Unfortunately can no longer access them threads, might have to refresh my memory.
But I assume you mean something proactive like staggering, pushing, blocking or simply hitting rather than passive damage boosts like Power vs, Smiter, Witch-Hunt tag or Fiery Faith.
While passive breakpoints/damage boosts limited to headshots and crits?
I could be off the mark but I’m trying not to misunderstand
I can simply send it to you per PM as I have copied some of my Threads in my message archive. Just sent me a PM if you want to have it. I think it would be a bit to much for this thread right now.
This tbh
I understand why it’s fun that the Smite talent works with volley crossbow but I’d rather have a proper rework of Zealot’s kit so his entire playstyle becomes more enjoyable than the current “get to 30 green hp asap and you’re done” kind of deal.
Volley crossbow on Zealot with that talent has very strong boss dmg and infinite ammo, which is a bit too much on a tanky melee dps class imo.
Experiences might differ but is there really that much micro-management of the stacks on volley crossbow?
Usually, just spamming the alt-fire with reckless abandon will get the job done almost just as well.
Given his tmp generation/tankiness, Zealot can shrug off any stray hits during the reload too.
I think Zealot losing that gimmick while getting a proper rework of his kit in return is a nice solution.
I don’t see the point of a fundamental rework of the Zealot. It’s been basically the same career for going on 3 years now and works well enough. The career has its fans and I really don’t understand why it would be a good thing to potentially alienate those fans just for the sake of the players who don’t like it currently. It’s ok to not like something.
He’s fun but could lean even more as a flagellant career, currently there’s no real risk to reward.
Health regen and healing supplies don’t play nicely with Fiery Faith either, that could easily be fixed by adding a new passive that converts any healing to temporary health.
Heart of Iron could be ironed out too, half of the time it doesn’t proc or is delayed.
There’s potential for a rework without stepping on his identity, if anything there are ways to strengthen his identity.
Why rework a career that is fun, different, and has absolutely no restriction when it comes to weaponry? The only thing that needs changing is that his power increase also improves ranged damage. Thats it.
A passive that demands being hit every couple of moments to keep damage stacks might add more gameplay to the career, but there is simply lots that needs changes now. Zealot isnt one of them.
There’s a reason me and the guys haven’t touched talent balance at all
Here’s the thing: I don’t like the idea of removing things per se but there are things which, in my opinion, are just conceptually flawed from the start and shouldn’t be a thing. Things like bomb balm, for example, it’s thematically bizarre that an unstable witch can heal you by straight up exploding, it’s also something that’s tough to balance and ends up being either too good or too weak. Lingering flames and chain reaction occupy similar spaces in my eyes. I COULD try and make them balanced and more interesting but I can’t think of reasonable methods to do that and do it well, personally.
Same deal with vanish, it was straight garbage before cloak of mist and now it enables the most overpowered build in the game, idk how exactly you balance something like that and make it feel good (technical issues notwithstanding).
100% agree here
100% agree here too
These 2 points of view aren’t mutually exclusive, after all. It’s almost like balance is a two-way street.
Here’s a method to tackle balance while not forgetting character identity in game design.
Define first what’s the career is about, core strength, core weaknesses, and stuff like this. That’s on paper. That’s a lot of discussion.
Try to think about 2 differents builds that could come out of the career. That’s also on paper.
For example :
Unchained - Uncontrollable, Explosions - Melee first, ranged second
2 builds =>
Core melee, make ennemies explode while killed on melee, crowd dps oriented.
Survivalist, make her durable, add some stagger/control.
And then you remove talents that are actually not of this identity (bomb balm being indeed an example as it’s kinda not in the theme) and you try to keep the others.
Balance things. Round of balancing.
Try to add a 3rd build if you have the place (for example : Fire aura Unchained, close range around you, good dps when surrounded, or melee ranger vet when out of ammo).
If you don’t have too much place left, add talents that can work with the others builds as an alternative.
Balance things. Round of balancing again.
But BEFORE all that. First, let’s touch properties & traits that would mess up any build balanced prior to that balance.
Making properties interesting (that are sometimes a bit too generic to allow interesting choices), rebalancing traits (that kinda already are interesting actually, but could use balancing to actually be useable for some)
You know, you could have supported my suggestion for changing that one which I did just recently 
I agree that traits and properties should be rework for different reason. However, I see a difference in timeline and philosophy. First off, they should do the second BBB and concentrate mostly on the untackled heroes. No matter what other people say, the current Zealot iteration is just not functional and causes more irritation and grieve than anything else. It is most in need for a rework. Then we have Heroes who can stack a tad to much. They may tackle the stagger talent row in the same iteration.
However, Traits and Properties should be done in a third balance beta. While they influence talents obviously, they just have to be balanced in a way that they don’t break the results of the second BBB. That is possible and not to hard to achieve. As for Traits and Properties. This is how I see it:
Traits: Conditioned, but have a larger effect. Notable influence on gameplay.
Properties: Unconditioned. Only for adjusting minor stuff.
This is in a certain way how it is already but not everywhere. For properties there are some which should be removed, some which should be changed, some which should be added. For Traits, I think it would be best to start more or less at zero.
can’t say I can recall what you’re referring to.
Ok actually got around to watching this and invis removal is a thing I’m pretty sure FS wouldn’t go for since it’s pretty core to how Shade works and her identity. Otherwise the suggestions of block-cost or revive speed just give me handmaiden vibes.
Idk I’m pretty sure just removing the cooldown bonus from Cloak of Mist and just removing vanish wholesale (or adding an internal cooldown of 10 seconds or so) would fix her up without making her weak by any means. Worst case scenario it results in a return to the Cloak of Pain meta but like…Shade is still strong with that so w/e
Mah recent thread about team THP talents with Bomb Balm being one of them
ah, well I didn’t even interact in that thread beyond liking some replies which supported what you were saying about bomb balm so…idk what you want from me
Incan seal of approval that bomb balm is silly?
Yea, something like that:
“The purple alien is right. Listen to him.”
EDIT: I’m totally not a purple alien living in disguise on earth. Just saying *lookingleftlookingrightsweatingalot*
Yeah removing invis from Shade seems a bit far fetched, it’s a big part of her kit and enables a lot of the backstab playstyle. Some nerfs here and there would be blessed.
Though I think Shade could do with some give and take tbh, Assassin’s Blade feels neglected or rather redundant considering headshots deal equal damage if not more.
Playing like a WHC is generally safer than fishing for backstabs/crit backstabs.
I could see invis being removed from Huntsman, RV and HM but not Shade.
(Hunter’s Prowl might need adjusting to compensate though)
To be fair, if all other people say that, this is probably your own fault. But I don’t really know about “the zealot issue”, I don’t play him a lot.
His identity is there though, and pretty different from other people and its core identity of “playing with THP or no life” shouldn’t change.
I still don’t really understand that the passive still buff ranged weapons after 2 years, but I do think this is only because he was not tackled yet.
Adding another trait that increase THP generation but remove green hp generation (as natural bound does) could be of use for him and for some others careers.
As it would have the potential of throwing away all balance that was done for talents, I would really tackle it first. Thoses were not touched since the beginning (small fixes aside, like scrounger). And it certainly would set a “base” for the talent rework.
If properties should be irrelevant, then remove them as a whole mechanic. Properties should play a role by opening a variety of builds. Which means that every property is indeed relatively minor, but becomes important once you kinda stack them.
As the stats are kinda based of diablo-like game, a very quick look at them show that item properties should not be “% damage” only. But also “on hit effects”, “dots”, etc…
There’s actually a lot of room to add new effects (poison damage, fire damage, % stun/stagger, dodge, etc) to thoses properties, which will have the potential to open a variety of new builds even without talent support.
Items traits are indeed also important, but the “fun effects” already do exist, they’re just clearly useless. Which is an issue around balance more than it is an issue of reworking them.
Removing invis would indeed remove all the fun from the career even if it does not remove her power. Which circle me to my previous comment, core identity first with at least 2 relevant builds (a 3rd niche one would be a plus), balance second.
In this case, it is not a singular opinion though. This has been stated by different people several times. Also the reoccuring Zealot threads clearly indicate that there is an issue with the career which goes over “just give him a THP passive”. Maybe the core identity is there, however the core mechanic is broken as there is no risk for the rewards he gains. If they would make Heart of Iron for example a talent instead of Smite, it would increase his risk already without removing his identity or making him unfun. But it would force some decision on the players. Or conflicting buffs would make him mechanically super interesting. Or reduced benefits while having full THP so that you have to balance better. Something to make him interesting and fun to play.
Didnt say irrelevant. I said lower influence. They should make some minor adjustements to push the edge at certain points but nothing more. I am also against the concept of stacking stuff on a religious base because stacking is one of the biggest balance problems the game has.
Sure, there is a lot of room. But traits and properties should be fun and interesting and not just more dps. Poison, Bleed, Attack Speed is basically the same property and it is boring, boring, boring.
Still Traits and Properties can easily be balanced at a later point after talents are finished. If to much is done at the same time it will cloud judgement. On a power scale Traits should be below talents anyway. So the weaker system should be adjusted after the stronger system.
But we can just agree to disagree before this arts out.
As for now I still don’t know what the issue is though. I don’t say it doesn’t exist, I say I just don’t know what the issue is currently. =p
At the end, it will always be other means to do damage, but at least, you get choice on how you deal it. Issue is that bleed, poison and fire are all just “dots” after all. By rendering them a bit more unique it could be “a bit more fun”. But even that aside, you could still get some “elemental damage” which is something all diablo-like game does.
There’s always the option to completely remove Fiery Faith, front load a reasonable melee only damage boost to him without the nonsense, and make him base 100 hp so he’s finally a risk reward class.
Some others career have strong boosts in melee without the downside of needing to be low or having thp, so I still don’t see the issue. It’s a melee brawler, it needs to be kinda solid.