Veteran is worthless now

[Antilus]

i don’t know, i’ve stick to my bolter for the whole thing, and it never changed for me, but lets do some math

in the old pinning fire age, it was doing 20% each stack to a maximum of 5, meaning a +100% at full stacks

now it does +20% at max stacks, so we are left with 80% damage missing right?

putting exe’s stance aside how many new perks we have in the vets talent tree to fill the 80% gap now?

let’s also put aside patch 14 buffs to base damage and on % damage on the hardest types of enemies (carapace and unyelding)

we have 2 nodes of +5% ranged damage, we have +10% of For the emperor when you press F which is mandatory, we have focus target keystone which is tax free if you have ‘‘bring it down’’ in your core, thats 32% at max stacks +12% with the mod (and that thing is always up on damnation +)

that would be 64%, you only miss 16% damage to reach old pinning fire level, for that you go way over it if you score a headshot, you got the 25% finesse bonus from patch 14, then you got +30% weakspot damage from precision strikes, and another +20% from marksman for 10 seconds after pressing F

all it takes to replicate the old ‘‘bolter hell’’ is to shoot at face level

if you just care about 1 tapping shotgunners and gunners with the body shot then yes, bolter is worse now i suppose

forgive me if i couldn’t tell the difference from the past

(talk about the video) This guy recommands Counterfire, that was giga bad on bolter, this guy is spitting nonsense for me, only thing i agree on is demo team instead of bio optics, but he didn’t know the basis

sustained fire was your best option, the extra reload would allow you to sac the reload talents, or just one of them, and the 60% thougness boost was invaluable, its what got you out of the worst situations, its what makes voice of command and infiltrate so much superior to exe stance right now, this guy is/was clueless to my eyes

[weeping.moon]

Again, you are missing that point there was a different gameplay context in those times as i said before. Much less enemies and other archetypes wasn’t capable to do what vet could.

If you want to do math:

You deal 100 damage per second, and there are 10 enemies with 1500 hp, or you deal 50 damage per second, but there are 2 enemies with 1000 hp.

In wich case you are stronger?

Look at 2:27-2:46, how its printing ammo with 2 bolts for 1 shoting specials and elites on par with stacking confirmed kill. And then think in the context i said above.

Again, it was almost pure range build that wasn’t ask any effort. By your own words you are playing mostly melee, don’t you think there is a conflict there?

@Antilus

all it takes to replicate the old ‘‘bolter hell’’ is to shoot at face level

It’s not just, it’s a signifficant condition, aswell as focus target ask a player for an additional action, and on top of that you will not have that ammo printing effect. Add here there was 100 toughness more for vet, insta swap and insta reload+inbuilt voc.

@Antilus

This guy recommands Counterfire

It’s true, 3rd wound is also kek. But it’s not about the guy, even so he’s somewhat well known and skillful player in DT auric community.

And as i remeber it was the same on auric release, you could play almost exclusively as magdumper still, because of blessings mega buff and how ammo regen was scaling with spawns.

That every 1% of damage your are trying to gather doesn’t mean anything without the context of mobs density and other classes power output.

[Antilus]

the video is short, and shooting to poxwalker hordes was not recommandable, especially back when they had 650 hp they were an actual threat, shooting them with bolter would mean to scatter them, and they would just get up and surround you, not even open beta power sword could save you from that

i remember getting surrounded constantly in the final part of excise vault, it felt humiliating getting downed by pox walkers every time, and yes i was using power sword

i just assume he cut the melee part, and just showed the ranged engagement, but even then, ditching sustained fire is bad, there arn’t always nice corridors like in smelterfab, back then getting shot from multiple direction was very ugly, even with 200 base thougness, you needed sustained fire

i was looking down on players who were shooting to hordes even with autoguns, the vet job was always to counter ranged and specials, and if you had a bolter, you could take down those dangerous melee elites and bosses as a bonus

after the wave is thinned it was time for melee, regardless of your build, that is when things like brutal momentum became an important part of your kit

i remember playing with a good plasma vet on old damnation, he would just melee with everything with power sword untill he met some resistence, or engaging in range combat, that is the proper way

[Ragnarok101]

I return.

So with a 1a and the newly buffed Marksman’s focus, you can go on insane headshot sprees. I don’t think Exec stance is even strictly necessary since VoC is so much better but grabbing stacks with a few weak spot kills will let you tear down most elites not in carapace with headshots.

[Antilus]

ye, you can also use kraks on those

[weeping.moon]

Mg la even fine with Focus Target, instead of Marksman’s Focus, aslo hip fire on infantry lasguns is pretty accurate, sometimes it’s just better to spam than go ads. But on higher difficulties there will be no place for tacticool playstyle anyway (on some maps and conditions there is)

Some people don’t like to hear about V2, cause “MUH DARKTIDE IS A DIFFERENT GAME”, meanwhile tones of those things are in DT already just reimagined in a poor way, either way too conditional or effortless.

Vet always have had this Bardin Ranger talent idea, it just was in the form of Unwavering Focus or in Exhilarating Takedown+Iron WIll split

What smoke nades do in DT? Yeah well

Some other range talents in V2, you can see how something like that being reimagined would be cool for different playstyles, like low ammo cap/small clip size guns, infiltrator, big “heavy” guns, etc. Some of them are kinda is in the game in the form of blessings already.

Summary

Weapon traits from Chaos Wastes

Summary

[Antilus]

@weeping.moon

Also what is your melee weapon? Because chainswords need some crowd control assistance is another reason i like voc.

if you do chainsword i suggest you to stick to voice of command and kraks

this lol

then i go this

to make up for the lack of slaughterer, its working wonders

also this and this helps

[weeping.moon]

I use VoC cause of this partialy, chainsword needs some area control, cuase shredding can be risky, but i don’t like kraks in bolter-chainsword combo, feels pointless. Anti armor and anti boss is already there. So i use frags for horde clearing and even more control.

[Anvillior]

Kinda funny. I think vet is the only class in DT right now where you might actually get more out of the class by just ignoring keystones.

[SnickeringCat]

It is. Focus Target is a time gated ability aimed at being a support, Marksman’s Focus is just straight ass, and Weapon Specialist has a whole essay explaining how it works, and it’s still ass. Like why take a side-grade keystone when I can just invest deeper into other talents from other branches of the skill tree and get something like rending on hit? Or more toughness/toughness damage reduction? Or the ability to just infinitely regenerate grenades? I genuinely believe that Veteran doesn’t need keystones or they need to try for a 3rd time at fixing Vet’s talent tree.

[Kambrin]

what about marksmans focus is ass? massive weakspot/crit damage and you get rending out of it, keeping it up while moving is trivial too
wep specialist is great, gives you free crits and attackspeed out the ass
focus target is arguably the least impactful one and even that is a pretty big damage boost

all the vet keystones are way more impactful than the other classes. The issue is that his regular talents are way too good so people just stack up on those instead (especially since they condensed the tree and made them all way more easy to get)

[SnickeringCat]

Or I can take 30% weakspot damage, and instead of speccing into Marksman’s focus, I can just take Onslaught and the 10% flat rending, regardless of where I hit. Weapon specialist gives you crit on a single shot, while every other benefit is weirdly focused on reloading and stamina. And as for the toughness regen, I can just rely on shout for that. Focus target takes anywhere from 10-16 seconds to actually stack before you can use it at maximum effectiveness, plus there are talents built into veteran’s kit already that give toughness to your team. So I ask again, why are you investing 2-3 points into mediocre abilities, when you can just go for more basic talent nodes?

And as for Vet’s keystone’s being better than every other class, I think you need your eyes checked lol.

[Antilus]

@Kambrin

what about marksmans focus is ass

taxing to get, and you do enough headshot damage already, you really don’t need more

[Kambrin]

@SnickeringCat

Or I can take 30% weakspot damage, and instead of speccing into Marksman’s focus, I can just take Onslaught and the 10% flat rending, regardless of where I hit.

Ok and marksmans focus is 70-100+% finesse ontop, not just weakspot, which synergizes well with all the crit he gets above in the tree. It also doesn’t lock you out of onslaught and 10% flat rending, you can get both. There is no reason you would say “instead” here.

@SnickeringCat

Weapon specialist gives you crit on a single shot, while every other benefit is weirdly focused on reloading and stamina.

I’ll give you that the keystone modifiers aren’t great but getting attackspeed and free reloads is huge on some weps. It’s geared towards hybrid builds that go back and forth between melee and ranged and it’s absolutely fantastic for those. It’s not just “a single free crit” thats underselling the talent hard

@SnickeringCat

why are you investing 2-3 points into mediocre abilities, when you can just go for more basic talent nodes?

because the nodes are OP, not because the keystones are bad. Veteran gets stuff like free grenades that oneshot multiple crushers and bulwarks, 10% perma rending, massive amounts of DR, meanwhile other classes get hyper specific garbo filler nodes like “30% more stagger on headshots” or “10% rending for 5 seconds atfer killing an elite” (which is one of the best nodes that class has btw)

The issue isn’t the keystones beign bad, they’re better thna what every other class has. The issue is that the small passive nodes are way overtuned and OP. That’s why people feel bad about actually picking the keystones instead of another 3-4 OP nodes.

@Antilus

taxing to get, and you do enough headshot damage already, you really don’t need more

Depends on the wep, fast firing low damage weps scale really hard off it which stylistically goes against the idea of a sniper but what can you do. Funnily enough the autopistol goes hard with marksmans focus whereas the actual sniper guns suck with it

[SnickeringCat]

Ok and marksmans focus is 70-100+% finesse ontop, not just weakspot, which synergizes well with all the crit he gets above in the tree. It also doesn’t lock you out of onslaught and 10% flat rending, you can get both. There is no reason you would say “instead” here.

You don’t need 70-100% weapon finesse to kill things. You’re going overboard. You and I both know that rending and weakspot damage are enough. Ranged finesse damage is literally the same thing as weakspot damage. Even with that in mind, you’re still going to have to get to 10 stacks and stay at 10 stacks to get the full benefits of your keystone, otherwise, you just wasted important talent node slots. I’ll just take my Executioner’s Stance because that’s instantly 25% to weakspots, plus the 30% you can take, plus the 20% power bonus you get from taking Marksman. And guess what? I can still take Onslaught and the 10% rending to everything. And I still have 2 extra nodes to invest into better instant toughness regen/reduction talents. Oh and I don’t have constantly worry about losing stacks because everything is always active.

The issue isn’t the keystones beign bad, they’re better thna what every other class has

Lol so let’s look at some other classes then:

I genuinely fail to see how you think that any of these are worse than Vet’s keystones. They’re straightforward with good supporting nodes. They give a lot of what the class needs without having some type of gimmick to follow just to activate the keystone’s supporting effects and main effects. You don’t get the full benefits of Focus Target until you’ve passed 10-16 seconds of non use. You don’t get the full benefits of Weapon Specialist until you get 10 stacks off of melee kills. It is easy to keep Marksman’s Focus going if you can aim well, but it still feels like a poor investment for what is effectively a glass canon build. Sure you can take the toughness replenishment node for Marksman’s Focus, but why not just invest 2 points into either Out for Blood since it was buffed to 5% or Exhilarating Takedown? Even with the benefits of these keystones, there’s just better ways to budget your power off of weapon blessings and the other nodes in the talent tree.

getting attackspeed and free reloads is huge on some weps

Or just take literally one of the 2 reload nodes at the top of the tree. 15% attack speed is nice to have, but is it really worth 2 extra talents? Ranged attack speed is irrelevant with the Survivalist nerf. You want to actually aim your shots now, rather than just spam all your ammo at one target. Unless you’re one of the many Veteran’s that only use a Plasma Gun because meta.

“30% more stagger on headshots” or “10% rending for 5 seconds atfer killing an elite”

Okay you lost me here so I’ll just post some screenshots from the Zealot’s tree to show you it’s not just Veteran:

Every single class has powerful base nodes. They aren’t complicated to understand. They’re important to keep class building simple at a base level. Keystones are for fine tuning, but the Veteran’s keystones are still too niche to take over just running standard talent nodes.

[Aldrig]

I will just say that I stopped to play the veteran with revolver, cause it is litterally broken. It is above too strong… same for plasma. And FS has even reinforced this…

I agree with this in a sense that revolver is an objectively better performing weapon then some of more iconic options for this class.

did you play a zealot? it seems you have not.

Let’s not start with ad hominems.

anyway with a veteran you can kill a crusher with… a dagger.

I still don’t get how this is relevant to the sharpshooter veteran. I must again state that i talk solely about sharpshooter veteran. Whatever other two “veterans” do with revolvers or daggers or whatever i don’t really care, since i don’t play them, and since i find the idea of a small puny knife doing anything to giant armored ogre rather funny.

No… true… this is just that you will annoy the veterans in the team (and ogryns also).

Yes, of course, every time you touch your ranged weapon every teammate starts instantly flaming you. No, no one cares. You can take an autogun and shoot 90 percent of the game into a horde of trash, most players won’t notice.

[Antilus]

So i’ve been testing a bit in the psykanium the difference between marksman focus and onslaught on my laspistol

they are very similar in numbers, MF do better against maniacs

MF: 2000 dps both flak and maniac ragers OS: 1700 dps maniac 2000 dps flak
MF: 1700 dps mutant OS: 1200 dps mutant
MF:600 to 900 dps crusher OS: 900 dps crusher (MF is not consistent for some reason)
Both 1400 dps mauler body

i think they are the same, with Onslaught you get a cuple of melee perks, MF is better against mutants specifically

tested with and without Deadshot and it didn’t make much difference for my laspistol, besides i just prefer to shoot from the hip in general with smallarms

performance aside, oh boy, if you go for any of those you have to sacrifice a lot

if you want you can save one perk point and go for kraks and fire team, and get deadshot or whatever

i suppose with brautos its better cause you don’t need deadshot and shock trooper so you can get out for blood, ye that is what i would do

[Kambrin]

@SnickeringCat

You and I both know that rending and weakspot damage are enough.

depends on wep

@SnickeringCat

Ranged finesse damage is literally the same thing as weakspot damage.

false

@SnickeringCat

Even with that in mind, you’re still going to have to get to 10 stacks and stay at 10 stacks to get the full benefits of your keystone,

trivial with a full auto wep

@SnickeringCat

I’ll just take my Executioner’s Stance

not mutually exclusive

@SnickeringCat

Oh and I don’t have constantly worry about losing stacks

with 6 seconds of stacks being protected after a kill you never have to worry

As for the rest of your post you posted a bunch of stuff that you wish was as good as free grenade regen + 50% free DR for being >75% toughness + 30% toughness regen per elite killed (stacking)
It’s hilarious that you think +50% toughness replenishment on melee kill belongs in that list too. You know what that stat does right? It’s obvious you just went through the talents of classes youv’e never played and copypasted everything you thought was good

[alsozara]

Yeah MF is unquestionably very strong with CIAG, it’s weird to even see someone argue that setup isn’t very strong. My personal problem is it’s not worth it for most other weapons, especially those that would seem thematically to match it, you know marksman weapons rather than an autogun.

[Antilus]

About the bolter video, i’ve done some testing with +25% flak that i don’t normally use, you still can one shot shotgunners at the body (without exe stance)
this screen was taken with 4 pinning fire stacks, (they became 5 after the hit)

and 2 tap body shots Maulers, if you crit (with exe), [note that they got 3000 hp now]

and only using half the talent tree

given my bolter is god rolled

but since i use this

and i’m only at 10 meters, i reckon it can be adjusted by just shooting from further away

so moral of the story No, Bolter is not worse now than pre 13