I know I’m rather late with patch #18 supposedly releasing next week, but I’m relatively certain there will be more changes to maps and weapons than to the talents, so this (hopefully) is still relevant until the eventual patch #19.
On General Talent Tree setup
The nodes connecting to and from the Blitz, Ability and Aura should be more interconnected to allow more freedom of choice than having to select a node and spend a point you would rather have used elsewhere.
Ogryn Class
I’d assume the design philosophy behind the Ogryn could be “easy to learn, hard to master”, though currently it feels like it is lacking in the later part, for example the a severe lack of light attack interaction.
Ogryn Talents
- The Best Defence + Smash’em - These should be rolled into a single talent and the now empty talent node should give an option for light attack toughness regeneration
- (new talent for light attack toughness regeneration) - The aforementioned empty node could function similar to the Confident Strike weapon blessing, granting 5% Toughness on chained hits whilst the Blessing over all Ogryn weapons gets balanced by reducing the regenerated toughness for each level by 1%.
- Bombs Away! - The spilled grenades need to be more meaningful than a small tick of damage and an area of stagger. It would be cool if each of the spilled grenades has a randomly determined effect from the other classes.
- 50% chance to be a normal one, with buffed damage and area of effect by 50%.
- 20% chance of the veterans Shredder Frag Grenade, but with same damage and doubled radius as the unchanged Bombs Away! Grenade.
- 10% chance of the veterans Krak Grenade, jumping to the nearest flak/carapace/unyielding enemy, but only dealing 50% of its damage
- 10% chance of the veterans Smoke Grenade, with half it’s radius and only a 5s duration.
- 5% chance of the zelot’s Stun Grenade (not the improved Blitz) with only 1sec duration and reduced radius.
- 5% chance of the zelot’s Immolation Grenade, with halved duration and a radius reduced to 33%.
- Trample - I’m uncertain about what to do with this one. It is an upgrade to buffs granted by Bull Rush, but one more reason to buff oneself rather than to use it to accomplish something.
- Light 'em up - The number of inflicted burn debuff/dot stacks should be limited to 15-20 as it trivialised elites and boss enemies.
- Dominate - Acquiring rending should be more conditional than a mere elite kill.
Heavy Attack favouritism:
- The Best Defence
- Smash’em
- Crunch
- Batter
- Hard Knocks
- (Bonebreaker’s Aura)
- No Stopping Me!
- Implacable
- Heavy Melee Damage Boost
- Heavy Hitter
Psyker Class
The ‘squishy’ psyker’s playstyle should be fuelled by the ebb and flow of the peril system, but at the moments it’s merely a force sword/staff spam followed by quickly quelling and repeating the same.
General Psyker rework:
- Manual quelling peril above 60% should cause 50/50 or gradual split damage to HP and Toughness at the end of the quell, with more damage the closer it is to 100%.
- Quelling speed should be returned to accelerating the longer quelling takes place instead of the current linearity.
- example 100% peril = 60dmg split to HP(50) and Toughness (10)
- example 90% peril = 50dmg split to HP(36) and Toughness (14)
- example 80% peril = 40dmg split to HP(24) and Toughness (16)
- example 70% peril = 30dmg split to HP(12) and Toughness (18)
- example 60% peril = 20dmg split to HP(0) and Toughness (20)
Psyker Talent tree
- Perilous Combustion - An easy way to apply a lot of dots via Specialists like Trappers or Dogs, but too effective in combination with Wildfire The Blessing should feel more at home in a dedicated Pyrokinesis/Pyromancy talent tree.
- Quietude - With the aforementioned change to quelling, this talent needs a rework. I’d suggest taking the blessing Exorcist and applying it here, allowing the psyker to quell peril by shunting it into melee enemies with non force/warp attacks.
- Smite - I would love to see it reworked to function like it was shown back in the of of the class overhaul trailer at (1:17 https://youtu.be/9eZOL-S7KGw?si=-XAHIEVPWLgr_qL8&t=77) a “pocket Surge Force Staff”, with low range, rapid charge and damage during charge time at relatively high peril cost - perfect for deleting maniac and carapace elites threatening one in melee.
- The stun effect of smite could be returned to the Surge Force staff as a unique blessing, halving it’s alt-fire damage and limiting it to 2/4/6/8 targets.
- Lightning Storm - With the aforementioned, this could be reworked to deal 20-30% damage to enemies in a 5/8m radius around the target of Smite, but without the stunning effect.
- Enfeeblement - Either it gets removed, buffs the psyker’s damage reduction for 5-10s after eliminating a foe with Smite, or has the psyker count as blocking during the use of Smite.
- Assail - At the moment, this blitz is as effective as an additional ranged weapon. I’d propose to reduce the amount of charges to 3 with an increase to their damage by +100 .
- Assail’s name - Perhaps I’m too influenced by the tabletop, but V2’s Deepwood Staff alt-fire has more to do with the psychic power Assail than the shards a psyker throws. So please rename it to something more fitting ‘Warp Shards’, ‘Shards of Hatred’, …
- Quick Shards - With the aforementioned change, this talent could be returned to adding +2 charges to the blitz or increasing their crit chance and finesse modifier instead.
- Wildfire - Besides it trivialising horde enemies in combination with the Purgatus Force staff or other Soul Blaze talents, this Blessing should feel more at home in a dedicated Pyrokinesis/Pyromancy talent tree.
- Warp Rupture - The damage dealt is relatively uninteresting, it either needs an increase to matter against chaff like groaners and poxwalkers on higher difficulties or boost the warp damage the psyker deals for a duration or against affected foes. Causing a few stacks of brittleness wouldn’t be the right choice.
- Creeping Flames - Same as with Perilous Combustion, easy to apply Soul Blaze, even through walls, but too effective in combination with Wildfire The Blessing should feel more at home in a dedicated Pyrokinesis/Pyromancy talent tree.
- Solidity - With the aforementioned change to quelling, this talent needs a replacement.
- In Fire Reborn - A blessing tied to the effect of a single ranged weapon (and certain melee weapons with a Blessing that grants a chance to apply it) and 2 other Talents feels a bit too niche.
- Empowered Psyionics - With the aforementioned change to Smite, it’s modification of Smite should change to 50% cast time reduction and 50% reduced peril generation.
- Disrupt Destiny - While it is a lot easier to keep the buff going, it would be better if it is returned to its previous version, loosing all stacks at once than simply dropping the stacks. In return it’s duration could be increased by 1sec.
- Lingering Influence - With the previously mentioned change to duration, this talent could be change from 10 to 12s.
On the Warp Surge Keystone
Frankly I feel like it needs some sort of redesign. Yes it can boosts ones damage, can reduce peril generation and will reduce ability cooldown after consumption, but it forces the conundrum of not using your ability to benefit from the passive Warp Charge buffs whilst it explicitly benefits a more liberal use of ones ability.
Additional new Talent suggestions
Warp Endurance - +2 additional WoundsWarp Instability - Doubles/Triples the area of effect when suffering the perils of the warp explosion.Favoured by the Warp - Puts ones ability on 2*cooldown to prevent death/downing via the perils of the warp explosion
Veteran Class
Veteran Talent tree setup
- The talents Vanguard and Tactical Reload should swap their positions, as the later is clearly a supportive talent for every kind of loadout but rarely is it justifiable to spend 2 talent points to gain it.
- The central tree appears to require 1 additonal node/point to reach the keystone.
Veteran Talent tree
- Smoke Grenade - Simply granting your allies also less obscured vision through the smoke would go a long way. A complete replacement for another type of grenade would also be a promising change.
- Survivalist - At the moment and with how plentiful in ammo all maps are, it simply trivialises the ammo economy. It needs to be rebalanced or changed.
- Shock Trooper - Same issue as with Survivalist, if not worse. Besides the humble las pistol, all other las weapons have the ability to vastly increase their crit chance (not to mention the Deadshot talent), allowing to finish missions without even picking up a single ammo pack.
- Exploit Weakness - Passive rending/brittleness should require much more effort than a melee critt. It could be made more difficult with a weakspot critt or changed.
- Onslaught - Passive rending/brittleness should require much more effort than simply hitting a target.
- Marksman’s Focus - Changing the condition to loose stacks from moving to dropping stacks one after another on a 6s timer should allow for less static gameplay.
- Chink in their Armour - Passive rending/brittleness should require more effort.
- Camouflage - With the aforementioned change to Marksman’s Focus, this talent could be changed to refreshing the duration of the current stack by/to 3s when standing still or crouch moving.
On the Focus Target! Keystone
Frankly I feel like this one too, needs some sort of redesign. Its visuals are a bit too obnoxious and it’s effect is too niche on anything but Bosses (Captains/Monstrosities) or Ogryns.
Zealot Class
True or not, to me the zealot’s talent tree is divided into the martyr on the left, a prelate or preacher at arms in the centre and a (deathcult) assassin to the right.
Zealot Talent tree setup
- Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude and it’s modifiers - I think the Banishing Light talent should be rolled into the Ability itself as it simply a forced spending of a talent point.
- Invocation of Death - It should be moved to become a modifier to the Fury of the Faithful ability. It’s effect should also change as described below.
Zealot Talent tree
- Purge the Unclean - Thematically great, but otherwise kind of an unfair advantage with the flat damage increase compared to the other classes.
- Desperation - In theory a solid talent, in practise it has the same issue as the old version of the All or Nothing Blessing: ones guard gets broken before the enemies whack your health to a minimum before you manage to dish out 1-2 light attacks.
- Beacon of Purity - It works to trivialise the attrition mechanic. Either this talent has to change or corruption build-up needs to be more rampant the more uncorrupted wounds a player has.
- Loner - The passive toughness regeneration and aura effects without other players near needs to be changed or (time) limited in some way. I could see it as preserving coherency for 15sec after leaving the team or granting other benefits like unrestricted movement in hordes, etc.
- Fury of the Faithful - Instead of “…granting 25% and…” aka lowering the next foe’s armour type, it could grant 25-75% rending for 1 hit instead, which would support ones choice of equipped weapon more.
- Shroudfield - The boni to finesse and backstab damage could be lowered by 25-50% to make Perfectionist a more relevant choice.
- Invocation of Death - Instead of granting cooldown reduction on crits, it could grant 40-60% cooldown reduction on a successful kill within 2-4sec after the activation of Fury of the Faithful.
On the Blazing Piety Keystone
The keystone needs a rework or replacement, sure flat 25%+ critt chance is a great benefit, but has little to no interaction besides being close to where foes are taken down.
On the Martyrdom Keystone
The keystone’s talents should be moved as alternative options between the nodes of the left talent tree, above Fury of the Faithful.
In its stead a semi-gun-focussed keystone could be created. For example blessed bullets that deal some area of effect (warp) damage on impact and are fuelled by melee kills, with a modifier for more ammo and one that allows for ranged kills to also fuel the keystone.
