I find this downright ironic.
I knew you would bite that.
But i am not the one whoās proposing anything, i donāt ask for nerfs, i donāt ask for buffs,
i donāt make claims, other than saying that keystones are viable,
in opposition to yourās āThey are horibleā claim.
I am not the one who wants every game aspect to revolve around me.
Yet i am the one saying that, if i am minority, then changes are fine.
I m the one, who never asked to remove or replace something that other people have fun with,
even though i donāt like it.
The main thing Iām asking for is to have more easily maintained bonuses, and that wouldnāt take away from the enjoyment of those who already like it.
I honestly havenāt read 1 opinion of anybody thinking the āstandstillā of Marksmanās Focus is something good only that it can be disregarded, or that Autoguns get more out of it than Lasguns is good or balanced in any way.
Same with leaning into maintaining WS bonuses.
You try to paint me as someone pushing to take away what people enjoy and thatās absolutely not the case here.
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I think the problem I have is that the Zealot keystones exist. They are so easy to keep up. Especially Blazing Piety since Iām a dreaded dagger Zealot (I actually stick with the team).
You donāt have to think about them at all either. Thereās no extra effort put in to make them work other than maybe the health juggling for Martyrdom (fire barrels have never been more valuable).
Theyāre are all big boosts to a regular playstyle for zealot for no mental effort put in. This in my opinion is the gold standard. (The Ogryn ones being brainless makes sense thematically at least).
This is somewhat true for Marksman Focus in a sense if you use a full autogun, but really detracts massively from the spirit of a keystone with the term āMarksmanā in it. In fact it makes almost no difference on the single shot weapons which also require a fair bit of effort to keep the stacks rolling on.
The closest one to this is Disrupt Destiny. Maybe itās because Iām not a psyker main, but I actually find this one to be almost ignorable while playing. Between Assail, my gun, and the MK IV Duelling sword itās very easy to keep 15 stacks rolling the whole time, or at least restack them if thereās not enough mobs in the connector zones (getting 3 per weakspot kill is crazy). Maybe thatās a noob build, and I should go for the 30 stacks with 15 second duration so maybe thatās where the issues lie with it.
āFocus Target!ā is good now as the issues I had with it last patch weāre opportunity cost based, but itās still juggling an additional mechanic you have to think about and apply extra mental effort for somewhat eh rewards. Witch hunter in VT2 simply gave you 20% for tags. No needing to think about stacks, and whether its even worth tagging something because a boss is up, and you should save stacks.
Weapon Specialist I have few issues with. It can be jarring dodging half a map to having it be a piddly little mini hop to the right, but at least thereās a built in synergy and you CAN ignore it if you want to, and still reap very tangible benefits occasionally.
I played a lot of VT2 bounty hunter so the rhythm is still there for me, but I can see peopleās issues with it since its a keystone that doesnāt provide anything unless you are actively making use of it.
TL;DR All classes other than veteran can completely ignore their keystones, and just reap the benefits with no change in playstyle, or additional effort put in. Only possible exception is DD on psyker, but with the 30 second duration itās so easy to keep up itās still lower effort than even Focus Target.
EDIT: Forgot a word.
3 Likes
Iām not sure why you gave me this spiel when I already said this:
I was really just expressing how using them doesnāt feel great to ME. Without demanding any change or anything. So if we can avoid the weirdly condescending tone thatād be appreciated.
So to be clear itās not about having all the stacks all the time. I love Inexorable on Zealot despite the stack count yo yoing up and down continuously. The difference here is I donāt need to swap off my melee weapon to keep building the buff. Iām building it by moving around and dodging which are all things Iām going to already be doing, and Iām pretty much guaranteed to start each new encounter with high stacks initially. Refilling your ranged clip is nice on paper but outside of plasma I tend to find Iād rather have the reload speed on elite kill talent because itās up more reliably whether Iām in an encounter that has me swapping a lot or one where Iām just blasting with my gun non stop for a bit. The guaranteed ranged crit is again nice on paper but extremely gun dependent for impact. Iāll reiterate I really like Kant shotty that just doesnāt get much in practice from any of those bonuses. Again the toughness gain node is nice in theory but if Iām low on toughness and under pressure quickly weapon swapping for a toughness burst just feels a bit unnatural to me.
And definitely the least nice feeling part of it all (again to ME in case I havenāt made that clear enough yet) is +dodge range and speed switching on and off during encounters. If I were to ask for a change here it would be just to make the dodge range and speed a passive effect while melee is out while everything else can keep working as it does now. Would that be objectionable to you? Alternatively a duration increase for the melee buffs to 15 seconds would go a pretty long way and not be out of line with other keystones.
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How about, we merge some keystone modifiers into keystones and make new ones that will allow keystones to be passives or half passives?
and other ones to increase bonuses while retaining activatable nature of keystones.
It should be fair for everyone.
MF already has something similar with camouflage and long range assassin.
I hate to sound ungrateful since Iām very glad FatShark reversed turning Vet into a paraplegic, but Iād really just like some more fun, versatile keystones.
No other class keystones have the same hangups as veteran. More power to you if you enjoy them, but does it not seem odd that one of the most recurring suggestions for building oneās veteran skill tree is to simply not bother?
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This, 1,000 times this. Itās kind of a bummer to manage time between pings or standing still. As far as Iām concerned itās more trouble than itās worth, and I donāt mean to say theyāre not powerful. Just not fun for me.
What has been fun for me is digging up plasma gun charges from poxwalkers though, so not all bad!
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Forsaking keystones is still an insanely good fourth option. Especially now with the skilltrees opened up somewhat.
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Yeah, I know nothing is going to be done before the new year, so Iām just waiting for now. Kinda hoping maybe they have something planned? A lot of folks were saying they didnāt like certain keystones.
Either way, Iām in agreement. I hope there is at least a chance we can see the keystones changed next year.
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