So having gone through the prestige system perks as they stand - I have a fundamental issue. As a 700+ hr absolute/solo player, I was a bit disappointed to see they are mostly comprised of light buffs in the vein of existing ones earlier in the weapon or level system. My suggestion is that high level players don’t need these and therefore they don’t look particularly attractive, as they don’t offer much in the way of shifting your play style. Getting to this point in the game should offer a change to the player in their style of play.


I think on top of some generic buffs to strength, it would be much more exciting to have more 'glass-cannon' trade-off perks that ask a player to give something up in exchange for an ability out-the-norm. The percentage of players actually doing prestige will be comparatively low, so why not reward them with some more extraordinary abilities - ones that may even offer a significant loss in exchange for a gain? For example (please allow me some breathing room for these not being perfectly balanced, these are off the top of my head and I am just trying to get the concept across):

Sniper: you move 50% faster but take 30% more melee damage
Vanguard: melee damage increases 30% but your armour is reduced to one bar
Assault: a successful ground slam kill instantly recharges the ability, but you lose 1 armour segment per slam

Bulwark: Deploying banner instantly kills all non-terminus enemies in the wave, but can only be deployed once per map

Tactical: Scanned enemies receive double damage from teammates, but deal double damage to you

Heavy: Primary fire rate increases 25%, you parry 25% slower


One perk in the existing tree that follows this mould would be Heavy - Strategic Stand (While in Heavy Stance, dealing Damage restores 15% more Contested Health, you do not lose control upon taking Heavy Hits, and you cannot be knocked back but you will not be able to move). There's a concession to this perk - and it requires you adjust your play style to make the best of it, this to me is a great design. They don't all need to be like this, but at Prestige, I'd love to see more in this vein for the hardcore players who have unlocked it.


As the devs have said - we are at the technical limit of how difficult they can make the game more or less, and players don't want bullet-sponge enemies. In my opinion the difficulty at Absolute is pretty great - with more buffs coming in 7.0, I am expecting a smoother experience with more useful trees - but beyond this, it would be awesome if the prestige abilities offered ways to in a way - make the game harder for ourselves, by adopting abilities that require a high level of play to utilise. I don't necessarily need to do even more damage!


The skill tree of Path of Exile might be a decent analogy of what I am suggesting - whereby once you get out to the edges, you're in the territory of some pretty extreme nodes that might make you very powerful but much more likely to die if you lose concentration (using health as mana for example). Any thoughts on this welcome, but I hope I got the general idea across here. Thanks devs btw for all the awesome stuff in each update so far!