Underused Talent Changes | Patreon Poll #41

Hey Patrons!

With work on v2.1.0 coming together, and my focus turning largely towards Duelist balance and design tweaks (now that the analytics data has come in), I thought now would be a good time to ask you about some more specific tweaks to the other heroes. I’ve taken a look at some of the least popular T1 and T2 talents, and am interested to see what your sentiment is about whether they should be changed.

Please vote for each talent that you would like to see changed or even replaced. The strength of support for each option will influence my design decisions for which talents to change in v2.1.0 and beyond.

Note that I am not specifically planning any changes for v2.1.0 just yet, and also I have chosen not to include underused talents that directly relate to thrown weapons, as their issues are related to more than just the talent itself.

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Please vote for all the options that you like, not just for your one favourite! I allow multiple votes as it means that a higher proportion of people will end up voting for the winning choice.

All patrons are encouraged to share their opinion by commenting and voting, but currently only the votes from Golden+ Supporters are counted when determining a poll winner. Votes from Shattered Supporters are worth double!

Test Subject / Tested Hypothesis

The least popular T1 talents, players don’t seem to be too excited by the on-ID trigger when compared to other simpler T1 talents. I’m unsure exactly what to do about these, I may make changes to the triggering logic, or think up something entirely new. Test Subject is also notably less popular than Tested Hypothesis, likely because it pretty strongly competes with Hearty Meal, which is another thing that I could improve on.

Cached Rations

The least-used food talent, cached rations offers nothing more than a bit of extra food, a close analogue to the Rogue’s old benefit of extra satiety. Players very clearly prefer unique mechanics attached to eating though, as Nature’s Bounty is notably more popular than cached rations, and other T1 food talents are more popular still. I think I’d like to adjust the talent to be a bit more similar to Nature’s Bounty, with less raw food value but some other extra effect to compensate.

Mystical Upgrade / Energizing Upgrade

Despite getting a mountain of buffs, very clearly players are not too thrilled with talents that trigger on rare/powerful items like scrolls of upgrade. Although it is worth nothing that Energizing Upgrade is notably more popular than Mystical Upgrade.

I might like to see about reworking these talents entirely, possibly giving them a different effect and item-trigger. This would also be good opportunity to reduce the very high amount of recharging offered by Rogue and Mage T2 talents.

Improvised Projectiles

This talent is a bit puzzling, as it’s simultaneously the least popular talent in T2 by a fair margin, and also the Warrior’s strongest T2 talent. It clearly is much stronger than it feels, and so I think I’d like to change Improvised Projectiles to accomplish pretty much the same goal (giving Warrior a panic button vs. ranged enemies) but in a way that feels more satisfying or intuitive. This might include a different debuff, or possibly a longer blind mixed with a longer cooldown.