I should preface this list by saying that I personally really like talents that change the way your characters strategize. So a lot of these are significant changes. My reasoning, is that it makes each run feel substantially different and fresh if you have to play it differently. It seems that so far in DOS 2 the talents have been very toned down so they don’t have a huge effect on your playstyle. I think players should have the choice to take talents that really DO effect how you play the game.
Blind Seer –champion is permanently blind and only has a short sight range but can cast spells through other party members as if standing where the allied character is. Does not suffer blindness sight debuff when casting through allies (Personally I love talents like this that fundamentally change the way you play a run. You can cast spells through your tank for example but you are far more vulnerable if you get jumped on)
Vengeful Shadow – 10% chance on taking combat damage, that a shadow will appear and perform an attack on the enemy who inflicted the damage, before disappearing again. Damage dealt scales with maximum hp.
Blood rage – any time you take damage equal to 20% of your maximum health, your next ability deals 50% bonus damage
Hemihypertrophy – can wield a 2 handed weapon in one hand, but the other hand can only ever hold a shield. After all modifiers are calculated, your total move speed per AP is halved and you can never dodge attacks (and maybe your character has a permanent limp?). (This is actually a medical condition where one side of your body grows much more than the other side). Another example of a talent I’d love to see because of how it changes the way you fight. You could even push this even further by reducing your max AP by 1, but every third attack deals bonus damage (scaling on strength) and knocks the target down. Obviously this idea is a HUGE change to playstyle but overall it’s definitely a buff.
Raging Healer – after healing allied party members with 4-5 skills, your next damaging spell automatically crits
Leprosy – each time you take damage, all enemies within 1 meter become diseased for 2 turns but everyone’s attitude to you is reduced by 30 (or maybe more?). Alternatively, the cost for such a powerful talent could just be a -1 to an attribute (constitution maybe?). Or maybe all characters within 1 meter become diseased including allied characters, and have no attribute penalty.
Arachnids curse – every time you deal damage there is a 5% chance you will summon a shadow spider beside the target, AND beside yourself. Shadow spiders have no allegiance and will attack the closest visible target (besides another shadow spider). Conversely, they could be voidwoken spiders who won’t attack other voidwoken creatures but I don’t know if this will fit with the story later down the track. Personally I like they idea of them being voidwoken, but I don’t know what Larian has planned story wise. Another way to do this is to instead deal 10% bonus shadow (or void) damage on all attacks and abilities, but the spider only spawns beside you when it procs.
Soul Tethered – designate another character, all damage and healing received (not status effects) is divided equally between the two soul teathered characters. While this is definitely a buff if you put on two weaker party members so they can’t get bursted down so easily, its possible it may need a buff as well, like +1 constitution. But it may be strong enough without it.
I’ll do it myself! (or Contempt for the Weak) – can no longer cast healing or shielding spells on allies, but your spells gain a 20-30% damage increase for each party member that is incapacitated (stunned, knocked down etc)
These are a few ideas I spent some time on, and I really hope talents become a lot more significant
