I dont remember who made the video on it but someone made a video talking about veteran and how because of how versitile and strong they were at the beginning, they got nerfed to hell becoming jacks of all trades but not even necessarily good at any of them at least compared to LITERALLY everyone else. Wanna play a traditional heavy weapons guy style shooting A LOT of a dakka? Play ogryn. Wanna play shotguns of various types with the same durability as the NCR rangers in SODAz’ operation sunburst video in that one scene? Play arbites. Wanna play a guy running smaller SMGs and rifles that lets em rip? play hive scum. wanna play a support who can specific target eliminate? Play skit.
Hell even psyker can do more damage with guns that a vet build can so gunplay isnt their thing anymore, OBVIOUSLY it must be that they can still do good melee with it right? well they CAN melee and better than other classes who dont build for it but even when you hard focus a partially melee build, thats the sticking point… All melee buffs come from using ranged a dcent bit so you NEED to still build ranged so hes not a solid melee specalist either.
Ok so given all that he MUST be the best support right? I mean come on, if he cant do ANY of the things he used to do anywhere NEAR as well as the other classes than the thing that must make him still useful is his support he brings to the group and force multiplication right? well KINDA and as a vet main whose mained him mostly since the launch of the game and agrees that he needed nerfs and tbf, has always played him like a supporting commander who boosts the groups survivability and damage, he really just needs SOMETHING more cause there really isnt too many way you can really do a proper support setup anymore and like all his keystones and abilites other than voice of command and focus target arent anywhere near as useful as they should be because again, they make him into a damage dealer of various varieties which he doesnt do ANYWHERE near as easily as anyone else and even in his auras, only survivalist no matter the build is good.
Frankly, the biggest reason you bring him now is voice of command and smoke nades cause while kraks and frags are 100% still REALLY good, smoke after it got fixed i think is genuinly too useful in this gunner hell we have found ourselves in to save the team from death hallways and make space for moving, objectives, or saving teammates and than survivalist aura paired with vet running a las gun or pistol with shock trooper so they can just pour out ammo and let the team take all the nades.
My solution is a total overhaul with this idea in mind that the veteran isnt a lone wolf as thats not how the imperial guard works and honestly, the other classes that do the damage stuff better are fine to let have those roles with i feel if his other 2 nades had a slight buff to detonation time and boosted damage against ranged targets so they can still let you use them to save your team from gunner groups, thats all those need, his other 2 auras need to be changed with i feel one should still be faster movement and should be a NOTABLY bigger buff BUT it works differently where it looks at your teammates movementspeed and it buffs your teamamates movement but if they are still slower than you, it makes you only as fast as them if your at the same place as them as you move with if your past them, you move slower and if your behind, it gives you personally back your full movement buff and it should do the same for the group in order to make it so the vet naturally helps a team keep pace with eachother while still buffing up the teams move speed cause people running ahead to die is the biggest reason that games get lost and honestly, a minor version of this should just be a base vet passive. The other should be a team damage resist buff that perhaps directs damage taken to the vet themselves with their kit toughness wise being changed to make them able to be notably tankier making them like a hive scum level mobility that buffs the teams movement too BUT instead of damage, they bring survivability and team support.
Beyond that, executioners stance should be made to buff the team giving less but giving the target outlining innately basically letting you have a temporary all target focus target for the team with no toughness regen or lasting buffs afterwords but temp buffing up damage while the invis should basically be a greater invisibility spell cast for the group letting your team become invisible for everyone in coherency with it lasts longer for the less people it applies to basically being total immunity to everything but AoE stuff like pox gas or flames. lastly, his marksman focus needs to be changed to give the team the rending buff, move speed buff, or some level of a toughness buff thats all more notable at the cost of no more 15 stacks so you need to stay on top of keeping it up but with the benefit that after losing 1 stack, it takes maybe 5 seconds for the buffs to fall off so if you get a quick headshot to get back to 10 stacks, it stays with 100% uptime.
frankly, moving vet to work like a member of a squad who helps the team survive and work together without the team even needing to try while juts boosting up the team as much as possible i feel is the best way to rework them, leaning in to the one strength they still have and that frankly, shoulda been their focus from the start since guardsmen arent the strongest, they dont do the most damage, even with the best of the best guns, they still arent gonna be beating ogryns or psykers or arbities or skit or hell, even the drugged up scum who use chem toxin as their way to get around their same weakness they share with the vet and the zealots are just the zealots… none more needs to be said about those maniacs that we all love even if they worry us XD
