Are most passive perks useless?

[Jarcionek]

I am really struggling to pick up 3 passive perks, most of them seem useless. Which perks do you use and why?

1. Born Ready
   
   • "Unequipped weapons automatically reload after 15 / 10 / 5 seconds."
     
   • Kind of ok (unless you are a scout with the shotgun auto-reload upgrade).
2. Deep Pockets
   
   • "Each of your mineral pouches hold +5 / 10 / 15 more valuables!"
     
   • Saves a trip to the Mule? Pretty useless.
3. Elemental Insulation
   
   • "Get 20 / 25 / 30 % resistance to all elemental damage."
     
   • Protects only against AoE effects like irradiated crystals or clouds of poison that enemies leave? You can avoid them by walking away. Pretty useless.
4. Friendly
   
   • "you both take and deal 50% less damage from friendly fire!"
     
   • For people who can't aim? Otherwise useless.
5. It's a Bug Thing
   
   • "Loot Bugs explode whenever you get within 2 / 5m of them…!"
     
   • If you are that close to a Loot Bug, you can as well strike it with a pickaxe power attack. Useless.
6. Resupplier
   
   • "Stock up on Ammo and Health 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 % faster at the Resupply Pod. Regain an extra 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 % health when you resupply! After resupplying, all weapons instantly reload!"
     
   • How often am I going to resupply in a mission? 2-3 times? And the instant reload? I would rather pick Born Ready.
7. Second Wind
   
   • "Get a 8 / 8 / 12 / 12 % sprint speed boost. Effect activates after running for 5 / 4.5 / 4.5 / 4 seconds."
     
   • For running away from the ghost in the Haunted Cave? Otherwise, I rarely sprint for that long.
8. Strong Arm
   
   • "You throw flares with 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 % more force than the average Dwarf! Woosh! Gems and other heavy objects get a 10 / 10 / 20 / 20 % bonus throwing force."
     
   • Solo there is Bosco with the light upgrade, in a team Scout with flares I see as mandatory. Throwing range bonus is negligible. Pretty useless.
9. Sweet Tooth
   
   • "Getting a taste for that stuff! Get 10 / 20 / 30 % more healing from consuming Red Sugar! [Tier 3 only: 20 % movement speed bonus for 10 seconds after consuming Red Sugar!]"
     
   • How often do you need to heal yourself and how many Red Sugar crystals are there per map? Pretty useless.
10. Thorns
    
    • "Any time an enemy hits you with a melee attack it will itself take 6 / 12 / 18 / 24 damage."
      
    • Amazing, the only perk that I see as must-be for any character.
11. Unstoppable
    
    • "Nothing holds you back! Environmental slow-down effects are reduced by 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 %! You move 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 % faster while carrying heavy objects!"
      
    • In majority of the missions you can just call Mule rather than carrying objects. Slow-down effects are not that common. Pretty useless.
12. Vampire
    
    • "Good thing you work underground! Regain 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 health when you kill a medium sized or larger creature with a melee attack!"
      
    • If I am in melee range, I would rather get out or kill enemies as fast as possible, rather than swinging pickaxe. Doesn't work with Thorns. Pretty useless.
13. Veteran Depositor
    
    • "Expert bucked handling! You now deposit valuables into the MULE and Drop Pod 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 % faster! 20 / 20 / 20 / 30 % Damage Reduction within 7m of the MULE or other deposit points!"
      
    • Useful only for the 30% damage reduction.

So the choice is Thorns, Veteran Depositor and Born Ready. Most other perks will give a one-off bonus 2-3 times per mission.

[Derpykat5]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Jarcionek:

I am really struggling to pick up 3 passive perks, most of them seem useless. Which perks do you use and why?

• Born Ready
  
  • "Unequipped weapons automatically reload after 15 / 10 / 5 seconds."
    
  • Kind of ok (unless you are a scout with the shotgun auto-reload upgrade).

It is, especially on weapons with long reloads so you can switch to your primary and keep shooting while born ready reloads for you. Also good for preventing a last-ditch switch to your other weapon only to find out it also needs to reload.

Deep Pockets

• "Each of your mineral pouches hold +5 / 10 / 15 more valuables!"
  
• Saves a trip to the Mule? Pretty useless.

Saves several. +25% extra mineral storage. Means you can mine more and not be capped on nitra while still mining gold.

Elemental Insulation

• "Get 20 / 25 / 30 % resistance to all elemental damage."
  
• Protects only against AoE effects like irradiated crystals or clouds of poison that enemies leave? You can avoid them by walking away. Pretty useless.

Acidspitter Dot, all non-melee praetorian attacks, radiation fields, and frost bombers all count as elemental damage that is resisted. 30% is a lot of resist. Also makes it harder to freeze and burn.

Friendly

• "you both take and deal 50% less damage from friendly fire!"
  
• For people who can't aim? Otherwise useless.

It's for people who use AoE weapons. Less FF on your PGL explosions, C4 detonations, or just when you have inattentive teammates in general. Also makes it harder for teammates to kill you with friendly fire.

It's a Bug Thing

• "Loot Bugs explode whenever you get within 2 / 5m of them…!"
  
• If you are that close to a Loot Bug, you can as well strike it with a pickaxe power attack. Useless.

But power attacks have a 30 second cooldown. Why waste it on a lootbug when you can just instakill it without time, ammo, or even knowing it's there.

Resupplier

• "Stock up on Ammo and Health 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 % faster at the Resupply Pod. Regain an extra 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 % health when you resupply! After resupplying, all weapons instantly reload!"
  
• How often am I going to resupply in a mission? 2-3 times? And the instant reload? I would rather pick Born Ready.

I think you're underestimating how powerful getting the extra health back is. Also just minimizes the time you're standing there staring at a bar filling up. Also means you can resupply under pressure better.

Second Wind

• "Get a 8 / 8 / 12 / 12 % sprint speed boost. Effect activates after running for 5 / 4.5 / 4.5 / 4 seconds."
  
• For running away from the ghost in the Haunted Cave? Otherwise, I rarely sprint for that long.

If you don't sprint for that long then don't take the perk. Other people sprint a lot longer than that.

Strong Arm

• "You throw flares with 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 % more force than the average Dwarf! Woosh! Gems and other heavy objects get a 10 / 10 / 20 / 20 % bonus throwing force."
  
• Solo there is Bosco with the light upgrade, in a team Scout with flares I see as mandatory. Throwing range bonus is negligible. Pretty useless.

You're dramatically overestimating the entire community if you think scout flare uptime will approach anywhere close to 100%. Throwing range is not negligible and is in fact very useful.

Sweet Tooth

• "Getting a taste for that stuff! Get 10 / 20 / 30 % more healing from consuming Red Sugar! [Tier 3 only: 20 % movement speed bonus for 10 seconds after consuming Red Sugar!]"
  
• How often do you need to heal yourself and how many Red Sugar crystals are there per map? Pretty useless.

Wha... if you're not taking any damage then more power to you, but getting 30% more health back from the (dozens) of red sugar crystals in missions is not useless.

Unstoppable

• "Nothing holds you back! Environmental slow-down effects are reduced by 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 %! You move 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 % faster while carrying heavy objects!"
  
• In majority of the missions you can just call Mule rather than carrying objects. Slow-down effects are not that common. Pretty useless.

"slow down effects are not that common"
Glyphid slasher says hi. Also affects sandstorms, snowstorms, goo (bombers, sacs, and fungus floor)... In point extracts there is no mule and in salvage missions you can't deposit the legs in the mule.

Vampire

• "Good thing you work underground! Regain 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 health when you kill a medium sized or larger creature with a melee attack!"
  
• If I am in melee range, I would rather get out or kill enemies as fast as possible, rather than swinging pickaxe. Doesn't work with Thorns. Pretty useless.

I wouldn't call a free 5 health every time you get in power attack range of a grunt useless. Then again, your power attack is going to be on cooldown a lot since you use it on lootbugs.

Pairs well with berserker and driller in general.

Veteran Depositor

• "Expert bucked handling! You now deposit valuables into the MULE and Drop Pod 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 % faster! 20 / 20 / 20 / 30 % Damage Reduction within 7m of the MULE or other deposit points!"
  
• Useful only for the 30% damage reduction.

Reduces the time you spend staring at bars filling up.

So the choice is Thorns, Veteran Depositor and Born Ready. Most other perks will give a one-off bonus 2-3 times per mission.

I think you're misunderstanding what perks are supposed to be. They aren't meant to be a massive game-changer. They are small bonuses. If you value a 30% damage reduction while near a finicky AI more than you value getting 4% of your health back on every melee kill... more power to you. But that doesn't make the other perks "useless".

[Beytran70]

I use pockets, sweet tooth, and veteran depositor on all my dwarves. As someone who likes to mine literally everything the amount of time you save is not insignificant. Sweet tooth is just handy because it means one hit to a red sugar crystal will usually heal you to full, making it easier to recover on the go.

[jukesster]

I love: vampire, second wind, friendly, thorns, born ready, elemental insulation and the one which lets you self revive and escape from those pesky flying bugs and cave leeches.

[Optimus Prime]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Flariz:

Is Thorns really that good?

I inmmediately wrote it off as useless as soon as I read it.

I use Friendly, Vampire and Second Wind.

now friendly is useless

[Sutasu!]

Thorns, Veteran Depositor and Vampire are all you'll ever need. Useless is your general judgement lol

[Bookslayer10]

Thorns is pretty good if you hate being constantly interrupted from doing something by swarmers trickling in to nibble at your feet. Especially on haz 5 they are so fast you can't run away from them without taking multiple hits, so they need to be dealt with by pickaxing them. It's pretty bad against anything stronger than that though.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Not reading all of everything, but most people don't know that Unstoppable makes it so you're never slowed down by snow in Glacial Strata. A-tier there.

Veteran Depositer is legitimately useful. Finding some place to hole up during a swarm or defending a point, park Molly somewhere out of the way and you'll be 30% resistant to all damage during the encounter. Unless you're some kind of bored god that's never going to go down, this perk is going to be useful.

[Ackranome]

Sweet Tooth + Thorns for everyone.

[Skeleton Minion]

most to me seem irrelevant SP where I just run sweet tooth, thorns, and whatever map im playing on. if im going multiplayer it'll just be random stuff for the hell of it.

[Knuckle Sandwich]

lmao

[SeeingeyeDug]

I take resupplier on every character. Getting basically a full heal off every resupply is nice.

[Nightwolf]

all the passive perks are useful it just depends on your build. if they seem useless to you its due to your build not making use of any of them, which in turn makes your build potentially useless. vampire is pretty handy in a pinch espc combined with iron will. elemental is pretty handy on ice and magma worlds friendly is pretty handy when you take prox mines. i load them up for escort with my engie, help keep the team damage to a minimum in the chaos of things.

[Alucard †]

I lately started using Thorns on all chars due to those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Swarmers and their ability to literally bite you through terrain and platforms.

They are also ♥♥♥♥♥ to deal with during hectic battles because of their small size and big numbers.

Thorns + Shockwave solves this.. and saves ammo.

[Anachronomalous]

Even leaving aside the others, Born Ready lets you output high damage uptime for literally any perk. Almost as well as a Gunner doing W+M1 with the Minigun, in some cases.

[Weird Grim]

1: Born Ready is mostly for gunner and then maybe scout
2: Deep Pockets is more useful in higher hazards or when you are without a mule (lest time wasting the better)
3: Elemental Insulation, only good in the magma biome, this needs a buff
4: Friendly, wish drillers take this with their c4
5: It's a Bug Thing, its a meme
6: Resupplier is one of the best perks in the game, if you say this perk is bad your max hazard that you do is 3
7: Second Wind, this was busted when it had a 20% sprint speed bonus, but got nerfed
8: Strong Arm is a great perk when doing aqua or dozer missions but thats it
9: Sweet Tooth, again if you say this perk is bad your max hazard is 3
10: Thorns, great perk for scout and gunner
11: Unstoppable, with you on this one, this perk needs to be split up and added to Elemental Insulation and Strong Arm
12: Vampire, driller only perk that only uses the cryo cannon and axes
13: Veteran Deposito, gunner only perk, gunners auto cannon and coil gun gives you 50% damage reduction, so with this perk you can get 65% damage reduction

My personal fav are resupplier and thorns, the last one is more of what i'm going to do, go or use for my build.