Care to show your “commando” build that works and isn’t just a severely stunted melee vet with extra tax?
3 points left over flexed depending on the weapons. Blitz and aura swappable depending on weps as well. Talent between Confirmed Kill/Out for Blood and Close Order Drill also flexible. Serrated blade can be dropped for Field Improv if like PS or something.
Cool, this is my run of the mill melee build.
which is nearly identical to your commando, except for being faster and more prone to being in and out.
Given how nearly identical the builds are, why is your called a commando and mine is the usual melee vet?
There isn’t any daylight between commando and melee build.
No gonna lie, i was hoping for little bit more than semantics 
Because at the end of the day, the difference between stealth commando and a red angel build is two talent points in a different ability…
That’s my point, commando in the way it was being deployed was neither accurate nor useful. If the talents are bad or clunky or whatever that’s fine but they don’t need to be altered on the account of not being commando-y enough.
Well they kinda do, because i for one never imagine commando being just one step away from a build that lets you play like a khornate berserker 
I never said that wasn’t the case though. My argument is that the branches are meant to be a playstyle. It’s just not fully developed atm.
Ofc I get some talents from other branches, but I can get the Blitz, Aura, Ability, and Keystone from one branch in most of my builds across all classes, and it’s really effective.
In the quote provided from FS is specific language they used in describing Vet’s tree that did not appear in the description of any other class, specifically that they had fully intended lane swapping with this class, more so than was the case with the other classes. The design of the original trees seem to reflect this philosophy. With the current iteration of Vet’s tree, there is basically no tax to lane swap especially compared to the original Vet tree. At best, it currently isn’t that useful of a framework to analyze the effectiveness of certain talent combinations.
But granting the premise that a branch is meant to be a playstyle where you’re taking all the major nodes on that side, the playstyle of the intended design of the right side of the branch is “aggressive, close to melee range, assault infantry power fantasies”. And I think that playstyle is absolutely enabled by what’s available to be selected there. On the question of effectiveness, my experience is that I’m quite satisfied by what’s on offer there. The only thing I don’t particularly care for in an in-your-face aggressive Vet is smokes, I much prefer shredders, but that smokes are very much “disrupt[ive to] ranged enemy domination.”
Which is a build that in my experience most people are unable to actually really create on account of getting distracted on the way there, attempting to cover too many angles and lacking appreciation for speed, with many thinking that close & kill is the worst aura ever!
Odd to say that, but people lack the mindlessness and narrow minded simplicity to create a real Red angel, instead wounding up with a variations of Skirmisher
The Veteran’s talent tree originally contained no Keystones. The backlash was real, and Keystones were added, along with two reworks of the Veteran’s talent tree shortly after (not counting the one last year).
You can also read the Hive Scum talent reveal, where they explain how they create playstyles for each branch (but players are free to mix as they see fit).
Anyway, you can easily create a Sharpshooter and Squad Leader build by going through their branches and picking up their respective Blitz, Aura, Ability, and Keystone. I’m not saying you MUST play like this, but those branches thrive very well. This is similar for other classes. But:
The main problem for Commando is there’s nothing useful about it besides Smokes. The melee damage and survivability is worse than that of a Zealot, the gameplay mechanics are way more clunky than that of a Zealot, and the team utility is worse too. You could just pick up Smokes in a Sharpshooter or Squad Leader build if you wanted that utility.
Mind you, my view is from that of Havoc 40, because that’s the difficulty that actually requires players to bring a balance of damage, stagger, utility, and play as a team.
Again making things up. They never said you should let alone have to play with every single node from a tree down one side of a character’s tree.
Great example is ogryn heavy hitter. His best node slam is in the middle of the tree under his best ability, with his best toughness recovery being in the middle. If you play heavy hitter without any of that it’s going to be a rough time.
This is a good tree.
But your whole thing has been playing semantics and rigidly sticking to one idea of what the whole tree should be instead of just picking a different talent.
And the moment a single class doesn’t work like that, it’s the class’s fault?
At this point you’re just havin a laugh. Most of vet’s good damage nodes are down that ‘commando’ tree at the bottom.
Now I just wana play a go fast melee vet that uses that whole tree because it’s possible to make work.
Dude what the F are you on about?
The tree and few weapons provide us with a hesitant possibility for a backstabber infiltrator and it fits with my notion of commando better than a run of the mill melee build with one extra step, even tho i’m not exactly sure the backstabber infiltrator can be done in any efficient and effective fashion, that’s all!
If you have any problem with me kindly voice it directly or shut it, i’m not interested in this sniping…
I never said they did. You’re just reading my words wrong and coming back with replies. Fatshark have said the branches are meant to put together a playstyle foundtation, but we as players are free to mix and match as we see fit. Commando’s foundation is lacking.
When a playstyle is irrelevant, that’s an issue. Commando has been Veteran’s least played playstyle since patch 13 introduced the class re-work in 2023. We have a Sharpshooter, we have a a Squad Leader, but we don’t have a Commando. There’s no point or desire to have a Commando on your team in Havoc 40. Outside of Smokes it’s a worse Zealot at 1) melee damage, 2) survival, 3) team utility, 4) ammo dependency, 5) and mechanics. Probably more I’m forgetting.
I would prefer the other way round - reduce effectiveness and increase spammyness. This comes from the note that stealth is kinda bugged in this game, so either they make stealth more immersive (confused enemies, some hitting air, some searching you, some switch targets..) or I would prefer stealth to go away.
Make infiltrate not stealth you but apply that 90% less threat submode for ~8s and reduce the cooldown to 30s. Add a cd refund node similar to shroud field and you have an interesting new play style.
I really like the dropping a smoke bomb idea but then we would have the need for a blitz rework. I would prefer a smoke bomb subnode that lets you automatically drop instantly one of your available smokes when you are getting hit by ranged with a cooldown of 45s. I really hate the long fuse time.
i agree and this would also clear up to players how it’s supposed to be used. it would just generally be a good thing to make the smoke grenades do
i still see people throw them at enemies then declare them to be useless
Yes, but in Auric you are getting hit by a range a lot for a very little effect, so its statistically quite plausible to have it on CD all the time for nearly 0 result and tehn not having it ready when it could really make a difference.
At the same time smoke is really a Havoc thing, but nowadays the Auric meta is seriously aggro and 9/10 smokes is something your team just run thru on their way to slaughter and onwards, with a remarkably high success rate might i add!
I don’t mean to be rude or argue, but that would be a subnode that does pretty much absolutely nothing across all the difficulties except for one, which if we are to believe this board isn’t even played by that many players and should by no means be balanced around…
In a way it would be better if the node made downed played drop a smoke, but that would risk repeating the issue Only In Death suffers on, that is a talent point being wasted when nobody goes down!
Well first things first: You are in power of your own char. If you see a smoke bomb deployed you are free to stay in the radius. Secondly: there is a node which increases smokes duration to 30s. If you never throw your nades you would have an 66% uptime.
Yes it is still possible for the skill to trigger slightly inconvenient like for example 10m away from your team while you clutch. But it is by far not as wild as you make it sound. On the other hand you have the chance to save your own( and maybe teammates a$$). So it would be a trade I am willing to make.
And that is why I think it would be best implemented as a subnode. So you can choose…
Get real please, in an average Auric you are getting hit by scab shooters or dreg stalkers all the time, its so common you don’t even notice it.
Its absolutely baffling to me that it has to be said, but i guess we gonna solve it by me making it up, right?
wouldn’t the issue with that suggestion just be solved by giving you a buff that makes the next one free and instant?
to begin with i think smoke grenades should be instant or at least close to it, and always thrown at the veterans own feet by default (maybe make it so underhand throw is aim instead) to clarify how the things are supposed to be used
keep in mind this is what the tooltip says
it heavily suggests you have to throw it at the enemies, not that it’s a safety feature for yourself
like i often hear that “people just don’t know to use it” but is that really surprising given the misleading tooltip and the fact that it’s thrown far by default?
or maybe it’s actually meant to be something you throw at enemies but fatshark messed the mechanics up so much it’s effectively a safety bubble
in either case it should be clear from the description