Veteran
12-24% Rending on Enemy Weak Spot Hit for 3.5s. Stacks 5 times.
12.5-20% Critical Chance for 6s on successful Dodge.
Critical hit chance scales by your current heat level up to 27.5-50%. Also increases critical ranged attacks damage by 4-10%.
Up to 7.5-20% Strength scaling with Heat Level.
In case the build title wasn't clear enough this build focuses on dropping Specials (Trappers, Bombers and especially Snipers) and Elites (Reapers and Gunners) as well as providing strong team support using your Shredder Frags and Voice of Command.
Your job as the Veteran when playing this build is to ensure ranged Elites and Specials don't pile up and become problematic for the rest of the team as well as using your tools at the appropriate times to provide team stability. It may sound daunting at first because it sounds like you're the sole Special/Elite sniper in the team but if they're competent and also put in their share of the work this build can make high Havocs a breeze.
Your bread and butter while playing this build and undeniably Veteran's best gun. While I shouldn't have to explain the blessing choices if you've had any experience with the Plasma Gun I'll still give a brief summary, Rising Heat increases the already high damage output of the Plasma Gun simply by using it and Gets Hot! not only increases your crit damage but also increases your crit rate by up to 50% the the same way as Rising Heat.
And to add on for anyone who might not know this, the "meta" way to be using the Plasma Gun is to just spam M1, not only is the overheat explosion exclusive to the charged M2s but the M1s do enough damage that 2-3 M1s can do more damage than a M2 in the same amount of time and for less or the same amount of ammo.
What can I really say about the Dueling Sword that hasn't already been said? It's easily the best melee weapon in the game and with the armor spam that comes in high Havocs and the increased health of every Special and Elite the Dueling Sword only gets better.
I shouldn't have to explain the blessing choices here either but I'll give another summary. Uncanny Strike is taken for obvious reasons, extra damage against armor (specifically Carapace armor) for hitting weakspots only makes the Dueling Sword stronger and Riposte for a 20% increase in melee crit rate just for dodging attacks (add on Reciprocity and you'll be hitting crits an average of 60% of the time).
One Motion is just a nice QoL node, the Plasma Gun doesn't have a long draw time but it doesn't hurt to take, not only that but it's also on the same skill path as Out for Blood, which is one Veteran's best toughness regeneration nodes providing you 5% toughness on any kill.
Shredder Frags because they're Veteran's best grenade, dropping a couple when a large horde spawns in provides solid damage from all the bleed as well as good CC against armor packs (assuming you're not playing with Final Toll) for your teammates to start whacking.
Catch a Breath gives even more toughness regen on top of Out for Blood, but realistically you shouldn't be relying on it for toughness. The reason I picked this over Get Back in the Fight! is because when it does proc you're more often than not going to go down or just outright die because enemies do so much damage in high Havocs.
Survivalist because who the hell would say no to ammo regeneration? Fire Team and its 5% damage increase is nothing compared to it and Close and Kill is just too niche.
Field Improvisation is surprisingly a solid pick in high Havocs, not only does it make Med Crates heal quicker and clear corruption (especially useful when playing on a map with Blight Spread) but it also makes Ammo crates replenish grenades which helps you and Ogryns with Frag Bomb a lot.
Demolition Stockpile and Demolition Team are also a key part of this build, without these two nodes your Shredders wouldn't be nearly as spammable meaning your total damage goes down and there's less CC for the rest of the team.
Voice of Command and Duty and Honor provide a consistent source of golden toughness for the team which helps increase everyone's survivability in fights as well as CC through it's strong staggering.
Precision Strikes, Fully Loaded and Superiority Complex form the holy trinity of any good Veteran build and it should be obvious why.
Keep Their Heads Down! is also surprisingly effective on the Plasma Gun, I've seen Gunners and Reapers get suppressed from just a single stray shot and I shouldn't have to explain why that's a good thing. Alternatively, you can take Born Leader instead because you're printing out so much toughness that just 15% of it going to the rest of your team is pretty significant.
Tactical Awareness makes it even easier to spam shout which further improves team survivability. Iron Will makes your gold toughness last longer from the 50% toughness damage resistance it gives.
Bring it Down! helps to make up for the Plasma Gun's somewhat slow boss damage while also making Reapers, Bulwarks and Crushers easier to kill.
Reciprocity and Desperado makes your melee performance almost comparable to a Zealot, not to mention Reciprocity increases crit chance in general, not just your melee crit chance.
Focus Target, because even though I prefer Weapon Specialist having Focus Target helps more than you think when your team is beating down on a boss. It also let's you one-shot Trappers and Bombers to the head when you have 2-3 stacks of Focus on them.
I don't really have too much more to add after everything I've said above, but I just want to say that no matter how good your build is when playing in high Havocs you still need some practice and skill to perform well. The attached YouTube video is my gameplay using this exact build on Havoc 31 and yet the team I was playing with still had a few really tense moments.
Not everything in this build was rigorously tested, a few things I did test for myself in the Psykanium but the problem is that this build is designed for Havoc play in mind which made it hard to gauge it's full potential when Psykanium enemies can only have up to base Damnation stats.
