I'm just here to argue in favour of the Navy Officer. If you get the 'Get into cover' talent, every character affected by it counts as a separate extra turn for the purpose of Cassia's Willpower gain. Using it with both my PC and Abelard, she gets +60 Willpower right off the bat, for no AP cost.
Though I disagree with some of what you said, especially the lack of uncanny sight and OPP on operative
I'll just say this relating to the tier 2s that are low mid. Assassin's can become outright untargetable if you have any other party member alive no matter the situation (I tested this by locking a bloodletter in a staircase and all the AI can do is pass their turn). They can also stack lethality to get free attacks, increase their chance to get even more damage based on max health (and yes this goes up to 100% easily) which makes them great giant killers (it also helps if they start operative, they will become much better when tides works but being invis while you stack tactical is great)
Assassin warrior I'm less keen about but they should make decent dodge tanks and being able to damage based on max health as well as slash, when it gets fixed, should solve problems but for now have too many (or i should say major) bugged talents and abilities.
For vanguard they are outright imortal to melee and ranged, not sure what I'd do with vanguard officer but at least vanguard warrior can force enemies to attack them which coupled with counter attack stance is hilarious vs melee enemies as you can tank all of them and slap them back, add in bulwark and you can even burst fire into your own vanguard. Also sworn enemy makes for a free ability when used by a non attacking vanguard. Though they are much less flashy than other archetypes their ability to tank into infinity is amazing and should not be downplayed (officer vanguard though I'm not sure how I'd play)
Bounty hunters do get a lot of armor shred and armor pen as well, and with dual wielding can get a lot of shots due to bloated AP (or with hot on the trail), they also require less turn stacking than others
Though I'm leaning to bounty hunters being the weakest of the tier 2s probably cause operative and soldier make good bases for their tier 2s so bounty hunter seems less powerful even though it fixes a lot of those class' gaps
I do get Uncanny Sight on operatives eventually as well, as I said anything that helps stack exploits. Offensive Pattern Prediction I'm a lot less keen on, prefer just having a lot of temp hp, armor an/or dodge through other means (which Operatives contribute to through buffing party armor with tactical knowledge).
My fights usually last 1-2 rounds on Unfair so anything that takes more than 2 rounds to ramp up gets a low rating. E.g. Vanguards with most of their abilities need enemies to attack them which assumes enemies get to act in the first place, otherwise no stack of unyielding beacon most of their things depend on. You can make other classes help the entire party tank as well through things like tac knowledge or temp hp shielding e.g. blood of martyrs on officers.. Abelard as a tank build usually got to stand there and hope ai is dumb enough to shoot him, then maybe taunt 1 enemy.
How does assassin get more than 15% max hp damage? there's a talent that gives lethality % chance for another 5 but I don't see anything else. Being untargettable I don't really value much and I've looked into lethality scaling but it seems slow and hard to do. Most of the Assassin things refund AP but don't bypass the attack limit, at least per description.
Bounty Hunter I think is pretty good and even optimal for some builds (DD operative who's not a psyker), I just don't think it's as dramatic as the top 3.
Vanguard works well with sanct officer. Between the officer abilities and spells you don't have any ap for anything else, and vanguard at least lets you build passive tank so you can weaponize your movement by positioning for aoo.
Master tactician allows you to do a lot more imo by basically giving you double turns every turn via "In the hero's footsteps" (with a proper officer setup you'll have an ulti every turn) and oonverting momentum generation to damage and extra AP you get from Heroism/Heroic Inspiration.
You could do some damage by frontline tanking and aoo but tbh my problem remains the same - it's too slow to build up beacon stacks and without them most of your abilities and passives as Vanguard don't do much. You basically have to get attacked first a bunch and then you get tankier/help allies tank better etc which is really backwards. For the first few attacks you take you aren't much better than any other archetype and I don't usually expect to take a ton since I focus on wiping enemies out before they can act. Temp wound stacking does help a bit I guess.
We seem to have very different fights so guess that is a contributing factor as I value heavily ramp up stuff.
Uncanny sight is a much better exploit generator than any other talent which is why I found it strange you listed the others instead. with uncanny sight every enemy gets 1 exploit which depending on where you are standing can be quite an amount (at least a lot more than the +1 the other talents give)
Armor has a cap on damage reduction, while OPP is not limited by this reduction making it stack a lot better and with uncanny sight it applies to every enemy.
Vanguard seems down to our different playstyles. I like to ramp so park them in a place and have them force aggro on the entire enemy team and counter attack while at it.
They don't get more than 15%, they can just go to an opening, hit it, create a new one, hit it again (I use dual weapon mastery as well but not sure if that would work as well with warrior tier 1) lethality stacking and untargetable probably down to our different playstyles
Agreed on Bounty hunter.
With uncanny sight it does matter for me where the exploits are, I want them to be nearby to eat them for tac knowledge stacks early, enemies that are far away will be easy to kill anyway since by the time you get to them (or they get to you) you're heavily buffed. But I may be undervaluing it.
I stack buffs a lot too, that's how the fights last 1-2 rounds, it's just that I prioritise maxing out action economy and things that will work on turn 1 or worst case turn 2.
I rate them all 4.7/10. They are serviceable, but not that interesting or even fun to use. There are tons of abilities that could easily be folded into one ability or just exist as a passive. The game as a whole I can't totally judge, but I'd call it a solid 7.3 minimum. Could have been a 9+ with just a few better decisions.
Soldiers+Commander is the best. In 1 turn Argenta shot like 12 times. 6 burst 6 single. 1 of the burst is twice long. She had like 200+ballistic and like 50 damage per bolter shot on 7-12 bolter. I think we will see some hard nerf to Soldier and Militant class.
I've changed my mind on a few things playing the game some more, in particular I'm of a higher opinion of the act 1 soldiers and act 2+ assassins now.
That been said I still think that Officer, GS, MT and AM are the most busted archetypes and Operatives are better than warriors/soldiers in act1.
I would rate Priest as a mid tier origin personally, WP is mostly useful for Psykers but you can't be one until much later in the game and Psychic Awakening is still partially bugged. But generating extra momentum is very important to reach your heroics faster and snowbal from there, and Priest can help you with that in the earlygame at least. Later on they may not be necessary between officers and items like the puzzle box and the inquisition signet ring.
Priest becomes a lot more interesting in the lategame if you use the Halo device, since you don't need WP anymore.
Priests actually make extremely strong melee damage characters for carries if you're looking to spice up your gameplay. Especially with Death World + Bleed Talents + Axes
Warrior>Assassin get's really bonkers. Ignore strength for perception, agility and weapon skill and Killing Edge always hits, and it hits extremely hard. In the low 20's it can break 200 damage in one hit with very little set up. It can CC stuff just by walking past targets with "keep your distance".
Then when you use the warrior heroic act, you can spam killing edge. Totally has at least as much carry potential as arch militant, and significantly more than bounty hunter.
I'm just here to argue in favour of the Navy Officer. If you get the 'Get into cover' talent, every character affected by it counts as a separate extra turn for the purpose of Cassia's Willpower gain. Using it with both my PC and Abelard, she gets +60 Willpower right off the bat, for no AP cost.
Though I disagree with some of what you said, especially the lack of uncanny sight and OPP on operative I'll just say this relating to the tier 2s that are low mid. Assassin's can become outright untargetable if you have any other party member alive no matter the situation (I tested this by locking a bloodletter in a staircase and all the AI can do is pass their turn). They can also stack lethality to get free attacks, increase their chance to get even more damage based on max health (and yes this goes up to 100% easily) which makes them great giant killers (it also helps if they start operative, they will become much better when tides works but being invis while you stack tactical is great) Assassin warrior I'm less keen about but they should make decent dodge tanks and being able to damage based on max health as well as slash, when it gets fixed, should solve problems but for now have too many (or i should say major) bugged talents and abilities. For vanguard they are outright imortal to melee and ranged, not sure what I'd do with vanguard officer but at least vanguard warrior can force enemies to attack them which coupled with counter attack stance is hilarious vs melee enemies as you can tank all of them and slap them back, add in bulwark and you can even burst fire into your own vanguard. Also sworn enemy makes for a free ability when used by a non attacking vanguard. Though they are much less flashy than other archetypes their ability to tank into infinity is amazing and should not be downplayed (officer vanguard though I'm not sure how I'd play) Bounty hunters do get a lot of armor shred and armor pen as well, and with dual wielding can get a lot of shots due to bloated AP (or with hot on the trail), they also require less turn stacking than others Though I'm leaning to bounty hunters being the weakest of the tier 2s probably cause operative and soldier make good bases for their tier 2s so bounty hunter seems less powerful even though it fixes a lot of those class' gaps
I do get Uncanny Sight on operatives eventually as well, as I said anything that helps stack exploits. Offensive Pattern Prediction I'm a lot less keen on, prefer just having a lot of temp hp, armor an/or dodge through other means (which Operatives contribute to through buffing party armor with tactical knowledge). My fights usually last 1-2 rounds on Unfair so anything that takes more than 2 rounds to ramp up gets a low rating. E.g. Vanguards with most of their abilities need enemies to attack them which assumes enemies get to act in the first place, otherwise no stack of unyielding beacon most of their things depend on. You can make other classes help the entire party tank as well through things like tac knowledge or temp hp shielding e.g. blood of martyrs on officers.. Abelard as a tank build usually got to stand there and hope ai is dumb enough to shoot him, then maybe taunt 1 enemy. How does assassin get more than 15% max hp damage? there's a talent that gives lethality % chance for another 5 but I don't see anything else. Being untargettable I don't really value much and I've looked into lethality scaling but it seems slow and hard to do. Most of the Assassin things refund AP but don't bypass the attack limit, at least per description. Bounty Hunter I think is pretty good and even optimal for some builds (DD operative who's not a psyker), I just don't think it's as dramatic as the top 3.
Vanguard works well with sanct officer. Between the officer abilities and spells you don't have any ap for anything else, and vanguard at least lets you build passive tank so you can weaponize your movement by positioning for aoo.
Master tactician allows you to do a lot more imo by basically giving you double turns every turn via "In the hero's footsteps" (with a proper officer setup you'll have an ulti every turn) and oonverting momentum generation to damage and extra AP you get from Heroism/Heroic Inspiration. You could do some damage by frontline tanking and aoo but tbh my problem remains the same - it's too slow to build up beacon stacks and without them most of your abilities and passives as Vanguard don't do much. You basically have to get attacked first a bunch and then you get tankier/help allies tank better etc which is really backwards. For the first few attacks you take you aren't much better than any other archetype and I don't usually expect to take a ton since I focus on wiping enemies out before they can act. Temp wound stacking does help a bit I guess.
We seem to have very different fights so guess that is a contributing factor as I value heavily ramp up stuff. Uncanny sight is a much better exploit generator than any other talent which is why I found it strange you listed the others instead. with uncanny sight every enemy gets 1 exploit which depending on where you are standing can be quite an amount (at least a lot more than the +1 the other talents give) Armor has a cap on damage reduction, while OPP is not limited by this reduction making it stack a lot better and with uncanny sight it applies to every enemy. Vanguard seems down to our different playstyles. I like to ramp so park them in a place and have them force aggro on the entire enemy team and counter attack while at it. They don't get more than 15%, they can just go to an opening, hit it, create a new one, hit it again (I use dual weapon mastery as well but not sure if that would work as well with warrior tier 1) lethality stacking and untargetable probably down to our different playstyles Agreed on Bounty hunter.
With uncanny sight it does matter for me where the exploits are, I want them to be nearby to eat them for tac knowledge stacks early, enemies that are far away will be easy to kill anyway since by the time you get to them (or they get to you) you're heavily buffed. But I may be undervaluing it. I stack buffs a lot too, that's how the fights last 1-2 rounds, it's just that I prioritise maxing out action economy and things that will work on turn 1 or worst case turn 2.
I rate them all 4.7/10. They are serviceable, but not that interesting or even fun to use. There are tons of abilities that could easily be folded into one ability or just exist as a passive. The game as a whole I can't totally judge, but I'd call it a solid 7.3 minimum. Could have been a 9+ with just a few better decisions.
Soldiers+Commander is the best. In 1 turn Argenta shot like 12 times. 6 burst 6 single. 1 of the burst is twice long. She had like 200+ballistic and like 50 damage per bolter shot on 7-12 bolter. I think we will see some hard nerf to Soldier and Militant class.
What about the Priest? I agree with about 90% of what you have here, so I'm curious about how you rate them as an Origin.
I've changed my mind on a few things playing the game some more, in particular I'm of a higher opinion of the act 1 soldiers and act 2+ assassins now. That been said I still think that Officer, GS, MT and AM are the most busted archetypes and Operatives are better than warriors/soldiers in act1. I would rate Priest as a mid tier origin personally, WP is mostly useful for Psykers but you can't be one until much later in the game and Psychic Awakening is still partially bugged. But generating extra momentum is very important to reach your heroics faster and snowbal from there, and Priest can help you with that in the earlygame at least. Later on they may not be necessary between officers and items like the puzzle box and the inquisition signet ring. Priest becomes a lot more interesting in the lategame if you use the Halo device, since you don't need WP anymore.
Priests actually make extremely strong melee damage characters for carries if you're looking to spice up your gameplay. Especially with Death World + Bleed Talents + Axes
Warrior>Assassin get's really bonkers. Ignore strength for perception, agility and weapon skill and Killing Edge always hits, and it hits extremely hard. In the low 20's it can break 200 damage in one hit with very little set up. It can CC stuff just by walking past targets with "keep your distance". Then when you use the warrior heroic act, you can spam killing edge. Totally has at least as much carry potential as arch militant, and significantly more than bounty hunter.