Payday 3: The Transporter Skill Line Is Incredible
As of update 2, payday 3 finally has its first addition to the skill pool in the form of the new skill line transporter. This one has been highly anticipated since it was first dangled like a carrot back when the servers weren't doing so hot, but regardless, it contains a skill allowing players to do one of the most highly requested actions the franchise has ever seen: carry two bags at once.
As such, it's automatically a fairly impactful addition to the game, so let's take a look at how the entire skill line Stacks up the nodes you probably want to avoid how you can now build around a loot Carrying Place St and the mechanics you need to be aware of as we find out if transporter is worth your investment.
Transporter is a six-node skill line, making it roughly average compared to the lines that launch with the game. Its first self-title skill grants or refreshes a stack of Rush every time you pick up a bag or body, like Gunslinger, though this one comes with a downside, as when that bag or body is thrown, the rush will be lost.
Conceptually the skill makes a lot of sense as it's essentially designed as a method to speed you up by roughly 10% whenever you grab loot the whole theme of the tree, the fact that it activates Rush is an added bonus as this can then be used to enable skills like basing Ram in loud or social engineering and stealth seeing as this can be endlessly restacked by simply dropping and picking the bag up this is probably second only to gunslinger in terms of ease of activating Trifecta skills which is why the downside has undoubtedly been added, by deactivating the stack anytime you drop a bag it makes this tree less splashable into any build that wants sustained access to rush meaning you either have to put up with the bag on your back at all times or find another source of Rush within your build to compensate.
I think this is conceptually fine, but I do worry that it's going to encourage some pretty derivative and degenerate strategies where people play around with transporters, specifically by hogging loot and repeatedly throwing and catching it instead of, you know, trying to complete the objectives with it.
This is fine on an isolated surface where you can just use non-loot bags like the spectr photometer, but I hate the idea of people expressly subverting the objective to make their personal Bild work; it's not exactly ideal for a co-op experience. This may be even worse when we account for the ace version that has the exact same effect just for stacks of grit instead, unlike Rush grit, which is fairly tough to come by, so having such an easy replenishable source might be really tempting for you given its conditional I'd rather stick with enforcer on most of my builds as I hate the idea of having to micromanage a stat that's more pivotal to me than Rush, which I just view as a nice bonus, but I can see players flocking to transport erased as the new easiest way to activate grit now to make use of playup, probably the best skill in the game seeing as it's been fixed and armor up has been nerfed.
Conceptually, these skills make a lot of sense for an objective-minded play style. Grab the loot, move faster, and take less damage. It sounds perfectly supportive. I just don't anticipate that's how most of the community is going to leverage it, but I've been wrong before. In the second node, we have Beast of Burden, which allows you to circumvent the movement speed penalties of carrying bodies and looting so long as you have Rush, which you will of course always have when initially carrying thanks to the base transporter.
I don't find those penalties to be that extreme when carrying single bags regularly, but this skill is extra useful for quickly moving bodies in stealth and also synergizes with powerlifting. This line's key skill I'll be discussing in just a moment, continuing from left to right. brutal carry is next which enables you to immediately intimidate cives and employees to the ground if they witness you carrying a body this is predominantly a stealth skill although I can see some application for manipulator builds who want to quickly control highly populated areas such as on no rest for the wicked or golden shark, to be frank it's not of that you want to intimidate multiple CES at once but there are a few specific instances where this could be very useful in stealth such as in no rest for the wicked where brutal carry is excellent for controlling the office room to me though whilst this still ticks some big boxes from a wolf roleplaying perspective, it's a little too situational to recommend for most builds Generally.
I'd say this one is a skip, especially as it requires git to activate, which is sort of forcing you to be an out transporter, pushing it to a two-skill point cost for not all that much. Next up, we have deep pockets, probably the largest outlier skill in this line. Simply put, it grants you an additional deployable bag at the start of the heist, but each bag you drop carries two fewer charges.
This means that it won't work with sentry guns, unfortunately, but probably for good reason, and that you can now bring a maximum of eight equipment charges on a heist instead of six. It also means you can spread out your resource usage, making it less likely to be dissolved by cloakers and preventing as much backtracking.
Doing so costs an investment of four skill points, but from a pure team-play perspective, it's probably worth it and seems likely to become a component of the new meta build. Another skill that might be edging its way into the meta is power lifting. This is the skill enabling you to carry two bags at once at the cost of a fair movement penalty, except keep in mind that with the Beast of Burden and Rush Decks, those bags should be just as weightless, meaning you can freely carry two bags at the same time at maximum speed.
This skill isn't essential; let me make that clear: it shouldn't get in the way of your core build concept or come at the cost of survivability. Better slower and out of custody than fast and dead, but if you can make room for it, it's about as top-tier a utility skill as you can find in the game at the moment.
Bearing in mind that every single heist barring maybe touching the sky is extremely lootbag heavy, what I would say though is that for a solo-only player, it becomes even higher value. Harving the number of runbacks you need to do in loud or stealth is a massive deal and will be making its way directly into every one of my challenge run builds, I suspect.
The final skill in this tree, catapult, simply allows you to Pro bags 30% further and exists as a pure utility Flex option, taking up a similar slot to other Mastery node skills such as Swift Sprint loaded and speed aim. It certainly has its application on particularly heavy bags but isn't specifically necessary on any build, coupled with movement techniques like momentum and vaulting throws.
