A Havoc 40 Veteran’s Statement on the Game play present situation

[Index]

@Tarquelne

how often Havoc is described more or less like a chore.

it’s an utter crap kind of a chore in order to get that 40 behind your tag as to prove “you know your “ and belong to the “git gud”

even more so doing it with randoms when they’re questionable at best and the odd exception once every blue moon.

and then there’s the premade ticket where you wonder how many 40s die to the most hilarious stuff in auric maelstrom once the others don’t look out for them 24/7 or care what they’re trying to pull off.

so once you belong to that illustrious circle again for the next 3 months and can flash your badge in an argument about who has the longest , havoc served its “purpose” in my book and one can play the game relaxed again on his own terms

[weeping.moon]

@harlekein

Everything in Havoc brings out the toxicity in gamers

I would say everything in DT. It starts from the regular mode. You can’t see your teammates before the pre-mission screen. And when people set ready it’s only 1 minute timer. Noone is gonna disscuss team composition. You can’t switch classes. It’s only a few times i heard “can you take weapon X pls”.

So like if it’s such right from the start, then i’m not surprised we have deranking in Havoc.

And like V2, DT is more like 4 solo players in team, it’s not a hardcore coop, sure being saved from the dog and net is nice. But that’s kinda it.

This current Havoc proposed a bit more cooperation, but cause it’s a slog, and you need someone in pair for control/damage spike.

[Durandal94]

@weeping.moon

Noone is gonna disscuss team composition. You can’t switch classes. It’s only a few times i heard “can you take weapon X pls”.

Thank the emprah this kind of snivelling is quarantined to havoc!

[harlekein]

@weeping.moon

Noone is gonna disscuss team composition. You can’t switch classes. It’s only a few times i heard “can you take weapon X pls”.

Fortunately that’s not needed either.

[KarlVonValancius]

First of all, I’m genuinely sorry to hear about your illness — it shows you’re a true Darktide enthusiast The fact that you managed to clear a Havoc 40 run speaks volumes about your skill and determination. I sincerely wish you a full and successful recovery.

Now, looking at your run purely from a gameplay perspective — the mutations for that mission were “Exploding Heads” and “Purple Heads”, which is a relatively light combination. It’s nowhere near as brutal as “Stimm Addicts” or “Corrupted Armor”, but that’s fine — Havoc 40 is Havoc 40, after all. Let’s break it down further.

Your teammate setup was one Shield Ogryn, one Bubble Psyker, and one Zealot, which is a pretty standard comp. Naturally, your role fills the Veteran’s ecological niche — clearing elites and providing smoke cover. From the opening bridge section, you can already tell the run was under a melee-biased spawn modifier, meaning you wouldn’t see too many Gunners (though at 12:15 you still got a bit of that “Laser Shampoo” moment — nicely handled with cover, by the way).

The Boss pool being Plague Ogryns and Chaos Spawn also worked in your favor — much more manageable than facing a Beast of Nurgle, which is far more punishing in the current Maelstrom. In this setup, your Ogryn melee elite-clearing efficiency actually surpasses that of a Veteran. The number of Bombers was low, and Poxwalker swarms were efficiently shredded by the combined power of your dual Ogryns and the Psyker’s abilities. The few ranged threats that did appear were neatly handled by your charges, grenade launcher, and your Psyker’s assistance.

Also, your teammates were clearly around level 400+, which ensures a solid baseline of performance. So, to put it simply — you were fortunate to land in a run that was practically tailor-made for your build and playstyle, allowing you to perform at peak efficiency.

That said, clearing Havoc 40 always requires all four players to reach a certain skill and coordination threshold, so your success there absolutely speaks to your competence — at least within the conditions of that mission. If you ever have the time and energy, I’d encourage you to try other mutation combinations too — the challenge and dynamics change drastically, and it’s a great way to push your limits further.

Thank you for sharing. May the Emperor’s Light guide your recovery.

[KarlVonValancius]

First off, regarding the whole “why can’t we use other skills or weapons in Havoc 40,” I’ve already explained this pretty clearly before — it’s purely an efficiency issue. Everything else simply underperforms too much. Battle Cry (the Veteran’s shout) is the only viable skill at that level.

And about your point — that “playing with randoms is fun and challenging” — I get what you mean, but the situation here on the Hong Kong servers is quite different. There’s a massive population of what we call “Atom players.” These are players who never join communities or premade groups — they just play entirely solo, matching randomly through the public hub.

However, these Atom players are also extremely focused on maximum efficiency. They constantly browse the Maelstrom forums, Discords, or bilibili videos to find the most optimized builds (BDs) and strategies. At least 60% of the HK player base falls into this category. And to be honest, before joining my own community, I was one of them — an Atom player who climbed from level 1 to Havoc 40 entirely through public lobbies.

Now, in the eyes of these players, using low-efficiency weapons or off-meta builds “for the challenge” is simply irrational. They’ll ask you directly — “Why bring your experimental suffering into our run when you could just play optimally?” They don’t owe you their time to test your nonstandard builds, especially when so many inexperienced players have already dragged down runs by insisting on “creative” or “fun” setups.

After hundreds of failed games with such people, most Atom players can spot an experimental build at a glance, and for them, it’s not worth the time cost to figure out whether you’re actually competent or just another liability. So instead, they’ll simply ask you to leave and play with your own group — with people who actually agree to test and adapt with you.

In my community, though, we do have a number of experimental players, but their philosophy is completely different — they test builds responsibly. Their goal is to explore new combinations that remain efficient while introducing variety and fun, not to recklessly throw away team performance for personal curiosity.

Examples? Like Psykers who refuse to bring Bubble Shields, or Ogryns trying to play Heavy Stubber mains in Havoc 40 — that’s not creativity, that’s selfishness, because it forces the rest of the squad to carry your burden and absorb the pressure that should’ve been yours.

Unless you can find a group of friends willing to play that way, it’s unfair to expect randoms to tolerate or support those choices. In a Maelstrom this brutal, efficiency isn’t arrogance — it’s survival.

[Index]

@KarlVonValancius

sincerely wish you a full and successful recovery.

my thanks, hardest stretch though condensed to 3-4 weeks I’ll tackle next week, 10x the dose of previous IV’s, guess the first days I gonna be lucky if I make it to the in time

once that’s over its back into darktide again and getting to where I was asap

after all the game is my current benchmark of “me still being me” despite getting some weird stuff injected

so yeah, this “I did it my way” is part of my pledge to not give one inch

@KarlVonValancius

you were fortunate to land in a run that was practically tailor-made for your build and playstyle

and since I have to watch from afar for the next 4 weeks getting demoted now that I partook in havoc, I’ll take the gifted horse that was havoc 40 hole-in-one and call it quits for the time be.

speaking of time, I made sure my channel is filled with content until late december should something go wrong or take longer with treatment, so building said content with havoc 40 and randoms under said conditions just isn’t feasible.

some fun clutches there nonetheless and this time my own

again my thanks, been fighting for 10 months now, won’t gonna fall to chaos now

[ramrod_ikarus]

That’s why this could generally be removed from the game. And give it vet as a skill.

[Antilus]

CN server’s meta is insane to me, 2 vets means they double down on gambling rng

those 2 vets alegedly running with 98 hp each become worthless the moment rng decide to make something go wrong

if they would value their time more they should go with either x2 Arbites, Ogryn and Psyker, or Vet [just me (with frag grenades)], Arbites, Ogryn and Psyker

everything he said about zealot is true, but shroud zealot with duelling sword can still 1 tap purple captains so i wouldn’t say he doesn’t have a role

he must be a named character though, i wouldn’t accept a random zealot in my team

[KarlVonValancius]

I’ve mentioned before that on the CN servers, the most universally recognized top-tier comp for Havoc runs is two Veterans — they’re unmatched when it comes to shredding Corrupted Armor, dealing with heavily armored elites, and burning down bosses. Veterans can also efficiently clean up high-threat elites like Bombers and Gassers, enemies that can easily wipe a squad if left unchecked.

The double Psyker setup is also accepted, usually one focusing on Chain Lightning for crowd control while the other provides Soulfire and Bubble Shield support — that combo creates excellent DPS windows. Still, it’s not nearly as favored as the dual Veteran setup in Havoc 40.

As for two Ogryns, honestly, I’ve never actually run into that before — it sounds like an interesting combination. I might try it out in my Havoc community just to see how it performs.

But I have to say this clearly — frag grenades are utterly useless in high-tier Havoc. The only acceptable options are Smoke Grenades and Krak Grenades. Frag grenades simply don’t scale into endgame content.

Against armored elites or bosses, they do almost nothing compared to Kraks. Against poxwalker swarms, you’d be better off just pulling out your Power Sword and cutting through them. And for Gunners or Specialists? Your Plasma Gun or Bolter will handle them far more effectively.

The only situation where I can imagine a frag grenade being remotely useful is when your Battle Cry is on cooldown, your teammates can’t reach you, and you’re completely surrounded — at that point, throwing a frag at your own feet might buy you a second of breathing room before you go down.

Other than that, they’re dead weight — in the current Havoc environment, Smoke and Krak are the only tools that actually matter.

[Antilus]

@KarlVonValancius

The only situation where I can imagine a frag grenade being remotely useful is when your Battle Cry is on cooldown

@KarlVonValancius

Against armored elites or bosses, they do almost nothing compared to Kraks. Against poxwalker swarms, you’d be better off just pulling out your Power Sword

Frag’s Bleed into Uncanny Strike still works, and it synergize well with your psyker’s inferno staff, you’d be doing double the damage than if you spam kraks

and on top of that you’d be getting that extra crowd control that keep you alive

with my build i ate that ‘‘Battle Cry’’ nerf for brekfast, while you:

@KarlVonValancius

I play only Havoc 40, and after recent balance changes based on casual feedback — especially the nerf to the Veteran’s Shout and its Gold Toughness — I’ve been dying again and again in situations that used to be barely survivable.

see i don’t have this issue on my vet, with duelling sword, frag grenades and bolter your chanche to die to bad rng is greately reduced and you do more damage in the end even without skirmisher or agile engagement

Also Arbites in EU bring their shock mines to deal with armored hordes, making your kraks extra useless

[KarlVonValancius]

If we’re talking purely in terms of raw damage numbers, then yes — frag grenades technically deal enough damage. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s the activation delay and lack of immediate impact. By the time the frags go off, your team’s already been overrun.

Krak grenades, on the other hand, can instantly delete multiple armored elites, taking huge pressure off the squad. They do what needs to be done — fast.

Now, you mentioned that on the EU servers, Enforcers are using shock mines to handle Corrupted Armor, while frag grenades are being used to deal with clusters of armored elites and even bosses. That brings me to a serious question:

If you’re not carrying Smoke Grenades, how do you manage ranged suppression? Because without smoke cover, a Psyker’s Bubble Shield won’t last more than seven seconds under sustained fire — especially when Reapers and Gunners start their barrage.

So what’s your plan when that happens? Once the shield collapses, you’ll be turned into Imperial paste in seconds. I’m genuinely curious how you handle that in your Havoc runs — because in the Hong Kong servers, no smoke means instant wipe once the “bullet rain” begins.

[Antilus]

we call them ‘‘wall of gunners’’, we just deal with them, i personally just full auto them with bolter and they stop shooting for a bit, Ogryn does the same with rumbler, and some good psykers can even suppress them buy going up close with their infernus staves

my runs usually ends when the team get bamboozled between bosses and specials, or team mates just having bad chemistry with each other in regards on falling back and pushing foward, i don’t see wall of gunners as a threat, at least since havoc 1.0

@KarlVonValancius

while frag grenades are being used to deal with clusters of armored elites and even bosses.

no that’s just me doing that, everyone else here is running kraks

going back to gunners they are no threat to this community, you can find plenty of threads with people complaining about the players being invulnerable to gun fire

like this one: How to stop players from spam sliding

also worth mentioning, i don’t use bolter against bosses anymore on this patch, so i can save all my ammo for gunners

before i used bolter on bosses just to apply bleed, but now with serrated blade i’ve stop doing that and just stab them with duelling sword, saving a lot of resources

Vet’s duelling sword does more dps to bosses than bolter, at least on my build

[Antilus]

i don’t usually post incomplete runs but this stuck to me

Krak and Plasma

Build
progression very slow, we get overrun anyways despite tossing kraks and duplicate them too with the 20%

Frags and Bolter

Build
same team, same map, same everything
progression much faster, we got near to the end in 30 minutes, we can already smell the clear in our bags, but the psyker dies and we didn’t manage to clutch it

but here is the thing, when the psyker dies you’d rather have kraks or frags with you?, even in my last moments i never for an instant thought i’d rather have had kraks over my frags, or god forbid plasmagun over my bolter

kraks takes 3 perks to be effective and you end up with a worse tool

[KarlVonValancius]

You guys aren’t running Field Supply in either of your builds to replenish grenades and purge corruption?

Also, the Plasma Gun’s role is pretty clear — it’s designed to delete elites, which is why it pairs best with the Mark Target ability.

The loadout I posted is for the Second-slot Veteran, whose main job is to melt bosses and armored elites. I didn’t take Field Supply because the First-slot Veteran in the squad already has it covered — plus, most of my time in that build is spent fighting up close, right in the thick of the Havoc.

[Antilus]

its this second vet? fine, but how do you guys not find more valuable an arbites or even a zealot with flamer and shock nades is beyond me

Smoothest run ever

Build

a better psyker, dogless arbites with shock mines, book zealot with duelling sword and flamer

easiest run in my life, we didn’t even had an ogryn

we just melted everything in bleed/soulblaze/fire dot stacks and never broke a sweat

it would have even been better with rotten armour

[JanZamoysky]

@KarlVonValancius

That’s why Havoc veterans don’t chase “fun” loadouts — we chase survival through efficiency.

You got a like from my for highlighting some problems which turn this game from enjoyable to “ride meta or die” simulator. I get why some of you chase Win ratios, some people just care about stats, BUT I want “fun” loadouts and playstyle variety in my high difficulty games. Playstyle variety means more content being actually accessible in the game. In our little circle we tend to push H40 every season with safer builds, and then play with what we want, and I would say it got harder over time. Some havoc modifiers and their combos are just pure tedium. Old problems also remain unaddressed. I mean who doesn’t love elite gunner galleries.

I have a massive problem with the current state of affairs where power creep, golden toughness nonsense, broken unlimited cleave weapons, and few other overpowered weapon picks pushed the game difficulty into equally unhinged direction. Some Havoc difficulty modifiers need a nerf, together with well known player power outliers.

Atm the game plays like a cheap RPG, than a Tide game.

[weeping.moon]

If only there was a way to host your own lobby, with modifiers and conditions you want, and put tags like “no offmeta sry” and “any build welcome”, “noobs welcome”. Yeah.

[JanZamoysky]

[jerrooo]

This post won’t add anything new to the discussion. I’m just sharing my own story.

I’m a North American player. I play this game for the challenge. I take joy in mastering all sorts of different weapons, overcoming their weaknesses and learning how to win with them.

This is a story of my experience with one particular Asian server player.

A few weeks ago, I played with someone on my friends list who I understood as being a Chinese meta player who usually plays with people on Asia servers. I have nothing against him, he’s nice guy and clearly good at the game. It was me, him, another mutual Darktide acquaintance (North American) and one of their friends.

I brought a “fun” veteran build (weapon specialist, infinite-cleave bleed double-barrel build with shout+kraks) that a friend showed me. If you’ve ever played the build and practiced it a bit, you’d know that this is actually quite a good Havoc 40 build, even in Rotten armor.

The game started, and immediately two of them died, including the Chinese player friend, then the third person died a bit later. Maybe it was cross-server latency or something, who knows. I was the last one alive, and I almost clutched it and ended up with 3x as many kills and damage. I got “skill issue”-d at the end due to a mistake near the revives.

After the game was over, I was politely asked to play something more meta. They were helping their friend climb to 40, they explained to me. Fair enough. I get it. I switched to bubble + trauma psyker, we won… but I found it extremely boring to play. I almost fell asleep even though it was Havoc 40.

So, I excused myself and left the party, after the 1 victory.

It turns out that the Asian player was streaming, so I checked out the VOD to see how everyone died. What I ended up witnessing was the 3 friends blaming me in their Discord Voice chat for not bringing ranged damage and fulfilling the “role” of ranged vet. While they were dead and spectating me.

They also nitpicked aspects of my build, which, quite honestly, showed that they simply didn’t understand how the build works. Which was very, very sad to see, because they wouldn’t realize how wrong some of their claims were if they had tried using other weapons.

What the Asian players are saying in this forum thread explains so much, regarding their definition of what “viable” means and their opinions on balance. In my story, my teammates blamed me because they were very used to playing a certain way, and I wasn’t meeting their expectation. They weren’t blaming me for not being skilled. They just like playing their 1 style of gameplay over and over — because it’s the most consistent way of winning — and I was ruining that for them.

But here’s the thing: That way of playing is simply not for me. And I think a lot of people would agree.

I absolutely HATE playing with people who hyper-fixate around “specialization”, especially in a game like Darktide where 99% of my fun is in being self-sufficient and overcoming impossible odds. The idea that the veteran needs to be the “ranged enemy deleter”, psyker needs to be horde clear and bubble spammer, zealot needs to provide gold toughness, etc. I think that’s boring and lacking imagination. Maybe this is just me being North American, but: needing other people to perform at their peak as a precondition for you to do well (and win!) is a “loser” mentality. No offense.

Personally, I only need teammates who are: (1) not obnoxious to be around, and (2) are trying their best within their means. Meta-chasing at the build level is not what I’m looking for in a video game. I’m actually happy when I don’t play with 3 super pro players, because it means I get to practice more… even if I end up losing.

I just avoid playing with that friend group now. I’m sure they’re also happy to not play with me.

I actually think some of them are taking a break because they are bored with the game which I find very ironic. It’s quite sad because I think they’re nice guys, but ultimately I think we just have unresolvable differences about how to have fun.