Heads Will Roll: Reforged

Heads Will Roll: Reforged

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Civic Talents Tier List
By Slav Mcgopnik
A tier list of every one of the civic talents added in Patch 1.5, based on my several playthroughs.
   
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Introduction
Patch 1.5 to Heads Will Roll:Reforged added a new feature, Civic Talents. These extra talents give a wide variety of boosts to your character, typically in ways that don't directly affect your combat skills. You receive one civic talent point at the start of every chapter, and can get more by spending character generation points. There's a wide range of variance to these though, some of stupidly good, others are pretty much never worth taking, I've sorted them into a tier list, from S to F. Tier explanations are below.

S: Must have/Universally Good. I almost always take these, and typically early if able.

A: Strong Option/Situationally Good. I often take these, and they are usually very good to have. They are not as vital as S tier talents though.

B: Decent Option/Useful. These are decent, but lack the extra punch to be higher tier.

C: Mediocre Option/Usable but not a big deal. Middle of the road, can be interesting ideas held back by odd requirements, or genuinely okay picks, but lacking in power.

D: Poor Option/Rarely useful. Not useless, but either lacks effectiveness, or has an overly conditional requirement holding it back.

F: Does Nothing/Effectively a waste. You're wasting a talent point if you take these. They're too niche to really get any value from, and even if you can get value from them, they're not really worth the effort.
S Tier Talents
Colossus (Grants you 1 strength and 1 vitality at the start of every chapter. Every 3 trainings of vitality also boosts your strength by 1): Free stats are always welcome, can get you a total of 7 strength and vitality in a playthrough assuming you take it in the prologue and play through a full route, which is equal to 14 time units worth of training (and spares you the time that would be needed to rest it off too). This alone would be powerful, but making every 3 vitality trainings give bonus strength is just the icing on the cake, perfect for high profile levels who can’t train other stats until later chapters (and yes, both the gain per chapter and the training gain ignore chapter limits). I always grab this in the prologue on my high profile level runs, and even lower level or random characters will get a lot from this.

Beast of Burden (+5 Inventory Capacity): 5 free inventory slots no questions asked. That’s 15 strength trainings worth of space, which is amazing value. Really helpful on low level runs to make up for poor stats, but still good at high levels, to make inventory management easier. Be sure to take this before other “clutter reducers” like Do-It-Yourself or Lucky Devil.
A Tier Talents
Huntsman (Every scavenging grants 2 bonus leather and 20 florins): Leather is the gateway to money making (via waterskins used to make potent medicine), so getting more of its is always good. The extra cash is just the cherry on top. Not my top priority usually, but one I typically grab earlier on. Stacks with other scavenging boosters like the hunting sword and hunting dagger.

Sticky Fingers (Looting Grants an additional item): If you’re looting constantly, you could get decent value from this. Looting is a good way to make money and can kickstart further cash from crafting. Even on lower levels, additional chances to fish for gear are never bad, although it's harder to use as you need to kill enemies to get a chance to loot.
B Tier Talents
Master of Poisons (Doubled poisons when crafting are now full instead of half filled, provides additional poison ingredients when scavenging with an empty vial): A must have if you want to aggressively utilize poisons. I typically don’t (as my Estoc build can one shot most weaker enemies, and I can usually just keep some poison around for the tougher fights where it’s helpful), but you can get decent value from this. Pairs well with craftsmanship boosters.

Craftsman (Increases odds of doubling a craft result by 5%): The boost is nice, as it helps even if you’ve reached the effective cap on craft for items (20). Won’t make a massive difference, but it does reduce the odds of an unlucky normal craft.

Gambler (You are more likely to win when gambling, based on how low your virtue is. Also boosts won/lost florins by your virtue as well): Needs a lot more testing. Gambling is the best rest method prior to chapter 3 where the bathhouse is unlocked, so more chance to succeed at it is nice. It’s not clear if this counts as the lucky dice, or stacks with them. The only real problems are that it makes you lose more money when you fail, and that it requires low virtue to get best value. Tentatively putting it at B, and probably better for low profile level characters who are going to likely have poor virtue anyway.
C Tier Talents
Do-It-Yourself (You do not need a Sewing Kit or Alchemist's tools to craft items): Sure, you could technically take it in the prologue and save the 30 florins needed for the alchemist tools and sewing kit, but that’s a pretty low priority considering there’s other talents that can give you far more money in the long run. Mainly at C tier because it saves you two inventory space, an okay option if you’re later in the game and want to maximize your inventory.

Casanova (Your first 3 brothel uses per chapter are free): Can save you 135 florins per chapter, in theory. You still eat the virtue penalty, and risk getting the toxic condition every time you use the brothel, which is not free to cure post Chapter 3. Not a bad pick if you are doing a low profile level or random character, but the bathhouse beats out the brothel if you’re rich. Would probably be B or even A tier if it reduced or removed the chance to get toxic.

Man of Faith (Doubles chance of a miracle when praying or mortifying flesh): While the virtue requirement is steep, boosted prayer is quite potent. If you can keep your virtue up, you can get a lot out of this. Good for lower profile level or random runs due to the lack of any money cost.

Musician (The lute action in camp restores more fatigue. Using the lute in combat recovers fatigue equal to your coordination) : Needs a lot more testing. I’m unsure if the musician boosted lute action beats gambling in early chapters, if it does, this could be B tier. If not, it stays at C, for at least providing some extra in combat fatigue reduction.

Thief (You gain additional money from heists you personally partake in, your heists are more likely to succeed): I rarely use heists, so I can’t speak to how nice this is. I’m assuming based on the low virtue requirement though, that it may be a little too situational to be high tier.
D Tier Talents
Lucky Devil (Significantly increases your luck): Just use a rabbit’s foot. Only worth it if you’re swimming in points and really want to free up an inventory slot.

Herbsman (You gain 2 additional alchemical ingredients when scavenging): The weaker version of Huntsman. Alchemical ingredients are way easier to get than leather, and you don’t get bonus money either. Weak pick typically.

Armorsmith (Removes the craftsmanship requirement for armorsmithing, and boosts your efficiency when armorsmithing): After further testing, I can conclude that it's a lot more meh than it sounds. The bonuses when you have maxed craft are pretty much nonexistent (tiny boost to armor value and coverage, and a slight boost to prestige), and the removal of the requirement to craft armor sounds great, except the stat penalties are so steep on custom armor at that level, that it kind of makes it a bit of a waste.

Marauder (Boosts gold gain when slaying enemies, based on how low your virtue is): There’s so many other civic talents that boost your gold gain either directly (Huntsman), or indirectly (Craftsman/Sticky Fingers), and none of them have the low virtue gain either. Counterproductive for low level characters due to requiring you to kill enemies to gain from it, and a waste for high level ones who can make gobs of money from crafting and looting anyway.

F Tier Talents
Good Manager (Squad Upgrades are 20% cheaper, when soldier rep is 90 or higher): Too conditional as is, requiring 90 soldier rep to even do anything (which can get tanked by random events if you are unlucky). A 20% discount on upgrades is insanely weak for how conditional this is. Even with the reworked squad system from patch 1.5, I still never take this, and my squaddies still tend to just evaporate from an unlucky hit.

Final Tier List+Thoughts
S Tier: Colossus, Beast of Burden
A Tier: Huntsman, Sticky Fingers
B Tier: Craftsman, Master of Poisons, Gambler
C Tier: Do-It-Yourself, Casanova, Thief, Musician, Man of Faith
D Tier: Lucky Devil, Herbsman, Marauder, Armorsmith
F Tier: Good Manager

There are a few of these I'm still thinking about placement of, mainly due to not testing them a lot due to my playstyle. I'm definitely going to test Gambler, Musician, and Thief more, and I could easily see master of poisons going down a tier.

I do hope this helps you with picking talents in the future though, as the points are limited, and you have a lot of options to spend them on.
Edit History
Edit 1
Moved Man of Faith from F to C: After testing, I can conclude the effect of this perk is quite powerful. It's still a bit limited due to the steep virtue requirement, but I think it will be of great value if you're on a random run and want cheap rest that doesn't cost money.

Moved Armorsmith from A to D: After further testing, I can conclude that it's a lot more meh than it sounds. The bonuses when you have maxed craft are pretty much nonexistent, and the removal of the requirement to craft armor sounds great, except the stat penalties are so steep on custom armor at that level, that it kind of makes it a bit of a waste.

Moved Sticky Fingers from B to A: It's just great value if you can afford to be looting, looting is a great source of cash and can really kickstart your money making. Useful even for low level characters as long as you can score a kill in a battle.

Lucky Devil: Tested, and it appears to function as a Rabbit's Foot trinket would, in which case it's staying in D tier for my reasons given.
2 Comments
Slav Mcgopnik  [author] 3 Aug @ 12:20pm 
I can definitely see the use if you have the virtue for it, could be worth more experimentation, I just typically find that using the dice to gamble is more reliable, although I've mostly been cleaning up achievements with monster characters, so I'm biased in my perception there.
Kae_Kar 3 Aug @ 11:36am 
For me, man of faith has worked very good. I play high virtue characters specifically to make use of this trait. Have you even tried it? It's really strong.
Also, I almost never use beast of burden and don't miss it either.
In case this makes a difference, I have almost only been playing randomly created/ low lvl characters since the update.