Rather than blatantly increasing the cap of AP/recovery rate like in the previous game, which caused every build to be around having as much AP as possible, and like EA where the best build was abusing all the +AP skills that had no downsides at the time, I would prefer there be more talents that revolve around niche builds.
The lack of talents right now is the real killer in combat, as talents define characters more than any stat or set of skills. As examples, if you took bully, you'd want to take as many knockdown skills as possible. There were talents that made you immune to your least favourite conditions, meaning you could freely use those elements more. Slingshot and Pinpoint made grenade builds more approachable.
I'd rather see more talents like Elemental Affinity and What A Rush - you have to create specific situations for yourself, but the reward is that, while you maintain that situation, your AP costs are lowered, or you're able to chain skills with more freedom, etc.
- A Bully-equivalent that reduces the cost of single target skills when your opponent is knocked down.
- A talent that makes every Xth spell you cast use less AP.
- A backstab talent that, for every normal attack you make, you can slowly accumulate points that can be used to reduce the cost of skills.
- A talent that gives you haste when you perform a specific action, or simply provides you with bonus recovery for the turn after.
- A talent that lets you save double the amount of AP - so if you end your turn with one AP left over, you get two the turn after.
- A talent that reverses the effect of shocked, so that you're energized and instead gain AP, but the downside being that you're easily stunned when you lose your magic armor.
Those kinds of talents create fun, rewarding gameplay without relying on power creep, and given how slowly you accumulate talents, there's little chance that taking multiple of them will suddenly make you into an AP God, as you still need to fulfill the conditions on all of them.
My 2H Warfare/Necro tank, albeit a commonly used build, is a good example of how talents can make a build and give you a flexible goal in combat. I use Walk It Off and Comeback Kid, while actively using skills that case damage to me/actively try to get myself low, to take advantage of Walk It Off. When I die, I'm still in Walk It Off range after Comeback Kid, so I can reliably start my turns with 5 AP, heal myself above half health with my extra AP, and then still be alive when they hit me the next turn below that threshold again.
I much prefer the 'everyone has the same AP, but if you can maintain specific conditions, builds, or even accept sacrifices, you can gain more' approach. It makes the game a lot less linear, but everyone still feels as though they're accomplishing things when they reap the rewards for their actions. I hated that the previous game was just a case of everyone having 10 AP, dipping into every single tree, and casting as many spells as they can to create absolutely busted combos, to the point that power creep was clearly a factor by mid-endgame. It didn't encourage niche builds, it didn't require creative thinking - it got the point where even if it seems like you're doing something unique, everything else is still doing the exact same thing because they've got the same ridiculous AP and need to dump it all somehow.
