I think we all know that Vet has some problems right now, and with every class being power crept into absurd crusher crumping territory, on top of nerfs to the beloved (by vets) plasma gun. I think its time to discuss some changes we could make moving forward that make the class a little more viable.
For starters Vet talents really want to force this hybrid melee / shooting set up and I think with the number of melee or mixed melee focused careers in the game, Vet really needs to be the stand out shooter. I would highly suggest doubling down of ranged talents in any sort of reword for this career.
Now Revy, you might say, standing still and popping off shots is hard in Darktide, TRUE but I think we have a few ways to mitigate that without drastically reworking everything. Fatshark has already given us a bit of a headstart to boot.
Lets examine some existing and less used talents. Smoke Grenades and Infiltrate. For starters lets turn infiltrate into Prowl from VT huntsman. Give the Vet a movement speed reduction while shrouded but the ability to shoot with a sizable damage buff. This allows for spot sniping in the thick of a fight where there are numerous disablers and threats that might otherwise be difficult to target while getting overwhelmed. One of the major things Vet suffers from in this game is constant pressure and the inability to fufill its niche as a counter sniper. This drastically aids in mitigating that issue.
Smoke grenades are an easy fix. While smoke is popped give Vet or even party members inside of smoke shroud (similar to baradin ultimate) but have it only apply to shooters, melee combatants can obviously still see players inside fo smoke, but it would make players and allies untargetable by ranged while concealed. This would encourage popping smoke on yourself for defensive purposes as opposed to throwing it towards enemies and having it compete with damaging grenades that could just kill your potential smoke targets anyway.
Next is how we fix minor talents, there is a lot of mix match here, and too many conditional buffs. Vet should sizably buff ranged weapons so that its arsenel isn’t outshine by other careers, already bolter performs drastically better on Arbite for example, and its due to 1 singular talent.
My suggestion would be to add various debuffs to ranged options based on what the vet was using. Auto guns can get bleed or rending, while precision weapons can get brittle, energy weapons flaming and so on. This gives Vet some additional damage AND some teamplay ability based on playstyle and will help define some of his roles.
And example of this would be going the counter sniper role, while 25% brittle on weakspot hit, wouldn’t make a tremendous amount of difference vs a gunner, it would help Vet consistiantly 2 tap a crusher for example (with weakspot hits) or allow precise weapons some much needed anti boss bonuses.
TL;DR Vet’s niche should be ranged support, similar to psyker in some regard. The best way to keep it viable or even great without drastic weapon reworks, would be class oriented buffs to exisitng weapon types. This way gun options can be kept in line with other careers, while allowing Vet to maybe use some less picked weapons due to its ability to significantly improve them.
Happy to discuss anything posted above, or more suggestions and reworks that could improve the class.