I’m pretty excited about these tbh! But yeah, knowing that the keystone sub-talents can sometimes dramatically change and improve it, and that the path to each also matters, it’s impossible to decide anything yet.
So far I think this sums up my thoughts well enough:
Marksman’s Focus seems like a great answer to the sniper builds which have suffered since patch #13. Like Helbores or Kantrael XII, which just can’t keep up with the new kill times despite the new crit builds and infinite ammo on crits. By the looks of it, you can make an insane sniper / marksman with that, but it comes at the cost of really having to hold that position and depending on your team to cover you which I like a lot.
Focus Target however is a tough one. I thought I would love it, since I absolutely love tagging things all the time. And I don’t mean spam, I mean marking priorities both for the team and for myself. It’s especially helpful for those sneaky hounds and trappers escaping behind walls, or just to scout for specials+ when it’s hard to tell where they are due to long ranges, massive hordes, or poor visibility like smoke, effects and low light missions. This would completely change that, forcing me to instead conserve the tags for priorities only. And honestly, tagging has been such an intergral part of my gameplay and awareness since release that I don’t know if that would be worth the trade. So it all comes down to the sub-talents here.
Weapons Specialist seems really fun, and I know especially all the revolver fans are going to absolutely love it since that’s precisely how you play that: just whip it out between melee to quickly snap priorities and back away again. The crit bonus is especially big with Hand Cannon, and would let us now easily focus down crushers without relying on Deadshot and/or Surgical.
Have to sort of agree.
Weapons specializations for each type would have been a little cooler in my opinion.
These are more stackfests of counting numbers in your buff sidebar to unload. Not an exciting prospect, even though they may be very effective.
If building a strong generalist by ignoring keystones is a great fourth option, I don’t have a problem with that.
You can do that with the Psyker already, by building a super tanky melee build with all toughness nodes included, if you forsake the Keystones for it. That said…
The base idea seems to be “Oh well, before we give people the ability to just instantly apply +30% bonus damage to one target, we have a build-up”.
So it’s like a cooldown, but instead of a full cooldown where you don’t have the bonus it’s a “soft cooldown”. The ability remains usable but takes the 18 seconds to be at full strength.
Still, I agree this meta stacking staff can be a bit of a hassle and feels a little too technical. Everything in this game stacks and sometimes that’s just weird design.
I need to see the supporting nodes to make a guess about the keystones, but i am already worried about how they changed the tree overall. Its fair to assume that some nodes were ditched to make room for the new nodes or were at least replaced. Like its highly probable that the general 15% melee attack speed node is now in the Weapon Specialist keystone.
I’ve tried to write out a response multiple times but am struggling to articulate my thoughts and concerns. For me it is Focus Target! that bugs me most - it is the one I’m most likely to take - as my habitual tagging of enemies will now be weighted by what I want to buff damage against. I don’t want to do that to the sniper at the back who can be easily dispatched but I do want to let my team know they’re there. At the same time I don’t want to buff damage against the shotgunners when I do to the Mauler but they’re behind the shotgunner so …
I’m glad I am not the only one with these worries and concerns.
I mean, the Focus Target keystone is basically just a nice to have thing. Its not needed right now and will most likely not be needed when the update comes out. Stuff already dies very fast without the damage buffs and at the very least you will give another 5% to it.
I am constantly tagging during a run, its far more important for everyone to see the threat than having a significant damage buff on it, just for it to die in half a second than a second. I would be more worried about people not tagging just to increase the damage buff.
This is an indisputable fact. The average ranged weakspot rate with guns is well under 10% in this game. Anything that autoaims obviously doesn’t count, ie Assail.
Everyone who talked to the Community Testing team including the content creators in it praised FS for how much they listened to their balance feedback and how quick they were with the iterations, and after all this… what did we get in Patch 13?
PS got a complementary nerf.
Bolter is (still) a meme tier on Vet. It got hit from 4 different angles including the stupidity that is the ~45% infected modifier just not to be able to kill poxies at all.
0 touch-ups for Plasma Gun.
Sustained fire just deleted, no cooldown when Executener’s stance is active.
Whole Vet being incredibly undertuned as a whole apart from like 2-3 specific setups (which were okay-ish) around weapons, which not many like to use.
All this while things like Voidstrike Staff and Ogryn’s numerous insanely OP nodes just made the cut.
It doesn’t take a genius to say maybe give plasma Voidstrike’s cleave (as they did in patch 14) or at least maybe make sure there is some specific support for bolter/plasma on the tree. I’m sure if the CTT would have made a fuss about Sustained Fire missing they would have reimplemented it.
I’m not even sure the Weapon Keystone idea was actually bad or just CTT thought it was too good. I mean conceptually it isn’t great, but I have heard from one of the testers things like +1 PS activation was on the tree at a time.
I have no proof of course, but it’s not like we ever have concrete evidence. Based on what I see it is clear that kneecapping Vet and making sure the class won’t have anything potentially broken took priority over making it fun to play… by a lot.
I’m really looking forwards to trying out specialist and focus target. In the case of the latter, I hope some of the modifier nodes give you the ability to tag multiple enemies at a time, it’s the only way I feel like it could be competitive relative to specialist.
When it comes to marksman’s focus, idk wth they were thinking, did any of their testers even think to try it out in Auric and Auric Maelstrom missions? Nvm the fact that it really doesn’t synergize with the marksman tree if it remains relatively similar to what it is now, and more with with a infiltrate + low profile build instead which happens to be on the opposite horizontal end of the tree, Jesus Christ. The only way I’d see it being usable is if one of the modifier nodes for it improves dodge counts and distance for the equipped ranged weapon. Also, gl trying to make it work with anything other than automatic fire weapons, marksman helbore players git rekt.
I’m reserving judgement on Marksman’s Focus, since the amount of stacks lost is ambiguous. Losing all at once would be miserable, but I think losing them over time while moving would be fine.
Focus Target, I like the idea of, but if another player marks a target, is the Veteran now unable to apply the debuff? If I ping a monstrosity instead of the Veteran, have I just denied the team a big damage boost? Since we’ve already seen team support upgrades to keystones (like Blazing Piety), it would be interesting to see an upgrade granting allies the ability to apply a weaker form of the debuff
Why can’t we just get a simple buff/ability or whatever. Sometimes less is more.
Seriously, overcomplicated blessings, traits and modifiers are getting a Darktide trademark. Stacking /destacking buffs, modifiers triggered by local weather forecast or poorly worded traits are just a source of micromanagement. My lower bar with modifiers on zealot already looks like a Windows 95 desktop with rows of icons.
It would be somewhat mitigated if the game would explain something but forget it. I knew what all this stuff means only because I am intrested in the game enough to visit forums. Stacks of brittlenes, stacks of rending, finesse multipliers, heavy tank modifier or linesman on push-back attack… Game just throws that at people without any warning.
The new keystones for vet are staple example of that. We have only stacking buffs/debuffs that railorad you into playing one certain role and there you go. I cannot even imagine how the first one will work, with stacks of extra damage on headshot that stacks unless you move, but it is fine to move if you move after headshotting, but no longer than 3s or 1s, it depends. (!)
Depth and complexity are allright, but the new vet keystones are really pushing it to the limit in my eyes. Why not remember old, trusty KISS rule: keep it simple, sweetie.
I would preffer for example:
Keystone that readies & reloads your ranged weapon on ult, with optional supresssion immunity, optional extra ranged damage and optional extra toughness regen.
Keystone that makes tagged enemy take more damage, with optional slow effect and optional extra crit chance against that enemy and optional tougness regen for team if tagged enemy dies.
Just as example. I am not all against having depth & complexity in game, heck it is one of the things that keep me hooked, but the new vet looks just bad on paper. So far I expect three gameplay styles:
Mr. Turret, just swiveling in place and not moving unless already encircled (great synergy with coherency mechanics).
Mr. I-Tag-Only-Bosses that saves the stacks for big targets and won’t tag a hound in the horde because boss might spawn.
Mr. Ringfinger that will get tendon inflammation from constantly pressing Q to swap guns.
Rant over. I will be glad to proven wrong once the patch is out, but I am not hyped.
Im not sure what to think about this, it honestly just seems like its going to be relatively clunky and pigeon hole players into certain playstyles.
Marksman’s focus
A keystone thats based upon standing still to get the most bang for your buck, and drops on slides? I dont have a lot of auric/maelstrom experience, but standing still dont seem like its much of an option on those difficulties, heck, its not much of an option for high int damnation.
Want to dodge slide a disabler or a flamer or whatever? thats all your stacks gone.
Chaining headshot kills is not to much of an issue, but in my experience it depends heavily on weapon type.
Might pair well with the stealth ability and its 90% agro reduction so you can shoot in peace.
All in all, it seems pretty mid and clunky, but its hard to judge without actually testing it in proper conditions, hopefully there are nodes that will help this one a bit.
Focus Target
This one seems like its a poorly thought out idea, tying a passive stack gain damage boost to a function that i personally spam a lot to warn other players of incoming danger is just not it when the stacks gets cleared on tag.
Perhaps if you also gained stacks from weakspot kills, with double stack gain from elites and disablers or something like that on top of the passive regen.
Probably gonna pass on this one.
Weapons Specialist
This one seems pretty ok, but i am not sure why every friggin veteran keystone has to rely on a stacking mechanic, to me it seems like it would make the combat feel kinda clunky.
I am personally not a super fan of the quick swap play style, but i can see this being good with any weapon that does not have a laborious swap animation.
Not super enthusiastic about all of this to be honest, seems a bit to restrictive, might just try to see if i can make builds without using keystones.
Marksman Focus might be salvageable when the ability “freezes” as long as you have your melee equipped, that way you could retain stacks between encounters and actually do all the normal stuff a mission requires like picking up usable’s or mats
and reposition mid combat with your melee weapon to then reengage with your buildup stacks in ranged
imo that would immediately elevate this ability to decent