[Veteran] Keystones Talk + Poll

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Lets talk about veteran keystones. Most Keystone gameplay feel forced rather than natural and should be reworked with organic improvement to veteran playstyles.

Focus Target
Solid damage boost keystone, easily wasted with tagging too fast in clumped tag-able enemies. Easily wasting damage boost of 10s-16s of non-use if tag trigger happy. Boring but useful… not keystone material. Options… if replaced becomes blue passive

Any Tag: 10% damage bonus to any tagged enemy (Witch Hunter, VT2), No Stacks

  • Target Down: Replenish 10% Stamina, 10% Toughness when a tagged enemy dies, for you and allies in coherency
  • Focus Fire: Hits on tagged enemies have +10% Critical Chance
  • Redirect Fire: 10% damage bonus after tagged enemy dies for you and allies in coherency for 10s

Grenadier: Replenish 1 Grenade every 45s.

  • Twin Blast: 33% Chance to throw additional grenade.
  • Inspiring Blast: Replenish 20% Toughness to allies in blast radius, Increase Toughness Damage Reduction by +25% and movement speed by +10% for 5s
  • Field Improvisation: Ammo Crates restore grenades, Medipacks heal 100% faster, cleanse corruption and restores 1% toughness per second. Veteran starts with Ammo Crate.

Marksman’s Focus
too penalizing swapping to melee and movement. Encouraging fast spam ranged weapons in Keystone around accuracy. Optional replacements…

Marksmen: Ranged Kills / Ranged Hits / Melee weakspot hits generate 1 stack of Marksman. Missed shots lose 2 stacks. Stacks up to 10 times. Each Stack grants +5% Ranged Finess Strength and -5% recoil

  • Camouflage: When using ranged alternate fire (ADS) lose all aggro, gain invulnerability to everything, +50% accuracy and +50% zoom for 1.5s, duration doubles at 10 stacks or reaching 10, doubles stack gain for duration. This effect has a 30s Cooldown. If already using alternate fire when CD resets does not proc. (locks out Barrage)
  • Barrage: When using ranged primary fire (Hip) next shot fires 2 trigger pulls at no ammo cost and no stack loss, Increases ranged attack speed by 2% per stack. Shots fired doubles at 10 stacks. If already using primary fire when CD resets does not proc. This effect has a 30s Cooldown. (locks out Camouflage)
  • Tunnel Vision: Gain 1% Toughness, 1% Stamina, 1 Ammo reloaded from reserve on stack proc or hit that would proc if at max.
  • Second Chance: Negate every other missed shot stack loss.

Hitting the Mark:Ranged Weakspot Hits, Ranged Kills, & Melee Weakspot Kills each generate 1 stack of Marksman. Stacks up to 10 times, lasting 6s. Each Stack grants +10% Range Finesse Damage.
Tunnel Vision: Gain +2.5% Toughness Damage Reduction per stack and restore 2.5% Stamina per stack gain.
Chink in the Armor: +2% Rending per stack.
Steady Hands: -2.5% Spread, Recoil, and Sway per stack.

Gathering Focus: While not shooting gain 1 stack of focus per second, shooting removes 1 stack per second. Successful Range Weakspot hits gains 1 stack. Stacks up to 10x. Each stack gains -5% Recoil, -5% Spread, +5% Ranged Finesse Strength.
Focused Shot: Trigger Pull at max stacks while using secondary fires a trigger pull at +100% Damage, consumes all stacks. (Locks out Scatter Shot)
Scatter Shot: Trigger Pull at max stacks while using primary fires 3 trigger pulls with +100% recoil and spread. (Locks out Focused Shot)
Never Flinch: No longer lose focus while shooting.

Weapon Specialist
Keystone has some niche utility but overall I don’t find it desirable apart from melee light attack spamming or fast reload builds. It forces weapon swapping and re-acting to gained buffs after swap. Optional replacement…
( Alsozara Idea, for proccing on swing / tigger pull )

Specialist: Gain Ranged Specialist on Melee Kill (Stacks 5x) Gain Melee Specialist on Ranged Kill (Stacks 1x)
When you shoot your ranged specialist activates, gaining +20% Ranged Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage per stack on next shot. +10% slide speed and distance for 10s.
When you melee attack your melee specialist activates, gaining +15% melee attack speed, +10% dodge speed and distance for 10s.

  • Always Prepared: on gaining ranged specialist stack also replenish 5% ammo into clip from reserve. On activating ranged specialist increase reload speed by 5% for 5s per stack.
  • Invigorated: On activating melee specialist restore 25% stamina and grant 25% stamina cost reduction for 5s.
  • On Your Toes: Activating Melee Specialist restores 15% Toughness, Activating Ranged Specialist restores 3% Toughness per stack.
    -No additional talents.

Weapon Specialist: Gain Ranged Specialist on Melee Kills (Stacks 5x) Gain Melee Specialist on Ranged Kill (Stacks 1x)
When you shoot your ranged specialist activates, gaining +2% Ranged attack speed -2% Recoil -2% Spread, +1% slide speed and distance for 5s per stack.
When you melee attack your melee specialist activates, gaining +20% melee attack speed, +10% dodge speed and distance for 10s per stack.
Always Prepared: on gaining ranged specialist stack also replenish 5% ammo into clip from reserve. On activating ranged specialist increase reload speed by 5% for 10s per stack.
Invigorated: On swapping to melee weapons special action is activated without animation and have +20% Damage on first hit.
On Your Toes: Activating Melee Specialist restores 25% Toughness, Activating Ranged Specialist restores 5% Toughness per stack. 3s Cooldown for each.

What would you do to save these Keystones?

2

remove it from the game

4 Likes
3

You need a valid replacement then.

4

ws is the only good vet keystone.

11 Likes
5

Is it so good as to remove it from game or polar opposite responses?

6

weapon spec is the only keystone in the entire game that has meaningful/rewarding gameplay please stop cooking

10 Likes
7

Well, when some people say it’s too good others says its worthless or no Veteran keystones are good what do you do.

I don’t find a great deal of use out of it.

Thats just a ridiculous overexaggerated statement, so can’t take you seriously now.

2 Likes
8

I would just buff the duration of ranged specialist to 10 seconds so it’s equal to melee specialist. I’d also increase the duration of the Fleeting Fire and Conditioning upgrade talents.

1 Like
9

Focus Target is so rewarding I love getting free damage for just tagging an enemy ! This is very good Keystone design !

5 Likes
10

Focus Target is the only one I find consistently impactful, Only downfall is accidentally tagging to fast think, it should have internal CD of 1s for bonus tags subsequent fast tags becoming red.

1 Like
11

Weapon Specialist as many have said ‘more bluntly’, is one of the only Veteran Keystones with an actual gameplay impact, and thus feels actually fun to use.

You have to like what it offers though, so for some vets one can be seen at the top of this threads replies, it’s something to be scorned and hated. But, especially with the addition of ‘One Motion’, it actually enables a lot of interesting builds that are fluid and rather fun to use, while also fitting perfectly into the veteran fantasy of ‘making use of every tool you have at your disposal’. Melee attack speed and dodge DISTANCE on a single ranged kill for 10s is nutz, and stacking up a guaranteed crit with ranged attack speed can feel really nice regardless of if you just fire the one shot and move on or fire off a volley with an impactful first ‘punch’ that completely rips through an enemy.

It’s probably one of the most impactful single point keystones, with Focus Target! being roughly equivalent in team play, but not doing anything to augment your play style what so ever. Weapon Specialist tells you to hot swap between your options, which is actively encouraged anyway in higher tier content as you go between head shotting specials to meleeing the wave back to pot shotting a few more.

One can even make a really synergistic build with it by taking Tactical Reload, and then also taking Fleeting Fire and One Your Toes. This means that off of one ranged kill, you will always have at least one bullet in your mag (as it rounds up), allowing you to hot swap and get a ~50% reload bonus that feels fantastic on the Boltgun especially. This also lets you mag dump to empty while still always being able to make sure you get use out of Tactical Reload, and it feels quite nice. One can also use it with great effect with the revolver, the plasma gun, the combat shotgun if one is daring, the Double Barreled shotgun with stupid effectiveness, the boltpistol, the Helbore Lasgun (the melee on it procs melee specialist btw, so you don’t even need to use ammo), The infantry lasgun, the Vigilant Autogun if one is daring again, and the laspistol too. (while pairing it with the powersword, combat knife, duelling sword Munitions Shovel, or Devil Sword/Assault Chainsword if one’s daring).

I think the only thing about Weapon Specialist is that it looks intimidating. As you say, it for whatever reason has 5 talent node investment, making people think it ‘needs’ it even though it will do massive work with just one to two, and it’s also a talent meant to allow the veteran to be a hybrid melee and ranged class. And we all know Veterans are allergic to their melee weapon most of the time. But if you like that playstyle, it does some incredible work, and I’d at most do a bit of ‘baking’ in some of it’s talents into the main one in interesting ways so as to push more into that direction, while also making the ‘point tax’ feel less steep.

  • Bake Invigorated into the base keystone, make it grant ~5-10% stamina per activation of melee specialist, and 1-2% stamina per stack of ranged specialist accrued. Now this can synergize with deadshot if one wants it to, while also giving the veteran access to meaningful stamina regen within the base talent, further emphasizing it’s intent to encourage melee viability (if slam can do it every second, I think the vet can be allowed to do it every kill along with the other bonuses for a keystone).

  • Make the remaining talents a ‘3 point spread’ like how they look on Focus Target, so you can ‘pick and choose’ what you value verses having things locked behind other things, BUT still having ‘On Your Toes’ locked behind making at least one of these choices, as it’s an insanely potent effect on it’s own and lets the veteran be a lot more aggressive/not have to take as many early tree toughness regen talents, so having to at least ‘pick a node’ before getting it feels appropriate. (though with ‘Target Down’ being a thing, maybe one can merge it in to the base talent like the above stamina changes too, I shrug/would not be opposed to that either).

I think that’s mainly what needs to happen with it, that and maybe a 10s buff on Ranged Specialist, as it would just give you more time with more fire rate and that’s fun (while also being able to get off a reload while still getting the benifit for more things). But I don’t think it needs to be gutted/otherwise removed. It serves a purpose, if you don’t like it? Go click on Focus Target and ignore changing your game plan/thinking to much ever entirely. But if you want to change things up a bit? It’s there waiting for you.

2 Likes
12

wep spec is cool and causes fun gameplay, but half the modifiers are pointless and not worth investing in, and it’s a bit low impact with some weps
they could make it more fun by leaning more into interactions with full auto guns as an option for the other modifiers nobody ever picks

2 Likes
13

No, they should rework them.

But I feel too tired to discuss this again…

Anyway, nothing happens… this is beyond despairing.
To say the least, Veteran is the class with the highest number of players who don’t pick any keystone.
This situation doesn’t occur with any other class.

3 Likes
14

Why would you even need that much attack speed? +15% +10% prior for a class without heavy slow weapons seems excessive. Sometimes it makes your charging attack and light attack mix up by sheer speed of clicking.

Dodge distance / speed you find noticeable at 10%? interesting.

I don’t know why’d you need stamina if not for deadshot and sprinting, could just as easily remove stamina cost from deadshot or play as weapon specialist entails take your shot and get your melee bonuses.

I agree with this as you could be wasting time just reloading but also don’t see a need for range attack speed as much either going to be gaining increased recoil and hurting your damage just as much for missing weak spots.

a lot to think about with your post though, thank you.

15

I would add it’s also the class with the highest amount of talent choices 98 to Zealots ~74.

It could be the rest of their tree is so powerful it overshadows the keystones… nerf some buff others could also resolve… I’d rather have so many good choices everywhere that it’s hard to choose or you could build for near exactly what you want… but at least taking the keystone cap should be a no brainer.

16

Why do you want to make keystones mandatory?

1 Like
17

yeah lets replace it with a support keystone, call it “ALWAYS PREPARED”

main feature:
all allies receive 10% of all ammo/grenade pick ups by the vet

upgrades:
“combat stims”: same but for stims
“imperial surplus”: start the mission with an ammo crate
“field revisions”: start the game carrying a medicae recharge powercell

1 Like
18

Powersword primarily, it LOVES this level of attack speed (specifically the VI, which strings together light attacks to cleave through the wave while weaving in heavies for bigger things, so you can just glide through it like butter basically never stopping with how quick you can send the blade back into the wave for another 3 hit chain after charging it). I also REALLy like it on the Munition Shovel of all things. Stacks up Decimator really fast, lets you heavy attack horizontal sweep at the speed of a light attack which feels really good, and lets you spam lights even faster if you’re going for stacking uncanny strikes to (I tend to do Skullcrusher though, which also benefits from just hitting a lot). Beyond that it’s mostly just to feel like a zealot, I know I got a few knife builds that use Serrated Blade (which is even better now/gives 2 bleed on hit), so just spam clicking with that and watching things melt is amusing as well.

Likely due to me liking high mobility weapons if ever I’m doing this, so the 10% compounds on the already high distance and lets you again, basically feel like a zealot. Isn’t as noticeable if one doesn’t do that though for sure.

In looking up this question, I realized that they actually ‘equalized’ Veterans stamina regen delay to be the same as Ogryns at 1s. I still thought it was at it’s ridiculous 1.5 seconds, huh. Would explain why I thought they felt fine in the stamina department more recently…WELL, either way it lets you ‘block’ more often and take chip to said block without hating yourself. Not the most needed anymore, but still just a nice little addition that lets you do more melee things/run around more freely. Not required though.

And Ranged attack speed is more just for fun, I have a build as stated for Boltgun that dumps a clip and reloads while Fleeting Fire is still active with the right amount of stacks, which can be fun when melting monstrosities. It’s mostly just a gimick though, why I don’t care for it much. You mostly proc 3 stacks of ranged specialist for a guaranteed crit then pot shot something to refresh the melee buff and get back to it, the fire rate is mostly just to pretend to help full auto weapons. (it does help the Infantry lasgun though, it’s nice with that).

But yeah! Glad to get ya thinking, if you want me to throw any of my many Weapon Specialist builds to ‘look at’, can do that too!

1 Like
19

By its very name implies mandatory from Roman Arch…maybe just any arch, without the keystone the arch falls and is worthless. I don’t think trees should as dramatic as that, but they should be worthwhile at the very least not something to ever be skipped.

Most other class build can identify around the keystone Zealot especially, Psyker and Ogryn are decent.

20

No

You won’t make me use these keystones.
They are simply bad, not natural. I don’t want to spend my time at trying to get enough stacks and restraining my moves, I don’t want to switch to my other weapon all the time, and I don’t like to spend my time tagging enemies…

2 Likes