This is why I believe Infiltrate should be replaced by Bounty Hunter ult from VT2
It makes a lot more sense with how the right side of the tree is built
The ult could be used to trigger the melee benefit of weapon specialist, as well as benefitting from the ranged benefit of weapon specialist (garanteed crit)
Onslaught would allow you to tender a boss like Captain, Twins or Packmaster with your ranged weapon and then use the ult shot to deal a lot more damage since they’ll be brittled
It just makes so much more sense for veteran to have this instead of infitrate
Those are some good theories, but in practice it’s not as effective.
The ranged crit bonus is good, that’s not the issue. The issue is having to refresh the Melee Specialist buff (and Agile Engagement, which I forgot to mention) when it drops off while engaged in melee and there’s no actual need to shoot other than refreshing those buffs. Here you need a weapon that draws quickly (Revolver) and is likely to one-shot (Revolver) so you can actually get a shot off in-between enemy attacks. It just feels so terrible to have to waste ammo on a horde, or what have you, because your Melee Specialist/Agile Engagement buff dropped off and you want to clear the threat as quickly as possible with melee to move on to the next. And yes, Fully Loaded is desired when you’re required to waste ammo.
And when the horde is dead you may want to reload that gun before the next fight, but that will activate the Melee Specialist buff and waste it so you can’t start the next fight with it. Similarly the opposite way, if you want to switch to your melee weapon for stamina efficiency while sprinting to the next area it activates Ranged Specialist and wastes it.
But what really grinds my rear is when I’m incentivized to quickly switch to my gun and back after every melee kill just to reload one shell/bullet. That playstyle needs to be killed off imo.
Would it be too much to ask that picking the Keystone always grants the melee buff, and having the ranged buff proc and apply on the first bullet you shoot instead of when merely switching to your ranged weapon? Agile Engagement I have no solution for other than a rework.
It’s funny that you mention the Keystone modifiers as bad, because those would be nice to have, but you cannot afford them since this branch is talent point starved as mentioned. It doesn’t help that maxing out Infiltrate requires the biggest investment out of the three Veteran abilities.
Reciprocity doesn’t proc unless you actually dodge an attack, so staggering enemies with sweeping attacks from a Power Falchion, Power Sword, or Shovel, and dodging before they start an attack because that’s beneficial for whatever reason, will prevent stacking. Not forgetting that Infiltrate is likely going to make you lose it, which I mentioned. And ofc since this branch wants to play inside Smoke Grenades there’s less “free” stacks from dodging ranged attacks, and melee enemies won’t be winding up their melee attacks as they approach you, so there’s another unsynergistic part. Running a buff tracker ends up revealing that Reciprocity doesn’t get a lot of uptime unless you intentionally play bad and let enemies wind up attacks against you, which is bad for obvious reasons.
If you pair these mechanics together the branch is very clunky to play, and I haven’t even mentioned Skirmisher that needs to be maintained by sliding in melee. The playstyle ends up being; Start off by shooting Revolver and hopefully hit and one-shot, go to Power Falchion, charge it up, melee, ensure you get attacked to proc Reciprocity, do a slide, throw a Smoke, charge up Power Falchion, do a slide, ensure you get attacked to proc Reciprocity, switch to Revolver and don’t miss, switch to Power Falchion and charge it up, use Infiltrate and start all over. Like god, can this playstyle be more clunky? My claim is that this branch isn’t developed enough, and it pertains to Infiltrate. The reason I’m invested in this is because I love the design of this branch that forces enemies into melee where they are weak and you are strong, and shooting the odd Specialist with a powerful shot, but the execution is cruddy.
While i agree in spirit, that can be entirely bypassed by using bolt pistol with lethal proximity on it, as you get to inflict fairly usable stagger on decent amount of close targets for added value while having enough damage to deal with specialists
theres also the extra value each time you throw a nade, which is quite pertinent nowadays given how the vets nades are all the rage
I won’t deny that a Bolt Pistol is the 2nd most effective, even though it deals like 50% less damage on a weakspot crit vs. a Revolver and is less likely to one-shot. It’s still not an excuse for this game mechanic to exist when the Keystone could just grant the melee buff at all times. It’s not like that would make this playstyle overpowered since we’re already able to achieve that uptime. It just removes part of what makes this playstyle so clunky to play.
Edit: And on the topic of Revolver and Bolt Pistols, these just don’t work well with Onslaught and Covert Operative (the talent that rewards +30% damage on ranged backstabs). Which imo just adds to how unsynergistic and messy this branch ends up being. Autoguns work well with Onslaught and Covert Operative, but are terrible for maintaining Melee Specialist.
That would be too powerful with certain weapons, i’d rather see the ranged part of it to be on use rather than on wield
Absolutely, for me its the combination of the build needing to be too focused while at the same time absurdly messy and too uneconomical in its entirety for what it really does
Worse yet, after trying it i realized i’m far better off just keeping to a straight melee vet for better experience and considerably more elegant build, having to do less compromises for a fairly better results.
Lastly i see a pretty significant issue with the attack from behind thingy and the available playgrounds not really being made for it, which by itself often creates its own set of problems that are entirely unnecessary to create in the first place!
Since I can already maintain the Melee Specialist buff pretty much all the time already, I don’t see how it would be OP if it was up all the time. It just gets rid of the clunky weapon switching and wasting ammo.
With all said and done, in an attempt to give more focus to Infiltrate, my suggestion is to let Infiltrate provide a few seconds of stealth to teammates (that doesn’t break when teammates attack) in order to allow teammates to reposition out of trouble, advance on ranged enemies in cover, or whatever is tactical for the group. I find that to be very much in-tune with this branch’s theme and how a Commando is “commanding” the team to “fight in the smoke” and “reposition now”.
I would rather see it working like the Kerillian’s Handmaiden Dash, letting you dash thru the enemies and keeping the stealth, that would solve so many problems with it i’m surprised nobody suggested it yet.
On the side note imagine the surprise for the guy that was out of range of it suddenly getting all the aggro
The problem with that is teammates desire Voice of Command because it gives them something. Executioner’s Stance less (though I’m on my mission to show that enemy highlights are super useful (to people who don’t “cheat” with mods, that is)).
Infiltrate is purely selfish outside of killing faster, which can absolutely be okay for a team, but Infiltrate doesn’t amp it up enough to be noticeable and desired.
I did insinuate in my first post that Infiltrate suffers from collision with enemies, but perhaps that wasn’t clear enough. At least it has been my suggestion since Infiltrate came out. It would be cool if Infiltrate could let the Veteran pass through enemies, but I don’t think that would make teams desire it.
Mate i’d wager that more often than not you are playing next to a space wizard, physics left the building at the release
Steinar wants a pass thru and Bob want’s a pass thru, what other variables need we consider? Lets not let the suffocating prism of logic and reason stand in the way of making the Infiltrate better
For a Psyker, the ability to phase through enemies seems far more justified than for a Veteran. A wizard, after all, a god among men. But the Veteran is the most ordinary of all the characters
Enemies already run through players. That’s just as illogical, and very punishing when a group of Bulwarks run through you to reach another player, only to stop while you’re in the middle and melee you.
Not leaving stealth when you attack gives you like 10 seconds of uninterrupted elite head sniping, and they just fixed the slow zoom so it hopefully matches modded now. Try it again with armor damage on your bow and trinket, and you’ll one hit bestigors in the head, and you can take out half or most of a patrol with one ult charge depending on how many shields or bodies you accidentally hit.
“In this very specific circumstance on a build where you don’t want them, those talents are useless!”
They’re very good for anything with high attack speed that lacks armor pen, like the chainsword, or anything that’ll struggle to kill a bruiser without a crit, like the first hit of a combat knife or tac axe without buffs up. You’re arguing as though it has to be good for every build. It’s just not even close to true.
shredder pistol, bolt pistol, heavy las pistol, shotguns, etc. all do this. You’re forcing yourself to use the one weapon that’s really terrible for special sniping because it has the fastest draw time as if it having that one thing physically stops you from using any other gun. This is not the tree or weapons doing this.
This is what I’m talking about. If you want the stamina on melee so when you swap you can still block or push reliably, then drop some grenade nodes or ability regen or damage nodes. The whole point is that you don’t get everything the class has to offer.
The solution is to play differently. Not to completely rework the tree because you can’t figure out how to optimise the buffs and when to swap weapons.
Yes the crit node benefits weapons with smaller swing arcs, less stagger, and that have higher innate crit scaling. That is what it does. It benefits crit weapons and staying in melee so you don’t have to constantly have your weapon specialist buff up. So you don’t have to constantly spam ammo away. You get it.
This is just something you made up. You never have to pick smoke grenades. You’re acting as though you HAVE to pick EVERYTHING from the one tree. You don’t. This has never been a thing or a requirement. You’re just making things up to support your extremely niche complaint that is only an issue if you restrict yourself in a very specific way that was never intended.
If reciprocity has low uptime, that’s because you’re stunning things and killing them before you need it, so just take close quarters killzone instead.
It’s veterans most versatile keystone. It gives you incredible melee ability and buffs the weapons that give extra mobility the most, making it veteran’s least clunky playstyle by definition.
No you just play the class wrong bro. If you want to use power falchion try it with marksman and exe, or focus target. It’s pretty great with the damage bonus from that and fire team.
The stealth gives you long enough to reset your buffs and hit a long range shot with your ranged weapon. Whether thats a charged shot with your plasma gun or a zarona spreadshot, or a bolter magazine to the back.
I’m arguing none of that, its about the tax involved.
And yes, agile engagement that work best for high alpha damage weapons that you switch often is a tax to anything with high attack speed and sustain!
At the same time, builds like DBS/always prepared that benefit highly from agile engagement and easy access to weapon specialist with always prepared have Onslaught in the way, which does nothing for them, hence there’s a tax!
No buts or ifs, that’s how it is. Did that clear it for you?
You actually think that doing nothing for 8 seconds is somehow balanced by 15% base ranged damage? Especially for bolters, revolver and a charged plasma of all things?
It’s what Fatshark have stated. The branches represents archetypes and playstyles. While we’re free to mix and match, Fatshark design these branches as a foundation.
And that’s why it should work as designed. You’re free to break up a fantasy, but I want to experience the direction Fatshark intended.
Besides, taking away Smoke Grenades from a Commando build would net you a gimped Zealot with worse damage and less utility.
They also intended moving between lanes of the tree.
I don’t personally buy that the “commando” playstyle doesn’t work either but even if it doesn’t it purely one lane builds have never been in a thing. That specifically is a pretty arbitrary way to approach balance.
