Unchained

this. sienna doesn’t excel at melee, each of her weapons movesets are not versatile enough. if i wade into melee it’s just because it’s more efficient to do, otherwise staff all the way.

this kinda hurts on any class.

i wish the 2nd charged attack did it’s aoe too, especially since she seems to charge it with her hand. it’s feels good once you get the rhythm going

Unchained is a god until Champion, on Legand I find her building up heat too quickly due to mobs having bigger HP pools and dishing out more damage. Don’t get me even started on the heat generated by some damage over time such as the Stormfiend flamethrowers. if you get caught by one of these without having a clear heat meter you are done for. In different situations I can just about manage her without sudden heat spikes. Sadly on Legend playing Unchained is far more risky than other classes.

The heat spike is linked to the damage recieved which simply does not work well on Legend or missions with specific Deed conditions (double damage etc).

Yeah i agree with pretty much all you said.
All of her passives and her skill(partially) supplement melee-oriented playstyle, but the optimal way(the only way pretty much, unless you want to die a few times) to play her is to never EVER go into melee range, and just spam staff then vent temp health… you know the thing other 2 careers do better, and intentionally so.
How can you say that she’s tanky, when her health is someting around 115(her heat bar), with both mandatory talents, and you actually use that health to deal damage.
Now she’s good at some things, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that OMG she’s garbage unplayable and etc, that’s not it. She has great sustait, and handles little poke from time to time better than any other career in the game(well except for IB). She can regen her 115 hp as fast as she can lose it.
So basically what we get is a pretty fragile mage with relatively low damage but good sustain, and, sometimes, decent boss killing(there are bosses that can bypass your block and just blow you up), and while some can enjoy high risk no reward playstyle, i want her to get an actual working kit, and be the melee career she’s should’ve been.

Mace, fireball staff,
25-33% Curse resist 10-20% max health,
bonus heat talent, reduced heat generated talent

Almost any extra properties/trait setup will work fine for me provided you roll with the above, clutch fireballs can stun a whole bunch of things and lmb can snipe plenty of things for a reasonably low heat cost.

Contrary to everyone playing her block-based I play her with a ton of crit and vent-on-crit and usually end up 66% ranged kills and 33% melee kills simply because the mace is such a joy to use against armour with proper block-cancelling and rotation management. (I play it with Parry and Natural Bond, which makes venting free provided I don’t mess up more than a few times over the course of a run)

Unchained is very viable and very forgiving provided you are comfortable with weaving between melee and ranged almost constantly during a fight to pick off stragglers, help teammates, hold chokepoints or ensure any enemies leaking from chokepoints reach allies. You have a lot of tools at your disposal, no need for ammo, but a heat bar to manage.

Treat your healthbar like fuel and your heat-bar like your health.