A lot of the keystones on the other classes just give you bonuses for things you were already going to do, like crits on Zealot or shooting as Ogryn, but Veteran’s keystones require you to adjust your playstyle on a fundamental level in order to get max value, and not that much more of it.
Marksman’s Focus used to be in this state, but has since been reworked to not be as confusing to work around, and is a solid keystone overall, though more for rapid-fire weapons than precision ones, ironically.
Focus Target only gains maximum effect when you actively avoid tagging enemies, which is always a bad habit, and even then you’d only want max benefit when tagging bosses, as other enemies die too quickly to get a noticeable effect from it.
Weapon Specialist works around weapon swapping, and if you’re fidgety like me and sometimes “nevermind” a weapon swap, you just lose the WS bonus and get no value from it.
This one is especially ridiculous because the cops get the same kind of keystone related to swapping between weapons, but it’s just better, getting a stronger bonus (that can get even stronger with some investment) with no time limit and not immediately nuking your bonus once you swap between weapons, significantly rewarding optimal use while still allowing some benefit and leeway with suboptimal use.
FT and WS need either a rework to make them less of a headache to use or give even stronger bonuses for using them, because currently keystoneless Vet still reigns supreme (though this issue is also compounded by just the absolute wealth of easily accessible good nodes directly above the keystones).
I tried Terminus Warrant to complete the penance before they lowered the requirement and basically never had stacks of Melee Justice the entire map. I thought that keystone was pretty universally disliked?
Either way, the Vet keystones seem fine I guess. Marksman’s Focus is great for the Helbore build, Focus Target and Krak gets you funny boss kills, and Weapon Specialist enables the Double Barrel build and complements Plasma Gun.
I’d argue that dumping 3-4 points into a keystone and whatever points to path to it would stifle build creativity. Choice of early nodes is cutthroat because you know that 5/30 points has got to go into grabbing that keystone.
I think somebody must have mentioned it before, but the easiest minimal effort, quick bandaid fix for Focus Target would surely just be to make it a double-tap tag like the Dog’s tagging?
At least that way you don’t have to actively avoid the core mechanic of tagging threats to avoid wasting the benefits of the keystone, and the Focus Target stacks would continue to stack up in the background for when you really want to use it.
That’s always bothered me a little. You can only tag one enemy at a time ; there was no need to overengineer this keystone by making it spend stacks that build up with time.
In VT2, witch-hunter just tags stuff whenever to give everyone a damage bonus, and the first time you tag a given enemy you get an attack speed bonus etc.
Vet’s keystones were a mistake from the very outset. They were born in the time that saw the class as a whole effectively turned into a paraplegic because the devs were listening to bad advice and/or don’t understand their own game.
They’ve only ever given me annoyance. To this day they remain entirely unused in all of my builds. I’ve got @Mayson to thank for that advice and I’ve never looked back except to occasionally scowl at them. WS always annoyed me most for its obtuse implementation. It’s like gifting a camel the ability to converse with fish.
Every other class has options that are at least a bit more versatile and/or rewarding. Wish vet could get something more fun, or at least more useful.
I’ve seen some keystone-less veteran builds, and frankly, considering how good some talents are for some builds, it doesn’t feel like a sin anymore to forego keystones that will eat up like 2 talents points to be really functional.
Except maybe when using Powerswords. Their dodge is so bad, Weapon specialist really helps there.
Most of my builds were keystone-less before the rework. WS was the only one required to make certain builds work.
Since the rework I’m using more keystones. MMF has been the big winner. It’s not because of the movement thing. The grace period always made that a minor issue, which is probably why they just buffed it away. It’s because I have more points to spend and the extra 75% crit headshot damage, 10% reload speed plus bonuses like stamina return are now affordable.
Yeah this and refreshing on melee weakspot hit is unquestionably a huge QoL and straight uptime boost on harder content.
I’m gonna use this thread to wheel out my usual WS suggestion of changing the stack activation triggers to shot fired and melee attack. Way more control over activating your stacks and can maybe do fun Hellbore build where you can both effectively build and use both stacks without weapons swapping at all (assuming you let gun specials count as melee attack).
As an aside on WS. Does anyone else feel like it’s needlessly stingy that the Always Prepared sub node only restores a percent of missing ammo rather than a percent of the whole clip? I guess changing that would be an indirect buff to plasma gun but honestly do Always Prepared Plasma builds ever really need to reload under pressure as it is? I dunno I thought it would be theoretically fun with brauto but you bullet hose fast enough with WS anyway that it doesn’t really feel like it’s reducing reload frequency noticeably.
Besides the obvious Double Barrel build and Plasma, does anyone here run Always Prepared on any other guns?
I find Focus Target so bland I don’t think I’ve run it more than once or twice ever. So I have zero input there.
Focus Target is a top tier keystone, one of the best in the game. It works with builds that require lots of stamina (PS MK6, Knife, ranged crit builds). It works with monstrosity killer builds (40% damage). It also buffs every weapon and ability at the same time, unlike the other two keystone which mostly deal with either ranged or melee damage. It’s also the strongest keystone if you take just the base keystone, and nothing else. Pure 20% extra damage with no commitment for the entire team. Marksman Focus might be stronger in a few builds, but overall Focus is still the most versatile keystone.
This is my most played keystone on Havoc and in normal games, and I can say for sure that you don’t need to mark the enemies only at full stacks. You only mark Crushers and bosses at full stacks, otherwise you can just mark freely as if you don’t have the keystone at all.
FT is bland. Before the recent rework I saw it as boring but practical if I had spare points somehow. Pure group support now which I suppose means working as intended given which path it is in.
Edit: FT does have the benefit of boosting all weapons equally that is definitely true. Stam return I am getting more from MMF these days, on my ILG/VAG builds.
Yeah I figured this might be a use case but honestly I feel like Vet has plenty enough bonus reload speed to make revolver reload pretty snappy anyway. Even if we count it that’s like 3 guns that have a serious use case, I dunno maybe that could be extended to shotguns but I’m kinda dubious on that one too (probably solid but not convinced you couldn’t spend that point better elsewhere same as revolver). Overall I think making it up to 33% mag capacity instead of missing ammo might broaden its use cases at least a bit without breaking anything that currently uses it well.
Marskman Focus got buffed by the removal of “stand still” requirement that went against the gameplay of Darktide where “movement = win”. One thing that I dislike is that Tunnel Vision is still not a good sub node and Chink in their Armor is ehhh, not my jam too.
Like, we have 10% rending in the mid part of the tree with no requirements attached, but here you have 15% that requires going down so far in the tree AND also requires preserving a certain amount of stacks. Neither 10% nor 15% make a huge difference in most builds, it’s only them used together where you see a noticable difference with stuff like Autogun builds. And even then, just using Onslaught is better.
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Weapon Specialist is good, but I wish it had at least 10-15% extra melee damage attached to it. The most useful talents come before the keystone, while the keystone itself only provides a couple of crits and some melee attack speed. Ammo autofill is nice and unique. Good with every sidearm in the game, especially if somewhere down the line they’re gonna add needle pistol, plasma pistol, hell pistol, stub pistol.
The other two WS sub nodes I never really used, except for maybe On Your Toes with Exe Stance builds. But now that Exe Stance finally has its own toughness replenishment, I don’t think I’m gonna use it anymore.
I wouldn’t say the one that arbites got is better, it’s very limited to weapon choice, more so than the WS. My use of it was limited to shotguns, which got all boost from melee and give decent boost to melee after just couple shots. Otherwise it can be used with auto guns to get better melee, but ammo usage is insane. WS got no such problem, even at it’s base with zero sub nodes you can benefit from at any time.
Focus target now replenish stacks faster and you can easily re-tag boss again after reaching 6, but i agree with Tanners idea that it should just auto jump with same stacks on other targets and allow for multi tag. And like you said it’s really make you adjust playstyle, it took me some time to get used using it, because i don’t need tag enemies all the time usually.
I agree that dropping any of the ranged keystones is totally an option, which free talents for some very strong nodes and don’t make you adjust playstyle.