Bruh, being pretty much invulnerable to range damage while execstance is up is not just better, it’s beyond broken(it’s also reduce melee damage due to bug which never get fix).
Not to mention Bolter vet were super busted than even today.
The laser pistol/shovel guys who disappear at the beginning of the mission and reappear at the end, having killed all the gunners… An example powerful build, or just a Named Character that I, having not read the books, didn’t recognize?
That’s just veteran as a class
It’s a bad idea to have more than 1 vet in Havoc lol
Fun fact. These proc when you activate the ghost blessing against ranged attacks. That means those on dodge talents/blessings become mega free (not that they had uptime issues in the first place mind you).
Reciprocity is one of my favourite talents in Vet tree honestly, keep it out of your mouth if you got no respect!
It’s not about uptime. I don’t dodging is a great mechanic to use as a trigger; particularly for an offensive bonus. I think it’d pair better with an offensive action.
I like to track my buffs mentally as I play and I don’t like it when the playstyle doesn’t naturally synergize with buffs.
I don’t like to feel like I have to run up to things and dodge to keep my crit chance up, or to exploit a blessing/talent combo. If its just up all the time, and you don’t have to think about it, then it might as well be a passive without a trigger.
You don’t really need to keep track of when every buff is up all the time. Especially a chance based stat, with the exception of a buff letting you reach 100%. Like even if you increase the chance what matters at the end of the day for that interaction is whether or not you crit with that hit, which is more or less out of your control.
It’s hard for me to imagine an action that flows more naturally into combat than dodging, like you naturally have to do that all the time. There’s a reason people want to nerf second wind on Zealot, and that’s because it’s incredibly free toughness.
I guess I struggle to respond to this because Darktide as a whole must be a nightmare to play for you. Every character between talents and blessings have a myriad of buffs appearing and disappearing all the time. I struggle to see that as a Vet specific issue. TBC I also don’t love it and it’s part of why DT is an inferior game to VT2 in my eyes, but across the board that’s kinda just how the game is.
I’d argue in the case I presented the thinking part went into the building stage of your character rather than the gameplay. Finding synergies for your build is part of the game.
Empathic evasion says hi
Are you talking about lore or something? i don’t understand.
Me either!
What you’re saying essential seems to boil down to dodge-based triggers being “free value” due to the Ghost Blessing and high uptime, and that thinking goes into the build-making phase, not necessarily gameplay. Essentially, you’re defending convenience and effectiveness over cohesion and intuitive design.
I feel I’m making a more coherent and gameplay-conscious argument.
- Dodge as a trigger feels unnatural for offensive buffs. It’s reactive and doesn’t align well with proactive, damage-dealing gameplay.
- Synergistic triggers where offensive buffs come from offensive actions (e.g., weak spot hits, ADS time, kills), these feel more intuitive and easier to track.
- If a buff is always active just because of normal dodging or Ghost Blessing cheese, then it might as well be a passive. i.e. no meaningful engagement or decision-making is happening.
I’m advocating for better game design where buffs are connected to the flow of gameplay and player awareness. (While also remaining within cognitive bandwidth).
To be fair though, dodging bonuses do not make tracking buffs a “nightmare”, because you can design your blessings and build to synergize with this trivial action, and then you turn your brain off, dodge periodically to keep them up, since you have to do that anyway almost anytime enemies are near you.
I’m more interested in how well a buff system engages the player and fits into the core gameplay loop. You’ve pointed out an exploit/synergy and treating it like a success case, but high uptime doesn’t make a trigger “good” if it doesn’t contribute meaningfully to the gameplay experience.
I get whre you’re coming from but you dont want to play with something triggering (lol) that requires ‘toughness to be broken’
To me personally, thats saying I dont need any failsafes because my toughness is never broken. So you never die to melee and couldn’t use a ton mopre stamina to continue blocking (or if youre build was to do with parrying, more free parrys…) ? I cant take these threads seriously, regardlessof if theya re or arent, when you disregard a particular Talent because it doesn’t suit YOU. The difference here is that I’m not pseudo-balancing around my preferences.
You need powerful talents like KillZone to have downtime or theyd be overpowered and lead to more mustpicks. Youre complaining about one thing, then asking for more of the same it feels ?
They Keystones cost too much, youre right. Even the Precision one for people that can aim isn’t worth it when you can take 10% rending and get pretty much the same, sans a few breakpoints but aim and reflexes are hardly arbitrary.
The thing with Vet is he has simultaneously the least specialized role on a team and the most specialized. Sniping specials.
Roles like mdps/frontliner/horde control/ Sniper veteran can fill them all on a single build and do none of them well but do all of them ok. This is PRECISELY WHY VoC shields are so good; theyre his role. Not Sniping. He’s a jack of all trades support that can spec into bosskilling, sniping, melee rbawling, melee singletarget dps, etc etc.
Because Vet has this versatility, it looks like his talents are bad. Theyre not, he just has so many useful ones. He’s not flashy, he just gets the job done. I’d really like to see covering fire have some use for him, and then there’s even more talents to take. One thing for sure, for me, is that Vet never gets boring. He has so much workable versatility but is the most skill dependent class out of them all to make work, and this is balanced fairly well given the other classes easily defineable roles (Frontliner, Melee damage w/ range support and AoE damage). Vet is more Ranged with melee support.
I really don’t see a need for any huge changes or buffs and a rework isn’t exactly required either. The reason he feels weak is that the meta is to play solo. vet benefits from space to shoot. People can’t wont do this often. So he will fallback to melee a lot which means he cant shoot specs when they zone in etc.
Recon spam gets boring, but works 100% of the time and is never a bad choice.
You misrepresent my point by acting like I’m saying “I never lose toughness, so I don’t need talents that trigger on toughness break.” My actual argument was “toughness break” is a clunky and counterintuitive trigger for offensive talents; not that you never get hit. This is a strawman.
You argue against tailoring talents to personal preference, then justify your stance entirely based on their personal preference and experience with the class. This is a contradiction.
You say “You want more strong talents, but don’t want downtime”, but that’s not what I said. I’m asking for cohesive, gameplay-synergistic talents, not overpowered passives with no drawback. This is a false equivalence.
Your point becomes “Vet has versatility, so he’s fine” which doesn’t address my point that the talent design could be better aligned with gameplay styles.
Saying “Vet feels weak because the meta is solo” is a very surface-level take. You’re pointing at structural design flaws, not just bad coordination in pubs. This is a flawed analysis.
You really don’t need tot rack things that you should be donig naturally,. and thats how the talents on Vet are designed.
He needs to dodge a lot; he gets reciprocity stacks.
He needs to ADS with a lto of his weapons; he gets tdr/regen/Precision dmg etc.
Passive 1005 uptime buffs are boring, and must be weak to balance this, 105 rending is a good example, its build defining so is one of the most expensive talents, even for a miniscule amount of rending its comparatively powerful.
If you’re in the thick of it shooting or melee, you’ll have buffs IF youre build has them. You wont need tot rack them. And how is having 2 Reciprocity stacks for +10% crit vs 5 for 25% in a melee going to change how you play and what you can leverage? Oor 1stack of TDR vs ranged or having 3 stacks. You’re either going to contnue shooting (or stabbing) or youre gonig to push a ranged blob or youre going to fallback into melee.
Onslaught is a good example. Rending is very strong and the mroe you have the more powerful you are, but none is calculating how much rending theyre putting on a Crusher with a Recon or Kantrael, theyre just gonan keep pounding it until its dead or theyre forced to swap targets.
50% stamina recovery (and no slow) on toughness breaks seems limiting. Once you get used to having it you’ll think how did you ever play without it. It guarantees mroe block, mroe dodge and more sprint. It guarantees mroe parry spam if youve invested into that. In that sense, its build-defining EXACTLY when you need it the most.
People need to think outside themeta and then you’ll see a lot of Vet stuff plays itself intrisnsically by playing the game, it depends how good you are at that to leverage them, not the other way around. These are some of the best Talents Vet has and because you cant control uptime doesnt make them bad, it means you need to leverage them, via skil, when you can and you’re always needing to dodge on Vet.
Yes, some talents are designed to reward natural gameplay loops (e.g. dodging, ADS), and yes, not every buff needs to be explicitly tracked, some just flow with gameplay, and passive uptime buffs must be weaker to stay balanced.
However, you’re missing the point on clarity vs. power. I’m not saying “make everything passive”, I’m saying triggers should feel responsive and clear. Many of these talents trigger from ambiguous or reactive states (e.g., dodge, toughness break), which don’t always align with proactive or intentional play.
You misrepresent the impact of buff stacks.
First, by downplaying the value of stacks, (e.g., Reciprocity), but a 25% crit boost is huge; knowing when you have it does affect playstyle and weapon choice.
Second, if you can’t leverage a buff through natural gameplay, then the design is not player-friendly, even if it’s technically functional.
You contradict yourself again, you say you don’t need to track buffs because you’re always dodging. Then later say you’ll miss them if you don’t learn to leverage them. Which is it? Mindless uptime or skill-based value?
You’re ignoring build synergy importance. I’m arguing for cohesive, synergistic design where talents reinforce your playstyle, not interrupt it with disjointed triggers. You frame the design as “play better = get buffs,” but good talent design should reward good play while still being intuitive, not reliant on clunky or situational procs.
I’m not against reactive buffs or learning to play around triggers. I’m saying some of them feel disconnected from the class’s core identity.
If you’re building around precision or aggression, your buffs should reflect that directly. Dodging or taking damage as a trigger for offense can work, but only if it complements your intended role. Just because a buff can happen doesn’t mean it feels good to play around. Good talent design isn’t about uptime, it’s about cohesion and clarity.
And if “you’ll miss it when it’s gone” is the only reason a trigger is good, that’s a design crutch, not good synergy.
Im not misrepresenting you at all, youre actually intentionally misrepresentaing me! I said thats it was how what you were saying to ME and went from there. How would you leverage 15% crit apart from continueing doing exactly what your doingh, as other have pointed out. Noone saying that 15% difference isnt huge, theyre.. saying to you… wait you wont even communicate. Its been written above a few times by multiple posters.
What has happened to common doscourse, this is stupid.
I’m not intentionally trying to misrepresent you. I don’t know if it’s a language barrier, but there’s a lot of punctuation and spelling errors. My point is simple: some of these triggers like dodge or toughness break, don’t always align well with proactive, ranged play.
Yes, the crit bonus is a big deal. That’s why I want it tied to something that feels responsive and intentional, not something that happens incidentally. It’s not about raw power, it’s about how the class feels to play.
I have 3450 hours in DT mostly as Vet and Reciprocity is my favorite tactic, in every build. Are you sure youre utilizing it properly, or leveraging it efficiently? The amount of times I used to look at my buff bar (I dont anymore) to see it at max stacks was astounding. Its even better now its damage AND ammo. Im aware of what yorue saying, unless people agree with you, you’re disregarding them. It feels rgeat to me and I can feel when I have stacks or not, based on my magazine ammo useage.
Do you dodge damage?
Thats not what a contradiction is. You;re kinda deluding yourself to make a square fot a round hole here.
On contradiction:
But then you say:
You claim you don’t need to track or think about the buffs, because they come from natural gameplay, but then also emphasize that you’ll miss the benefit if you don’t learn to “leverage them”. Those two ideas are at odds.
Also, this is non-sequiter, and I never said Reciprocity is weak; I said it’s strong. I’m saying the trigger (dodging) feels disconnected from certain builds or playstyles, especially ones focused more on precision or gunplay from range.
I’m talking about design cohesion, not raw effectiveness. You liking it doesn’t invalidate critiques about how it activates.
If you want to talk about efficacy, I’d say it’s a crutch talent if you’re at 3000+ hours and relying on it in every build as it pretty much stays up all the time. You clearly get value from it, and I do too, but I don’t find reactive triggers intuitive or satisfying, especially if they rely on situations that aren’t core to their playstyle.
Acknowleding they exist isnt the same as playing to game them. Youre aim is way off. I’d appreciate if you stop using words and concepts you dont fully grasp. You know full well what I mean in that its what others have said; you get the buffs by doing what you’d be doing anyway. If you have them, or if you dont, it doesnt make a diffeence youre still dodging all damage.
Stop being disengenuous. This is the 3rd time. Youre not offering anything other than ‘my point or i denigrate you’ Its really nasty tbh. What do you want? The buffs to be active longer? To be up constantly? Not is that compared with beng engaging and not OP? What do you think is OP/UP what do you suggest? Youre just whining and not ofering anything other than ‘its about my experience’.
Now me picking something on the talent tree is a crutch because of my playtime.
Youre insane arguements leave little to debate, wouldnt you agree, if my playtime suddenly nullifies any balance discussion I can have with you, let alone the proof of previous posts where you arent listening to anything anyone says. Its certainly intuitive that I can feel how much stacks I have based on my Recons magazine clip. Its CERTAINLY intuitive, you just dont seem to possess the intuition. More ammo is more ammo its very simple. Its very satisfying to know my skill at surviving is increasing my damage is increasing my ammo. When I get a horde and weave while adsing I get; tdr, toughness regen, crit procs, more ammo conservation and can mow it down. Its EXTREMELY fun and satisfying, intuitive and rewarding.
Its not my fault you cant intuit this in your gameplay enough to have a discussion about it. I know what youre saying and Im flatout disagreeing. Im not shoving words in your mouth like you are to me. I EXCLUSIVELY play precision Vet ranged builds. I pretty much have to resort to ‘you have no idea what youre talknig about’ at this point because, frankly, what youre saying and what is actual reality in the game from someoen who literally does the thigns you say are very different and I honestly think its a…
…skill issue.