Overall, I really like veteran, I am not sure if they’d need a full rework anytime soon, but there are a few pain points I’d like to see ironed out.
Smokes are horribly unpopular.
I like smokes in concept, but in execution they simply don’t do enough to compete with the allure of damage-dealing alternatives. In addition, their use often leads to confusion and even a slight bit of contempt from your fellow teammates.
Some suggestions.
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make the “Obscuring/Blinding” collider of the smoke larger than the visual element. Too often I am shot from the fringe of a smoke when I swear they shouldn’t be able to see me (Because I can’t see them). My smokes shouldn’t ever benefit the enemy more than me. Improving consistency by any means would be a God(Emperor)send at this point.
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Making the outline of the smoke clearer, such as by adding a dark ring/outline on any intersecting geometry (IE the floor) and a distinct silver, client-side lining around the outside (always facing the player) so it’s very clear just HOW big the smoke is. This can be disabled in the options if it hurts immersion too badly, but as someone with poor eyesight any step towards this improving this would be appreciated.
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Improve visibility through the smoke. Making the smoke more transparent might contradict the previous points somewhat, but it’s important to reduce any “Trollish” elements of this blitz. One could alternatively highlight enemies seen through the smoke, but I worry this tagging ‘portal’ technology would cause too much trouble and anguish for the development team.
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Many believe such QoL to be enough, but if all else fails, give the smoke a bit of OOMPH. Gas Clouds give enemies a buff, why can’t our smokes be filled with stimulants too?
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Should that also not be enough, an additional debuff or mild DOT could be applied to enemies that pass through the smoke. These changes could be applied one patch at a time if you were more willing to rebalance stuff more often, as it’d be hard to remove these benefits after the fact should the pendulum swing too far in the other direction.
Survivalist is still a must pick.
And this is always going to be true. You can nerf it again and again but the simple fact remains that a LOT of classes rely on having ammo and when you’ve got a full team of bullet-suckers there’s never enough to spare. If you want players to rely solely on melee, add a “No Ranged Weapons Allowed” modifier.
Suggestion:
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Make the aura an Iconic (Passive) part of the veterans kit. All veterans love guns, this is part of their whole deal.
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Replacing the existing aura with something else would prove tricky, Fire Team and Close and Kill are both very small tweaks to very desirable stats. My best idea is something that either improves Dodging (Players in coherency have 1 extra effective dodge, for example. ) or offers your team a significant Stamina Regen and/or reduced regen delay (Call it “The Long March” or something of that ilk).
VoC is over-represented.
I’ve played a lot with Stealth and ES, and let me say, they are fun CAs with a lot more benefit than people give them credit for. I don’t think buffing the other two is the first choice to make here.
Suggestion:
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Consider making a change to overtoughness in general: Simple ways to nerf gold toughness (not cooldown related)
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If that still doesn’t cut the mustard, consider taking half the CD delay from Only In Death Does Duty End and giving it to Duty and Honor instead. Take note that even with a full 50% from both talents your total CD is only 45 seconds without any boosts, and there’s a LOT of boosts
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Speaking of boosts, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the plan, but reworking Tactical Awareness to provide a CDR bonus overtime instead of on kill would take the edge off its effectiveness in target-rich environments (Same thing ya’ll did to Zealot and Ogryn. Do this for Psyker too, of course.)
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If VoC still remains top-dog by too large a margin, now’d be a good time to hand out buffs. I would recommend adding some toughness regen to ES as an optional node, and consider replacing Low Profile with something like Pickpocket: Performing a melee attack on a Ranged enemy while in stealth gives you a small ammo pack’s worth of bullets.
Marksman’s Focus needs a rework.
It’s notably more difficult to play around compared to the other keystones, and despite its thematic elements, rewards spraying down weak trash mobs to build stacks instead of precision strikes on high value targets. Not to mention rewarding staying still, of all things. Such a luxury is ill-afforded on Atoma.
Suggestion:
Every specialist, elite or shooter weakspot kill you get while ADS gives you a stack. Each stack gives you more Ranged Damage, improves bullet penetration, and increases the speed of your next reload up to a max of 4 stacks. When you stop ADS or reload, you lose all stacks, stacks also degrade semi-slowly overtime. ADS now counts as blocking with reduced efficiency.
Child Nodes could be
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Increased movement speed while ADS,
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Provide Toughness on kill that scales with stacks.
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Weakspot kills while ADS give stamina back.
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Reloading gives you 1 second of invisibility per stack (Attacking breaks stealth).
Reasoning:
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This would no longer encourage wasting bullets on melee trash if you can help it.
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The low total number of stacks ensures a sweet spot where you want to keep your stacks maxed through a fight, but you’re also more willing to drop ADS if necessary (Also ensures the last revolver shot has maximum benefit).
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Losing stacks overtime helps reduce the feeling of being “Forced” to slowly ADS down a corridor on the off chance an enemy appears, or holding it for an entire elevator ride.
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Having ADS also block melee attacks, at reduced efficiency, actually allows you to FOCUS on your MARKSMANSHIP instead of the one trash mob slappin’ your backside.
While these are likely not all the issues with Vet’s tree, I do think they cover the biggest problems, at least from what I’ve observed. But I’ll happily edit this if someone gives me good reason to.