Hellooo,
I've been struggling to find balanced and interesting ways to make Gloom Gunner from the Soldier class something other than free weapon fusions. Because of the connection to the shadow planes, I'm hoping to make something akin to dreadful carnage builds in pathfinder. Bullying brute can shake enemies but takes the attack away. There is no power attack (so no Cornugon smash), no shatter defenses, ...
So I've been thinking to keep shadow secrets because that's a fun ability but replace most of the rest.
The 1st level ability could be a free impressive flex and scaling bonuses to intimidate check.
5th could simply be shadow secrets.
9th could be the dreadful carnage or only the benefit to the frightful shadow Corruption.
13th would be replaced by hateful visage from the witchwarper, using RP instead of spell slots.
I have yet to test it with my players. Do you notice any red flag ?