Tactician Ascendancy Thoughts/Feedback

Not sure if anyone reads these things or if this is the right place, but I have been playing the new Tactician this league and wanted to share my thoughts/feedback on the ascendancy (without getting too much into the weeds on crossbows and other changes)


TL;DR
The Good:
The pin ascendancy nodes feel awesome, both nodes felt like a huge power spike in the campaign and in mapping + enable some interesting combos(bone shrapnel and combat frenzy for example)
The crossbow buffs really helped this class shine, without them it would have felt a lot worse.

The Bad:
The Ascendancy feels like it's sort of a two trick pony at the moment with the pin nodes and spirit cost reduction stealing the show. Most of the other nodes felt underwhelming or lackluster.
The Stay Light, User Cover is rough in its current state, but has potential. There is some lack of clarity of what the “accuracy penalty at distance” is which makes it hard to assess the value of the evasion half and armour is not in the best spot.(For what is worth I only tested the 200% defending with armour on the unique belt, and did not run this node directly)

The Ugly:
The ascendancy feels a bit all over the place. Particularly I think the minion portions of the tree are in a difficult spot as they don't synergize with each other. Namely making Unleash Hell not benefit from presence effects feels meh.
Aside from the pin nodes, the next best function of the ascendancy seems to be as an aura bot or supporting for other players to play the game. This may or may not align with your goals for the ascendancy.

I was *really* *really* bummed that crossbow users couldn't ride Rhoas. The thematic idea of commanding your totems/minions from mount is really cool, and I think it would be a fun way to change one downside(slowed movement while reloading) for another(risk of getting stunned and maybe add a reduced reload speed debuff) for crossbows.(Not ascendancy related but im putting it here anyways)


Suggestions:

Unleash Hell:
This skill could be buffed to be usable, but I feel like even if it was buffed it maybe would feel a little underwhelming for being an ascendancy skill. The idea itself has a lot of potential, and really it could have used ascendancy points similar to the Smith of Kativa to do a “build/tweak your own skill” feature. At very least it needs to be reworked if the minion angle is to be kept to be able to benefit from presence effects.

One idea I really liked was adding a “sergeant” minion to the skill with a grenade launcher that the minion would periodically fire to detonate/deal damage and then buff the arrow rain section of the skill. This accomplishes two things: I think it opens up more combos with detonate abilities from crossbows, bows and grenades while also giving a trade off for leaning into either the detonate or the command skill portion of the skill (as of right now there is only the command skill). I have a few interesting ideas for the build your own skill feature,and could expand on that if needed, but i don't think that will happen.

It would also be interesting to see if the command skill could be socketed with trigger spells like “Cast on shock” etc. While activating the skill is fine, it may fit the “fantasy” of the skill to have arrows coming over head WITHOUT the player pressing the button

Cannons Ready:
I think this skill needs a bit of a rework as even in a buffed up state it would either be underwhelming or overpowered.. It could be really interesting, if not a bit overpowered to link the attack speed of the totems to the weapon of the user directly but frankly that may be a bit busted.

Instead I felt like this skill could get reworked. One idea I thought was interesting was a node that changes how totems are placed (mostly because I was annoyed while on the controller that my ballistas were dropping in the face of enemies). Instead it would always place the max totems (with the draw back of an increased mana cost and small cooldown) in a triangle or square around the caster.You could then add either a form of “cover” to the sides of ballistas that blocks enemy projectiles or just do a buff of some sort inside that area. It would essentially be like the skill that creates a terrain wall around you and I think it fits thematically. I really like this idea of locking down a tactical location with the trade off that standing still late game can be risky.


Campaign thoughts:

When I unlocked artillery ballista and started raining fire on enemies, I thought to myself “This is what the Unleash Hell ascendancy SHOULD feel like”. But it was a really really enjoyable and satisfying power spike in a largely underwhelming set of crossbow skills early.

Once I allocated Suppressing Fire and used it, I was VERY excited to get the next node and definitely looked forward to that power spike.
I think the stat stacking effect on Unleash Hell is really interesting, but I think ultimately too weak. Would definitely be interested in seeing more of this idea though.

I leveled with a crossbow (as I did last league) and frankly I don't think I will ever do it again. It doesn't really start “feeling good” until level 30 as the reloading and slowed movement doesn't feel great early but I think I still had a relatively easier league start on day 1 compared to what I read from most others.


I have a bunch of other thoughts on the experience but this is already quite long so we will see how this post goes for now. Let me if you guys have any thoughts! If this isn't the right section of the forum feel free to let me know.