Would agree with MBD. The op forgot to mention the terrible blocks : Hellrunner, Eagle Eye, Brute.
In other words : you empty your magazine faster...but miss your targets a lot, and if you happen to get short of ammo, you are not even unable to zerk in, nor to run efficiently for your life.
Survivalist? Well... it sucks, you're right. But I actually used it to get my AoHu UV win.
I was astounded with the ammount of damages I could sustain. It was really impressive, and ridiculous.
In fact, in this game, I did something I never did before : I tanked out the whole mortuary. (Letting myself hit so that viles burn the corpses and so on... I was somehow playing "entrenchment-style", but with a 18 or 20 HP marine...).
Somehow close to the way a melee build character would have played... but with MSV replacing the berserk trait.
The reason I chose this crappy skill for that challenge was that my previous scout all died to boredom and/or lack of attention, which kills you very quickly when you visit hell.
I only remember two of them, but one died of a plasma burst while waiting, and the other... ahem, mistakenly walked over lava with his nice phaseshift suit and [A] modded tac boots.
My stupid survivalist probably made a few similar mistakes, but didn't care much about it, and just made it !
So, I'd say its a shitty skill, but I wouldn't rate it useless
Entrenchment and Shottyhead are quite terrible too but I doubt they are as bad as MBD.
MEn's problem is probably more the prerequisites and blocks than the skill itself). I have to admit I only used this trait once or twice... so I could say I did.
TH is, from my POV, a negative pick; but only one level is required.
I don't see much interest in picking Bad(ass), but it's not a useless skill.
If I'm right, the Fin(esse) block isn't that dramatic either, since you have a direct access to WK, which lets you craft decent toys.
The Rel(oader) block is probably the worse problem, since crafting a nanomachic weapon is a good solution, but can be quite hard to reach, and rapid fire weapons reload time are too high.
Of course, another drawback of this skill is that it does work ONLY if you're using chainfire.
Usually, I sometimes use chainfire to kill big enemies faster, but more often, I just use the 1st step, to save some ammo.
Shottyhead... well, the concept is funny, but blocking SOB on shotguns makes them pretty useless imo.
Unless you craft an elephant gun, you can't rely enough on knockback. Also, you'll waste your shells too fast. And what for, dodge ? Cornershooting is (alas), way more efficient. Btw, elephant gun is BAD at cornershooting, which means you have to choose a drawback, while you wouldn't without this trait and his blocks.
With a regular shotgun and SOB2, you are roughly unreacheable if hidden behind a simple corner, so why block this perfection with a useless master trait ?
Of course, later, you can "replace" SOB with P-mods, but you're always OP in mid/late game anyway. Getting powerful enough at level 2 is better than at level 10. And stacking P-mods AND SoB remains better than choosing only one :)
At last, I would say Scavenger.
I love its concept, but IIRC, un-crafting assemblies just gives you one mod back, which is completely useless.
Disassembling trigun or BFG10K is a blasphemy, of course, but is probably the only real potential use of this trait in a normal game.
Aside from that, its cool... for people which started a new savefile and need to quickly uncover most assemblies so that their Hell's Armory doesn't get screwed with stupid schematics.
The great thing with this trait is that the prerequisites are actually useful, and it doesn't block useful traits outside of Berserker. (You can even get Brute if necessary !) This, is pretty cool, really.
For the rest...I doubt Gun Kata is very useful either (MSs is probably a zillion times more powerful), but I doubt it's a bad skill. It can probably be played the way it was designed to be, and might be good if MSs wasn't better.
All the other seem to have a use. I hate gunrunner, but it seems usable in a way. MFA is quite weird too, but has a really freaking potential, and most other skills are probably actually good.
