A way to improve chain weapons a bit

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
22

I mean think about it this way

If we nerfed uncanny strikes for combat blade, going for 100% to a 40%, only the ones at the “tiny percentage” as you claim would notice it heavily, since your average player is not constantly hitting weakspots with heavies/push attacks right?

It’d be a nerf that just impacts that tiny percentage

I don’t think people have issues with stuff being better than other stuff, the issue is when the difference between the worst (hell, even average) and the best is HUGE

The closest the worst and best stuff are, the more accepted the difference will be

23

The Eviscirator can do that, kinda. When revved-up it can cleave through chaff enemies but sticks to Elites. But that’s also what makes it a special chain weapon. It’s so big and powerful that it makes sense that it’s the only one capable of doing it.

Yet at the same time, sacrificing a bit of one weapon’s identity to make others more appealing to user could work…

24

or fotf

25

Meh, I’m sure it still takes more than 3 even with FoTF

Still needing to use your ult when vet doesn’t is big oof

26

Ask and ye shall recieve kindred!

The game likes to eat my push attack inputs after fotf though so not a fan of that.
Here’s the other mark

And without fotf

Close but no cigar and yes veteran has higher melee damage and synergise very well with finesse weapons I’m not trying to deny that.

27

As I replied above, it only works like that for multi-target attacks, so not for strikedowns or stabs (single-targets). Those hit the first target they meet.

28

So maybe the Eviscerator could do both for strikedowns or stabs and for multi-target attacks while every other chain weapon could do it for multi-target attacks only? It would certainly help keep the Eviscerator unique.

29

We’re getting a bit off topic from chain weapons here, but IMO if you’re going to nerf uncanny on DS specifically that’s fine.

The combat knife has a pretty big learning curve IMO and it’s good, it’s meta, I don’t really think it’s OP though. The single target damage is pretty good (I play it sometimes on vet, zealot, and psyker, and have used it on scum, and I agree that vet has the highest damage with it, though doesn’t have zealot’s survivability). With psyker I mostly use it for fun, and the mobility, I like it with the inferno since it synergizes with dots and a high mobility melee weapon is nice into ranged. On zealot, I use it with shroudfield and martyrdom rather than Blazing Piety, to pretty good effect, but it’s still the worst boss killing zealot build I’ve made (while also being one of the most fun, it’s bootleg Shade). The DS clears it pretty hard.

I genuinely don’t think combat knife needs a nerf. I mean, if you wanna nerf uncanny a little bit, that’s fine w/ me. But it’s horde clear is rough already. There are many weapons and builds that should be nerfed before it though.

30

Kraks by themselves are fine, Demo Team grenade gambling not so much, even if you ignore the current event which spams nades.

31

Uncanny needs to be removed on DS and nerfed on Combat Blade and Forcesword

1 Like
32

I would simply make all chain weapons stick like that chainaxe. No need to rev it up. It’s always on.

33

Chain weapons should just be allowed to cleave through regardless of enemy rank. It would make the rev attacks far more interesting if I could actually grab the 5 or so ragers that are attacking me instead of having to avoid using revved attacks entirely when there is more than 1 rager. It would also make the weapons feel like they’re actually hacking through horde, rather than just a normal weapon but with a terrible attack.

This would fix eviscerator and have a unique interaction with its bleed blessing where you can just bleed an entire horde even if your rev isn’t dealing damage to like half of them, and give a reason for its bleed to be less than the other chain weapons. Chainsword could have this as well, just lower the bleed count to be similar to eviscerator. Chainaxe needs a blessing like bloodthirsty but its infinite cleave for a certain amount of time after a revved kill, so it could take full advantage of this.

This solves the problem for the most part. As for like crushers or whatever, the damage is fine, but revved animations should only end when the player unlatches from the target. To make up for the lack of the spike of damage when it finishes, you should get an increase to the tick damage on a per tick basis. If you stay connected to a chaos spawn for like 10 seconds you should be dealing 5k damage per tick.

Since uncanny strike is being discussed for whatever reason, Uncanny strike is badly designed as it would just be better to balance the game around giving players increased rending on a weakspot hit than it would be to make armor value so punishing that certain attacks deal no damage whatsoever. Another portion is how it’s a global upgrade to your damage like dots. Just remove it from the game and lower armor hp to pre-buffs and give weapons a 15% rending modifier on weakspot hits. Make uncanny strike a 30% rending modifier on weakspot hits. Someone else suggested the rending on weakspot hit months ago, Idk my opinion then but it’s a better balance than this garbage.

34

Silly Empire of Man. They developed all those fancy power weapons in the 41st millennium, but a cheese knife and wine bottle cork screw still deal with armour far better than any of them.

2 Likes
35

I’ve been thinking about this more and I think to be truly fun and actually feel like “chains” they’d have to give them bespoke cleave mechanics. The issue with them is that the “digging” feels good but is mechanically weak, while the normal swings feel horrid (like you’re swinging a bat) but are mechanically good since it’s just normal swings.

It would be cool if they were more unique mechanically, from the ground up. It would be cool if instead of a cleave distro, they had a total damage value per swing. The swing keeps going until that total damage value is achieved. The swing would slow down as it digs through enemies to drive home that you’re tearing through them.

I’m probably doing a horrible job at explaining this so I’ll try to put it another way. Using purely example numbers: One chainsword swing could, for example, do 3000 damage. So one swing could dig its way through like 8 poxwalkers (I think they have 400 HP or something). The swing could also dig its way through a 2000 HP rager, then get another rager to half HP before you stop digging. The speed with which it digs through enemies could depend on hitmass, so maybe digging through poxwalkers would be faster than digging through maulers. Each swing would work this way so you would literally saw through enemies visually and mechanically. On stuff like bosses you would simply dig by default. It’s stupid in my opinion that there is even an option of bonking a boss with your chainsword.

Anyone who has actually used a chainsaw before will understand immediately what I’m talking about. Chainsaws dig into things, they don’t cut traditionally. Using it as a blunt tool is stupid to begin with also.

Sawing locks your camera, so you’d have to decouple your sword from the camera to make this feel good (this is probably too much for Fatshark to actually implement) unless you were okay with having your camera hijacked every swing. Maybe it should also not be damage based in the first place, but hitmass based instead.

Not sure about the special attack since you’d functionally make the chainsword always on this way. Maybe a doom chainsaw mode

Also the easy alternative to all this is making it work like the evisc special heavies that cleave through chaff but bite into elites.

2 Likes
36

Sounds like cleave damage with extra steps.

Same mechanism except you’re retaining all of the damage until it depletes unlike Heavy Sword which has a set damage per cleave target hit.

37

Yeah the point I’m trying to make is just that I don’t think a chain weapon will ever feel good unless it actually behaves like something with chainsaw teeth actually would, which standard cleave mechanics prohobit. that’s more or less the sole point of the thought

38

I think activating special during an attack that revs and catches should extend the rev attack. Also it’d be nice if Bloodletter didn’t comsume its single stack on a miss/not confirmed fake hit. I dunno if full reworks are on the table but rev damages should be huge in general to me and not crit dependent. Like the heavy Mk15 eviscerator should just kill auric crushers at 30% melee power on weakspot rev to me, its a pretty wide window you need or a good team to keep setting up. And a FoTF hit at 70% melee (max marty) should demolish it in like 2 ticks of the saw…

39

Interesting, might be good. My own take on all chain weapons is for them to be good, the sewing through animation must or grant immunity to dmg or be realy realy short, almost symbolic. The game is just to fast and swarmy these days.

40

There should be a knockback on nearby enemies when chaining if its going to be so mid on damage…kinda like when you get hit with ‘the master’s retribution’. Just do a push-level stagger on the enemies in front of you.

41

I think adding a new mark to the chain weapons that does this would work for some people and basically create a new weapon.

But I personally like the the way they work currently, so don’t want that functionality totally removed, it’s just that the animation and camera lock make using it when around a lot of elites pretty suicidal. Which means you have to design your kit around creating stagger for yourself to be able to use it, potentially, in some cases, nerfing yourself. Alternatively, if someone else is providing the stagger (or an ogryn is taunting), then it’s fine, but that can’t be relied on always, and in a solo or clutch situation, you’re just weaker than if you took a different melee weapon and were able to use a different blitz or ability.

But in situations where there aren’t a bunch of elites, it’s very strong, as it completely staggers them while killing them. That said, the time-to-kill for the chainsword/-axe is still worse than some melee weapons and builds, and on the same level as plenty of others.

It’s kind of hard to balance honestly.

You could reduce the time to finish all of the ticks, which would help, but also be a buff, as you’d be able to ultimately kill things faster, while still retaining some of the risk/reward for using the special. I think that risk/reward is part of what makes the weapon (in its current form) compelling to use in the first place, since there’s skill expression. You could keep the animation lock and remove the camera lock. That would help too.

I guess whatever you do to fix the current issue will end up being a buff, and I guess that’s what they need. I just don’t want to go overboard. Because I personally find the eviscerator very strong, the chainsword on vet feels pretty strong (its light attack speed is wild), and the chainaxe on scum is strong as is, it’s just that the latter two can’t really use their special well enough independently.

MarxistDictator’s knockback idea would work too, but will it stagger crushers? Those are the main problem for me with the weapon (well, ogryn-sized and above enemies in general as they block line of sight on each other). That seems like it might get out of control fast. Just chain cc-ing groups of enemies with the special.