you can’t have done this
Someone told you bolter is bad (joke)
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My regular attempts to play a Marksman is usually met with frustration, boredom, and lack of fun—in any hybrid of those three sensations.
I went back and tried out a more aggressive shotgun build instead, and had significantly better results in general. The current state of the game is just not suited for a slower marksman-style experience like it used to be.
As the developers rely on enemy saturation to make the game feel more difficult (or become more difficult), being able to walk into rooms and take the shots you need just isn’t possible anymore, and it gets worse when you have a team that doesn’t play around your ability to sweep Elites and shooters.
Aside from complaining about hitreg issues and other things totally out of my control, that’s about where I’m at with a dedicated ranged build. They do not want players to be solely ranged, and that much should be clear with how many tools they gave Vet to make strong melee builds.
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This is just you speculating, and i think you are drawing wrong conclusions.
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Psyker have unlimited range potential with staffs and blitz slot (they are like veterans a ranged focused class).
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Ogryn have a range specific tree-branch that has very good range utility that makes it possible to have a majority of ranged playstyle.
There already is a melee focused DPS class and that is Zealots.
The problem i think is that players who plays Veteran want a ranged focus DPS role and that is much harder to do now than before.
A tightly-integrated hybrid combat system is the stated design intent behind the game: DEV BLOG: HYBRID COMBAT
Quote from that to clarify:
In Darktide when hordes of enemies close in on you, you swap your Lasgun for your Thunder Hammer and wreak righteous havoc on their corrupted souls. We’ve opted to call this Hybrid Combat - not FPS with an optional melee weapon. Players will need to learn how to use both and when to switch between them.
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Exactly, and in this Hybrid combat system Veteran is the one that had the most focus on the ranged aspect.
Like the Zealot is the melee focused one.
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I personally think all the human classes (not enough experience with Ogryn, really bounced off their guns, so I can’t speak to them) are fully capable at range, although I absolutely agree that vets are tuned to have the highest long-range output. Still, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in team comps (even with vets) where I have to manage most ranged threats…as a zealot.
But the language in that quote is pretty clear to me: it’s not saying that your team needs to deal with melee combat. It’s saying you (i.e. everyone) have to deal with melee combat.
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Connotation is on had. Now you’re unironically better off building him as melee veteran.
And that’s my point.
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great find xD
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You ain’t kidding. I swear I’m not even hearing banter now In Auric matches because a hord is always active.
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But that dopamine hit when you see 20 confirmed kill icons after firing plasma once.
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Disregarding that the entire rework into skill trees for #13 explicitly approached Veteran with the idea of being flexible on how you build them. They are the jack-of-all that does well in every style of play because you can build them that way; support, melee, or ranged.
Herein lies the issue that they added Keystones to further concentrate builds, only to not address any of the issues that Veteran had and continues to have.
The problem there being that the left side of the talent tree is full of bad talents that instantly punish you for being in melee range of enemies—contradictory to the entire premise of the Tide game design. Being a ranged focused operative in the way they’re iterating Darktide simply does not work anymore. It never has. Longshot (formerly Sniper) was always a mediocre talent, and Catch a Breath was always a terrible talent pre-13. The fact that they haven’t been buffed to begin with is staggering.
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Operating under the assumption that I’m kinda a scrublord…Vet with Exhilarating Takedown feels…alright? Like sure I have the health of a asthmatic toddler but that felt like the case pre-overhaul on Heresy and Damnation anyway. I can still snipe with the Kantrael XII, the keystone is somewhat punishing in length compared to other classes but I don’t feel like I’m under-delivering. I can snipe, plasma or otherwise, and clear a room of shooters pretty well on Heresy.
I will say that the ‘no enemies in X distance’ perks need to go entirely and several others need to be folded in or made more functional to reduce the perk tree bloat, but in terms of ‘crunch’ everything I’m encountering feels more like ‘skill issue’ than anything else. I’m definitely not running in with optimal gear as it stands.
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You aren’t wrong. The problem is that for people playing on Auric, you have to be John Wick to pull that off. There is basically no time where you can “just shoot” enemies are always around you.
This makes Helbore/Lasgun play with a pure left-side build almost unplayable in pugs unless you are both a headshot master and a melee expert. Autoguns on the other hand can just refill your toughness bar and max out TDR by just hip-firing into horde.
Probably it’s more of a problem with Auric STG+ being incredibly hostile to slow-ranged play as a whole, making ExaStance sniper builds feel like sh*t. With lower density/pressure sniper build does work okay.
Another key point why AGs and faster-firing weapons overtake Sniper weapons in Auric+ is because they get more from Marksmen’s Focus while also making it easier to gain and maintain stacks with them.
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My first blind run of Damnation Carnival was running left side veteran with helbore. Uh, let’s just say that was an actual mistake.
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Haha. I did it with left-side ExaStance Plasma+PS the first time, and it was with Auric lights-out mod. I only survived due to 2 friendly Ogryns and a smite+dome Psyker stunning the whole horde. We didn’t even know the tactic for the end event so we stood at the starting point (up where you have to click the button) and even went into the middle at the end and fought there for what felt like an eternity. It was quite an experience.
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IMO survivalist should just be made a baseline passive ability for veteran and the survivalist aura should be replaced with something else entirely.
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I don’t think Survivalist is that great unless you’re an Ogryn, then you really appreciate all the +1’s being added to your Kickback.
+5% Damage permanently existing in coherency is a solid and good choice. I would say that +5% Movement Speed is the only aura that really doesn’t compete at all with those options.
The reason kickback exists is why I’m not running Survivalist. Ogryns spamming everything with kickback can get bent.
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