Infiltrate is a very fun ability and actually can benefit your team in comparison to shroudfield. The cooldown reduction increased its viability but it is still no alternative to shout. I would recommend lowering the cooldown to 30s, heck even 25 would work…
I like the idea of making it two charges by default - even with CD at 60s (so, like you can have today when using Overwatch subnode, just saving one talent point). Two charges is immensely better than having somewhat lower CD, I’m only using it like that in all my builds. It’s not really a talent you use frequently on vet (unlike zealot), so when you need you have at least one charge up almost all the time - and half the times you have 2 of them available, so you can spend one to restore toughness, and then spend another one to urgently save a teammate immediately. It would also make it clearly different from zealot’s ability.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with it on expeditions but I also agree it probably should have the 2 charges built in, I see very few reasons to not run that talent
Then maybe the point every infiltrate build right now spends on 2 charges could go into a cooldown reduction instead to actually create a sub node that doesn’t feel like a tax
i always thought that only when its charging the second charge does it have a 60s cooldown, but when its only charging the first one its the default charge, so building up a reserve cast takes longer, but the moment you use it, the cooldown continues where it was at the default rate
handmaiden in vt2 had 20s cooldown for her ult, which made disappear for 2 seconds with a talent
i think would work too in dt for veteran if they would reduce the cd a bit more
I do not understand the hype of having two charges. There is not one gameplay situation which needs 12 - 16s invisibility. Having a lower cooldown is a far higher contribution.
*trying to hype myself up about this ability* Two charges lets you have 16s of 30% damage
But with a much worse uptime than with one charge?
On two charges uptime isn’t that big a deal. It’s 15% uptime with two charges vs 20% with one, with the opportunity for 30% uptime before getting one charge back if you layer two back to back. In a regular game though, I mostly use one charge offensively any time I want while keeping the other charge in my back pocket as an emergency button (for my emergencies but also teammates).
Realistically, this ability doesn’t really do enough to justify a 53 second cooldown with two charges or even a 40s one with a single charge. The invisibility is alright but it’s most useful in rare situations, the suppression is situationally decent but mostly bad, it staggers on exit but like the tiniest stagger possible, the damage buff is okay but not compared to the other nodes in Vet’s tree. Full toughness back is very good, but I can’t imagine that being the reason Infiltrate has had such a long cd for so long when Shout existed as a 30s ability for years until a week ago while having better versions of the same defensive capabilities with the same number of talent points invested. idk. Just an ability designed for older DT that has languished since introduction.
I’d prefer they rework this ability to something else entirely but I wouldn’t turn away a CD buff. The right side being the “melee tree” I would rework the ability to something like a buff that makes your crits do like 16 (or some reasonable #) bleed stacks or causing enemies to be slowed and do less damage for X seconds. Plus keeping the restore toughness bit and a TDR subnode if you want it.
/ramble
It’s mostly nice having two so you can use one whenever you want while saving the other for emergencies
I am currently running it with a foldable shovel and I must say the stagger is a game changer for me. I have no fear running straight into the crusher blob while charging my heavy special. The stun makes sure you certainly get two down while keeping the chaff away from you.
Additionally stealth resses at just so damn safe.
Hmm I rather wait the 5s till it’s up again and be able to use it more frequently offensively. Good thing fatshark gave the option for both preferences.
Because vet’s stealth isn’t about getting some kind of insane damage benefits on one strike vs a priority target, like Zealot’s - it’s about getting to a better position, buying yourself some time to prepare counter-attack, assisting others and self-healing, mostly. So, a bunch of reasons that can easily coincide in time. Like, you were fighting, your toughness went down to a dangerous level / you got jumped by a pack of ragers / crushers. You stealthed and dropped a bunch of nades to stagger and kill them. But then 10s after that your teammate went down or fell over the edge - now you stealth again to assist them. Such situtations occur in almost every run for my stealth vet builds.
When you have one charge, you start to overthink it too much, like “hey, that’s a nice bunch of gunners ahead, may be I should stealth, run in the middle of it, drop frags and chop them down like I usually do? oh no, wait - what if I’ll need stealth later to heal myself or res somebody? nah, I better not do that”. Or you just use it at any opportunity - and then don’t have it when you urgently need it.
Taking stealth as an ability instead of VoC already handicaps you a lot. But by being too conservative with it or not ready to use your stealth when you need it, you handicap yourself even more. And game is too chaotic to properly plan when you will be using it, sometimes you don’t need it at all, then you need to burn all two charges in one minute. You may think about it like “VoC helps both me and the team at once; with two charges of Infiltrate I carry one charge to spend on myself, and the other one to spend on assisting somebody, thus making the whole tradeoff of switching from VoC to Infiltrate less wasteful”
Well that sounds like a lot of hassle. Lucky me it is not mandatory to think so much. As I said : good for us fatshark implemented both!
How useful a second charge is compared to shorter cooldown often depends on the playstyle.
When you use the ability regularly, for example to drop aggro when sniping priority targets without being bothered by astray poxwalkers and such, shorter cooldown and an extra talent point might be a better choice. However, if you’re using Infiltrate more situationally, it’s better to have an extra charge in your pocket. For example, when you advance with a melee-oriented build to cause havoc behind enemy lines, it’s a good idea to have an option to disengage in case things go wrong.
In any case, I don’t think a second charge should be built in. The same arguments people are mentioning here could be applied to VoC or pretty much any ability. I think Infiltrate is actually in a pretty good spot. If anything, I would prefer the damage bonus to last 10 seconds to be consistent with other effects.