The Vet’s auto reload from Volley Fire/Executioner’s Stance being stolen and given to the Ogryn was kind of aggravating. I want the Ogryn to keep it, of course - but I’d also like to see it returned to Vets, as well. There’s just very little reason to swap my Voice of Command build out for my VF/ES one without the auto reload.
6 Likes
Marksman focus and focus target are not good. I am bewildered with the design around them. This game is fast paced, having a build designed around NOT MOVING is a horrible idea, then there is focus target… It so easy to accidently tag the wrong thing and the damage buff is honestly only useful against bosses/crushers, which is going to result in veterans holding back on tagging so they dont waste it, which frankly hurts the team if a trapper or something need to be lit up or notify others of it. Weapon specialist is great though.
Also it looks like they didnt fix any of the actual issues with the placement of certain talents, that 25% ammo one need to be moved up, its in a stupid spot. How about veterans survivability issues, it looks like they have done nothing to fix that problem.
2 Likes
I’m keeping expectations low. If they nail it I’m glad to have been wrong in saying sad days ahead. My impression of the Marksman’s Focus isn’t too bad, because I’m dodging while shooting most of the time anyway. I’m sure the bonus nodes for it will make it even better. My main problem is the ammo economy and hoping the ranged side of the vet tree will be gunner mcgee.
Like you said there is a lot of headshot bonuses, but I would say the finesse power would make crits insane too. : D
Because it makes veteran ‘simpler’ despite currently carving the least flexible viable loadouts since basically every one incorporates the same thing.
However if they fix Exhilarating Takedown to make you a tank and not die harder like it does now it would easily be another build option with squad leader. Really its just stealth that needs more. Probably should have had a cooldown like the Zealot one.
1 Like
I’m worried most about Marksman’s Focus. It having the stipulation of “you can’t move or else you will lose your bonus” in this type of game is just setting up bad player behavior. If it was just on a 3-5 second timer that getting a weakspot hit/kill would reset then that would be much better. Or if the stacks reset after switching to melee. The AI director loves to through things at you from behind and needing to be mobile is vital to survival. I doubt that there is no stack cap, that would be absolutely insane.
Without seeing the modifier nodes, it is hard to tell how it will feel in a mission, but based on just the main node, I’m concerned. I don’t know if FS will, or even has the time to, change the keystone before this update hits but, to me, Marksman’s Focus should have been off a timer and not being stationary.
1 Like
Seems like useless mini games to me. Forcing players into certain gameplay is never ends well.
1 Like
Weapon specialist sounds like they have not actually finished it. I mean 10 stacks of +33% crit chance? Surely not. Unless it is increasing base crit chance by up to +333% then it makes a little more sense because that translates to increasing base crit by x4.33 and since vet has a base 5% that increases it to 21.65%, still high but much more reasonably so for a capstone given the seemingly ludicrous modifier otherwise.
Need to see the other nodes for that focus because otherwise it looks like it is encouraging eating a lot of attacks, but hey, maybe we are getting out stand still and take it feat back where the vet is just really tankly when in the zone (the old +70% toughness DR vs ranged that actually applied to melee as well).
Focus target, we getting slalty-boy’s ability back baby. Let the witch hunts (re)commence! Up to +30% damage to things pinged. I can only imagine one of those nodes reduces that 3s interval so potentially a stack per second or regaining stacks on tagged target kill.
Looks good so far. Also looks like they moved up some of the old “keystones” we currently have so those are still an option, which is nice. This is probably the power-spike vet needs to get those people complaining that he sucks now to shut up for a bit (but only a bit).
Its worth noting that the trigger for gaining stacks is the same as the trigger for moving without losing Focus stacks.
It appears to me that it’ll really shine in situations where you’re dealing with both a poxwalker horde and streams of elites.
Build stacks off the trash and obliterate any Elite that pops in. As long as you’re gaining stacks, you’re gaining windows to move.
Heck, there’s even an ‘On Hit’ clause in there too. So you could quite literally backwards away from anything you arent one-tapping as long as you keep accurately hitting a weakspot.
The way its worded makes it seem like the stacks will drain while moving, Not that all stacks will be lost instantly upon moving. Looks like dodging wont drain them either.
Doesn’t look like the stacks have a timer, so movement appears to be the only way to lose them.
If you had a squad that keeps things off your back while you’re blasting, Marksman Vets will be absolute monsters.
Weapon Specialist seems like a revised version of the Agile Engagement perk.
And by revised, i mean better.
Though this is based on the wording indicating that the other weapon buff wont start its duration until you swap to the relevant weapon.
It means even if using a more ranged oriented build, You’re basically just keeping an empowered melee buff in your pocket for an emergency and likewise for a more dedicated melee build, You get a decent gun bonus for the moments you pull it out.
Its pretty solid even in its vanilla state, and there were a few bonus nodes coming off it. Most likely ones that will slant its effects more to one side.
Kind of looks like they wanted that side to be more of a melee/ranged hybrid rather than its current spread of perks looking very melee dedicated.
1 Like
The wording could do with clarifying 
Looking at it again, I see what you mean - it could be “removes a number of stacks” but it’s ambiguous as hell.
If it’s the case that you lose a certain number of stacks while moving (like how Inexorable Judgment gains stacks), then I think it’ll be fine.
I wish the modifiers were described as well - today, they already make a big difference to keystones for other classes, so only getting to see the baseline gives a fairly underwhelming perspective.
Extra damage for Tagged enemy seems good, and I guess it will work team-wise (like Vet’s medkit node).
But we need to know more about sub-keystone nodes before criticizing or hyping anything.
1 Like
I read it as “stacks will accumulate while standing still and getting weakspot kills. At the moment a kill occurs, a 3 second timer begins where you can move without losing stacks. Moving after this timer expires will wipe all stacks.”. But yeah, on second read you might be right.
Seems like too big of an oversight to be wrong. I put that down to being an intentional product of FS’s incomprehensible calculation methods, and that the gameplay result won’t actually be 333% crit chance.
Yeah i’m not to exited for these keystones.
I grew up playing areana shooters so i have a hard time standing still running a keystone that punish me for casually A-D strafeing yeah no thanks.
Focus target also doesnt seem to great, i tend to only play Hi-STG there are simply to many things to tag and i don’t think running a keystone that will punish me if i need to tag something new every seccond during difficulty spikes.
Weapon spec does look pretty good though.
The nodes around the keystones hopefully might be able to save them but I need to wait and see untill I can give it my full opinion.
1 Like
My initial thoughts are basically as alsozara said, the tree just still seems to be incredibly inflexible when it comes to the actual choice. You either commit to your ranged/melee/(tagging?!) playstyle and pick a keystone or forgo a lot of the power you might get from said keystone to get more interesting build together.
I really don’t understand focus targets design at all. So if I want to tag sniper for my teammates to kill or fish for potential trapper inside a horde, and I somehow manage to tag 2-3 things before I hit that tag on said sniper/trapper I’m just losing stacks in the process and potential damage on the target I want it on?
It also heavily discourages actually tagging everything that is dangerous and instead saving it for when you might actually want it. (Man better not tag that demonhost because something might be right next to it that you want the stacks on)
What was so bad about WHC:s witch hunts simple design that even this had to be turned into a stack counter?
Dno not particularly excited for these. I think the current tree could honestly been fine with some tweaking and with additional access nodes to get to places. Getting to 25% ammo for instance just feels like you are giving up a lot of stuff to get there.
Its hard to say right now how truly good marksman’s focus and weapon specialist are without seeing the upgrade nodes, but those 2 could really easily pigeonhole you into a choice.(The very choice they wanted to avoid with initial lack of keystones in vet tree) Focus target needs to have some truly disgusting upgrade nodes for me to consider it.
3 Likes
Weapon specialist seems to be the only one that I will like to use.
Off course… Let’s wait and see that in game.
Focus target… I don’t think I will ever use this…
Considering how it is well received… I would suggest to choose an other trigger than tagging
Not sure where these weird and wacky ideas about community testers being responsible for balance snafus came from. Community testers don’t decide what ships mate. Fatshark has total control of what they put out on the balance front.
the thing is, you’re required to headshot, for an headshot bonus, so the question becomes, what headshot centric weapon needs a substantial amount of headshot dmg bonus?
if you do 5 times the dmg its still a useless buff if you had killed that enemy with a headshot without any buff at all, (not to mention lower difficulties where it might be entirely useless)
so it only helps to kill things that take multiple headshots and its really hard to tell how many stacks can realistically be upheld,
since the stacks might dissipate really quickly or extremly slowly while moving, maybe moving is not as big of a deal in loosing them as it sounds and that entire clause can be ignored as long as you gain stacks who knows
3 Likes
I will surely won’t make friends with what I will say.
If it is for what I have read (OP post) well, I hope I won’t be un position to have preferred keeping the actual veteran skill tree
I hope that these keystone won’t mess my preferred gameplay.
3 Likes
This looks on paper like it won’t change things much. Really depends on if the upper parts of the tree are more efficient. Otherwise, I see myself continuing to largely ignore the keystones in favor of taking other talents throughout the tree.
Weapon Specialist seems good if you can justify the points getting down to it.
The base idea of the other keystones just seem clunky and at worst counter-productive to good play. Really strange.
3 Likes
I don’t think it’d be the first gaff of that nature for FS. 3% per stack makes sense, making it comparable to Blazing Piety (double the crit, ranged only, lower uptime because of the proccing mechanic)
This; the new keystones wouldn’t be the first that aren’t outstanding in their base form
- Inexorable Judgement is effectively impossible to reach high stacks with, in combat, without the dodge upgrade
- Warp Siphon gets damage and passive proc conditions, which are a big deal for it IMO
- Empowered Psionics gets multiple stacks and guaranteed stack on elite kill; again, a big deal IMO
It’s not unlike the leaked blessing bug in Patch 12; seeing the new blessings without the context of all the other changes gave a very warped perception of what those specific changes meant.
Unless the extra nodes on Marksman Focus either completely remove the movement restrictions, give complete stealth/immunity on headshot kill for the duration, or buff the damage by a full magnitude of order, this is the same garbage treatment of precision builds I’ve come to expect from Fatshark.
Guys, getting constant ranged headshots is already the single hardest thing to do in this game. Stop putting additional conditions and caveats on talents that buff this playstyle. Don’t restrict my movement, don’t put arbitrary range restrictions on headshot damage, inverted or otherwise, and do work on your crappy netcode that causes stationary enemies to ignore dead centre headshots.
Very underwhelmed so far. The right keystone seems better than the precision one in every circumstance.
8 Likes