There are a few talents and mechanics in the game that strongly impact the feel of the game and player’s choices, while not being directly tied to one career in particular.
This post should list at least some of the problems and offer possible solutions for them.
Main goals for the solutions are: simplicity and ease of implementation. The simplier the solution, the less of a balancing headache it is. The easier it to implement, the less time Fatshark needs to add it in.
Crit Couter Talents
Helborg’s Tutelage/Smite/Hack and Slash
Problem:
While the core idea of the talents that give a guaranteed crit after a few hits, while disabling the random crits is actually really nice, the way it is implemented is subpar. The number of attacks required to get a crit is “okay” if it was a baseline mechanic implemented INSTEAD of random crits, but these are talents, which have to compete with other talent options in the same row, while not giving anything more substantial than “fix a core game mechanic”. This is an especially bad case for Mercenary, who actually has No More Laughin’ Now! (+5% Crit Chance) as a baseline passive, so picking Helborg’s Tutelage makes him trade off more than just a lvl 10 talent.
Solution:
Make crit trigger after 4 attacks instead of 5.
It is a simple number buff, which makes crits happen more often, making the talent offer higher than default crit chance at the cost of being able to modify it with talents and equipment. A much more worthy tradeoff.
Timed Blocks
Riposte/Virtue of Discipline/Parry
Problem:
Timed blocks are very unreliable during combat, requiring percise timing in a fast paced online game. People with higher latency or weaker PCs struggle with getting value out of this mechanic so much that it is easy to call it nonexistent for them. Which is very sad, because the talents relying on it are actually alright.
Solution:
Increase the timer to trigger the Timed Block to be 1 second instead of 0.5 second. This can be done with a single line of code (I did via mod) and would noticeably impact the talents for at least some people who were previously unable to run them. For those, who are concerned about Riposte being overpowered and having 100% uptime - it is still a timed block. Although one second window is more generous than half a second, you would still have to go out of your way and put in effort to make it stronger than Flence or Deathknell, still encouraging skillfull play.
Auras
Call out Weakness/Protective Presence/Renewal/A Sustenance of Leechlings
Problem:
Currently, most of the Auras are very small, only affecting allies who are very close to you and making their impact during combat very inconsistent, since you might fight in the same room, but still not be affected by your ally’s aura just because you have to stay slightly away from each other to effectively cover your flanks/snipe threats/kite the boss. This is specifically very apparrent on Huntsman and Handmaiden, the former of which is a ranged career, who has to step into the backline to snipe threats, and the latter is a highly mobile and aggressive character, who tends to separate from the team by just fighting normally.
This problem has an interesting outlier - Sister of the Thorn with her A Sustenance of Leechlings/An Attendance of Munificents, which have 100 meter radius, making them essentially global. And while An Attendance of Munificents might be okay as a global bonus, since it is the only supportive capability she curently has (because the bushes are bed and usually doin’t actually help), A Sustenance of Leechlings has no excuse to be a global effect, as it essentially allows Sister of the Thorn just run away into the horizon and be kept alive by allies fighting a horde on the opposite end of the map.
Solution:
Normalize the radius of auras. Currently, the best example of an aura done right is Outcast Engineer, who has a 10 meter radius aura, instead of the usual 5. This allows him to hang in the backline when needed and still provide the effect to allies. And you do still need to stay in his general location to get the bonus.
Make all other auras be 10 meters in radius. If need be, shorten it to 7 meters for particularly strong ones like Protective Presence and Renewal.
Witch Hunter Captain
Templar’s Knowledge
Problem:
The talent is less popular than the other options. Difference between +20% and +25% damage bonus against marked enemies isn’t that noticeable, unlike 10% attack speed or 5% crit chance (remember, these buffs are teamwide).
Solution:
Bump the bonus from +5% to +10% damage bonus to Witch Hunt’s bonus.
This will increase the popularity of the talent, since it would actually allow people to reach some previously unavailable breakpoints without making the character unbelievably broken. In addition, this change might make I Shall Judge You All a more popular choice on LvL 30 talents, due to nice synergy.
Edit
Added Templar’s Knowledge, since Witch Hunter doesn’t require a separate post.
Afterthought
I do not claim to be “top of the line, balance expert”.
In this post, I tried to bring up some of the topics I personally found both important enough and easy to fix with little effort. There might be other problems worthy of attention, but I haven’t though of good solutions for them.