Dev Note: Vanguard wasn’t performing as we wanted, and it was mostly viewed as a blocker to the talents below it.
One Motion
+25% Weapon Swap Speed.
Highly disagree with this change. Sprint reduction is very important for melee veteran builds because we can only sprint to close the gap in melee yet we already have the worst stamina regen of any class. It wasn’t much of a “blocker” talent either because it makes up for our biggest inherent weakness (slow stamina regen delay) and can be taken for only 1 point in any build because it’s at the very top of the tree.
One Motion on the other hand is garbage, it’s only relevant for lucius lasguns and maybe bolters. But by positioning it in Vanguard’s old spot you’ve created a NEW blocker node for Tactical Reload and Out For Blood. Tac reload is most often used for shotguns and revolvers, neither of which are known for slow weapon switching. And Out For Blood is a melee kill talent and has little to no synergy.
Here’s what I would do:
Return Vanguard to how it was before.
If you absolutely must add One Motion to the game then put it on the bottom right branch of the tree right under Duck and Dive, replacing the stamina regen stat node that is already there. This is well within reach of most talent builds and most easily accessible to Weapon Specialist builds, who are unquestionably the type of veteran who would benefit the most from faster weapon switching.
The existing stamina delay node that would be replaced by One Motion could be used to replace the 25% suppression node in the bottom row (or you could put One Motion there and leave the stamina node where it is). Afaik that node is universally considered to be both useless and the worst of the tax nodes since almost every build will need it just to path to the desired keystone.
I completely agree. Please don’t change out Vanguard. Veteran has precious few aids to move fast as it is outside of actives like Infiltrate as it is, and stamina is incredibly important for any melee veteran build.
We’re well-drilled, well-disciplined soldiers of the Guard, surely our physical conditioning can’t be that far off par with the fanatical zealots?
What you said about blockers in the top right of the tree makes some sense. However, you can’t complain about veterans having the worst stamina regen in the game and then ask to remove one of the talents that allow them to get the best stamina regen in the game.
If you have both stamina regen delay nodes you can actually sprint and reach your destination with a net positive stamina if you use slides.
What? Out for blood works on any kill. Nades, dots, melee, ranged. It’s not there to synergise with anything. More to give an extremely versatile source of toughness you can add to basically any build, but to my mind it makes the most sense with frag nades and brauto.
Anyway swap speed is a neat bonus. People complain about bolter and hellbore equip speed all the damn time.
Agreed it’s an incredibly awkward spot in the tree for it though. Can’t imagine Hellbore or Bolter wanting to go down the right but I guess it is only 1 point to splurge for those guns
I actually like out for blood with the Hellbores, good sustain in the scenario it does well ie equipped and not too many armored on screen…but I also like the rare sprint efficiency without using up a perk. Not sure where that focus group feedback is coming from tbh.
Where are you getting “best” from? At most you can equal zealots for regen delay but they still get 50% more stamina per tick, and psykers leave us all in the dust because they have a smaller delay than zealots. Not sure spending two whole talent points to still be worst than zealot is a good trade, but point taken.
I’ll go back and edit the OP with some alternatives.
Well that serves me right to take fatshart tooltips at face value. It says “additional toughness”, the word additional implies that it increases something that is already there, and normally only melee kills provide toughness. I’ve used that talent in melee builds a few times but never noticed the secondary benefits.
Anyway that doesn’t change the calculus, it still has no direct synergy with swap speed and swap speed is the tax you have to pay to use it.
They buffed Vet regen delay at some point. If you take both stamina delay nodes I’m pretty sure you’re on par with Psyker delay. I’m not surprised you don’t know this since it sounds like you’ve never used them but it’s very powerful for melee Vet, especially to compensate power sword mobility.
Can also be good to fuel deadshot though I prefer ghost + duck n dive for that personally.
I originally missed in your OP that that was what you suggested to replace. Gotta second @Gideon404 here and say hell no to removing that node.
I think the +suppression stat node right under VoC would be the best candidate to replace. That is the taxiest of tax nodes.
It’s veteran versatility. You can be great at anything you’re willing to sink points into. Two points give you the same regen delay as psykers but better base stamina. Zealots do still have better base stam and regen per second but they don’t have access to duck and dive.
I wasn’t exaggerating about stam regen during slides, it kicks in right at the end of the slide.
This does not take away from your original point about Vanguard. Interested to see the alternatives.
Oh I see, they buffed veteran at some point. Guess that scraps my secondary idea, but I still support replacing that useless suppression node, either with the new weapon swap talent or the displaced regen delay after weapon swap takes its place in the weapon specialist tree.
Also can I just complain for a second about how stupid the obfuscation of game stats is? I consider myself reasonably well informed because I make a point of seeking out third party information like datamines to figure out stuff that isn’t explained inside the game, but even that isn’t enough because the datamines can be out of date and you’d have no idea.
Right, I’ve never used both at the same time, only one or the other. The left one on my executioner/marksman build and the right one on my onslaught grenadier and weapon specialist builds. I thought that was only reducing me from 1.25 to 1 and I never noticed the difference because my info was out of date.
