OFFENSE PERKS

Which perks you have access to depends on character. Highlander gets no offense perks, so all are shaded

Galestorm: Excellent ganking feat, or teamfighting feat. Allows you to move on to another objective at the conclusion of a fight and give your team a strategic advantage. To get the bonus you need to get the finishing blow, so this perk works best with characters who have good finishing moves like shaman bite or damaging feats like Longbow.

Devourer: Good for teamfighting and getting ganked. Works especially well with faster executions as their heal relative to duration is improved the most. In teamfights you will be able to continue to engage aggresively with the extra health, while fighting outnumbered it gives you an extra boost if you execute an opponent during revenge.

Early Reaper: Good for fighting in any way; best for ganks or being ganked. You’ll be in the right place to put it to the most work after respawning as a ganker, and have opportunities to get more than one use if you’re going in to fights first and being knocked down. Terrible for clearing soldiers as they take a single hit regardless. Allows most characters to kill a pikemen in one hit for what it is worth. Important to note, this does not get removed on block, so your first attack doesn’t need to be perfect. This is especially good for characters that have a high damage initiating move or feat with which to start a fight.

Endurance: Beneficial in most fights, but especially useful for 1v1 fights where it will allow you to extend your offense and make you less at risk of getting exhausted by counters from your opponent. Also very strong for playing the soldier lane by allowing you to clear for longer before pausing. Limited value while being ganked since you’ll be waiting for revenge to launch your assault anyway.

Head Hunter: Best when being ganked, as revenge will allow you to finish the execution, Ganking as you’ll have chances to end unsuspecting opponents, or fighting on 1v1 centered points such as A on Overwatch or Temple Garden. This perk will not get much value if you’re spending the game in team fights. As far as I know there is no character that has a hyper armor feat and this perk.

Crush Them: Very similar to Early Reaper. Good while ganking, teamfighting, or being ganked. Especially good in teamfights where the bonus damage can be put to immediate effect and secure your team the fight. As with early reaper is is useless if you’re clearing soldiers. As with Early Reaper this perk buffs the damage of range feats making them even more deadly.

Survival Instinct: The only situation I’ve found this feat to be useful in is 1v1s. You’ll have extra stamina to get in those last few attacks to end your opponent before they end you. Theoretically it has uses in anti-gank on characters who can actively defend like Warden and Centurion, but you have to be incredible to make it work.

DEFENSE PERKS

The bright feats are active. The other feats are unshaded: available but inactive. Highlander can access every defense perk

Aegis: The rich get richer. Improves both Shields Up and Vengeful Barrier by improving their shields by 3 and 5 respectively. Not much, but something. Also works with shields from revenge, or feats such as Black Prior’s Sinister Shield or Phalanx, as well as shield buffs in Breach and Deathmatch. This is in all likelihood not the perk you want unless you’re running some sort of team strategy to get more out of it. Even then, the other options tend to exceed its impact.

Shields Up: Essentially 15 more health for your character. Amounts to about a light attack, which isn’t much but can be the difference between life and death. This feat is straightforward and consistently useful which makes it a good choice for perk set ups that aren’t going for something special. One consideration is its weakness in conjunction with body count while playing the soldier lane. Body count will not restore this shield, so you’ll find it uselessly chipped away if you spend time tanking soldier hits.

Bastion: This is a very strong feat especially in Breach where the ram, ramparts, and healing zone all give you the buff. In dominion it is generally best to defend zones from outside the zone. That sounds counter intuitive, but when you fight outside the zone you team continues to get +1 score a second. If you fight on it, you team gets nothing. That said, there are many points where keeping the opponent outside is not feasible, and while attacking points you’ll want to be standing on the point to get this bonus and deprive the opponent of score.

It is important to note that 10% damage reduction does not equal 10% more health. It is more than that. Your health is the maximum amount of damage you can take, and this reduces that damage. Mathematically this can be shown by the equation:

Max Damage taken = HP/(1-Reduction)

For a 125hp character this increases your effective hp to 138, which is an 11% increase. This perk also synergizes with shield perks or hp increase perks by increasing the effective hp they give. Damage Reduction perks do not synergize with each other however, only the largest source of damage reduction counts (In Dominion this is confirmed. I have had some experiences in Breach that make me believe that they may stack in that mode, but it has not been tested).

Vengeful Barrier: A very strong perk for defensive characters who want to tank ganks. If you’re planning on ganking, 1v1ing, or winning so hard you’re never on the defensive you wont get much value from this shield. This is as close to a must have as any perk gets in my opinion for heavies, but there are situations in which it does no add value. Vengeful Barrier has great synergy with Bastion and Last Stand due to the huge increases in Effective Hp. When using Last Stand and in critical health, this shield goes from 25hp to 41!

Last Stand: Only works while below 25hp. Not 25% but 25, which is a dangerous situation to need to be in for a bonus. It does however give a very strong bonus when it is active, and as stated above synergizes with Vengeful barrier. This damage reduction allows for more opportunities for revenge, and yes the entire shield bar of revenge is buffed by the damage reduction you gain here. This perk can be the difference between a teammate showing up to save you or getting close enough to see you die.

Fresh Focus: Despite being on the defense list this is a strong ganking and team fighting perk. In my experience this is the least defensive perk on the defense list. Defending by itself will rarely leave you exhausted unless you’re against a large amount of bashes and stuns. This perk does however reduce the amount of time you must spend at risk while exhausted. Which makes going all out on offense less risky. My primary experience with this feat is on Highlander, who can quickly blow through an entire stamina bar with a few offensive stance moves. An additional use of this feat is contesting the solider lane; allowing you to commit to a zone to clear soldiers, and reducing the amount of time you’re at a disadvantage against the opponent.

Bulk Up: 16 health eventually. That is one more Shields Up, and it can take most of a match to get to rank 4. This feat is at its strongest when playing the soldier lane with Body Count where you will get quick renown levels through soldier kills and be able to health this extra health, something that can’t be done with Shields up. When revived this also gives 8hp, which isn’t the 15 you get from Shields Up, but is still something.

ASSIST PERKS

Assist Perks run the gamut in terms of bonuses provided, but tend towards strategic advantages

Radiant Rebound: Speed is the heart of battle. Whether it is Dominion or Breach what you’re doing only matters if you’re doing it in the right place. This perk allows you to quickly get to Zones at the start of the game to set up with positional advantage or reach the soldier lane faster than your opponents and clear their first wave before they’re in a position to contest. Either can mean big momentum for you team. Very similar to Galestorm; more consistent as you’re guaranteed one per life, but doesn’t give the boost after ganks or fights to continue unless you get knocked down in them. All that means this feat is very strong for people who want to lead the charge. Works well on characters like Valkyrie who have strong defensive movesets or Tiandi who has feats tailored to taking damage. Also strong with traps or other position dependent feats.

Remedy: This perk is available to heavies and hybrids who will not have access to Bounty Hunter and it offers a toned down version of that feat to improve survivability in fights against multiple opponents. Works well in team fights and anti-gank situations. Does not offer much value in 1v1s and ganking. Can be combined with damaging feats to secure a heal, but generally has little synergy with characters, feats, or other perks. Has small added value in Breach where healing is less available and Rampart Captains offer an opportunity to trigger its benefit.

Feline Agility: At max renown level this provides half the bonus of Radiant Rebound or Galestorm with 100% up time. It will not be a huge movement bonus, but it does effect the speed you get around the map. This has greater impact in Breach where the map is larger than other 4v4 modes. The earlier you get renown levels the more value this perk will have, which makes it best suited for characters clearing soldiers or securing kills. Uncertain if it will stack with rush, or any of the movement speed perks. More testing is needed.

Rapid Refresh: 5% per kill is a very small amount especially if killing blows are required for the benefit. I do not have personal experience with this perk, so I can not say much of its effect, but the longer the feat cooldown the greater the benefit will be. This means it works best with tier 4 feats who can take upwards of 3 minutes to refresh, so again it is best for characters getting lots of renown winning fights or farming soldiers, and unlikely to help characters who are tanking ganks or supporting their teams in other ways that don’t give quick renown.

Rising Dawn: 25% more health amounts to between 30 and 41.5 (for a Shinobi or level 4 lawbringer with Bulk Up respectively) more health for the revived character. For comparison Second Wind feat heals 50, and the Soothing Mist feat heals for a maximum of 30 with 4 opponents around. Especially valuable in Breach where both healing and respawning are more limited than other 4v4 modes. It is important to consider what benefits you give up from your own character to gain this perk that is sometimes useful to your allies. Rising Dawn has obvious synergy with Rapid Revive and Protected Revive feats, but this perk also synergizes with fast movespeed and movespeed buffs, as well as stealth. Great if you have a team focused playstyle, likely not the pick if you’re focused on your own game.

Supersonic: Useful primarily while being ganked, but has some value in teamfights to reset and reposition. Supersonic offers a get out of jail free card that is highly useful to the faster characters who can equip by giving them a way to get out of bad situations they find themselves in while moving around the map playing objectives. Has limited value in the soldier lane except as a way to run away, which is generally almost as bad as dying.

Clever Tactics: While the name implies this is a valuable tactical perk, it gives more from a strategic stand point. Moving around the fight between battles, gaining control of zones (especially single direction control Ramparts in Breach) is more of a strategic than tactical maneuver. Not directly useful in any type of fight, but having a character playing objectives is a must in Breach and a giant benefit in dominion. Works well with characters who have high move speed to being with or access to feats and perks to increase their movespeed. Clever Tactics also synergizes with stealth and conqueror to make capturing zones safer or faster as the case may be.