YeahhhhâŠthey gave it a pretty hefty buff too, and yet I still find myself basically never using it.
It suffers from a litany of issues, I know one of the reasons I never jump on it is the fact I enjoy having ludicrously high toughness for maximum Iron Will gains, and so dropping 10% toughness DR or even more from the left side of the tree is just a lot easier than dropping anything else from the middle or right side of it, making the other keystones ALWAYs easier to hit. Never not gonna wanna âBring it Down!â for instance, so regardless of what build I do I always have access to Focus Target, and weapons specialist is often a point off, where as Marksmanâs focus only gets that close when Iâve already decided on everything else I want and I happen to be able to take more points into the left tree.
But beyond that, the playstyle of it is just terrible. Like, itâs not even a bad damage bonus, 75-112.5% finesse damage bonus with a 10-15% reload speed buff is really good, especially when the the only other âcompetitionâ is said Focus Target with 20-32% increase in damage for just high priority targets.
But dang man with Focus Target I just slap that ping on something I hate and it dies, I donât gotta think about it to hard. With Weapon Specialist, I get a fun little mini game of popping heads with my ranged weapon before attacking fast and dodging far with my melee, alternating between the two and feeling good about it.
With Marksmanâs focus Iâm told toâŠstand still, crouch, walk very slowly. As you say, mag dump into the wave so my stacks donât fall off, and cry if I Iâm ever forced to dare swap away from my ranged weapon. On top of all that, itâs INSANELY punishing if youâre aim is even slightly off, as it only benifits your headshot and crit damage, while also only letting you actually move after a headshot or a crit. The seconds of movement are actually pretty generous too, but you better not have assumed that kill you just landed was a headshot kill without REALLY making sure, because if you donât and try and sprint away from the enemies op there goes all of your stacks in .2 seconds better start mag dumping the wave again.
It just feels bad, itâs âmini gameâ isnât fun even with the efforts they made to make it more lenient, and on top of all that, it doesnât warrant pushing all the way down the left side of the tree for itâs use when it will only buff your ranged weapon, only buff your head shots/crits, and requires so much point investment to be useful you canât even think about doing any other cool things with the tree.
With Focus Target and Weapon Specialist I can easily just grab only the keystone and feel incredible about it, while having the option to grab more if I feel the points arenât better spent in other parts of the tree. But with Marksmanâs focus, you need basically every pip in itâs keystone to make it feel even close to functional, on top of perfect/borning gameplay, and even then youâre probably doing about as much if not less than that shout veteran that just marked the Monstrosity and mag dumped a boltgun.
WITH, all that in mind, I like your thinking, and I think Iâll posit a âsolutionâ of sorts.
-
Marksmans Focus stacks up like Focus Target, a passive gain of stacks over time (without Camouflage/that node is removed). Stacks now cap out at 15 (that node removed as well), at 7% ranged finesse bonus per stack. They stack lets sayâŠ1 per second, with crouching/crouch walking/standing resulting in them stacking once every 0.5 seconds, and temporarily pausing the next mechanic. (though numbers can be changed/tweaked if op, just mainly getting the idea across).
-
Firing your weapon consumes stacks of Marksmans Focus to amp up the damage based on the number of stacks. Getting ranged Weakspot/AND Crit kills results in stacks being gained (probably can leave it at 3), and they are no longer retained on hit/kill (I feel with the given passive gain this would make sense, but if the devs see this and somehow think differently, by all means can keep the timer in there still XD).
-
Extra nodes that exist now still exist, while above 10 stacks your RANGED weapons gain 10% rending (as with how it stacks now, just keeping that active permanently for a melee weapon seems a bit muchâŠbut could also be totally fine, so could be left the same in that case). Tunnel Vision can probably stay the same, though it will continued to not be clicked on but Iâm not here to fix that really XD. And given the other two nodes where backed in, Iâd probably make one additional node, likely something along the lines of âwhile above 10 stacks, gain 25% Toughness DRâ or something to that effect, to give a bit more survivability and give a âmore often than not onâ passive to Marksmanâs Focus even when you are required to go about meleeing things.
I think that would allow the keystone to be a bit more passive, while also allowing it to function insanely well for both large weapons and faster firing ones. The slower oneâs get big beefy hits for longer, where as the faster firing ones can slay out quicker resulting in more fluctuating damage, in line with not letting them be âto bustedâ. Would allow the keystone to lean more into the family of empowering the slower hard hitting things too, while on can just pick up Focus Target with Redirect Fire if they just want an âalways oneâ lil bump to their damage.
Probably would require some tweaking verses taking exactly what I wrote here and putting it in, but I think it would be good!
(and yeah, Executionerâs Stance just needs the reload back, no idea why it was taken out when as you say, the Ogryns got to keep theres. Especially with how fast paced the game is now, it just feels awful doing a lightning fast swap into a mostly empty mag, especially with the âmag loadâ animation still there. Think it would help the skill âfind itâs ownâ, though a toughness DR buff while itâs active would be nice/helpful too).
