Veteran
12.5-20% Critical Chance for 6s on successful Dodge.
12-24% Rending on Enemy Weak Spot Hit for 3.5s. Stacks 5 times.
4.25-5% Strength for every Enemy you Stagger. Stacks 5 times.
3.5-5% Critical Chance for every 10% of magazine spent during continuous fire. Stacks 5 times.
Not claiming it's meta or perfectly optimized, only that it's fun and has some nice synergies. It's very tanky, is great at both ranged and melee, has great crowd control, and great utility for your team.
Skill tree breakdown:
Close order drill: nice to have but mostly to get to confirmed kill.
Confirmed kill: self-explanatory, most builds use it. There are always elites to kill and 30% regen from one kill is huge. Often compared to out for blood, but hey- why not both.
One motion: mostly to get to out for blood, but it's also nice to have with the bolter's slow swap speed.
Out for blood: means that a frag grenade or magdump from your bolter can give you all your toughness back in a bad situation.
Stamina boost: better than the alternatives. +1 stamina is more impactful than +5% movement speed and vet needs extra mobility, he's not zealot.
Toughness boost: With all the extra toughness we're taking from boosts and curios, this build has a total of 246 points of toughness. Beause we're taking both confirmed kill and out for blood, one single melee kill on an elite enemy will regenerate close to 100 points of toughness. (5% for a melee kill, 5% from out for blood, 10% from confirmed kill, and another 20% over time from confirmed kill. that's 40% in total, and 20% instantly, which is still close to 50 points.)
Toughness boost: we'll be taking more of these later on, for an extra 65 total toughness. Keep that in mind when we con
Shredder frag grenade: best vet blitz, maybe the best blitz in the game. Vet can struggle with hordes, and shredders remove that weakness. Great crowd control too, as they can stagger most everything.
Catch a breath: means to an end, but it's better than get back in the fight.
Survivalist: best aura in the game, self-explanatory.
Demolition stockpile: again, self-explanatory. Fantastic passive, best way to get to the shout.
Voice of command, duty and honor: Probably the best ability in the game. Great for both you and your team, great crowd control, golden toughness, short cooldown, etc etc.
Precision strikes: an extra 30% damage is huge. Wether you're sniping gunners or magdumping into a plague ogryn's head, this is always good to have.
Fully loaded: more ammo = good. Simple as.
Superiority complex: 15% base damage increase against anything from gunners, through ragers, to crushers. Again, more damage = good.
Born leader: when you consider we're taking both confirmed kill and out for blood, this quickly adds up to more than you might think.
Tactical awareness: auto-include in any build. It's the only passive that let's vet shorten his ability cooldown.
Iron will: with all your toughness regen between confirmed kill, out for blood, shout, and the raw amount of toughness in this build, you shouldn't be getting below 75%, so that's almost an almost constant +50% reduction. 75% of your toughness is aroun 185 points.
Bring it down: the bolter is already great against bosses, now it's even better.
Focus target: Not the best vet keystone, but in this build I like not having to commit more points to go into weapon specialist. Besides, an extra 20% damage increase against an enemy doesn't hurt to have.
Reciprocity, desperado: I count these two as a package deal. You should be in melee rather othen, and because we're using the dueling sword, a weapon that's nutoriously great on crits, this can give you fantastic melee capibility on all the things that you don't want to waste bolter rounds on.
Gear breakdown:
Perks: we're taking xtra damage against carapace and unyiealding on both weapons because realistically those will usually be the most troublesome to kill. This covers all the mostrosities, all the ogryns, mauler weakspots, and armoured ragers.
Spearhead boltgun: pinning fire and cavalcade are the popular choices, and I agree. Helps both when you're trying to kill a boss, or magdumping a horde of elites you don't want to melee. We're using mobility as the dump stat.
Dueling sword: obvious choice as it's the best weapon in the game. Uncanny strike for extra damage on armoured targets and bosses, riposte for extra crits. I won't elaborate further, as everything that's to be said about the duelling sword has already been said by people way better at the game than me. You can dump either mobility or cleave damage, it's really up to you.
Curios: Not going to elaborate on this either. It's the current meta curio set up.
Conclusion:
I'm not claiming this is the best way to play vet, nor am I claiming it's viable into havoc. I've cleared auric maelstroms with this, and didn't notice any crippling weaknesses or downsides. I'm claiming it's the build I had the most fun with on veteran, and I figured other people may like it too. It's not terribly innovative or groundbreaking in any way, all good vet builds kind of look the same recently. If you have any objections or diffrent choices you would make, feel free to tell me.
Enjoy.
