Character development.

[Solid Steel]

Why are all available companions so useless? Except for Abelard, everyone is really weak. The skill tree is also way too overloaded and most of the skills are also useless. You simply don't get the skills needed to specialize a character. It could also be that this problem is due to the German translation. But that's my thought after a good 25 hours. I would be interested to know how you see it?

[Nox]

False. Cassia, Argenta, Pasqal, Abelard, My PC, Von Calox.

All can have different roles, and unique abilities that are far from useless. Tons of these abilities work together allowing for deadly combos.

[king_of_jamaica]

Argenta is crazy powerful for me. Regularly taking out 1-3 enemies per turn. Heinrix is almost as good as Abelard, and makes my entire party damn near indestructible in normal fights(he literally did make them take 0 damage from every attack in one fight). Cassia has, so far at least, the best AoE attack in the game on top of strong buffs. Pasqal is, fine, if you treat him as a sniper. I'm sure I'm using him incorrectly though.

Honestly, the worst damage dealer in my party is me, but I'm playing an Officer, so I very rarely even attack.

[~ Fabulous ~]

Most companion are good, the only one that I don't want to use is that psychic girl because I am not a fan of inviting demon to my battle, like pascal is a literal beast both in melee and long range.

[randol84]

Pasqal (act 2) is damn strong. He can use two 2handed weapons at the same time as a personal perk.

I mean, i gave him the talent that he can use the second weapon in the same turn paying 1 more point and it's just brutal. 2 handed aoe axe attack + a aoe or single plasma shot.

[Jason Eroge]

Cassia is the strongest.... high hp, aoe dps, all the cc, and best support

[Lord_WC]

It's a skill issue, you don't know how to build them. Look up guides, Hendrix can be a mega bruiser/buffer, Pasqual is incredible Bounty Hunter sniper, Argenta is a good marksman and Cassia is likely stronger than the protagonist...

[Raziel ל׳]

Abelard is a melee rusher, i didn't realize this and tried to play him as a ranged guy, you really need to read the descriptions carefully and build your characters very carefully, and make use of their heroic moments, then they become really powerful, if anything my MC is the weakest in my party by far as an Officer / Pryopsyker probably cause i built him poorly .

[Solid Steel]

Originally posted by Lord_WC:

It's a skill issue, you don't know how to build them. Look up guides, Hendrix can be a mega bruiser/buffer, Pasqual is incredible Bounty Hunter sniper, Argenta is a good marksman and Cassia is likely stronger than the protagonist...

Maybe it's a "skill issue" maybe not. As I said, the German translation is partly illogical. I'm also missing a kind of common thread as to where the characters should develop. Luckily, you can easily change your skills.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by Solid Steel:

The skill tree is also way too overloaded

Definitely agree with that.
I like the overall architypes the classes are going for, but they're really making a meal of realizing them. I think you could cut the number of level ups in half and combine most of the skills into a lot fewer, more powerful abilities and have a more interesting, splashier system that played more smoothly. Especially the passive perks.
It's not terrible so far, but it definitely feels like a system designed for one player to play one character in a tabletop game, not for one player to run a whole party in a video game.

[Khloros]

You are not building them right and or you are not far enough into the game.

Argenta is like THE chaff killer of the game, spec her into arch militant and give her a flamer and the just play fortunate son on repeat. She can bull rush an entire army and burn all the chaff to a crisp

Abelard is a great rusher/tank, just dump str and toughness into him and spec him to be a meat sheild, i gave him a 2h thunder hammer and i can send him off on his own and 9/10 times he mops the floor.

Pascal make an amazing bounty hunter, i got the needle rifle from forgotten twins systems for some food and he just posts up in the back marks targets, and picks them off.

Cassia is stupid good, shes the party buffer, and stat stick for the group. I build her into grand stratagist, and she hangs out with pascal in the back line giving him a -1ap to his attacks so he can spend all round debuffing then sniping a target. With frontlines she can buff your allies good. You can also give her revel in light which for me right now buffs my allies willpower and toughness by 23 for all of combat, and then also give her nightmare to debuff enemies.

I run The inquisitor as an assassin and he just zips around the find buffing people with iron arm, debuffing with enfeeble and smacking weak spots for big damage.

Im building my MC as another arch militant, but abusing reckless rush + All out + Confident approch + the talent that make its so you retain half of the vers buffs from fonfident approch so he is just a running and gunning auto critting machine.

The issue most people have when they say x character is weak, is because they are trying to building them as an individual. Alebard is great as an individual. But you need to build your characters as a party.

[BenShinobi]

I don't agree with people saying the levelling is particularly complex here. That's not to say different choices don't make a huge difference, what I mean is you only have to make 1-2 choices each level, with some helpful tags to show what's recommended for your first time, so the only thing that's at all arduous is that tooltips need to be read carefully (admittedly there could be some better tooltips for clarity).

A skill tree reset, or having some ability to go back and choose a different perk would be great, so you can avoid giving a perk to someone and then getting a new character of same archetype that does that skill better.

I've now got 2 officers in my party, as my main char is an officer too, and it's silly how much extra damage output those classes get out of their allies. It's absolutely a game where buffs & abilities used sensibly together are much more important than focusing on everyone's dps output. Want Argenta to wipe out a chaos spawn the same turn it appears? Or Idira to spam aoe warp attacks (if you're feeling lucky)? You want officers for that.

[GrugIsRock]

Originally posted by Solid Steel:

Why are all available companions so useless? Except for Abelard, everyone is really weak. The skill tree is also way too overloaded and most of the skills are also useless. You simply don't get the skills needed to specialize a character. It could also be that this problem is due to the German translation. But that's my thought after a good 25 hours. I would be interested to know how you see it?

Cassia is a buff god, Henrix is a buff god once your get haste. Argenta was nerfed quite a bit since the beta. Yrliet is a really good one shot one kill.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Cassia is pure death dealer. Higher difficulties she is a must and an absolute beast. She can kill dozens in 1 turn.

Abe can take a hit but he cant kill anything.

Yri and Pasqal can both be top snipers that deal a lot of damage and debuffs at same time.

If you dont go Officer MC Jae is full support with every AP every turn. She can feed Cassia.

Argenta the biggest problem early game is the "recoil" of the bolters. I think its like 40 or 50 that is why she cant hit anything.

In Act 1 I would probably stick a burst lazer in her hand so she can land all of her hits and its usually higher rate of fire but lower damage per round. Bolters improve in Act 2 and you can give her item to help recoil.

Then she deals straight death.

Early Game Heinie might be better then Abe cause early heavy armor is trash its 5% better then light and Abe has no chance at dodge.

The only companion I love to hate is idira. She is actually an insane debuffer but that 5% chance to spawn a hell beast literally goes off every battle. She dropped 2 of them in 1st battle in Act 1. So she is perma benched now.

Cassie can control the warp but unsanctioned is 5% every time Idira uses her abilities. So its pointless on higher difficulties.