Keystones are intentionally missing and they’ve said they’re still working on the vet tree.
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Based on what @FatsharkCatfish posted we have some additional changes to look forward to that are actively worked on.
About what happened… I think it’s a combination of community testers seeing Vet as a problem to be fixed, and not as something to be made more fun and FS running out of time balancing the class.
There were a few iterations of Keystones based on Plasma, Bolter, and Power Sword. There were some further iterations on it with other weapon group specializations, but they were cut due to it not feeling great to build.
Commanding Shout is one-on-one a worse version compared to Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude on a bit lower cooldown (although Zealot can reduce his cooldown way more reliably).
It’s still fun but the Stagger should be boosted by a lot.
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Vet also has some of the weakest operative modifiers and also the most of them. Why does ogryn get 10% toughness DR nodes but vet gets 5% ones? Why would I care about 1 stamina, 5% max health or 5% suppression if not just to get the passives below said node? Why does executioner stance’s cooldown not start until his combat ability has ended and why are you punished for killing specials during it when taking tactical awareness? Why do we need an ability modifier to make executioner stance refresh on kill? Why did veteran lose ~100 toughness but kept the stamina regen penalty? Why are the more useful talents buried under the very niche talents? It just feels bad.
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Because ults refreshing while they’re active is an incredibly stupid mechanic that turns ultimates into passives, especially when combined with the ability to extend the duration of the Ult. I would have given FS a lot of credit for removing that but for some F’d up reason they allowed Ogryn to get cooldown while point blank is active. It’s slightly less egregious there since he can’t also extend the duration like Vet can but that should 100% be nixed as well considering how powerful that ability is.
Your reward for killing specials in Ult is removing threats, you don’t need infinite exe stance as a reward as well that’s crazy.
He did have it reduced a lot. Was chatting to someone who was reading straight off the lua, it’s 1 second regen delay now rather than 1.5, 1 stam regen delay node puts you at Zealot level, both nodes takes you down to pre-patch Psyker level (not sure what Psyker’s delay is now).
I think Zealot’s base toughness without nodes is 50 now, so he’s not the only one who got his base toughness halved. I will say his toughness nodes should be worth more to get him back closer to where he was with the nodes specced.
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There is 100 toughness over 6 nodes for veteran, but they’re so spread all over the exclusive parts of the tree that you’ll never practically get them all.
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Agreed, which is why I said they should each give more toughness. Probably normalise them all to +25 toughness and we good.
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Isn’t that the case with a lot of abilities that give buffs for a certain duration? Zealot’s Fury of the Faithful gives +20% AS for 10 seconds and it’s really easy (and beneficial) to keep up with a crit build, especially in horde/event scenario. Ogryn Gunlugger also has it’s CD going while active.
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I mean yeah I specifically pointed to that as an incongruity that I think should be nixed.
That’s a fair point, I’m not used to thinking of chastise as a duration ability since it hasn’t really been used as one before this patch. I still think there’s shades of grey there since that is one aspect of the Ult that remains while the majority of the effect (armour downgrade, guaranteed crit, bonus damage) that do not persist. Honestly Zealot might just have too much cooldown reduction at the moment anyway but I’ll save that conversation for another thread.
The big problem with getting cooldown during exe stance to me boil down to:
- It’s already the shortest cooldown in the game
- It already has the ability to extend itself to increase uptime. Comboing both duration extension AND cooldown while active is uhhhhh, a lot, like very likely it just becomes borderline permanent in STG.
Your Zealot point does lead to some interesting in between cases that could be applied though. Perhaps the tag and recoil/spread reduction lingers 5 seconds after it finishes. There are some healthier in between points to explore there that don’t just lead to 90% full uptime like cooldown while active would.
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Fair enough. I’m a sucker for chaining abilities, and I think the former version was both balanced and well-designed (locking 90% of vet offensive power behind it). Keeping ult up as long as possible so I could go again sooner was a fun experience, especially with plasma where you are required to vent between shots.
In the current iteration, I feel like the power has been distributed somewhat and Ult is just an overdrive mode instead, not a requirement. With Tactical Awareness now being a thing I totally understand why it’s not counting down cooldown during the active state.
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It was already hard enough to compete for kills with your team before, granted there were many times I had my ability up before my current one ended but I don’t think that’s inherently a problem. This was one of the most satisfying parts about vet for me and now it’s gutted. I’d accept a 45 second cooldown or something if the timer started as soon as you used it and tactical awareness worked during exe stance.
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I’ll admit I’m probably biased about ultimate abilities turning into a spam fest outside of generally low power ones. And I’ll definitely admit there are quite a few non Vet examples this patch that uhhhh, raise my eyebrows to put it mildly.
I just think having both extension + cooldown during duration (with both extension and cooldown sharing a major condition) is taking it too far.
I’d rather see uptime of ALL vet ults improved more moderately through giving more cooldown options in the tree with more varied conditions. Exe stance already gets massive advantages over the other 2 ults in terms of uptime by virtue of cooldown time and the ability to extend as is.
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I don’t wanna talk about the other combat abilities vet has because they aren’t that interesting to me but they definitely seem like they have pretty low uptime too.
I mean that’s your prerogative obviously. I’m just more interested in holistic improvements to Vet’s trees than specifically trying to recapture pre patch infinite volley Vet in a way that does nothing to solve the wider issues with the tree (kinda makes them worse by hyper encouraging one specific branch over the others).
My own personal gripes at getting that kind of uptime on any ability nearly as strong as Exe aside, I enjoy the attempt made by Vet’s skill tree to offer alternate playstyles to “gun guy, he shoots guns real good”, and I feel like a lot of the discussions around Vet currently focus entirely on buffing the left branch to previous Vet glory levels with no consideration for the balance of the tree as a whole
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I kinda wish they would remove the chaining behavior from Executioner’s Stance and make a keystone based on it. I think there’s some really killer design space to explore with that idea.
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The Veterans tree in general needs a revisit. Filled to the brim with useless stuff and most passives are too unreliable to be useful. It’s like Fatshark were afraid to let the “old” Veteran come back into play again.
I’ve just realised I’ve been subconsciously putting “melee” before the word “kills” every time I read that. Just did some quick meat grinder testing so just to qualify in case anyone made the same mistake I did. It work on all kills, tested melee, ranged, nade explosions and bleed (couldn’t think what else to test), and they all grant toughness. It may not give the most amount of regen when you most want it but it IS just a much better, much more flexible version of Zealot’s Voice of Terra.
I think I’ll try doing some aggressive brauto shenanigas forcing both Out for Blood and Confirmed kill onto the same build and see how comfy it feels.
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Yeah, this must go. Like taunt on ogryn is spamable with node that reduce cd on staggering enemies. There is no place to mistake involved right now, impossible to waste ultimate and be punished by the game for it. Game feels more like moba or arpg, when balance is more about abilities than core combat mechanics. Ultimates should stay as a panic button or precise tool which you need to know when to use.
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That’s a good node. Its only problem is its position on the tree.
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I can kinda see smoke nades, vanguard, tactical reload, and out for blood working together cohesively for a super aggressive like, assault brauto build. Gonna mess around with some different configurations and see if I can get away with rushing gun lines like I’m a Zealot with Get Back in the Fight as some insurance.
You can without Out for Blood, you just need to actually get the elite kills to have some sustain. I tried a full melee vet build (going for both rending and Trench fighter) and it worked. That’s what I usually call budget Zealot.