What's the Point of Other Active Perks?

[Dr. Redbeard]

Maybe it's just me, but it feels like all the other active perks are just completely overshadowed by Iron Will and Field Medic. Iron Will is just basically required, and Field Medic just goes really well with Iron Will and can save a run.

I can see some utilities in other perks (Dash being the main one, since going fast is always nice for getting out of sticky situations), but they just feel kinda useless when compared to IW and FM.

Is there something I'm missing? Am I just using the other perks wrong or something?

[sam]

I prefer Dash to Field Medic, but other than that most of the perks are either a little underpowered or a bit too specific for general use.

GSG is too afraid to buff beast master

[The Watcher]

Originally posted by sam:

I prefer Dash to Field Medic, but other than that most of the perks are either a little underpowered or a bit too specific for general use.

GSG is too afraid to buff beast master

give steeve a gun cowards

[Frisky]

personally I have not run IW or FM in ages and have not experienced any real change in how often missions succeed

Dash and Hoverboots my beloved

Originally posted by Dr. Redbeard:

Iron Will is just basically required

it is not required

Originally posted by Dr. Redbeard:

and Field Medic just goes really well with Iron Will and can save a run.

other perks like Dash can prevent a down in the first place, minimizing IW usefulness past a certain skill level

even though thats not the case with every perk, I'd much rather run perks that I get value from the majority of mission (if not every mission) vs running IW for the chance to save a run if it even gets that bad to begin with

[cruste]

iw is overrated, had too many incidents where multiple people used it at the same time so it was wasted or the situation is that crazy that your tiny revive wont fix anything

[Clockwork]

A while ago, some guy on the forum would say: stop planning for failure (stop taking Iron Will as a clutch just in case).

I'll have to admit that it's been a game saver at least half a dozen of times (especially when combined with Vampire). But ever since I replaced it with Dash, I've been surviving a lot better. Especially as Engi, because unlike every other classes, he doesn't have as much survivability when swarmed on all sides during Haz5+ games.
If I could, I would just bring 3 active perks and keep Iron Will, but that's not an option, so I abandoned it as the least important of the good ones for my use case.

Otherwise:

- Beast Master can be fun to use, because Steeve is killing every enemy that is surrounding your corpse, making it easier to revive you.

- Berzerker is like a free pickaxe booster from when you have Ebonite Glyphid. I loved pairing it with Iron Will and Vampire to regain a huge amount of health from killing surrounding enemies (or to go Rambo with pickaxe power attack).

- Heightened Senses allowed a Scout I was playing with to free himself when he got grabbed by a Cave Leech. I'm glad he had it, because I was in no position to save him at that moment. Several people are also using it against Pit Jaws too.

- Hover Boots can save you from splattering yourself. Especially when you get dragged to the ceiling by a Stingtail. I've never used it because I really need my current perks, but I've seen several smart use for it.

- See You In Hell will absolutely guarantee that your team mate is safe to be revived. Usually, they would use it the moment you're close and ready to revive them. Otherwise, I've seen a buddy use it to revenge kill a Dreadnought too.

[Derpykat5]

Beast Master takes aggro off you and gives you free DPS. Berserker lets you melee your way through a large crowd once every few minutes. Heightened Senses gives you grabber/trawler insurance and protects against leeches. Hover Boots lets you descend quickly and block fall damage (it also adds extremely minor CC that's useful in niche cases). See You In Hell is a free ticket to reviving you and can do a lot of damage if the enemies are grouped up right. Dash gives you a free reposition and escape from enemies.

Field Medic is pure quality of life unless your teammates go down a lot in high-stress situations. Iron Will might sometimes give you a chance to maybe save the mission once, but is completely useless in every other scenario.

[Blargo]

Originally posted by Clockwork:

A while ago, some guy on the forum would say: stop planning for failure

Basically this - for any game with a similar kind of perk system as well. I'm just not a fan of perks where you have to be failing for them to be useful.

Preventing failure from happening in the first place > fixing failure after it has already happened.

[PizzaMan™]

I only use heightened senses and hover boots. I dont get grabbed, and I can jump down from anywhere to res someone.

[Woudo]

How do you play something like Engi or Driller and not take Dash? If a slasher snips your achilles, you're just donezo.

[PizzaMan™]

Originally posted by Woudo:

How do you play something like Engi or Driller and not take Dash? If a slasher snips your achilles, you're just donezo.

You have 485 hours in the game. I struggle with this question.

[Frisky]

IK lots of people want a perk rework (I kind of do as well) I feel like you could easily make the rest of the perks more appealing by just giving them actual hotkeys which GSG refuses over and over again to do with no real good reason if I'm being honest

like I love hoverboots but if I didn't have a mod to give it an actual unique hotkey and was stuck with the awful "hold call mule button" activation I wouldn't give hoverboots a second thought either

I absolutely hate iron will I've made that clear but I can't blame the majority of players for gravitating towards it when other perks require you to just through awkward or inconvenient hoops just to activate them

[PizzaMan™]

Originally posted by Frisky:

like I love hoverboots but if I didn't have a mod to give it an actual unique hotkey and was stuck with the awful "hold call mule button" activation I wouldn't give hoverboots a second thought either

If you have a thumb button, put it there. Much easier to control so you dont have to apologize for calling Molly all the time. I still ♥♥♥♥ it up, but rarely.

[DESTOYER of WORLSD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Originally posted by PizzaMan™:

Originally posted by Woudo:

How do you play something like Engi or Driller and not take Dash? If a slasher snips your achilles, you're just donezo.

You have 485 hours in the game. I struggle with this question.

I'm not sure what you mean, but Woudo's point is that Dash is really, really useful. If you get slowed by an attack or otherwise need to get away from attackers in a hurry, you can activate it to get away when that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

It has other uses, too, like jumping large gaps or running past enemies to get somewhere without risking being put into one of the aforementioned situations in the first place.

I use it on every loadout on every class besides Scout.

[PizzaMan™]

Originally posted by DESTOYER of WORLSD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

I'm not sure what you mean

I just dont see the use of it, I think I am mobile enough without it. My full list is this:

Thorns
Elemental insulation
Unstoppable
Heightened senses
Hover boots

I have tried the others, and I have concluded that these are the ones that I think are useful. Does not matter which class, I play all classes. But of course, it depends on your play style.

[JT Bombast]

All my multiplayer setups run Iron Will + Field Medic. All of my solo builds (including Scout) run Dash + Heightened Senses. I've played around with Berserker, but I don't have the game-state awareness necessary to use it effectively. It is -really- effective on Driller, though. I should practice more with it.

For the most part I think IW+FM is the safest option, but if one is comfortable without that safety net the others are usable. I don't think that's really a bad thing.

The one I think needs the nerf bat is Born Ready. If I could only run one perk on any class for any mission that would be it every single time (OK, not cryo + EPC Driller, but that's my only loadout that doesn't have to reload -something-). Maybe 2x reload speed when swapping back to that weapon or something, but insta-reload for free is -broken-.