Swat rework v2 (A lot tankier, a bit of conditional damage, and move speed options.)

[Demon Swords]

New edits: Completely returned mag size buff in base kit. Juggernaut's armor scaling is now damage increase instead of mag size. Tactical movement changed from 5% move speed to 10% sprinting speed. Battle hardy reworked and renamed to Hardy. (Tier 4 renamed to Perseverance.) (reworded some rationales to account for these changes. removed tier 3 rational because it was outdated form the transition of v1 to v2.)

Old Edit: Halved the base mag size buff instead of completely removed. Halved the effect Juggernaut has on mag size. Combined starting armor and max armor into one bonus (with the same values.) to keep the six basics maximum.

Swat Rework​

Rework Goal: To fix that swat is only useful for free starting stuff. To make the class unique with its ability to be a Tanky Class.

Overall changes:​

Buffs: A Lot Tankier, damage increase, Move speed options. More impactful skills thus more meaningful choices. Some Skills moved into the base kit and were replaced.

Cost for Balance: No free 9mm from game start.

Basics​

• Add 4 starting armor per level and Increase armor by 2% per lv (Max armor Increases also gives the same amount to start the game with.)
• Increase max ammo by 3% per 5 lvs (max 15%.)

Rational for basics changes: By making the starting and max armor be part of the base kit it allows for a player to not be restricted with what skills to start with (Less Starting armor for lv 5-8. More Starting armor at all other lvs). Added max ammo into base because max ammo is important to swat and I cannot think of a good way to balance it into a skill tier.

Tier 1: Specialization​

Juggernaut

• Increase perk weapon damage by 0.1% for every point of body armor you have. (added) (Max 15% when you have 150 max body armor at lv 25.)
• While you have body armor, you only take Health damage from sonic attacks and clots can’t grab you. (same as before)

Tactical Movement

• Gain 10% sprinting Speed. (added)
• No movement penalty for using iron sights or crouch movement. (same as before.)
• Can reload single handed perk weapons while sprinting. (any perk weapon, but dual 9mm and riot shield weapon.) (added)

Rational for Tier 1: Juggernaut is about rewarding players who can maintain high armor with extra damage. Tactical Movement is designed to be a strong tradeoff for players who want to dodge and reposition often.

Tier 2 - Assault Techniques​

Close Quarter Combat

• Gain 20% resistance to all damage.
• Increase knife damage by 85%.

Arsenal

• Increase 9mm damage by 85%. 9mm is treated by perk skills as a perk weapon. (specified skills so passive damage increases and max ammo does not apply.)
• Increase Reload speed of Perk weapons by 15%.

(Note: Elite reload has different animations for each weapon causing different values of effective reload speed increase. Most of the swat weapons seem to range between 20-30%. The only exception is the starting weapon with a reload speed difference of about 40%.)

Rational for tier 2: Because of the desire to reduce the swat from being used to get freebies wave one then being switched to another perk; the idea of two 9mm is removed. To keep the idea of having a method of saving swat ammo (since swat ammo is expensive) for both halves and to keep them balanced I split fallback into a skill for the knife and another for the 9mm. The knife skill gives damage resist for more tankiness while 9mm reload speed is for better offensiveness.

Tier 3 - Crowd Control​

Suppression Rounds

• Increase stumble power by 100% for perk weapons.
• Zeds you Incapacitate take 10% more damage. (damage boost is for everyone and can occur from weapons, grenades, or skills.)

Cognition Buster

• Increase Headshot damage by 10% for perk weapons.
• Each consecutive headshot with a perk weapon adds a stack. Hits slow zeds by 5% for each stack, up to 25%. (Loses stacks like “Rack them Up”.)

Tier 4 - Perseverance​

Riot Gear

• Restore your Body Armor by 1 point for every ZED you kill with perk weapons. While you have 25 or less body armor, Kills and Assists restore 2 points of Body Armor.

Hardy

• You do not lose move speed from missing health. (normally losses 0.15% per % of missing health. Max 15% lost at 0% health.)
• After taking Zed damage (except DoT.), Regen 1 health per second for 4 seconds. (Could alternatively be written, "Regen 1 health per second if you took damage from zeds (except Dot.) within 4 seconds.")

Rational for Tier 4: The point of these two perks is to give longevity. Riot Gear restores Armor which synergizes with Juggernaut for damage and saves money when buying armor. Hardy is about keeping you mobile by preventing health loss slow and some small healing to be balanced with Riot Gear.

Tier 5 - Specialist Training​

ZED TIME - Battering Ram

• During Zed time, you move fast in real-time and deal massive damage and knockdown to any Zed that touches you. (Same as before)

ZED TIME - Rapid Assault

• During ZED Time, when using perk weapons you have unlimited ammo, shoot in near real-time, and increase stumble power by 100%. (Same as before)

Rational for tier 5: Both zed skills work well with Swat and not weak, so I don’t see a reason to change them.

Link to a Spreadsheet version (+ A Survivalist rework, a Scientist perk idea, and some new weapon ideas.):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qtWJrijI8T7VVSSHhbCWBG6c3P4awFnOLgZX5rBzjKg/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Humam2104]

• Remove 4 mag size per level
• Increase mag size of perk weapons by 1% for each point of body armor. (added)

I don't understand the point behind this

Tactical Movement is designed to be a strong tradeoff for skilled players that do not need the benefit of Mag size.

That is not true, because the current SWAT can have both since the Mag size is a passive skill

• Restore your Body Armor by 1 point for every ZED you kill with perk weapons. While you have 25 or less body armor, Kills and Assists restore 2 points of Body Armor.

This is good, but having it with the "Juggernaut" would create alot of inconsistencies with the mag size. I would never play with 33 mag size with a Kriss or an MP7.
I have a question and I really have to ask: What difficulty do you play the game on? do you play coop or just solo?

 

[Demon Swords]

I don't understand the point behind this

The point of removing the mag size as base and pointing it as scaling it off of Armor was to allow a swat player to get 100+% Mag size while still having the perk be a low lv. Additionally, it gives a reason to maintaining high body armor instead of it just being a damage sponge to protect your health.
(Though honestly I think it would be better if Swat weapons just got a universal Mag size increase, so the Swat wouldn't need to buff it so high and could get other bonuses instead.)

That is not true, because the current SWAT can have both since the Mag size is a passive skill

The point was that I wanted to make both Tactical Movement and Heavy Body Training do more, since they are borderline meaningless choices for the swat other then whether you get Starting Armor or not. Maybe I made Tactical movement not impactful enough to be a tradeoff. (Its not like I can test how useful an idea like sprint reloading would be.)

This is good, but having it with the "Juggernaut" would create alot of inconsistencies with the mag size. I would never play with 33 mag size with a Kriss or an MP7.

I know that the skill would have weird consistency with Juggernaut, but it not too much an issue since Mag size only "effectively" changes when you reload.

I have a question and I really have to ask: What difficulty do you play the game on? do you play coop or just solo?

I generally play HoE with Berserker; or Suicidal with any other perk. For Berserker I play both team and solo, but for other perks I just play solo.
I don't play Swat though because it is a weak perk whose role of being trash killer is overshadowed by perks like commando (who also gives benefits to the whole team) and Firebug (who can also kill big zeds with some CC depending on build and weapon choice.)

(Why I only berserker for team play: Not having to buy ammo, so I can finish my build sooner while not spending much when done, Is very good as it allows me to funnel money to the other players. Also I generally end up with the most kills as Berserker, so I would feel bad about playing anything else for team play.)

 

[Humam2104]

I generally play HoE with Berserker; or Suicidal with any other perk

I would like you to try and play the map "Catacombs" or "The descent" on HOE as SWAT. and rethink about your rework

 

[Demon Swords]

I would like you to try and play the map "Catacombs" or "The descent" on HOE as SWAT. and rethink about your rework

Though not every perk needs to be viable on every type of map (demo would have difficulty on those tight maps,) I do see your point.

As such I decided to return the mag size per lv back into the basics at half as effective as current Swats (2% per lv for max 50%.) With Juggernaut giving half as much as well with 0.5% per point of body armor. This would also help make the tradeoff between Juggernaut and Tactical movement more balanced.

 

[Humam2104]

(demo would have difficulty on those tight maps,) I do see your point.

This was true before the HRG Kaboomstick

As such I decided to return the mag size per lv back into the basics at half as effective as current Swats (2% per lv for max 50%.) With Juggernaut giving half as much as well with 0.5% per point of body armor. This would also help make the tradeoff between Juggernaut and Tactical movement more balanced.

I'm more concerned about damage and movement speed actually. GS has speed and high DPS, while SWAT is really low on both

• Whenever you take damage from an unique zed, increase move speed by 5%, up to 25%.

Also, when you take damage and lose health your speed is reduced. So this skill would contradict the current game mechanics

 

[Demon Swords]

I'm more concerned about damage and movement speed actually. GS has speed and high DPS, while SWAT is really low on both

Also, when you take damage and lose health your speed is reduced. So this skill would contradict the current game mechanics

Addressed these concerns in my new edits. (Changes + Rational below)

Exchanged Juggernaut from mag size to damage, to keep the use of maintaining body armor while also giving swat more damage potential in a way not too strong. Returned mag size increase in full to base kit. (Perk weapon damage is less awkward for juggernaut as damage increase is a background effect but still meaningful, while mag size would be immediately noticeable by having less bullets to fire.

Reworked second tier 4 skill to prevent the up to 15% slow based on missing health instead of stacking speed boost based on number of unique zeds that damaged you. Changed the healing to a 1 health regen for 4 seconds after taking zed damage (except dot.)

Changed tactical movement's 5% move speed to 10% sprint speed. Did this to make the skill more about strategic repositioning/ reloading instead of a simple small speed boost. (wanted to always have this change, but I thought 35% sprinting speed from Tactical movement + 5 stacks of second tier 4 skill was a bit much.)

(May need some sort of nerf to balance the many buffs to swat rework I have done since the start of v2.)

(I am not going to be able to check the forums again until the 29th so don't expect any more comments by me until then.)