Ranger Vet talents and theme

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Yeah, I know, another one of these. Look, I wouldn’t be beating this dead horse if it weren’t still twitching, ok?

Subjectively speaking, two worst classes are Ranger Veteran and Unchained, but where Unchained can honestly be fixed by dialing up every talent players are disappointed with, the community will NOT stop being frustrated by every aspect of Ranger Veteran, repeatedly calling for complete changes, right down to his passives. So I want to throw my hat in the ring again/make a new thread for everyone to voice their ire for the cutest dwarf class.

What’s his schtick? What’s he supposed to do? His name and visual design implies a ranged heavy character, his passives are geared towards supplies and support, his ult is some kind of utility, but his talent tree is all over the place preventing him from being adept at ranged, support, or as a flex class. My bearded cinnamon roll just isn’t allowed to stand out on his own on anything except for providing ammo!

Taking inspiration from the talent tree redesigns of Battle Wizard and others, let’s lock in on the idea of having three columns dedicated to three styles of play: Melee (because a dwarf is strong and knows his way around an axe or shield), Ranged (because it’s in the name), and RNG (because I’m a gambler who likes to roll the dice)

You can check his current talents here for reference https://www.ranaldsgift.com/

I’ll leave base Ranger skills and passives as is and just build the talents around that. I think completely changing the base will just lead to completely new problems that’ll take even longer to iron out when the base really isn’t bad.

Current level 5 talent row is debatable, but I have no desired change.

Level 10

  • replace Last Resort. Grit: take 15% melee boost while cutting your ammo capacity in half. Get straight to the point with a no-nonsense talent that doesn’t require you to actively not contribute to your group or play your class. Crossbow gets 10 bolts, Grudge gets 7 shots, Handgun 6, Throwing Axe should stay at 3 actually… Point is the Last Resort/Fake Slayer meme must die! Kill it! No more being a “Slayer”, you’re a ranger, dangit, be a ranger (who just happened to leave some ammo behind and is making up for it by hitting harder).

  • Master of Improvisation is great, but would rather see it moved for a more immediately obvious talent. Faster Hands: increase reload by another 25% I want to use a Handgun godf*kng d!mit! Firing Fury in the tier 5 row is an abysmal talent meant only to work with shotguns when a Ranger is supposed to be adept with all of his arsenal.

  • replace Foe Feller, it was never a big enough boost to make it worthwhile. Dawi High Roller: Headshots increase the crit chance of next attack by 35%. Ranger Veteran has always been thirsty for crit chances. The community resoundingly disapproves of a flat 5% increase to anything so here’s a suggestion that takes work. Good for range, good for 1h axe, plus crit attacks just feel good.

Level 15

  • no change. Yes I said it, Bulwark can have a place. It fits the in game lore of former Iron Breaker-turned-Ranger, we just need some melee centric talents to make it worth taking for shield users.

Level 20

  • Share Alike must die, if your build actually doesn’t care about RV’s passives than just ditch a passive increasing talent altogether. But a talent like that needs to offer enough incentive to take not increasing his passive worth it so. No Dawdling!: Bardin doesn’t have the patience for any movement malus from blocking, melee attacks, or water. A former IB is going to be light on his feet out of his armor, with a shield he’d be a fast bulwark, with a great weapon he’d be able to close in on the enemy with haste, the weight of water doesn’t compare to the burden of gromnil and Bardin would trudge on undaunted. It’s not a flat move speed increase, it just keeps you from slowing down. Great for being able to hit rats after you pushed them or chase bosses running away from you.

  • Keep Grungi’s Cunning. Literally the good passive talent for ranged weapons.

  • change Scavenger, no one will stop complaining about it, so how about we buff his other career passive: Increases Ingenious Improvisation by another 15%, Survivalist has a 1 in 4 chance of dropping bombs. Why just bombs and not potions? Well, I’ll be honest, reading the forums I get the impression that I’m the only person who doesn’t view Scavenger as a less than 20% chance to get a specific thing I want and more a 100% chance to get something I’ll use right then. So, this is my compromise, make Survivalist only RNG drop bombs but boost Ingenious Improvisation so spammy people with a speed pot drinking problem such as myself can have fun.

Level 25

  • we already moved No Dawdling!, replace with Drunken Bully: Shoving enemies increases attack speed by 15% for 5 seconds. It’s good enough for Footknight, it’s good enough for a Dawi. A shield wielding Ranger would rather have the speed to keep swinging his axe (h&s is not real) than give his foe an opening to stab him between attacks.

  • I don’t want Exuberance, but I’ll be hanged if I was responsible for it dying. So we’ll change it to Headshots give 20% damage reduction for 5 seconds. I will say this, however, I would rather a talent to increase cleave damage of ranged attacks.

  • Kill Firing Fury. Replace with Master of Improvisation. Up the bonus to 3 seconds cdr on reload. Hopefully now you have 3 competing tier 5 talents.

Level 30

  • Surprise Guest goes here. Be a Ninja Dwarf. Best talent for a melee build.

  • Ranger’s Ambush goes here, change to include 125% boost to next ranged attack. Not quite Huntsman or Shade, but still the kind of ranged burst damage RV players have been wanting.

  • no change to Parting Gift.

Why this? Because he’s a base 100 health glass character. Is this power creep? Sure, probably but it’s Ranger Veteran! Why would anyone care if he can now marginally perform better at certain niches? The player base already demand he be good at something, and the current tree ain’t cutting it. So here’s 6 tiers of talents specializing in one of 3 fields of play. The only build I think these changes ruin is the Fake Slayer build, with the Grudge-Raker Build now simply reloading not-as fast during hordes, but faster in every other situation. And he’ll have a leg-up in melee that’s solely unique to him without being directly compared to other classes endlessly. You won’t see Bounty Hunter sprinting at full speed towards enemies with a greataxe now, will you!?

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I like the way you write. Humorous.

But I of course also gave attention to what you write:
I personally use him if I want to use a shotgun to blast enemies to smithereens. But he does feel weak.
If I play him you always get the feeling that you can’t properly play him what he was actually meant to be. A ranged focused career.

Last Resort did always bug me a bit. Encourages a habit that as, a ranged class, you should prevent: Running out of ammo.

I did like using Share and Share Alike simply because I always play with randoms.
And thus I never have ammunition problems, because they always pick the ammo up regardless of who could really need it right now.

Pretty well written Feedback.

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He’s kind of like a glass cannon, but without any dps, who occasionally drops goodies for the team, which wouldn’t need the goodies in the first place if they had a real Bardin career with them.

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I’m not sure I agree with all your specific talent suggestions, but I absolutely agree with your assessment that RV’s talents are all over the place, and that it feels like there’s no real focus to what he’s supposed to do. I also very much like the idea of making him have 3 “talent rows” speccing him for different roles.

I always felt that RV should be more of a hybrid melee-ranged class, because of what and who he is lorewise being very hard to rhyme with a squishy stealth ranged character. He should have more HP in any case. A veteran Dwarf Ranger being only as tough as an Elf assassin or human mage, pfah!

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Actually a pretty nice rework. Some numbers seem to high for me but overall a good rework that allows for options and doesnt kill builds. I dont think rv is weak right now. He is just hard due to having no big bonuses on meele or ranged. He is a support career and his talents show that. Sadly it often doesnt work that great.

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I mostly agree with your core assessment. But I mostly disagree with your ideas on how to fix it, despite having some interesting individual concepts.

Personally, I believe the major flaw in your suggestions is a lack of holistic vision. Merely going “melee column, ranged column, wildcard column” does not a fun career make.

I’d much rather see actual play styles be reinforced and synergies between talents. Those are the sorts of things that make producing builds rewarding and fun.

For example, consider the following. Replacing ‘Share and Share Alike’ with a talent that makes picking up Survivalist caches give a moderate amount of temp HP. And adjusting ‘Ranger’s Parting Gift’ so that the 100% duplication applies to any item Bardin is holding. Making these two changes instantly grants a lot of synergy with heal share and makes a more support oriented “medic” build more attractive, without either talent being wholly useless sans-heal share as well.

I also believe that RV could use a few base improvements, which your suggestions do not address in any way. I’d really like to see RV get 125 base HP and a buff for his ult. While Disengage is pretty good, it also has a lot of small issues that make it underwhelming compared to many other ults.

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I like the idea of Ranger Veteran playing like Rambo from First Blood. All Guerrilla tactics and such while pillaging supplies off his enemies. I think if his damage output and damage avoidance is acceptably high enough, than you can justify the 100 hp. But I can’t argue against 125 base hp, either.

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Would Ranger Veteran playing like Doom Guy also suffice?

Doom_Bardin
Doom_Bardin811×456 528 KB

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I can’t deny that :stuck_out_tongue:

You make good points about synergy, definitely. The only counterpoint I can make about a talent that makes Survivalist give THP is that it would immediately be the absolute best pick in that row. Nothing can compete with that, especially in Cata difficulty.

I just don’t have a worthwhile suggestion for his ult. 120 sec cooldown sucks, the 50% ranged damage bonus doesn’t matter, and I’ve died to its centuries long casting time more times than I can count, so yeah it definitely needs a creative fix.

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I dunno. Like 7-10ish per cache should be fine for normal Cata, but there’s a reason I didn’t specify a number. Or it could just be a less than 100% chance to get a healing cache. Regardless, there’s ways to balance the basic idea.

It’s especially pathetic when you compare it to the Huntman’s ult. No free ammo, no reload speed reduction, terrible casting delay, 2 min cooldown. Plus RV gets to spend a talent so his ult is usable, while Huntsman can spend a talent to turn his ult into a better version of Disengage. It’s stupid to that RV has to pay so much to get a very minor stagger and 4 extra seconds of invisibility.

Just make the effects of Surprise Guest innate and remove the casting time nonsense. Then it’s a solid ult that can be enhanced with fun talents. Instead of a crippled ability that needs a talent to fix its most glaring issue.

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1 in 6 chance a special will drop rat meat that gives 10 thp. I can already here Saltzpyre in the distance screaming “Bardin, no!” :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Alright, now what do you want to replace Surprise Guest with as a talent? Outside of Team Invisibility I can’t think of anything not already covered by other classes.

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I mean, there’s loads of possibilities. Especially if you also ditch Ranger’s Ambush for the crime of just being disgustingly boring.

I believe a good balance for the RV ult tier would be one utility talent, one offensive talent, and one support talent.

  • Utility can be covered by a revamped and expanded Parting Gift. Like I already mentioned. Would definitely need a cooldown to prevent players from just being invisible the entire match with one purple pot, but those kinds of things are small niggling details.

  • Offense can be something like “Disengage increases reload speed & attack speed by whatever% for the duration.” That way RV can talent to make his ult more like Huntsman. Just like Huntsman can do currently.

  • Support can be any number of things. Like a Proxy effect “Disengage will also affect a nearby ally. Ranged power bonuses do not stack.” Or how about an ongoing CC effect? “Smoke bomb will pulse once every 2 seconds for the duration of Disengage, staggering enemies in the effect.” Or “Reviving allies under the effects of Disengage will make them undetectable and able to pass through enemies for 10 seconds.”

And these are just random things off the top of my head. The design space here is not exactly limited unless Fatshark wants it to be. If wacky nonsense like Dawi-Drop, Shadowstep, the old Just Reward, or On Yer Feet, Mates! can exist, I can’t see why any of these would be verboten.

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