I’d say Vet’s… challenging, not weak. If you can utilise your build well whilst staying on your feet, you can easily top-frag multiple matches in a row. I’ve recently reworked the heck outta my main Vet build via community feedback, and I now destroy absolutely everything that’s unfortunate enough to cross my path - even on Damnation.
Frak, it’s fun.
Literally me (insert JPEG of Ryan Gosling)
Of course, I’m a good Support mummy for my Strike Team. It helps that I can knock over almost any enemy with it, too.
That’s definitely not for me, using a Plasma Gun and Krak Grenades together would be like using a Flamer and Immolation Grenades together - sure, it makes the player REALLY good at one thing, but it can also leave them EXTREMELY vulnerable in other situations.
If they bring back the auto-reload and make some of the current Ability Modifiers for Executioner’s Stance built-in, that’d probably resolve that issue.
Agreed, the Keystones need to actually reward us for sacrificing our precious Skill Points…
I kinda feel the auto-reload made some weapons impossible to balance. My personal take is that they just need to bump its damage and make it so you can swap to your melee and it’ll be at least competitive. The fact it offers no defense or clutch for so little benefit is really annoying.
Scrier’s Gaze 2: Electric Boogaloo
To be fair I’m actually using smokes. It’s pretty much choice to sacrifice granades to get few more point for sake of defense or extra damage usually for melee focused builds. Now imagine that smokes would actually be useful! Man can dream. 
Err no you seem to be misunderstanding that I am comparing and not attempting to bring anything down. VoC also has demo stockpile above it, while infiltrate has that rescue talent + vet’s old 5% crit he used to have by default on the way or extra grenade. Infiltrate is another ability you can totally run and doesn’t feel horrible, its executioner stance that was completely gutted and surrounded with even lamer tax nodes that we have to surrender just to get reliable toughness and down to blitz. On top of being bad.
You’d be surprised. I’m not running what most ppl run at all. No VoC and I don’t spec into any keystones. No plasma either.
I somewhat agree with this statement but the only issue I have with Vet is the Exe Stance build. I don’t get why they removed auto reload and gave to Ogryn, that’s super dumb. Other than that, Vet is hella strong. If they were to fix something, it’s the Exe Stance.
The scoreboards above are somewhat misleading. Usually if everybody is above average, I won’t get much damage because my playstyle is always to watch spots that the rest ignore to make sure they don’t get ambushed. However, it’s only once in a while I’ll get a good team so my scores are usually high in damage because ppl die a lot. As you can see above I have high revived/rescured records.
Agrip Braced Auto and the new blue shovel.
Gotcha. My bad on the interpretation. Most of the internal design philosophies for players around veteran is “something good making other thing look bad? KILL GOOD THING. Now bad thing look better, lol”
Still weak.
Considering I can play as oggy and zealot with very little effort in auric-damnation
On paper the veteran is one of the strongest classes. What sets apart all the classes is how well their kit can maximize the most disproportionately powerful weapons.
The zealot makes the most use out of the knives, and knives being so strong means you’ll be strong if you’re good with them. I personally hate knives on a zealot and play with a thunderhammer for drip purposes. I’d personally rank zealot worse than vet. I’m doing myself no favors with a weapon choice like thunderhammer tho. That said there is no universe where a zealot is more viable at range than a veteran.
The ogryn is tougher to apples to apples with because his weapons are so unique, but it sounds like you know on a heavy melee build he is a monster. 
The veteran makes the best use of any of the range weapons available to the three classes–old exec stance or not. Hes not as defensively sound in melee as the zealot, but if youre running a knife you can more than pull your weight and not sweat. Its not weak at all. In auric damnation STG you’ll be reducing your cooldown by 6 seconds constantly. I find it to be super eaay.
The psyker is more podgeonholed than anyone. Venting shriek is passing… shield is really clutch… but as bad as you see exec stance, scriers gaze is an outright hazard. Then, keystone wise, however annoying you find the vets to be, I see that and raise you disrupt destiny.
That’s a skill issue.
There’s an inherit sweat tax on Veteran. I don’t really consider that in terms of balance.
If you play a game with the generous hit boxes melee has + things constantly swarming you of course ranged is going to be the harder of the 2 options.
It requires more aim, and more effort. No way around that.
Vet is strong. No way around that either, but I think its a class with the weakest build variety. That’s the only thing that needs fixing.
Had me up until this point.
DD is good just high effort. Yes, fall off on hordes, but that’s when you don’t really need it. If you’re talking purely annoyance I’d still rank it lower than MF which is still the sweatiest node.
Scrier’s is really good you just can’t use staves, or blitz. It’s a super charge to your 100% crit rate ranged weapons, and the MK IV duelling sword.
Totally, right? The on paper effects of DD is good. Wish it was targeting the nearest guy more often, or had a second node that let it count when an ally in coherencey killed the target.
Idk man, being able to reliably access power in a tree has to come to play somewhere. In my playtime with DD I find its sitting at way too few stacks too often. MF has to be at least as annoying, but like so much more so that no one could see it the other way? Nah. Like martyrdom being reliable, but what they’re asking of you is just dumb lol.
That dueling sword is 100% amazing. Isnt that arguing for being podgeonholed tho? You cant use staves or blitz lol. Im pretty much always taking warp siphon. Exec stance is more annoying with some weapons, but uh, do you explode sometimes?
MF isn’t even that good. It doesn’t warrant its annoyance factor especially for the semi-auto weapons which you’d think with its name being MARKSMAN focus it would be better.
Instead the only major breakpoints it truly affects are on the MK I IAG.
I’d take DD over it any day of the week. Even kind of makes sense thematically for veteran both in terms of buffs, and how it works.
Scrier’s will never make you explode if you just use it as a huge DPS boost for your mundane weapons. It’s just doubling down on a playstyle.
Exe Stance doubles down on a ranged playstyle, but that playstyle is not viable to keep your ranged weapon out as long you need it for it to be a viable combat ability.
It feels like we’re changing the subject or you’re not reading what I’m saying haha. Do you want the raw power of the veteran’s tree to be more locked behind his left keystone? If not, then who cares? There’s so much raw power on the way there you should be thanking your lucky stars a keystone isn’t even required. Veteran is the second easiest tree to make work. Half the threads created for any gun on this forum have the top comment reading something like “that would be TOO strong with the vet’s X”. I admit I take focus target or more rarely weapon specialist.
DD on the vet or something similar would be pretty dope… it would be SO strong lol. Too strong, but cool!
It will never make you explode so long as you only use a certain weapon and don’t use some class features… yeah… it’s pigeonholing you. I don’t see how you’re still arguing this.
If you think 5 seconds is too long to keep a range weapon equipped we’re just going to agree to disagree and move on lol. Like, if you’re seriously saying exec stance is more limiting than scriers gaze rn I don’t think you’re being objective.
Of course it is. Exec’s Stance as a stand-alone ability with all its bonuses lasts only 5s. You need to invest two more points to be able to sustain it longer but at the same time it forces you to pick specific targets and that could be a problem when situation calls for something else.
Scrier’s Gaze on the other hand is a buff that has a decent duration which can be extended out of the box by killing anything. It provides way to utilize peril mechanic for weapons that doesn’t generate it per use. I think you still don’t get this part. The fact that you can generate peril with guns or melee weapons is actually plus when you take into account other peril related talents.
Talking about the paper stuff I’ve been playing with the melee focused Vet lately and even though it works quite well I’m disappointed with the Weapon Specialist and ended up not taking any keystone. 15% attack speed and improved dodging sounds promising especially since it helps compensate for the Power Sword weaknesses. But in reality the fact that you need to artificially swap weapons to activate bonus for 10s is just annoying. Honestly I’m tired of all these “do 10 push-ups and you get a little bonus” talents in a game where acting approprietly in a given situation is the key to success. It’s not like getting all the way down there in the talent tree is for free.
I mean, if you can’t get 15 seconds of exec stance on a single use on auric stg, with as many targets as there are for you to kill and refresh its a skill issue or a loadout issue. There is a big skill point tax for that though. Works well with a lot of of weapons, anything that can aim lol. My earlier comment was about being forced to olay a certain way because of your active skill and made the comment its not as limiting as scriers gaze. No need to read into it more than that. The issue I have is all the tax nodes many red skills have. If exec stance got autoreload back I think you’d see it as aften if not more often that VOC. About 1 in 4 vets I see in auric are running exec. I think its because VOC is just so awesome. Unique to the veteran is a list of augments to active skills that make all of them amazing personal buffs, and i feel a lot of the red skill power is locked behind those nodes. That said, idk why you wouldn’t take them. Its easy to at least use 2 of the 3 if not all 3 in most builds.
Melee vet is fun. The power swords are a blast to play with. I only play auric stg, so no matter what I’m always switching back and forth, so weapon specialist never really bothered me. Even if I’m running something like a pistol its pretty easy to flip over, shoot someone, and cache that buff. You dont get good up time?
Marksman focus is annoying to use though. I dont like being unable to dodge and sprint. I dont feel like the reward fits the risk. Nothing beats martyrdom for how painfully dumb the risk reward is though.
You’re damn right! 
The thing is everyone is switching weapons back and forth based on a current need but the Weapon Specialists forces you to switch certain way to gain bonuses in the right moment. I don’t like that. When I play naturaly sometimes it’s up and sometimes it’s not and I have noticed when I need it the most (e.g. tirelessly clearing hords) it’s not up and I have to do the thing. I’m not saying it’s nothing I just don’t think it’s worth the investment over other permanent bonuses which helps you with the defense, grenades or reach another threshold and are consistent.
I just don’t like when talents dictates me how to play. Only vet’s keystone i like is Focus Target!