So, I've been looking at the Swat skill tree and felt that a few of the skills were just lackluster compared to their alternative. I'd like to suggest a couple buffs and tweaks that could make for more impactful skill choices with the left being defense and cc oriented and right side more offense and suppression oriented (explained a bit later). My idea of swat is tanky/utility trash cleaner. I'd like to captialize a bit more on these themes and make each choice specialize in each theme. I do not believe the swat needs any weapon damage buffs since, with the introduction of the HRG nailgun, the Swat arsenal is well rounded with at least one option to contribute to the various large takedowns but not outdo the large zed killers in takedowns.
Defense and CC - Goal of this theme is to make the swat tankier and harder to reach through damage resistance and CC.
Offense and Suppression - Goal of this theme is to support more aggressive Swat by suppressing zeds through mobility, grenades, and more bullets.
Suggestions:
Defense and CC - Goal of this theme is to make the swat tankier and harder to reach through damage resistance and CC.
Offense and Suppression - Goal of this theme is to support more aggressive Swat by suppressing zeds through mobility, grenades, and more bullets.
Suggestions:
- Passive Bullet Resistance - Change this resistance to global damage resistance but cap it at 10%, with 2% per 5 levels.
- The bullet resistance is only applicable against hans and patriarch, niche cases that doesn't even apply to every game, which is OK depending on the perk's strength (i.e. Gunslinger which doesn't need more power). In this case, I think Swat needs slightly more to fit the tanky trash clearing theme. Changing this to global damage resistance while reducing the damage reduction would give the Swat more staying power, though not overpowered since he has no on or in perk self healing.
- Tactical Movement - add 5% (or 10%) movement speed buff
- This skill option doesn't compete very well with heavy armor training which, on top of starting 50 armor, gives no clot grab and no health damage while armored (except sirens). The latter two benefits are very useful especially in sticky situations where you can escape zed clumps or, if you have armor, tank FP hits or other damage for team mates safely while you have armor. A nice trade off where you can spend your finite armor resource for time and space to handle zeds. Right now, tactical movement is primarily a quality of life change that lets you crouch and ADS without the usual drawbacks.
- For comparison, the Steady skill of Gunslinger, which shares the ADS movement speed penalty removal, and the Stability skill of Sharpshooter, which reduces but doesn't eliminate the crouch speed penalty, share components of tactical movement. Steady is outclassed by Quickdraw because Quickdraw provides both movement speed, recoil reduction for hip fire, and weapon swap speed. Steady only provides ADS movement and the illusion of recoil reduction, which is simply the guns moving less while ADS'ed unlike Quickdraw giving ADS like recoil while hipfiring. Stability is a more fair choice as it gives conditional buffs requiring the player to crouch, but the crouch movement speed reduction in penalty is more to make the condition less restrictive. Regardless, Stability is taken more for the damage and reload speed while the crouch speed is a nice convenience thing. Even then, both the Level 5 skills reduce the effectiveness of the crouch movement speed penalty since Sniper encourages sitting still and Marksman increases movement speed anyways, mitigating the crouch movement penalty. Overall, the point is that ADS and crouch movement speed buffs are just modest QoL improvements and not definitive benefits.
- The additional movement speed buff would be a definitive benefit that is a gameplay for a more aggressive and mobile swat while also making it more unique than its trash cleaning competitors, primarily commando and firebug which get no movement speed buffs.
- Close Combat Training - add 5-10% melee damage resistance
- Like the Commando counterpart, this skill gives buffs to 9mm+knife and a second benefit. For the Commando, the second benefit is weapon swap speed, a useful bonus that extends beyond the early game by making zed time extensions a bit more manageable in tight situation where you are out of bullets and can swap to continue extending (also same use early due to limited weapons). In contrast, the Swat gets a second 9mm which is useful early in increasing fire power, but provides a measly 75 dosh sell value and no lasting benefits. Providing the additional melee damage resistance (if possible, otherwise 5% global damage resistance) would give more lasting benefits that afford a small defensive boost as opposed to the offensive utility in elite reloads.
- Ammo Vest - also provide an extra grenade or two, similar to Sharpshooter
- Due to the already high ammo count of Swat and general trash killing efficiency, unless you are missing half your shots or killing everything, large zeds included, it is unlikely for a Swat to run out of ammo. This makes ammo vest much less appealing than its stumble cc counterpart. To make it more appealing, it should also increase grenade capacity by 1, maybe 2, which, in conjunction with the next suggestion, would make for an interesting synergy and option for a more poweful but limited amount of cc in stun grenades. The additional ammo and grenades fits in with the suppression theme mentioned prior.
Assault ArmorAssault Expert: (right side) Increase stun grenade damage and stun power (potentially enough to stun a raged FP)- Assault Armor is taken for one reason only, to start the game with 100 armor. Very rarely, if ever, have I or many people I've seen taken Assault Armor for the additional 50 armor cap. The 50 armor cap should be moved to a passive and possibly reduced to 25 additional max armor. Right now Cripple, especially in conjunction with Suppression Rounds, allows Swat to stumble into snare scrakes or straight up snare fleshpounds, which provides more damage mitigation by helping the team eliminate the big damage threats as opposed to tank more hits. Often times, if you were to burn through the additional 50 armor, your team would probably wipe anyways. It does have great synergy with Heavy Armor Training, however, it just seems lackluster as an option that doesn't truly impact gameplay the same way as the Swat utility options.
- This new skill makes stun grenades much more powerful and comparable in impact to Sharpshooter grenades. The damage increase would instantly clear trash and damage medium zeds, providing some clearing power similar to frag grenades of other classes. Simultaneously, the stun, which ideally could stop a raging FP in its tracks, would be a high skill option as an alternative to the more consistent Cripple. Timing the flashbang to stun a raging FP, or other zeds, isn't always easy, but the payoff is high. This strength is tempered by the fact that you have a limited number of stuns per wave.
- It also provides a trade off with Cripple, as mentioned prior. Cripple, combined with Suppression Rounds, makes scrake takedowns relatively safe for Swats. Stumble into slow gives Swats ample time to mag dump and decapitate scrakes. Without cripple, the combo becomes more risky, of course, trading off the safety and consistency for the empowered but limited flashbangs. Overall, this seeks to make the skill selection an impactful gameplay choice of picking between two CC tools with one being safer and the other high risk for a higher reward.