Title is pretty self explanatory, Veteran didn’t get a new weapon in the last update like everyone else. And now the new balancing blog mentions nerfing plasma, and hilariously buffing helbore lasguns with no mention of Veteran’s arguably most iconic weapon the Infantry Lasgun.
This class’s identity is in the dirt and it has been since the talent trees were introduced.
First off it is absolutely hilarious that Veteran released with NO keystones, that and the abysmal point tax along the way make me think there was some development hell in terms of creating a class identity for Veteran in the new system.
The right tree is an absolute meme, it has some really good talents towards the bottom and an okay keystone. But there is no reason to ever take the smoke grenade or the stealth ult, they aren’t even worth sacrificing for to invest in the right tree because the best talents are at the bottom, past the useless aura, ultimate, and blitz. The keystone is also kind of awkward to use, but its easy to proc so it isnt as much of an issue.
The middle tree has a useless aura, an okay grenade, and veteran’s best ultimate with some of his strongest talents at the bottom of the middle tree. This keystone is also overengineered as hell, especially compared to its VT2 counterpart which doesn’t operate off stacks at all and just applies a flat 15% damage bonus.
The left tree has the best aura and grenade in the game. The survivalist aura is so good there is no reason to ever take another one. There is no reason for this to have been put as an aura other than you were just looking for things to fill the tree from his existing kit. This was Veteran’s passive prior to the rework, make it a passive again built into the class. If you feel going this route would be too much of a buff for Veteran, then simply have the ammo replenishment apply ONLY to the Veteran. The left side ultimate is just kinda mid, it doesn’t have enough to keep up with the middle tree ultimate. The bottom left keystone is an actual joke, it looks like its supposed to encourage a marksman playstyle, which just doesn’t exist in the current state of high difficulty. So instead what you get is people taking an autogun or recon lasgun and blasting through hordes like maniacs with a perk called “Marksman’s Focus”, nice.
Right now he just plays second fiddle to zealot but with a standout ranged weapon in the Plasma Gun. If you just take away the Plasma gun he is going to feel even shittier than he does with his one really powerful build. (Theorycrafters will just find a different combination for everyone on these forums to point at and complain about)
The guardsman larp for this class has been kinda massacred which I hate to see. We’re still waiting on our new weapon for Veteran, probably won’t get that until December. If you take out the Plasma gun then you need to actually address the fact that Veteran build variety is almost literally not a thing.
Feel like it’s important to mention due to the language used: No, I don’t think Fatshark will outright remove the Plasma gun, but with how heavy handed they can be with balance adjustments, thats usually what they may as well have ended up doing.
My Veteran wishlist:
- Move survivalist out of the aura category and replace it with something else
- Rework the right tree to actually be worth investing in
- Rework the keystones to be less overengineered minigames, more in line with what other classes are like
- Restore Veteran’s identity as a ranged class without making it completely dominate the other classes like it did before
I don’t mean to come off as arrogant or like I know better, it is just really going to sting if Veterans have been promised a “new weapon” and instead we get two patches of nothing, followed by our shiniest toy getting nuked.