Maybe more useful branching perks
Or rework it
I think Nobody would like to see your teammate choose exe instead of VOC in Havoc
EXE is a useless ability in Havoc
6 Likes
VoC is incredibly busted so maybe evaluating the competition would be best done once VoC is finally addressed.
Personally I think - for its uptime - Exe gives solid bonuses. Canât comment on Havoc, donât play it, but frankly buffing everything up to be competitive at top difficulty is how we have found ourself in our current balance hell, so my immediate guttural reaction to comments like:
is ewwwwwww, awful reason on itâs own to buff things.
6 Likes
The problem persist not only for veteran. All classes have meta ability/build. No variety here.
Havoc is for metaenjoyers who loves breaking game and heretics.
2 Likes
Honestly Iâd love to see Executionerâs Stance get a gamefeel buff similar to Scrierâs Gaze, where it instantly reloads on top of switching when you activate it.
3 Likes
It already got two. Not turning off when you switch to melee. As well as getting refresh built in (not even QoL, literally just +1 skill point).
Also Scrierâs STRONGLY did not need that buff. Super dubious change frankly.
6 Likes
All Exe Stance needs is some defensive utility built into it so that the Vet can actually poke their head out with instantly exploding.
Add Oggyâs continuous toughness generation when braced to it as a base trait and add in a new node that gives TDR when itâs active. Maybe make it exclusive.
4 Likes
If weâre just looking to buff it (not really necessary in the core game), just give it toughness per shot and reload like gunlugger. Itâs an incredibly solid stance that gives vet significant breakpoints, it just has terrible sustain in havoc because gunners destroy toughness very fast and ability uptime is terrible against bosses.
If they nerfed/removed vetâs cdr node I wouldnât mind giving it a node hidden behind âThe Bigger they areâ that refreshes or adds 1 second to exe stance on monstrosity headshots to give it a bounty hunter feel. This would resolve its problems with bosses pretty well imo.
My dream change is to completely rework the stance into a third unique weapon that has ammunition refunded per special/elite kill, pulling it out to deal massive damage until the clip empties. Something like a stubber/hellgun for mixed horde mulching, sniper/long-las for boss/special sniping, and a grenade launcher for crowd control. This will never happen, but I think itâd be a more fun variant than âShoot gooderâ when half of the abilities in the game are just âdo thing gooderâ.
3 Likes
âŚactually it could use something just running the abilities through my head every other ability has a toughness element you are correct itâs lacking. Could tie it into one of the secondary talents
Enhanced Target Priority: Executioner Stance Highlights elites and specials for allies in coherency and restore 5% toughness for all in coherency on highlight kill for 5s.
I donât think the ETP is refreshed for allies so neither should the restore.
Exec. stance needs buffs - Iâd slightly change the ranged dmg to 20% (yes a nerf but..) ranged weakspot dmg to 30% (instead of 25% and 25%) and make Couner-fire part of the base ability and 10% toughness regen if you kill a highlighted enemy, further change to modifier The bigger they are - outlines ogryns and monstrosities + every ranged weakspot hit on them gives 2.5% toughness regen (maybe make it stack max 10 times per enemy) and if a weakspot hit makes more than 50% health dmg to the target than gives 10% (so with slow firing strong weapons you can also regen decent amount of toughness).
Some other changes I would make to balance vet out:
Shout needs to be nerfed (many say gold toughness needs to go, imo nerf from 15s to 3s would be enough.
Skirmisher should give dmg after sprinting AND sliding (not dodging tho) and Marksman Focus - sprinting sliding can remove stack but walking and dodging shouldnât (overall I feel weird about this keystone and would prefer total redesign but even this small change would help a bit)
Last but not least:
Infiltrate should be replaced with something new having 2 invis abilities isnât interesting. I wouldnât mind if they dedicated the right side of the tree to some sort of âex gang memberâ vet and come up with a suitable ability for a mixed ranged/melee playstyle + a grappling hook as blitz instead of smokes (I donât know if this is lore accurate, have seen spacemarines using grappling hooks but not small humans yet - either way it would be cool)
This third unique weapon idea would be great to replace Infiltrate imo rather then Exec. stance. I think exec. stance is a quite fitting ability for a sharpshooter itâs only flaw for havoc is that it doesnât replenish any toughness nor provide tdr. In the previous post I explained how I would make it give toughness and also expressed how unhappy I am with Infiltrate and that I would rather exchange it for a new fun ability - and your idea sounds like a good alternative
Exe Stance the damage tweaking is un-necessary and only further nerfs non-headshots and potentially no buff for headshots 30+20 is same as 25+25 with possibly small percentage variation and other headshot talent perks.
Sustainability of Counter-Fire plus Toughness regeneration is far too much to be baked in and over tuned. Counter-Fire as is makes baseline unending in ranged packs. Talents vary on which provide toughness out right or through secondary talents, such a raw dps ability should be secondary talents.
Just including bosses/monstrosities would be enough of a buff to consider it over the more consistent problem of shooters.
Also makes sense as a quick swap with less duration (unless extended, empty mag will waste CD) than Ogryn range CD⌠though Vet CD is drastically lower 30s to Ogryn 80s with longer sustain if target line up.
Veteran also has Weapon Specialist to handle the quick / instant reloads for slow weapons and the faster reloads donât need it as much⌠If you were to add instant reload, nerfing the CD would also be needed.
Exe stance feels like most of its nodes really should just be folded into the base ability, and the nodes should be doing different things, like increasing or returning toughness while in the stance to assist with continuous fire.
That said, I donât think Havoc should ever be considered for balancing purposes. 99% of the playerbase isnât playing Havoc, and weapons and abilities scale differently with difficulty levels. VoC and infinite-cleaving Plasma Guns donât feel like theyâve got greater value over alternatives for the bulk of the playerbase running Heresy where Exe Stance and Lasgun build are perfectly viable.
1 Like
Veteran is one of the two classes that can suffer from low survivability. VOC and Stealth solve that problem, while Exe Stance buffs are not needed in their kit which Havoc only proved further. The difference in perfomance is only noticable with precision weapons like hellbore, infantry lasguns and normal shotguns, all of which are severely underpowered in the current game balance with too many elite enemies.
All meta weapons (revolver, bolt pistol, bolter, plasma, recon lasgun) donât need buffs from Exe Stance, because they can reach all the importants breakpoints without it with correct talents, perks and blessings.
So basically, Exe Stance is there only for people who want to play, frankly speaking, underpowered and clunky loadouts, while trading all the survivability and utility that Stealth and VOC provide for subpar damage buffs that require immaculate accuracy. The ability just doesnât reward you enough for chaining headshots.
Whenever I play Veteran especially in auric, Iâm always 1st or 2nd best special and ranged elite killer on the team, if Iâm in 2nd place itâs only a small gap. Exe Stance is just not it, even for someone like me, who hits the majority of weakspots against all the important targets. And when the ability doesnât reward Vet player like me with at least a thousand hours on the class, thereâs no point in the majority of playerbase using it over the other two ultimates.
Even Scrierâs Gaze is the better Exe Stance-type of ability. The crit is armor penetration and helps with killing elites and bosses dramatically without requiring weakspot hits. It also has synergy with Psykerâs many crit talents, some of which also buff their survivability (auto-dodge and 5% toughness regen).
Exe Stance definitely needs some defensive buffs if anything. Even if VOC gets nerfed somewhere down the line to have a higher cooldown, it will still be more useful than Exe Stance in most situations, just because it provides Veteran with something they really need, unlike the 25% damage buff on average.
Just some receipts: Havoc 40 True Survivor Vet run with randoms in the current season.
1 Like
I feel like the Vetâs combat ability choices are Infiltrate, the badly OP one, and the other one.
I donât know about a buff, but Iâd like some reason to take Exe stance beyond âshoot gooder.â (Iâd say thatâs a valid characterization.)
Thatâs really good, too.
I like the idea of Exe being purely offensive, but with the weapons balance the way it is now, you can get plenty of firepower via weapon choice.
1 Like
I very much like the concept of Exec stance, but the benefit does not outweight losing access to the survivability the other two provide.
I see two paths here.
Either they add some survivability to Exec Stance (Such as toughness on highlighted enemies killed) or they double down with other non-survival related buffs.
Such as:
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making ETP refresh alongside Exec Stance or making highlighted enemies take more damage from allies.
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Additional buffs to Counter-Fire and The Bigger they are (For CF, Increased damage against Ranged Enemies or faster reloading, and TBTA could highlight monstrosities and maybe increase rending).
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Adding back a 4th node here, such as not requiring reloads during exec stance or ADS counts as blocking or some other thing.
Iâd rather they double down myself, I like one of the CAs being a Glass-Cannon option. As far as how they double down, they have a lot of different options to chose from (I only listed a couple possibilities, mind you).
Hell, if you made all 4 nodes really good, you could make them all exclusionary, 4 different flavors of Exec Stance. I always like hard choices. Then you could have nodes on your nodes, like a node on âThe Bigger They Areâ called âThe Harder they fallâ, saying the quite part out loud. But Iâm generally against adding too many new nodes at this point.
Thaaaat said, having an exclusionary âSupportâ Exec Stance branch would be up my alley. I always run ETP and Iâm sad itâs so relatively weak. Keeping your uptime high for the benefit of your team and not just yourself would set off my dopamine receptors.
Exe stance just doesnt do anything for your teammates and being able to see things through walls is barely useful. Sure its useful in vent purge missions but I have no desire to ever play with it. Problem with infiltrate and exe is they cost too many skill points to invest into and they provide zero survivability for you or anyone youre playing with.
Veteran in general, so far he got only one good blitz, one good ultimate and one keystone is useless, no uses it unless they do penance.
How often are yâall seeing something like a bona fide fire-fight develop during a mission?
Thereâs been a couple of times Iâve waited for a bit while the partyâs 2 or 3 Vets dug in and had a good old shoot out, partially because I didnât want to get gunned down, but mostly because I assumed the Vets were having fun. But only a couple of times, and only for a bit âŚ
1 Like
Some maps definitely can get heavy range spawns. Itâs frequent enough but can also bullrush the packs and turn them melee.
But yahâŚmaybe the range focus tree is a mistake since you have to still melee a lot in game and maybe exec stance should be redisigned for clutch shots/special snipes, less sustain and a lil toughness reward like every ability in game.
Headshot/accurate/ slow tree left, rapid fire/swing tree right? Both hybrid âŚmid is support but still packs a punch too.