All classes deserve to have basic passives again

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I believe that the three human classes, zealot, veteran, and psyker, deserve to get back some of the passive effects they lost in the transition to the new talent trees. This would not only put them on even footing with the ogryn, but could also be used to iron out some of the build issues that have cropped up with the new talent trees.

Anyways as stated previously, even beyond the concept of ‘fairness,’ I believe that adding some passives back into the other three careers could help alleviate some of the more frequent build issues those classes run into.

Lets look at some examples of what I mean.

Zealot

Old Zealot Passives for reference.

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One of the biggest pain points that I find plagues zealot’s tree atm is pathing to Until Death. Zealot builds feel absolutely awful without this old cornerstone passive. And it eats up a fair bit of talent points to get back to it, especially because getting Until Death requires an additional talent point tax. Being able to just have Until Death as a baseline would free up 2-4 talent points for almost all of my zealot builds. That would go a long way to improving the woes brought around by the strict pathing requirements and very linear talent placement in the zealot tree.

Veteran

Old Veteran Passives for reference.

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The veteran’s tree faces several major issues as of time of writing. Obviously I hope many of the more structural problems will be ironed out by the tree revamp that is coming. But there is another issue that I don’t think a simple restructuring and addition of keystones will solve: Survivalist (née Scavenger Hunt).

Put simply, the opportunity cost to yourself and the team makes Survivalist the only logical choice for 99% of veteran builds. It massively eclipses not only veteran’s other two aura choices, but also literally every other aura in the game in terms of what it brings to the team. Hell, some of my friends and I have been flamed by non-veteran teammates for the crime of not bringing Survivalist since the aura makes their own ammo economies so much more comfortable.

Making Survivalist a passive effect of the veteran, and of course making a new aura to replace it, would make Fire Team, Close and Kill, and the talents around them significantly more accessible and appealing.

As for psykers, I’ll admit my suggestion doesn’t have great answers for them. Psyker’s tree lacks much of the strict, linear pathing that defines the zealot & veteran trees that gives rise to their structural tax issues. Plus of psyker’s old passives one was turned into a keystone and the other is pretty forgettable. Since I don’t think it’s very likely that Fatshark will want to turn the Warp Siphon keystone back into a passive that leaves a theoretical psyker passive a bit up in the air. Possible suggestions I can think of for psyker passives would be the likes of: Warp Rider, Kinetic Deflection, and One with the Warp, all talents that I strive to include in every possible psyker build. Or maybe Battle Meditation could be the passive again with just a little sprucing up. I dunno. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The other side of the coin would of course be nerfing ogyrns by removing one, or both, of their passive effects and making them pay talent points to get them back. And while I’m not exactly keen on this idea, I think It’s still worth mentioning. After all ogryn is very, very strong atm and arguably could use some nerfing.

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Hopefully the veteran tree rework also shifts some of the passive stats off the nodes and back onto their basic kit. There’s no reason for the veteran to have had so many stats and passives moved across to tax nodes (of which veteran also has the most of out of all the archetypes), it’s way too punishing and stinks of them not knowing what to do with veteran.

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Honestly I think they still do. For example, Ogyrn’s have an extra wound, move faster carrying objectives, don’t get interrupted when resing or using tools, etc.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s other base things like increased crit chance. Before they had hidden mechanics like taking more damage while sprinting and stuff, or being invincible while sliding. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of that is still in there.

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Yeah, it would be very nice. Also FS should put ALL that information (base stats & quirks) into the starting node in the skill tree rather than have it available only by datamining and people writing wikis.

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I am quite ok with Ogryn getting extra perks, namely the revive bonus and either toughness or extra wounds, for the inconvenience of just being way large.
I mean, classes also differ by stamina, stamina and toughness regen (delay), weapon choices, etc.
Those bonuses should be well communicated, though. I was somewhat surprised when I noticed my Ogryn still had more wounds.
That said, I do agree that having some extra baseline differentiation would be neat.
Just for design and fluff reasons, alone. And yeh, vets kind of need to run the ammo aura.
What would you rather have? Almost never run out of ammo to kill specialists with, on the entire team, or … 3% more damage?

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If you go rooting through the files you can find a bunch of other stat based differences between the classes. For example in patch 13 ogryn got their base crit reduced from 5% down to 2.5%, vet of course got their crit reduced from 10% to 5%, and psyker had their increased from 5% to 7.5% for some reason.

I didn’t feel these, mostly pretty small, differences were super germane to what I wanted to discuss though; which is that there are talent tree issues for zealot & veteran that could be solved by the same solution that is invisibly implemented for the ogryn. So I didn’t mention them.

Plus collating all of those minor differences is a giant pain in the ass and it’s not even clear what some of them actually do.

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Agreed. These small differences should be communicated.

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Agreed. They may be small enough to not seem to be important, but people tend to notice small changes even though they’re not entirely sure what changed.

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I’m not sure I’m super down for more buffs at the moment, especially if the reasoning is to reach parity with current Ogryn, but it would be nice to have more differentiation between the classes right from level 1.

TBH I can’t agree at all Zealot needs until death to function, especially if we’re talking crit build, that is already very evasive and tanky. Honestly I’d probably skip it more if benediction wasn’t just way better than loner, if I’m forced to give something up for points until death goes bye bye, I ain’t ever giving us TWBS.

I’ll admit it’s probably the most fitting class passive though, and probably wouldn’t change many builds all that much. Bonus first target damage could also be a fitting passive. Maybe move speed and/or quicker dodge recovery could be good options too.

On one hand I agree with almost everything you’ve said, and I don’t think they’re gonna make auras that are competitive with it unless they make some pretty broken competition. On the other hand though damn that is a very very strong passive. I think a better solution would be to have the base scavenger aura remain even when picking non survivalist auras. Isn’t the most consistent with how other classes work but choosing between upgrading your ammo regen by 0.25 % and the other auras seems a choice the other auras could more reasonably compete in.

I’d probably make the above change then just give him a +15% max ammo passive. That’d take some burden off the +25% talent and let you reach the coveted +40% from pre patch with the passive and talent combined. Also +ammo should take into account your whole ammo pool, not just reserves like it does currently.

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It’s not so much about buffs as it is about addressing issues that are limiting build variety and stifling player creativity. Ogryn would feel way too squishy without their DR passive due to their low base toughness. Veteran feels flaccid without ammo. And zealot feels boring when you can’t just go ham on armor patrols because you lack your invulnerability safety net.

I share your annoyance with the rampant power creep, but it’s a price I am more than willing to pay for now since the reward was this incredible well of build variety. I believe that Fatshark just needs to sand down a few more rough spots with classes, (and rework crafting/item acquisition) then they can move on to fine tuning the balance.

There’s lots of ways to go about solving the problem. They could just make it a non-aura talent super high in the tree and accept everyone and their mother will take it, similar to ogryn’s Heavyweight talent. Or they could rebalance the games ammo economy and remove Survivalist altogether. Or do what they did in V2 and introduce a load of power creeped DLC weapons that don’t require ammo.

I merely offer up one such solution that is simple and in line with something that already exists.

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I also find it kind of weird that every class except Ogryn got stripped of their passives.
I dont think the Ogryn should lose his, as he kinda needs the %DR because of his massive size and his loyal protector passive is basically one of his core identities and the reason many players chose the class initially I believe.

I also hard agree that all the “hidden” stats like the different base crit chance should be visible in-game somewhere, be that the full skill tree overview, a list on the side in your talent tree or hover the base node, I dont care.

Imo the other classes should also get some of their passives back or get new ones. Survivalist Aura as passive would be too much I think. If vet either got increased ammo reserves like he used to get(with a different value maybe) or a “nerfed/personal” survivalist passive that gives only the vet ammo if he kills an elite/special and stacks with the current aura. Idk maybe give him 0.5% innate, ot smth like that.

I dont really agree that the zealot needs until death to be fun, tho I agree that it allows the user to be way more agressive. I think a passive along the lines of one of his current nodes like melee stun immunity or the toughness regen when enemies are close by would fit more than the invulnerability passive.

Psyker could defo use either the peril block or increased dmg based on peril like @BongoSkaggs already suggested.

While we noticed that the Ogryn is the only one with passives, I think its also interesting to note that hes also the only one that severely lacks pseudo aura nodes.
What I mean by this is the following:
Psyker gets

  • Psykinetic Aura, which is basically another aura

Veteran gets

  • Born Leader, while not directly entailing the word “Aura” like the Psyker, that effect couldve been an Aura for the Ogryn at some point imo

Zealot gets

  • Shield of Contempt, while it goes on cooldown once its procced, its also an effect that has unconditional uptime
  • Blazing Piety - Infectious Zeal, which is basically the crit Psyker aura while its active, which is pretty much permanent while in hordes

I know some of these might be a bit of a stretch but the only thing the Ogryn has in this regard is Get Stuck In which only activates on his special and which I wouldnt consider an aura like effect, as its more in line with a special upgrade.

But thats off-tpoic so I will not delve further into it.

So to summarize it, Obese Fish has still a lot of balancing to do and I also think that every class should deserve passives to be more in line with our big boy

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I have a slightly more nuanced take here. I don’t think its always the case that you need to take this to have a good build or enjoy playing. But its literally so strong I don’t know why you wouldn’t in most cases. Its also very enjoyable to play around and I don’t want to see it removed. It feels like its absolutely key to the zealot and his play style in Darktide and losing it would Patch13-vet the zealot. So in this sense it becomes a brainless pick. EITHER the counterpoints to it need to be equally strong to give me a reason to want to go get them, or this just needs to be rolled in as a passive and a new talent noden needs to take its place.

Also - Zealot slide damage immunity plz come bak

My goodness YES. The problem is if you make it a passive, its fundamentally really strong and it is fun to play around for Ogryn. At the same time it’d be weird for vet to have two Auras. Playing ranged vet on some weapons without it just feels horrible. Vet wants to shoot, so vet needs better ammo econ. He also needs his toughness bonus on kill back, or some other toughness solution. Right now he’s just way too squishy and that’s 90% toughness generation.

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That’s pretty much I was trying to convey. Zealot just isn’t very fun when you can’t be hyper aggressive. Sure you can run builds without Until Death, you can run builds without any talent points at all if you’re skilled enough. But not having Until Death just isn’t fun.

Zealot has a bunch of talents that are of comparable strength to Until Death (Shield of Contempt, Thy Wrath be Swift, etc) but I can make builds that feel fun to play without them, even if their loss is felt. I cannot make a zealot build that feels fun to use without Until Death.

Hell, even playing melee vet without ammo regen is painful on some guns. Hopefully a lot of vet’s ammo economy woes will be resolved by the tree revamp moving Always Prepared somewhere more accessible. But that will still leave us with the problem of Survivalist being essentially a ‘must pick’ since more ammo is always good.

I mean, they nerfed the aura in patch 13 and it felt absolutely horrible for a lot of weapons and teams. And as long as Survivalist remains on the tree it will continue to pull builds towards it. Survivalist needs to come off the tree one way or another. Pushing it into a passive just solves the issue with the least amount of effort required by Fatshark.

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Everyone pre-P13 could have up to two aura effects, now they’re all mutually exclusive.

Why not let the veteran have 2 auras? It can be their thing, bringing more support without having to sacrifice an excessive amount of talent points in a tree where they’re already taxed to the warp and back.

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I’ve actually been trying quite hard to do exactly this with my Death Cult Assassin and it just doesn’t work well. So I’m with you. I think the problem is “natural pick” nodes that are so defining and were previously built in really shouldn’t be in some tree some where it ends up being a tax. Obviously it was worth a shot to move it out of a passive but a few of these things just need to be moved back into being passives.

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Meanwhile, here I am rarely using Until Death and not missing it :joy: I’d take it if I’m going for Fury of the Faithful, but otherwise I tend to give it a miss - we’re clearly very different in how we play, given it seems like an essential component in your fun, but not mine.

I wouldn’t mind the return of some innate passives (exactly which ones, I don’t actually know), but I think Until Death makes sense as a choice in the tree rather than being baked in.

I feel like it’s a stretch calling it a tax - the core of talent trees is choice and tradeoffs, and this is a perfect example. You’ve got this choice that you feel strongly about, but what are you willing to trade for it?

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Tough skin should just be removed. It’s clearly a bug.

I tried it running 3xToughness curio and it is tanky as hell without Feel No Pain. Haven’t tried it with FNP, but it’s probably even more ridiculous. It has more passive stats than any character in any category even without factoring in the bugged Tough Skin.

  • More Stamina than any other class. Usually 50-200% more depending on the curio setup.
  • Still has 300 Health base or 400 eHP with Tough Skin which is +100% your average Vet/Psyker and 50-100% more than your average Zealot.
  • 160-230 toughness depending on stat allocation. That’s more than any other class could realistically achieve while maintaining a healthy life/stamina pool.
  • 25% TDR makes that 220-300 non-conditional eToughness while having 2-3x non-conditional 10% TDR nodes easily available.
  • Free +1 wound.
  • Insanely good Toughness regain/regeneration on the tree while also having excess to Confident Strike the best defensive blessing to maintain toughness.

I’m not buying it that Ogryn would be oh-so-squishy without Thick Skin. Even without it, it’s incredibly tanky to begin with.

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Tell me more. I am very interested in your builds and gameplay results.

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  1. Ogryn weapons have the worst stamina economy in the game, so besides being able to block more, the role he was designed for in the first place, that more stamina is actually detrimental, because stamina regen is at a fixed rate
  2. 300 base hp calculate up to 375 eHP, because according to the cited value its 20%, not 25%
  3. Ogryn has the lowest base toughness, so unless you invest everything into toughness you wont reach those values. Bullgryn and Skullbreaker have way less than that unless they run full toughness curios, which is the least effective setup possible
  4. see 3.
  5. That is true, still stemming from his original design of big beefy boi
  6. Confident Strike was never BiS and is even worse now that you can pick both heavy toughness regen perks

While on paper all that seems insanely strong, I doubt that you ever played Ogryn on Auric Damnation, as all those, on paper, strong differences to other classes, dont matter as much anymore.

You have the choice between playing skullbreaker/bullgryn and get shredded by anything that is not melee, or you play gunlugger and stay in the backline, so you dont get shredded in melee. Even confident strikes can only help you so much if you dont allocate points to melee talents.

Trust me on this, Ogryn is my main class and Ive experimentet with almost every imaginable combo in regards to the new skill tree and curio stats. Even if you invest primarily into melee and get as much DR as you can, shooters and gunners will still annihilate you on Auric Damnation

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Are you aware his DR passive ends up giving 36% TDR? So divide his toughness by 0.64 to get the etoughness. That’s a bit over a 1.5x multiplier for effective toughness with 0 points invested.

1 Like