The Specialisations attempt to focus on a particular playstyle (e.g Sharpshooter provides better weapon handling, and headshot damage for Marksman Rifles and Rifles)). However, the specialisations do not successfully allow the player to achieve a specific playstyle. For example, the Firewall specialisation provides the user to obtain buffs for the burn status effect while also gaining damage and bonus armour buffs and healing over time. This build, while similar to the other specialisations, tries to adopt more of a ‘jack of all trades’ - a generalist - approach rather than a specialist one. The following is a reworking of the specialisations in a way so that the player feels as if they are a specialist rather than a generalist. *Do note that suggestions relating to percentages/numbers are mere suggestions. Actual calculations have not been taken into account.
Sharpshooter
This section looks at, among other things, the Sharpshooter talents. The current approach to the Sharpshooter Specialisation does not reflect the characteristics of a marksman. A marksman should be feared at medium to long-range; they must never be taken head-on. While marksmen are dangerous at longer distances, they are highly efficient at close range as well as evasion. The Marksman must be smart about where they are placed on the battlefield; they are more effective in cover rather than out in the open. However, the way in which the marksman is designed does not capture this vision because there are talents on gear, skills and attachments that unfortunately displace the potential of this playstyle. You will see these issues come to light below:
- ‘Emergency Cleanse’
- Armour kits repair 100%, remove status effects and increases resistance to bleed, poison and burn for 20 seconds
*A marksman build that deals the most damage (e.g Glass Cannon) is unlikely to heal when inflicted with burn from status builds
Recommended change:
- immediate repair 100% (like system corruption) with 30s-60s cooldown
- Change the name to 'Bug-out Protocol'
Signature Weapon
- TAC-50 Rifle
- designed to penetrate targets except for the heaviest armoured targets while hitting multiple weak points. Creates shockwave to damage nearby targets
Issues:
- damage does not scale with marksman rifle damage
- Intentional damage reduction towards bosses/named enemies
- Limited ammo availability
Recommendations
- damage should scale with marksman rifle damage
- Intentional damage reduction towards bosses/named enemies should be made clear. Perhaps, remove the damage reduction entirely.
- Ammo availability should be increased by way of improving ‘Group Signature Ammo Supply’ and ‘.50 Caliber Ammo Acquisition’. Amendments suggested below (and in other specialisations) are intended to improve the usage and relevance of the signature weapon:
- Group Signature Ammo Supply: change Killing enemies with headshots adds 1 ammo bar to 2 ammo bars
- Add 1 ammo bar when killing an enemy
- .50 Caliber Ammo Acquisition:
- add 1 ammo bar count when killing an enemy to any area other than the head
- ‘My Home is My Castle’
- Amend description ‘Extra armour gained while in cover’ to ‘Gain 5%-10% armour while in cover based on the number of offensive core attributes’
- High risk, high reward.
- ‘Vital Protection’
- 50% Pulse Resistance
- Remove entirely
- Replace with the ‘Overwatch’ buff
- Remove ammo addition, replace with Entrench talent
Survivalist
This specialisation attempts to live up to its name, but not to its fullest potential because (again) the specialisation tries to have a little bit of everything in it (healing, skill haste, damage to targets inflicted status effects). None of these examples really persuade the user that they specialise in survivability.
- ‘Elite Defense’
- Increase from 10% to 15%-20%
- ‘Distributed Repair’
- Change name to Emergency Cleanse
- Function: Repairs 100% armour to self, removes status effects/debuffs and grants status immunity to you and your teammates for 10 seconds (Similar to the ‘Adrenaline’ talent from Division 1)
- ‘Crunch Time’
- Change ‘While in cover, gain 10% skill haste’ to ‘While in cover, gain 10% hazard protection’
- ‘Vital Protection’
- change to ‘Protected Reload’
- perhaps only apply to self…
- ‘Survivalist Tactical Link’
- Change ‘Group members get 10% bonus damage to targets with status effects’ to ‘Group members get 10% bonus damage while immune to status effects’
- ‘Scraping By’
- replace function with ‘Leadership’ talent, but only applies to self.
Crossbow
- Group Signature Ammo Supply and Explosive Bolt Acquisition
- Change ‘ Killing enemies under status effects adds 3 to the ammo bar. Except from signature weapons’ to ‘Killing enemies while not at full armour adds 3 to the ammo bar. Except for signature weapons.’
Demolitionist
- ‘Incombustible’
- change ‘Increase burn resistance by 20%’ to ‘Increase explosive resistance by 20%’
- Change name to ‘Indestructible’
- ‘Stimulant Patch’
- Change ‘Armor kits repair 100% damage and boost weapon handling by 30% for 15s’ to ‘Armor kits repair 100% to self while defuses grenades within 7m of the player for 15s’
- ‘Demolitionist Tactical Link’
- Change the 5% damage to targets out of cover buff to ‘Group members gain 5% weapon and skill damage when the player deals explosive damage. Gains 1 stack when the player kills an enemy with an explosive. Total 3 stacks’
- Group Signature Ammo Supply
- Change ‘Killing multiple enemies’ to ‘Killing enemies’
- ‘Braced For Impact’
- Potentially synergises well with Sawyer’s Kneepads
- Replace ‘Vital Protection’ with the ability to regenerate a grenade every 30 seconds
- Change name to ‘Final Measure’
M32A1 Multi-shot Grenade Launcher
- Add grenade type (See ‘Grenades’) to launcher based on the equipped grenade (e.g equipping the Incendiary Grenade would allow the player to shoot Incendiary Grenades)
- Creates an additional incentive for making the grenades available regardless of the chosen specialisation
Tactician
- ‘Emergency Patch’
- Change ‘Armor kit also applies to all friendly skills proxies within 10m’ to ‘Armor kit also applies to all friendly skills proxies within 10m, and increases skill efficiency by 10% for 10 seconds’
- Remove ‘Linked Laser Pointer’
- does not coincide with the Tactician playstyle (Primarily skill damage and skill healing)
- Seems more in line with Sharpshooter (See ’Specialisation Attachments’)
- Merge ‘Overclocked CPU’ (+10% Skill Damage) and ‘Enhanced Diagnostics’ (+10% Skill Healing)
- replace with a talent that provides 5%-10% Skill Efficiency depending on the player’s skill tier
- Remove ‘Vital Protection’
- Replace with +10% Skill Haste while in cover for 5 at least seconds (See: ‘Crunch Time’ talent in the Survivalist Specialisation)
Gunner
- Remove ‘Vital Protection’ and replace it with the ‘Steady Handed’ talent
- Amend the ‘Emplacement’ talent with the increased probability of suppressing enemies while in cover
Firewall
- Change name ’Frontline Recovery’ and its function (+30% Health On Kill) to ‘White Phosphorus Munitions’ (+20% Burn Damage)
- Change name ‘Extracellular Matrix Mesh’ and its function (recover 200% armor and 200% health over 10 seconds) to ‘Cleaner Complex’ (Recover 200% armour and ignore 40% Hazard Protection for 15 seconds)
- Amend the requirement for recovering special ammo in the ‘Group Signature Ammo Acquisition’ and Firewall Ammo Acquisition’ talent (Kill enemies within 10 meters to recover 3 stacks to ammo bar) to ‘Kill enemies inflicted with a status effect’
- Replace the name and function of ’Bull Rush’ (+30% Bonus Armor during cover to cover moves) to ‘Firestarter’ (Player and Group members receive +30% bonus armour for 15 seconds when an enemy inflicts the player or a group member with the burn status effect.
- Replace ‘Vital Protection’ with ‘Purge’ (+10% Status Effects)
Signature Weapons (Generally)
- Remove damage reduction against Named enemies
- The signature weapon in each respective Specialisation needs to temporarily be the ultimate weapon when facing the greatest threats.
Specialisation Skill Tree Talents (General):
- ‘Vital Protection’
- remove from all specialisations
- This is probably the most unnecessary talent to have simply because it undermines the purpose of the Pulse Skill. (See System Corruption changes in the thread 'Brandsets & Gearsets' in Suggestions & Feedback).
Signature Outfits
- remove the requirement for a particular specialisation to be active to wear a specialisation outfit
- These outfits should be unlocked once completing the entire skill tree.
Honestly, my biggest problem is the signature weapons themselves.
Here's my suggestions for the changes that are necessary to make signature weapons truly unique:
Tac-50
- Penetrates cover at 1/2 damage
- Spots targets for self and allies while ADS/Scoped
- Adds "Pulsed" status to spotted targets
- Infrared and Night Vision views available by toggling '4' while scoped
M32A1
- Trigger hold gives "Cooked" bonus
- AoE radius "counts" targets hit and displays on crosshair
Crossbow
- Multiple arrows selectable by 'cycle' key
- Bleeding
- Disorienting
- Disruptive
- Explosive
- Flame Burst
- Foaming
- Penetrating
- Shocking
- Any/All arrows can change type within ammo limit
- Crossbow can be used in melee to jab/affect target with chosen arrow - applying effect
P-017 Missile Launcher
- Missiles can be pre-detonated by holding trigger after volley
- AoE range increased
- Missiles take into consideration:
- Distance to target
- Height of interior area
- Movement after "lock"
- Weak points/packs
- Missiles deal 3-4x more damage to non-human targets
K8-Jetstream
- Not specific to flamethrower - Fire effects should not go through walls
- Leaves a smoldering area on the ground as fuel falls
M134 Minigun
- Allow for normal character interactions. (opening doors, grabbing loot, etc)
- Draw to fire time reduced
- Draw time reduced
- Spin-up time reduced
- "Stow" added for unavailable options
- Run auto-stows the weapon
- Roll auto-stows the weapon
- Vault auto-stows the weapon
- No reload. All ammo is part of main magazine.
- Double available ammunition
I like your idea for the changes to do with the Tac-50:
- 1/2 damage dealt through penetrating cover would be ideal considering it uses 50.cal rounds. But, what kind of cover? I assume solid cover that ordinary rounds can as well as cannot pass through?;
- the ability to spot/pulse targets which allow you and your allies to benefit from this while ADS/Scoped makes it more immersive with the role of a sharpshooter/marksman;
- Having the option to 'toggle' infrared or night vision would be refreshing when fighting at night or in incredibly dark areas given how the lighting in this game can be a bit hectic.
Regarding the M32A1, what will the 'cooked' bonus give to the player(s)? Is cooking the grenade meant to operate similarly to (I think) the chest piece talent Mad Bomber?
I honestly had no idea that the M32A1's AOE radius does not count as hitting a target. I have not used this specialisation for a long time, but I assume the grenades have to make a direct hit to count? If that is the case, I am surprised that an explosion from the M32A1's grenade does not operate like the concussion grenade or just every other grenade in the game. Going back to your idea for toggling the type of vision you can have with the Tac-50, it would be cool to at least have the option for the M32A1 to either fire smoke grenade rounds or that the explosive rounds create enough smoke to synergise well with the infrared/ night vision scope for the Tac-50.
For the Crossbow, having the option to fire different types of bolts/ arrows would make the signature weapon a lot more interesting and could work well with the damage to status effect-inflicted targets for allies.
The 'pre-detonated' idea for the P-017 Missile Launcher is designed to potentially hit other targets during the missiles' flight path, right? Perhaps, it would also be ideal to decrease the time to determine how many missiles you can fire at a target during the locking stage. If the rockets have an increased AoE effect, the force from the explosion, rather than the initial explosion itself, could inflict additional health damage (ideal against warhounds, tanks etc).
K8-Jetstream
Yeah - fire going through walls never made sense to me.
M134 Minigun
- 'Allow for normal character interactions. (opening doors, grabbing loot, etc)', bear in mind that the M134 is a big weapon; however, the animation for the character could just put the gun down while opening a box or door (maybe kick the door?). The limited ammo for this weapon type has always been disappointing.