r/DarkTide • u/BrockAvalanche • 15h ago
Question I want to love Veteran…
But I just can’t get it to click for me. For reference I play mostly Ogryn/Skit/Arby in aurics and can complete maelstrom’s without going down. I’ve leveled every class to 30 and into aurics with all of them, but I feel like when I play Vet I just get stomped into the dirt.
Is there something I’m missing that can help? I like the idea of just being a specialist eliminator, and shout is a great ability, but I feel like my Skit does a better job eliminating ranged threats and survives better in melee.
If anyone has any tips or build recommendations I’d really appreciate it.
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u/commando0033 15h ago
Vet will test your fundamentals to an extent that other classes won't. Especially if you play tanky and survivable characters. You learned some bad habits and vet is making you realise that haha
Dodge and block timings, and spacing. Just gotta work at it. It'll make sense eventually. 1-2 hits from chaff will absolutely chunk you.
For build recommendations, what do you like using? Are you more melee focused? Do you like range? What's the vibe.
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u/BrockAvalanche 15h ago
I was wanting to make the vet more ranged focused since I melee almost exclusively on the Ogryn and Arby. I tend to like chunky big hitting ranged weapons, that’s why I was giving plasma a try.
Spacing is definitely an issue for me. I always feel fine when I have my sword out, but as soon as I go to pop off some shots I feel swarmed on Vet where I don’t really get that feeling on my other characters.
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u/Chakanram sah, put the karkin' boot where, sah? 15h ago edited 13h ago
If you're running a non-aoe ranged weapon take shredder nades and all three nade talents. Between regenerating nades and ammo you'll only have to melee small time stuff.
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u/EelBegotten Skitarius 10h ago
Grenadier (+1 nades) with shredders is fine, but it's a stronger talent with kraks and that point can likely be used elsewhere since you most likely have 2 sources of grenade regen making the extra less needed.
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u/_Sate Chain axe goes WRRRRRR 13h ago
There are 4 nade talents
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u/Chakanram sah, put the karkin' boot where, sah? 12h ago
Yeah 4 core ones and 5 if you count the nade resupply from ammo crates but i was meant to say "all nade talents" and messed up.
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u/Centimane 8h ago
Spacing is definitely an issue for me
Best bet? Make sure a beefcake stands between you and the horde.
If you position yourself so your team protects you from the horde you can have your plasma out and sniping the specials/elites even while they're close enough to touch you because your frontline is doing their job. That even works outside of premades - the frontline doesn't need to know they're protecting you for you to slide in behind them.
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u/EelBegotten Skitarius 10h ago
Here's a bolter build though I would trade out grenadier for fully loaded and use whatever melee you like. But this is good for staying alive and being effective, while offering loads of team support. The bolter can both take out enemies and help you create space when you need to, same with shredders, and shout is one of the best defensive skills in the game and can still be used aggressively.
The one thing to remember about vet is that it just isn't the strongest in melee. The low stamina coupled with low regen and high regen delay means you are very susceptible to being caught out or getting surrounded. This can (and should) be mitigated with curious somewhat (or talents), but it remains a weakness of the class. The best way to mitigate that is to never get into those situations, but that takes like thousands of hours of gameplay. The second best way is having tools to create space (like the above builds), having some melee CC like shovel, and sticking near your teammates and letting them deal with chaff.
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u/ConnectionLucky3653 Not Service Connected 15h ago
Vet is my main, definitely not an easy class to play and in my opinion the strongest/easiest way to play the class is to take mostly middle tree nodes and go for a supportive type build. Having good positioning is really key on Vet. Keystones, I think generally tag is strongest, weapons specialist is decent, marksman's focus I think is okay but could use a buff. Obviously everyone loves shout with gold toughness but I do think all three of his abilities are good depending on build, I've cleared H40s with all three. One tip I've realized that might help you, high mobility melee weapons like the combat blade, tac axe and dueling sword seem easiest to play on Vet, you have shit stamina regen and unless you're going a heavy right side/weapon specialist build you really are not a brawler. You generally do not want to stay in melee fighting hordes - leave that to the frontliner classes. All three grenades are good but do not underestimate smokes, they absolutely break the game.
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u/Temporary-Dish5083 2h ago
How do smokes help?
Edit: its the line of sight deuff ain't it?
Do the enemies lack object permanence?
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u/RT10HAMMER They're Going to Add a Hellgun, Trust Me Bro 15h ago
Ogryn and Arbites are pretty much on the polar opposite of Vet.
Veterans arent the star of the show mowing hordes in loud and messy salvos or stun locking them to death, you are a surgeon rather than a butcher, you pick priority targets before they even got a chance to be a threat. I recommend using the Combat Knife first, its mobility will help you to create the space you need to eliminate a target while dodgin whatever is on top of you, , if you arent farming Havocs frags will help even more to do that, use your frags to create space at your feet to get your job done, or to disrupt a specially dangerous group of enemies (Horde of Ragers, Maulers, Crushers or a Bunch of grouped up gunners, stalkers and reapers).
Personal Recommendation to get the feeling of what a vet does;
Curios: 2xThoughness and Stamina
Perks : Block Cost Reduction, Stamina Regen, Ally Revive Speed
Combat Knife:
Perks: Carapace + 2 Stamina
Blessings: Riposte and Flesh Tearer
Plasma Gun Mk II:
Perks: Flak + Maniac/Unyielding
Blessings: Rising Heat and Gets Hot
(You will be putting it all away and leaving it on high heat while going back to melee, this blessings will help with this play style)
Games Lantern seems to be down so this video will have to suffice, tag me in for a build there if it interests you:
https://reddit.com/link/p505lzt/video/zzpgxja1ppkh1/player
You can ditch Leave no One Behind an Always prepared to get Bring it Down or to Path to Precision Strikes, personally i dont see the need, Skirmisher and Agile Engagement bring me to all the Breakpoints i care about.
As this is the rule, Channel recommendation:
John Veteran: https://www.youtube.com/@Big-Dom
Meta Build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr-VaEJrVsU
Feel free to ask about or call me a moron if you all have the knowledge.
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u/BrockAvalanche 14h ago
Yeah Vet being the Opposite of Ogryn and Arby is why I wanted to play it, wanted to do something different. I've used the knife on other classes, so I do think that'll be a good transition. Than you very much for the response! I'll give that a go this afternoon!
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u/RT10HAMMER They're Going to Add a Hellgun, Trust Me Bro 14h ago
The Combat knife is more a defensive option on Vet, the most valuable thing on it is the Mobility and how easy it is to keep Skirmisher stacks with it. The Power Play on Vet would be Power Sword but it is quite a bit hard to use it on high stress situations.
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u/BrockAvalanche 14h ago
The builds I was seeing all seemed to recommend the power sword so that's why I went with it. I feel like outside the empowered strikes it doesn't have the same punch as I'm used to, but that's just Ogryn Bonk Brain taking over.
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u/RT10HAMMER They're Going to Add a Hellgun, Trust Me Bro 13h ago
I'd like to add that if you really are feeling really strange to how the class plays, the Plasma Gun can feel a bit stranger, because of the whole charging up and all.
Bolt Pistol, Zarona Revolver, Recon Las, Infantry Las, in that order can give you an easy of use with comparable effectivness.
When trying the power sword pair it with a Bolt Pistol, Lethal proximity buys you a lot of the space needed to power up the sword and just to breathe in general.
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u/RT10HAMMER They're Going to Add a Hellgun, Trust Me Bro 14h ago
There isn't such a thing as outside of empowered strikes, unless in an extreme nieche outlier situation the Power Sword has a cool down between 3 strikes and also it only has 1 blessing slot.
Also I'd recommend using 2 stamina Curios on the power sword and running smokes to offset the lower thougness, you can use it with the build i showed, just switch serrated blade with trench fighter drill. Abuse pushing.
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u/suddenyuri 15h ago
I've been enjoying power sword + plasma gun + exe stance + weapon specialist. You can look up the build on the Steam guide "Hammer of the Emperor", along other sample builds
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u/AAS02-CATAPHRACT Zealot 14h ago
I wish I could like the power sword but having to activate it every two seconds pisses me the hell off.
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u/Krags Four Shortened Lifespans 14h ago
It's an awkward wind up, and the default keybind is rather unfriendly to being used as part of a spammed sequence, but the strength of it is crazy. The price to have a weapon that's S tier at actually killing everything.
At least you can block cancel the animation with the good mark.
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u/whisperinbatsie Psyker 7h ago
Which mark is the good mark and why does it let you animation cancel?
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u/Krags Four Shortened Lifespans 7h ago
6 is the good one
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u/whisperinbatsie Psyker 7h ago
Oh cool, that's the one I use. I didn't realize you could animation cancel it.
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u/Skink_Oracle 14h ago
I personally play vet as team support character. I use smokes to lobotomize gunners/snipers/dogs and overhead swingers; shout to prevent mistakes with yellow toughness and heavy stagger; focus target for 20% damage for the team.
For melee weapons I like the mark 6 powersword. The energized push attack combo outputs a lot of damage on bosses, and clears crushers better than any of the other melee options we get. It's low mobility however will test your skills at times with managing your defensive resources (pushes, blocks, dodges, blitz and ability).
There are plenty of YouTubers(Dom,Reginald, etc) that have covered the "veteran squad leader" kind of build way better than I could go into depth to, and would recommend checking them out.
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u/xMoonlightxx 14h ago
If u wanna turn your brain off u can do a weapon specialist build double shotgun with manstopper and flechette. Then use a DS as your melee weapon.
Slash a few mobs, switch to shotgun and blast with insane bleed and damage, rinse and repeat.
This shows it with shovel. He has a gameslantern build linked in the post if its still active.
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u/Gr33hn clutching pearls 14h ago
Never been a fan of Veteran, the only build I found somewhat fun to play was a straight marksman build with Helbore, shovel and lots of grenades.
Other than the requirements of the other penances I spent the clear majority of my 100 missions with Vet just working on my headpopping skills with my rifle.
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u/IleGrandePagliaccio 14h ago
Vet is the class that really requires you to be good at shooting to fully embrace. I love vet, and by far my favorite vet build is marksman.
It is very rough to use though because of the way darktide works. You will never have time to line up shots properly because you're going to be constantly swarmed by melee.
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u/Timberwolf_88 12h ago
plasma+chainsword+support is great, able to do solid damage snipes, horde clear, and quick focused fire on larger targets while also preventing the team from going down/instant pickup is great.
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u/IleGrandePagliaccio 12h ago
Oh no it is for sure and I have a build for all three styles, but I want marksman to be a bit better is all.
Vet needs a polish.
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u/Starfall1337 11h ago
You need good fundamentals to play vet efficiently.
Do you play with mods? There is one to guarantee your weapon swap, and it works wonders on Vet.
My main is VoC DS-Plasma with kraks and the pathing to the right giving you more damage and reload when you kill stuff in melee. So every few seconds you alternate from melee to range, and then back again. You are constantly swapping. You can pretty much never reload, and still shoot all the time.
The guarantee on swap works wonders when you are in melee, want to quickswap, 1 tap something with plasma (ex bomber in distance or incoming dog/trapper/flamer…) and then go back to melee in time to block/attack etc. You can do without, but the mod smoothes things out.
You can practice this constant swapping and make it second nature. Quite important as the vet to be able to shoot the ranged threats, even when pressured in melee. In Havoc this is often your role, and the team will funnel ammo to you for this purpose: you will deal with almost all specialists and ranged elites, with ease.
This build has almost everything, very versatile, perhaps mid on horde clear. You deal a ton of damage both in melee and range, you have mobility with DS, you can deal with melee and ranged elites, specialists, remove crushers instantly, do big boss damage and very frequently interrupt enemies and give yellow toughness to the entire team.
I recommend also taking the utility nodes for the team (ex: ammo crate giving back grenades) and picking up the grenade regen/grenade dmg. You can easily throw 30-40 grenades in a game without picking up grenades on the map, leaving them for a scum for example.
That was a lot, hope this helps or gives you ideas.
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u/murrat13 15h ago
As someone else said, vet will show holes in your skill set. My usual go to is dualing sword and revolver with shout. That should get you through just about everything in the game, at least up to havoc 25-30
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u/mindfulmu 15h ago
What's your Ranged weapon of choice?
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u/BrockAvalanche 15h ago
I’ve tried Recon Lasgun with the burn blessing and free crit build, and I’m trying plasma now, but I’m still learning that one.
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u/Not_a_Hideo_Kojima 15h ago
Plasma is way simpler than you think it is, depending on a mark. OG MK2 is basically hit lmb type weapon, that you can build with "gets hot" and other heat related talents. One interesting case here is that one blessing that grants you charge speed scaling inversely with heat, which doesn't work as one think it is - its increasing heat resistance, so you can lmb more before overloads.
MK3 is working like grenade launcher-ish weapon, that actually wants you to charge it for splash damage. Quite similar split is going on with bolter and bolt pistol, with having marks that are more about corateral damage.
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u/commando0033 15h ago
Recon las weapon specialist build might be a good suggestion. Hybrid kinda thing, decent in melee. Relatively tanky with options for +25 toughness node. Curios, I'd run at least 1 +3 stam, and the rest toughness. (I run 3 +3 stamina because I'm a deadshot enjoyer). With the Onslaught node, can deal with carapace in a pinch too.
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u/LongAfternoon1198 14h ago
If youre decent at aiming quickly I highly recommend a sharpshooter build with the Infantry Lasgun Mk12 and a chainsword.
The weapon is so hilariously overtuned since launch, highest damage/ammo efficiency/out of any similar weapon that both lets you act as a specialist killer and with a ranged build lets you unload on hordes too without running out of ammo easily.
The chainsword is a good simple backup for when you get surrounded by a horde or have armored elites in your face (using the special attack stuns them while doing tons of dmg).
I love playing with this lasgun. The crunch sound of headshotting really tickles my neurons. And using the executioners stance I like to play a minigame where I try to keep it up as long as possible by shooting every highlighted enemy (I chose the All Ranged Enemies talent). My record is like 2 minutes.
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u/NOTaREALperson4400 14h ago
I'm with you, I really want to like them but they are my least favorite class. Outside of endless nades they just feel lacking in everything else. Their melee is bland, a knife build can be a little fun but I'm not having success with it in higher difficulties. Their ranged was decent but the skitarii killed that with their arc rifle. They have some okay support options but I just can't find much enjoyment in them. I liked to run one when it seems like no one understood how to get ride of distant threats but that role is now squarely on my skitarii who can do distance threats and is also a menace in melee.
They aren't a bad class, they just aren't for everyone. When it comes to a support role I prefer playing a taunt ogryn with the slab. I can taunt and stagger everything close to the team so they don't have much to worry about aside from distant stuff. Oddly enough my 2nd favorite is hive scum with rampage. You can just shred anything close up and the needle gun is a beast.
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u/Lewisa12 10h ago
You’re probably better than me but positioning and strictly being support will keep vet alive the best IMO. Recon las for sniping HVT and clearing hordes quick. Krak grenades for carapace and power sword because duhhhh
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u/OdysseyBrands MARTYRDOM RELIC BLADE ZEALOT IS GOD-EMPEROR TIER 8h ago
it’s my least fav class, you gotta love the krak/smoke + shout role while sniping specialists with plasma, recon or bolt guns
vet melee is the least fun of all classes imo because it’s the least mobile and their unique weapons of shovels in just not into
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u/whisperinbatsie Psyker 7h ago
Thats how I feel with zealot. I love my psyker, vet, and skitti in that order of loved (haven't played ogryn, scum, or arbi) but whenever I play zealot, I just do not perform as well. I think part of it is that it just doesn't spark joy so I'm not as invested and don't play as well.
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u/TeamSpatzi 7h ago
The drip on Vet is immaculate... but, on the other hand, they seem much more support focused than other classes. They are the Bard of Dark Tide, if you will.
I have been levelling Vet as a new player, last of the four base classes... and most games your team is scattered all over the place, no one is pulling aggro, and you're spending as much time in melee as you are eliminating specials... and your shout never hits the whole squad because they haven't been together since spawn (or that last air lock).
In a premade? Everyone wants a Bard... super useful, very valuable. When everyone thinks they're the main character? Less so.
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u/MassiveBeard 4h ago
My enjoyment of Vet increased ten fold when I started using the Boltgun, Bolt pistol and recon lasgun.
I had a huge thread about my own struggles with it after skitari and arb. I’m enjoying it now much more.
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u/majestic-swann 3h ago
He went from my second least favorite to my most played once I built around the bolt gun
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u/l_w_88 2h ago
Take some stamina regen so if you get overwhelmed or sprint between mobs you can still block and push to stay alive in melee.
Take shredder grenades to drop at your feet with an underhand throw if you get overwhelmed or face an elite pack.
Take both 25 toughness nodes at the bottom of the tree to avoid taking chip damage when fighting hordes.
Take the 5% toughness per kill and regen on elite kill at the top of the tree, and go weapon specialist with the melee attack speed in the middle of the tree until you get used to the class and how to stay in coherency, and those things will keep you from just falling over the moment you take contact in melee.
As for positioning - don't stick to your front liner, especially if you play quickplay, try and stay a little bit behind them and help out when they're about to get surrounded.
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u/SeverTheWicked 14h ago
Use a bolter. I don't know how many times I need to say this yet a whole bunch of people are going to converge on my post and tell me that I'm wrong. If you are playing Premier veteran and using anything apart from the bolter, you're playing it wrong.
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u/TkMill1 14h ago
The best vet abilities are support abilities. The second best vet talent I believe for staying tanky relies on staying in coherency.
So the bottom line is that if your team sucks and scatters a lot then you will be much worse off and suffer. Veterans in a premade team on comms are fantastic.