’d be nice to have more choices.

Also while he isn’t bad, he’s also far from the strongest career. He’s actively screwed by Chaos Waste, and very much the weakest of the melee only club. Again, he’s not bad, and people can solo Cata with him, but he’s absolutely nowhere near the strongest when Battle Wizards, Witch Hunter Captains, Warrior Priests, Grail Knights, Handmaidens etc. exists

[BtheLee]

i only ever run 1 talent tree for slayer honestly, i might take barge instead of Grimnir’s focus and depending on what weps i’m running my level 10 skill will vary, but it’s generally always 1/X/2/3/2/3. My normal is to run dual hammers and 1h axe (maybe 2h axe or dual axes but 1h gives good ap) with thousand cuts. I will say though that every melee combo feels the same with slayer. your general playstyle will be to jump in and stack enough stacks of your passive to reset your ult and do it again, and again, and again. You rely on your weapon combinations to make the gameplay engaging which is nice because you can do some interesting things with slayer you might not be able to do with his other classes or even cross-class. There aren’t many of the classes that can literally mow down a patrol, mow down a wave, and then take on a monster and still keep chugging. That being said you’re extremely vulnerable to any specials as you’re, most of the time, engaging with no range options aside from jumping in or bombs. If anything i feel they should update Bardin’s weapon combos to make them feel more engaging. A lot of the other classes have melee weapons with certain niches or specials that add a nice flair to the weapon (especially saltz with his billhook and rapier). I’ve always wondered why you couldn’t throw the 1h axe; obviously you’d be throwing away your axe but as a slayer that’s why you’ve brought 2. While i think adding buffs to the slayer class is nice, i think making some changes to his melee combos would do more to help slayer than actually buffing the class but i like the ideas.

It has also always made me wonder why the slayer’s thp doesn’t work like flag’s (or at least doesn’t have a talent to make it like flag’s). Would a slayer get more and more angry the more you cut at it?

[maitremalterre]

With the appropriate charm/trinket +20% health you are already at 150hp anyway.

I’ve spent many, many hours as Slayer and I’m pretty happy with how he is right now.