Many Ability Combos way too overpowered

[Neeko]

So my Party is currently in Act 4, and i'm getting a tad bored because at this moment i am winning every non-Bossfight in FIVE CLICKS (and a Spacebar). And even before that my Party was basically untouchable and putting out ungodly amounts of damage. This game seriously needs another balance overhaul, nerfing a whole lot of Perks. Especially many of the "stacking" ones need some hard Limits. And the Grand Strategist Ability to automatically go first in Combat just needs to be gone.

The Combination i am currently using is the following:
-Officer/Grand Strategist Trader on Iconoclast 4
-2 Executioners in the Party
-One of the Executioners solved the Cogni-Simulacrum EF-Ultima-Octodecimum

Battle Starts. Rogue Trader goes first because Grand Strategist
Click 1: Iconoclast 4 Ability on Executioner 1
Click 2: Carnival of Misery. End extra turn.
Click 3: Bring it down! on Executioner 2
Click 4: Paradox Solved into...
Click 5: Carnival of Misery again, killing everything with less than 500 HP

If this does not instantly end the fight it is still my Rogue Traders turn and i have enough Momentum to use a third Heroic.

Other things that definitely need looking at are stacking talents without limits. My Argenta for instance is a Soldier/Arch-Militant using the store-bought Heavy Bolter from Act 2. During the Sire-Bossfight, one of the longer fights, i got her to 100 Damage per Bullet, shooting Salvos of 18, thanks to Confident Approach and the stacking damage with every crit. Same fight got Pasqal (Operative/Bounty Hunter) up to 500+ Damage per Basic Shot with his Ancient Plasma Gun.

This stuff is just completely nuts, and i'm not playing in any way optimised. I havn't read any guides, i'm true Roleplaying my Trader (not optimzing decisions) and this is my first time in Act 4.

So yeah, Game desperately needs some nerfing.
--------------------------------------------
Proposed Nerfs:
- "Free" Heroic Moments need to go. Heroic Moments are meant to be awesome and rewarding moments of Power Spike in a fight. Being able to just instantly use several at the beginning of a fight is cheap, unsatisfying and of course massively overpowered.
- When you use a Heroic Moment you should not gain any Momentum for the rest of the Turn.
- Carnival of Misery should not stack its damage bonus higher than 100%. Any second or more activation of the Heroic should trigger a different bonus instead.
- Any stacking bonuses should be limited to maybe 5 instances, no unlimited stacking.
- "Confident Approach" needs to lose it's guaranteed crits. The pure damage bonus it gives is fine, the problem is triggering every other "on crit" talent with every shot. Maybe turn them into mini-crits or something, or just give a straight damage bonus.
- The combination of "always goes first" on Strategist and "Bring it Down!" or similar turn-granting abilities is too strong. Both on their own are fine. Maybe give the Strategist back the Round 0 Turn, but with strong limits on what you can do then, and let him have normal Iniative for the rest f the fight.

[Jesus_Guy]

Hopefully 1.3 patch that's suppose to drop "later" after the DLC.... which is what im waiting on addresses this issue. Your complaint is what a bunch of people through when the first released this game.
Literally every fight beyond, and some in, act 4 and beyond, is kill everything first turn, or you lose. Not to mention the worthless feats that could cuck your character and party composition if it wasn't 2 officers, you were not going to finish the game.

[Neeko]

Originally posted by Jesus_Guy:

Your complaint is what a bunch of people through when the first released this game.

Yeah, i experienced that as well. got the game right on release, but i stopped my first run at the start of act 3, just too many bugs still for my liking back then. half the talents just didnt work at all...

I saw the balance patch, and that they wanted to specifically address the turn 0 wins, so i was very surprised to see that Grand Strategist still had that "i always go first" thing.

[corisai]

C'mon :) You're either a cheater or super-lucky guy with a premade character for Cogni-Simulacrum EF-Ultima-Octodecimum.

No way in hell a generic damage dealer class would have enough Logic to pass it without countless reloads (=cheating too).

[76561198930062478]

Out of curiosity, what difficulty do you play on?
I personally do agree that turn 0 wins shouldnt exist, however Classes that scale over time in prolonged Fights are fine, since they need some time to build up their Power.
I also dont really disagree with nerfing alot of things (despite ability combos that are able to turn 0 encounters) because it is a singleplayer Game, where the only parts that need Balancing are really extreme cases like beeing able to deal 7 digit amounts of damage within 2 turns, or beeing able to end the fight before the first turn ended.

[Revan619]

Barely dipped a toe into some of the OP possibilities. December is meant to have the 1.3 balance patch with new items, gear progression and cutscene updates. Hopefully more fun things to find

[Jesus_Guy]

"Classes that scale over time in prolonged Fights are fine"

The fights at the end of the game, one that comes to mind is the final boss of act 3. If you don't run down the stairs and use officer cheese. 1-3 people die on the enemies first turn. There is no scaling when you are dead.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Jesus_Guy:

"Classes that scale over time in prolonged Fights are fine"

The fights at the end of the game, one that comes to mind is the final boss of act 3. If you don't run down the stairs and use officer cheese. 1-3 people die on the enemies first turn. There is no scaling when you are dead.

That just means that like D&D, the best parts of Rogue Trader are the early game and the powerscaling is just wonky.

[Khorvus]

So, you think it's overpowered. Others may love theory crafing and think fine tuned well working combinations are fun. Just consider crying for a nerf can ruin other peoples fun. If you think a combination is overpowered... just don't use it. That's the beauty of games like this: so many different ways to play.

[Neeko]

Originally posted by corisai:

C'mon :) You're either a cheater or super-lucky guy with a premade character for Cogni-Simulacrum EF-Ultima-Octodecimum.

No way in hell a generic damage dealer class would have enough Logic to pass it without countless reloads (=cheating too).

I neither cheated nor was i super lucky. She was at about 150 Logic normal, and i equipped and buffed her to get her high enough to do it. She made the roll on the second try (well, fourth, but she had an item to auto-reroll a failed check once per try).

Also the item is bugged and did not self-destruct after i won the check, but that'S a seperate topic.

[76561198930062478]

Originally posted by Khorvus:

So, you think it's overpowered. Others may love theory crafing and think fine tuned well working combinations are fun. Just consider crying for a nerf can ruin other peoples fun. If you think a combination is overpowered... just don't use it. That's the beauty of games like this: so many different ways to play.

This.

Especially in a Singleplayer Game only the very extreme cases should be considered for a nerf, and even then it is still a singleplayer Game where you can dictate how much fun you have building characters.
I for one dont really have problems with specific strategies that insta-kill everythin on the first turn beeing addressed, because im not really a fan of them, but that also doesnt mean that because somebody is optimizing the fun out of his Gameplay other people should be affected by it.
The best solution for this would be Owlcat beeing a bit more open in their filestructure to for example allow modifying certain values and attributes of characteristics, talents, items and ally/enemy NPCs (not allowing actual gameplay content like new characters to avoid GW beeing GW) so that People have more customization options available and can "balance" their Game in a way that fits their taste.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Neeko:

I neither cheated nor was i super lucky. She was at about 150 Logic normal, and i equipped and buffed her to get her high enough to do it.

There is absolutely no reason to invest into Logic as second skill for Executioner (first skill is anyway a Medicae). They aren't increasing Intelligence. That's what I'd said about "you have a pre-made character for a logic device, so already known about it".

Yes, Cogni-Sim is one of absolutely broken items in the game (together with Warp Surge Brooch, Commander Chrono and Spirit Drape).

[shredalicious]

Originally posted by Neeko:

-2 Executioners in the Party

This, you took 2 new op archetypes

[Slowriffs]

I have a completely different setup, but the game simply is very unbalanced and I get for some people crying for a nerf can seem weird but something has to be done. It's not even about executioners or not, cogni sim or not.

It is simply too easy to gain momentum to the point that I don't even know why desperate measures even exist at all. Every low hp add in every fight is simply extra momentum and only makes the fight even easier. This game of course features a lot of forward momentum and it could swing the other way fast if nerfing was done carelessly.

I'd start with not making grand strategist always go first, maybe they can put their zones at the start but that's it.

Secondly momentum gain on kills needs to be scaling in some way. I often just let cassia wipe all low hp fodder just to gain an instant heroic action before the enemy can even take a turn, this combo is already possible as soon as you get 1 level of grand strategist.

And yeah executioner just does way too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ much damage.

[Slowriffs]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Neeko:

I neither cheated nor was i super lucky. She was at about 150 Logic normal, and i equipped and buffed her to get her high enough to do it.

There is absolutely no reason to invest into Logic as second skill for Executioner (first skill is anyway a Medicae). They aren't increasing Intelligence. That's what I'd said about "you have a pre-made character for a logic device, so already known about it".

Yes, Cogni-Sim is one of absolutely broken items in the game (together with Warp Surge Brooch, Commander Chrono and Spirit Drape).

His trader is a grand strategist so perhaps read before commenting, investing in int for a strategist is normal.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Slowriffs:

His trader is a grand strategist so perhaps read before commenting, investing in int for a strategist is normal.

Sorry if that will sound mean but OP wrote himself in his 1st post:

-One of the Executioners solved the Cogni-Simulacrum EF-Ultima-Octodecimum

And as we both know - you can't be both GS and Executioneer :)