‘Ragebait title’ I know, but seriously, is there? Like, this is the third time their tree has been completely revamped, and somehow I feel EVEN WORSE than any other time I’ve ran around as veteran.
As a Disclaimer, I been ‘touching grass’ and took a break from the game for the past few months. Was wonderful, coming back to the game has actually been ‘surprisingly’ enjoyable, the new ration event is a blast, the new trees (for the most part) are great, I don’t see a single Arbite anywhere in Auric and it’s utterly fantastic. Life’s been good!
But then I get to Veteran…and do let me know if I’m ‘missing something’, but actually wtf? I mainly say this comparing the previous ‘glass cannon’ class, Psyker, and ALLL the favoritism (of which I appreciate, I like them too), it got, and then going to Veteran, and seeing a few token things updated, and it’s survivability absolutely gutted.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I was one of the many complaining about Tactical Awareness as well, I understand it was unhealthy, and completely agree with it getting worked over. But gutted this badly? Bruiser was one thing, but elites are a dime a dozen these days, and it procs off your allies getting the kill too, so it’s practically always ticking when you need it and generally feels totally fine. But strictly specialist kills?!? and ONLY IF YOU GET IT?!? Like what in the warp f$ck is that sh!t?!? Infiltrate is completely unusable now (even despite it getting the damage baked into the initial ability), Executioner stance? Pff, you might get 10% toughness a second but better hope you’re spaming those kills cause if you drop it ever you’re toast. Ohh there was just a massive wave of Mobius 21st running at you and you got like 5-10 seconds without a special unit/only Elites or once? Welllll you’re practically not a character anymore. Snipers 1 tap you from full thanks to the gunner changes meaning if you don’t run 2 resists of those you’re f’d, bursters still have your number, and the small saving grace of the 5% toughness DR node you got simply for breathing was entirely removed, leaving only the incredibly cumbersome 10% DR node sitting far off in the corner far and away from the melee side of the tree that would actually care to have it.
And I wouldn’t complain so much if the other classes where left the same, Veteran has hardly changed/mostly gotten buffed beyond Tactical Awareness right? Well, while they are sitting here desperately searching for a crumb of toughness regen, relying off the same 2% off Confirmed kill they always had (that was nerfed a while back from 3%, let me remind you) and the barely sustainable full toughness refreshes from their CA’s, lets take a look over at Psyker and Zealot shall we…
Ohh, the Psyker gets 25% HEALTH AND TOUGHNESS DR for breathing now do they? + another 10% for good measure, 15% flat toughness DR on their tree (down from 20%, the horror), and the same old standby of One with the Warp continuing to be the goat? Ohh? and mettles now 2% toughness per second now? for critting? with 5% per second for a weakspot melee kill, 3% per second for a soulblaze kill, and all the already existing toughness regen that served them INCREDIBLY well already still at their disposal/made even better with quell and generation toughness being one talent now? Ohh, and scriers gives DR at base now too, just in case you felt a little flimsy in melee combat, pat pat pat. Psykinetic Aura got nerfed, sure, but it procs off EVEry kill by EVERy ally, you don’t need to get them anymore! So I’ve actually found my abilities up MORE often than previously, because now I don’t have to steal all of them to get back to my ability!
My Psyker now be like ‘burster? I hardly know her’, while my Veteran, the class who’s entire backstory is they where the one that lived, falls over to a stiff breeze, and even if he doesn’t has no tools to get back in the fight beyond running away and not getting melee’d for 5 seconds, something becoming INCREASINGLY HARD TO DO with all the elite spam all over the place.
(In case you think I’m kidding about the psyker thing:
Zealot is a little bit more of a ‘reserved’ case, but while their ‘double dipping’ CDR was finally dealt with, they still do JUST fine with the ability to keep it active infinitely regardless of what choice they decide now (backstabs? na, weakspt hits). You lil veteran want to get your shout back in 15seconds? Better see a specialist every 3 AND get the kill on it! Meanwhile, I can choose to just crit, weakspot/backstab HIT, or just be at low HP and get golden toughness every 30. Sure, there’s downtime, but what am I doing during that downtime? getting up to 7.5% toughness per second based on how surrounded I am, getting another 3% per second after an Elite kill if I so choose (Veteran could nev-oh wait it USED TO), and 2% per second while in fury, up to 4% per second with Judgement, or just having OBSCENE DR going down the middle with Martyr. Did I mention the like 14 (I didn’t count but like, close?) new talents that all create really nice little play styles and synergies that all feel really nice and help make the ‘blow’ of not having my ability up every 2 seconds feel completely worth it?
I just…you ‘modernize’ Psyker and Zealot into this ‘post Arbite/Ogryn’ world masterfully, then slap a middle finger on Veteran and give them a funny little sparking tooth pick for good measure (the Falchine). Is this because we all complained about the Veteran weapon not being out yet? Do you just not want Veteran players to exist anymore? Cause that’s what it feels like. Their entire purpose is to equip Survivalist (for all the good it does these days), have demolition stockpile + Demo team, and just REALLY hope you are just hitting that 5% + the regen all the times you need to just litter the field with grenades, while bringing along upgraded kits for good measure. Everyone else gets to be people, you just sit behind them and really hope nothing gets by. I just, don’t get it.
TLDR: Can Vets get like, a consistent form of toughness regen that they have control over like everyone else (Catch a Breath is nice but compared to breathing on every other class and getting 2%+ a second it just doesn’t compare, and unerf confirmed kill if nothing else)? And can we get some form of DR that isn’t reliant on having ammo and swapping to your gun EVERY 8 seconds? The Psyker gets to ignore damage now, why is the veteran the only class that gets blown up by a stiff breeze? The Tactical Awareness nerf really shows just how much the class was crutching on having a full heal every 5-10 seconds, and seeing every other class (Zealot and Psyker) get tools to compensate while the Veteran just languishes in squealer feels real bad. (Granted, I feel all of my complaining would be instantly rectified if Exhilarating Takedown was changed to ALL weakspot kills, melee or ranged, and gave you 15% toughness over 5 seconds instead of just a flat 15% toughness upon doing so. I’d be happy with that/that would likely fix all of my woes).
Edit: Yeah, after playing some more, I only re-double my statements. Many seem to want to bring up ohh he does so much DAMAGE now and it’s like wow, how useless when he spends half the time dead or on the ground bleeding! : D . He can melt a monstrosity in seconds, but so can literally every other character, even Psyker now given they finally have a damage node for it. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here having to play the Veteran like how I used to have to play the Psyker, an absolute coward. Holding S constantly, taking the 5% movement speed node just to eek out that extra distance away from the enemy, never using my Combat Ability offensively and strictly relegating it to defensive use because it will just NEVER be up when you need it if you use it to enter an engagement, and spamming grenades when all else fails just to still die to a ‘teleports behind you’ back hit poxwalker that does all of my toughness and half my HP because I was at 74% toughness cause of a gunner or something. 10% DR node doesn’t help, Exhilarating Takedown continues to be insanely situational/actively useless if you’re not just wasting shots into the wave, and his tree somehow STILL feels bloated despite having basically all of the tax nodes removed just due to the sheer number of talents you have to get through to get anywhere and how all the talents just say ‘increase stat by X%’. Close Quarters Killzone and Marksman (along with the VoC effect) all getting reduced to 10 seconds on top of the CDR nerf is just the icing on the corrupt ration cake for it all, making it physically impossible to keep all the buffs active even if you DO somehow have enough special spam to last 15 seconds of cooldown time. Toughness regen in the dirt, toughness DR none existent outside of 1-2 hits worth, but don’t worry guys he can wipe a wave of crushers with one Boltgun clip. What do you mean the Psyker can do that and kill everything else with a jet of blue flame that gives him 5+% toughness per second?
That all said, obviously with his entire tree being damage nodes he can still function, but there’s a reason I bring up the whole ‘modernization’ idea. In a post Ogryn and Arbite world, where it’s clear the Dev’s don’t want to ever go back, Zealot and Psyker got the tools to not just compete, but thrive on their own in much the same way the other two do, in their own respective ways. Psyker continuing to be my direct comparison of ‘the class that used to be a glass cannon but now is just a cannon’, where you can easily take hits without even noticing it thanks to all the DR you can stack on top of infinite toughness regeneration. Veteran just ‘missed the boat’, and they are still playing ‘post talent tree update’ Darktide while everyone else is playing ‘Bound by Duty’ Darktide. One can easily tell the difference by just walking into an Auric game and seeing the number of fresh psykers running around holding smite yet again and afking in the corner, but where as before they got punished eventually and likely died, they just never die and live without issue now. Meanwhile anything but a seasoned Veteran drops the moment anything goes wrong and more often than not more than once. It’s the whole argument of ‘if less effort produces the same/better results, why is the Veteran forced to try so hard?’ On the one hand, I guess it’s nice for the people that like the playstyle of ‘afk behind your team and pray nothing spawns behind you’ (as can be seen by most of the comments in this thread/most of the people on the forum still). But for a Veteran that used to really like the melee playstyle you could get away with with potent Voice usage and good priority targeting, having that functionally removed, and both of his other combat abilities functionally deleted, just because a little shout gave a bit to much golden HP for what it was doing, is just Nurgles backside.
Veteran is just a Survivalist, Demo team, and kit upgrade body that yells sometimes now, and is the first to fall over if anything goes amiss. And I greatly miss the commanding officer that ran in with his team and got just as many kills as his cohorts while laughing about it. Veteran used to be THE class for weapon variety and ‘making anything work’ due to the modifiers he could force down the throat of whatever he put on, now he’s just a bot with 1 meta build (as Hrupo pointed out) and the ability to pick between Plasma/Boltgun and Duelling/Power Sword. ‘What is your purpose?’ ‘to throw krak grenades at stupidly high health armor targets or shredders to bleed down a wave, then die to a crusher overhead the psyker just lived through with 15HP’ ‘ohh my emperor’.
