People can them just fine without infiltrate, it’s not really a thing to boast about.
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Well, sure. In that sense, every ability is a teamwork ability to one degree or another. I mean in the strong sense of where the others (in coherency) can directly benefit, as they do from ES and VoC.
The Vet can yell, “Shoot the ones with the spiky helmets!” and “Get the F up!” I think it’d be fun if they could also yell, “Shut the F up!”
I disagree. Voice of Command is fine
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I think that Voice of Command’s sorta like the Plasma Gun. Why? Because they’re both admittedly overtuned but some people go way too far when asking for nerfs related to them. Nerfs should always be done in small steps as to not cause things to lose their crucial breakpoints or fun factors.
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This. Same with ogryn taunt. CDR should be nerfed across the game. It scales poorely, the more enemies game throws at you the more you spam, there never will be a proper challenge like that. It’s not a moba’s turbo mode or arpg, that ability spam is an alien thing for DT combat.
Like in V2 you can have Kruber shout spam in Chaos Wastes, wich is a rouglite mode so it makes sense to have OP builds there when rng is in your favor.
But in the regular mode Kruber shout is fair and balanced (partialy cause THP is less forgiving than toughness)
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Shout isnt broken, other two ults are bad AND have bad taletns leading up to them.
If stealth was in the middle, with its 50% dmg reduction baked in it would be SO much better.
Same goes for executioners stance .
But honestly exec and stealth could be morphed into huntsman kruber ult from VT2.
And 3rd veteran ulti would be combat steroid akin to zealot charge or psyker scriers
But in a game where you ahve 2 talents
- gives you a nade every 60 seconds
- gives you ONE nade per game
I dont want people who made that choice to touch the balance at all, not until they are replaced or educated
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Maybe it could give the toughness over a short time and not gold. That way it’s still effective against shooters, but melee chip damage can still come through (though less during the effect).
Keeps the strong CC blast which feels great, and still contributes healing of sorts to the team. You can help teammates who are in trouble who need some toughness in a pinch, or charge into a pack of gunners and resist their fire for a short period. All while maintaining the danger of getting damaged throughout.
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I fully agree on this. It should only refresh the duration.
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The main issue with Voice of Command comes from Tactical Awareness (Reduces cd by 6 seconds aka 1/5th upon specialist kill) that let’s you spam it because as we all know, specialists are not short on supply when playing Auric Damnation/Maelstorm. The extra troughness also stacks if more than 1 Vet has that upgrade. Without the CD cheese it would be an okay skill as 30 seconds in a game like this can feel like an eternity when you are fighting with your back against the wall.
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I see sweats are still at it 2 years later…
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Also I feel the same way with grenades spam. Like grenadier/demoman build should be an option, but it shouldn’t be easy achiavable with any branch.
Piano playstyle with ability spam sucks, you have that in mmo or mobas, cause there is no proper combat. Blitz and ability should be about situation assessment tools. Wasted your ultimate and nades when there was no real need? Your mistake.
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Longer cooldown, can be interrupted, cannot attack or block while chanting, doesn’t knock down enemies, cannot be used while standing in fire. Also, you have to get all five pulses out to get the attack or defense buff. VoC buffs everyone instantly.
Remove yellow toughness entirely from the game. Nerf CDR across the board.
Back to mechanical skill and melee carnage. Learn to conserve ammo and melee or go down. Simple as.
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I’m a central tree Guardsman and I support this message. As much as my kicks are in supporting and aiding the team, Voice of Command feels too much at the moment. My hope is that FS will re-tune it not nerf/gut it and make it feel less like a crutch. At the moment it feels so powerful I feel uncomfortable using it. Moment of crisis? Its alright, VoC is up and ready to knock back that group of insert enemies here. It has pushed me to play with an ES build more, which is fun with the Vraks Graia Vigilant Autogun, but shouting at my team is my jam, boosting them in the midst of combat.
On the topic of the Veteran abilities, I wish that ES and Infil. offered a bonus to team members in coherency on ability use, like +% weakspot damage for ES and +% Toughness Damage Reduction of Infil.
Possibly an unpopular opinion, but I think that Tactical Awareness should be changed to a percentile Ability Cooldown reduction instead of those 6 seconds or be re-worked to offer a different benefit.
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There is a very good reason why we don’t have a whole lot of CDR in VT2 (anymore) and I was honestly a bit shocked to see them add so much back into DT. We didn’t always have so much crazy CDR in DT and even when you did have a team with a psyker, they only made you get the launch abilities back faster.
VoC is the 2nd best ability in the game and in parts because it gives golden thoughness and because it can be spammed every few seconds.
All that being said, I honestly don’t know how to fix this in a good way. I’ve said before that increasing the cooldown wont change anything for the people that know how to (ab)use the CDR talents and only makes the ability feel worse on lower difficulties where they can be as broken as you can imagine and it’d be fine. Outside of removing the CDR talents from all classes (and even that I’m not really in favour of either), I don’t see what could be done about it.
As much as I’d like to say to buff the other abilities to get closer to VoC level, that’s probably too much. Sure, other abilities could be better, especially when VoC is as good as it is but how good would Exe. Stance or infiltrate have to be, to be THAT good?
Would insta reload and 60% thoughness on activation make exe stance that good? Would turning infiltrate into Krubers Huntsman ult be that good? Maybe if it was huntsmans ult and refreshed on (crit) elite & special headshot kill?
If that aspect was how they were going to change it, I’d think it should be the opposite. Give it to whomever is in coherency but not to yourself. You already get a full refil and with iron will, you should be tanky enough as is.
Gold toughness is an interesting topic to me. I really like the idea that there is a level to toughness where you don’t take bleedthrough damage. It’s just that when it’s on an ability as spammable as VoC, it’s kinda broken.
Theoretically you can get more G.thoughness with the book but that’s infinitely harder to pull off and it takes you out of the fight.
I fully agree, even the cooldown part. I just don’t think that increasing the cooldown would be a good solution. It’s either going to be too low to make a difference or so insanely high that you can only get it a decent amount of times in Shocktroop missions.
Think about it, how long would the timer need to be for the ability to be good on all levels of play but not broken, in combination with a 6sec CDR talent? I’ll be honest, I can’t come up with a good number. Maybe you’d make it 60sec cooldown and turn the CDR talent into a 4% to 8% CDR talent instead?
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You’re not wrong about your general msg here, VoC is way overtuned. But I definitely don’t agree with many points you said.
Well no? Infiltrate is about the only ult vets have that doesn’t need any additional investment. It’s great as-is. Part of this ofc. comes from how (conditionally) underwhelming its nodes are yes, but that duration & movebuff is so massive it’s fantastic on its own.
Also some synergies like how Close Quarters Killzone, Marksman and Surprise Attack (well ok this is a stealth sub) actually start ON stealth and only deprecate after it ends let you do things like apply DoTs or nades before stealthing, or lob nades with secondary while stealthed, to get all those dmg buffs without exiting that stealth. These things don’t require subtalents.
You really need to avoid hyperboles like “objectively X” when clearly that’s not the case. Statements like that will instantly cast doubts as to your experience and critical thinking skills, affecting the reception of anything you say after. 
I mean we’re all guilty of that sometimes, especially when emotionally strained ofc… still.
Exec Stance used to suck - somewhat objectively I’d agree -, bc of its talent bloat and how it for some inexplicable reason canceled the moment you switched to melee (like wtf? The definitive ranged ult that leaves you completely open to melee in a game where something is always nipping at your heels, making it the worst possible pick for those who actually want to fight at range lol?). But both of those have been addressed.
Exec Stance, as it is, benefits weakspot hits specifically. It’s always going to be a divisive ult bc. people with fantastic aim are going to do fantastically with it, and those without are not.
Stealth though is a total gamechanger. I absolutely agree that overall VoC is the better choice simply bc most times its team-wide perks are more valuable. But VoC doesn’t even compare vs the massive advantage stealth gives you on objectives, rezzing/rescuing, or when you’re so vastly overwhelmed not even the time VoC buys you will be enough. Stealth can uniquely handle situations no other ult can. And if you DO go into its subtalents, it gets absolutely insane. Overwatch & Low Profile for instance can give you up to 36 seconds of continuous virtual stealth. It’s beyond insane if you use it right.
That’s the main difference between vet & zelly stealth after all, for zellies it’s mostly just a crit/finesse tool with some repositioning and temporary reset. Extremely powerful yes, but focusing primarily on offense and dmg. Vet’s duration & movespeed and those utilities however make it a genuine stealth. It lacks that dmg yes, but lets you easily solo things any other class with any build at all would find impossible. Like doing objectives solo no matter what’s going on. Idk what difficulty you play on but on T5+ Auric/Mael, being able to do that can be extremely valuable.
Imo the biggest problem with VoC overall is… well… everything about it! It has no compromises.
- All talents are as much about them as they are about the pathing through them
- Exec Stance has very low value talents around it barring some novelty builds, and it’s on the far left
- Stealth has better talents around it than EStance, but not compared to VoC. The only high value talent there is the +5% crit except that’s only 1 point away from VoC anyway. The extra nade isn’t that big bc overall nades are about the regen, not the max, and the melee below is basically worthless.
- VoC is easily accessible in the middle. It has Demo Stockpile (which every build wants if they can get it) and Field Improv, both some of the best talents in the tree. It has no waste talents below, since about all builds want what’s there, and unlike Stealth gets direct access to the left bottom tree too. All in all pretty much regardless of your build, VoC is the cheapest & most high value pick down.
- VoC has really short CD, it’s the only real panic button in the vet’s arsenal, and the overtoughness as you said actually cancels instant deathblows.
- So all in all, it’s the cheapest pick leaving you more talents for something else, comes with the best talents as a sideproduct going through it, is the easiest to use, and buffs & staggers for the whole team so even the newbies benefit
- Even if it only affected the vet themselves and no-one else it would STILL be the overall strongest & most popular choice. That it affects the whole team is just going the extra 10 miles on top really.
- Even if it only affected the vet themselves and no-one else it would STILL be the overall strongest & most popular choice. That it affects the whole team is just going the extra 10 miles on top really.
But I mean from smite to plasma to revolver to knives and more, it’s hardly the only issue we have. :'c Still, I almost never pick it. Stealth is definitely good enough to be not just viable but strong for endgame, and I love me my utility & snowflakey feeling. 
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Good news everyone, it was nerfed! Well, it was nerfed on Ogryn…
I don’t think the VT2 to DT, even CW is quite an apples-to-apples comparison.
For starters, IIRC the initial intent was to make ults more spammable, ofc mob density changed since launch , ults themselves etc.
P.S. The irony of a few “It’s PVE so who care as we all benefit” defenders also wanting balancing and nerfs is palpable.
If only we had the instant reload once again. Taking it off of the Guardsman and giving it to the Ogryn was not, I think, the best idea. Both ES & the Ogryn ranged ability (its name escapes me) should be instant reload, or at the very least ES should get a +50% reload speed as part of its baseline.
Hitting the ability button and being forced to switch to an unloaded ranged weapon is just infuriating. Without some reload benefit to actually be able to use the ability before the timer runs out is bloody infuriating. We process so much information when fighting in melee that it can be very easy to forget your ranged weapon is out of ammo and then you spend the ability’s timer reloading, wasting it completely.
Bit of a side-rant, I know, but it is something FS needs to do to ES in my view. Which can be very wrong, but I still rue that loss of the instant reload.
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It would be rather OPAF given that current bolter makes plasma gun look like previous bolter.
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Other two ults still have too many option nodes to provide mid benefits compared to the sheer staying power of VoC, and will continue to do so as long as they aren’t touched and VoC gives gold toughness.
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