An Inferno Staff nerf that keeps its power Fantasy

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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So the power fantasy always was burning through a horde, and the downside is supposed to be armor (since it resists DoT for the most part)

So I was working on finding a way to try to keep these 2 aspects, and then it came to my head

The ideal nerf would be making it generate lower soulblaze stacks to enemies behind elites

For a more technical explanation

Let’s say you spew fire at 2 elites, one behind the other. A change like this would make the first elite get soulblaze stacks at the same rate as it does right now, but the one behind would get 50% less soulblaze stacks. And if for some reason there was a third one, that third would get 75% less soulblaze stacks over time

On another example, let’s say you fire it at a group of 10 Poxwalker, each one of them perfectly behind the other, because of them being Poxwalkers, all of them would receive normal soulblaze stacks

Last example, let’s say the enemy in the front is a Crusher, then make every enemy behind it (Aka hit by the same flame particle) only generate soulblaze stacks at a x0.25 rate

So to put this all together in the easiest way possible

Make every single fire particles generate less soulblaze stacks on an enemy depending on what type of enemy is in front of it

Elites will reduce it by 50% for each enemy through, until it reaches x0.25 effectiveness (Meaning that after 2 elites, it’ll generate the lowest amount)

It going through a crusher will instantly make it go down to that x0.25 effectiveness

On another note, make it take more time to suppress ranged pls thx

2 Likes
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And just get rid of Uncanny synergy with Soulblaze. No, Soulblaze doesn’t need to be good at Carapace EAS. It’s ok for Soulblaze to have one armor type weakness. (PSA for the “never nerf” crowd)

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I say get rid of Uncanny synergy with Soulblaze first, then think of any other changes second. Uncanny Strike is the reason why Inferno Staff is capable of melting armor.

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I don’t think the uncanny interaction with Soulblaze accounts for basically any damage increase in an actual map.

I like your suggestion Vror. I have been brainstorming a similar suggestion where the first like 8m or so of the flame cone works like it does now, no changes. Then beyond that there are hitscan calcs with a limited amount of cleave (that is what the lines represent below). The idea being that it’s not cleaving through an entire horde and if you want that benefit you gotta be way more up in the enemy’s grill.

psyker
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Regarding the comments about removing Uncanny Strikes interaction

I’d rather they rework Uncanny Strikes in a way it doesn’t work with stacks so it can’t leak to DoT effects

Just copy paste Opportunist, but instead of 25% rending on staggered targets, make it 20% rending on weakspots

This rework to Uncanny would simply make it more standard, as well as solving the leaking issue

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I don’t think Fatshark will ever address these issues with Soulblaze as a mechanic. They have been struggling with damage over time effects balance since forever. The recent Perilous Combustion changes are just unhinged, and suggest the game designers have no idea what they are doing at this point.

Remove Soulblaze all together. Make Inferno staff deal flat damage, with various ADM values for different enemy types.

3 Likes
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I think it’s time to give up on balance adjustments.
No matter how many threads are made or how good the ideas are, Fatshark has no intention of implementing them.
On top of that, the Darktide team completely refuses to communicate with players and doesn’t even seem willing to engage in discussion.

And it’s always the exact same response from Julia: “They’re busy.”

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Weapon blessing should only affect the weapon it’s on, period. If FS wanted to implement “global” blessings (like the AoE from Bolt Pistol), it could be put on Curios and be limited to one.

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Sounds a lot like the cleave system but instead of different damage values it applies to the amount of dot stacks applied. The problem is inferno does apply one stack with every tick so you would have to implement something like half or quarter stacks

Edit: the bonus of applying the cleave system would be that wildfire would actually improve the Inferno staff

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Another dumb idea. Why do you all want to nerd psyker so much? I never understand that. Taking the fun of a class… I’m gonna hate y’all…

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OK ngl…y’all are overcomplicating it.

I’ve run Inferno Staff on Psyker. It doesn’t become tremendously OP on Auric on up until you get the stupid combo with Uncanny Strike that lets it trivialize all armor on top of its cleave and ability to stagger. Even with stuff like the headpop auto-trigger it’ll struggle on armor at base.

Remove the ability for Uncanny Strike to apply to DOT effects and the Staff becomes an anti-meat weapon with limited range easily zoned out by half the game’s enemies.

5 Likes
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Do You only have fun as Psyker if you use Inferno staff?

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idk you can run the Inferno Staff without an Uncanny melee and still 3x your teammates damage. Is doing 10x your base Soulblaze damage vs a Crusher strong? Yes. But even if FS removes this interaction tomorrow, you’ll still see 3+ million damage havoc Psykers. Soulblaze and the Inferno staff attacks all have ADMs over 1 vs all armor types but Carapace. You get significantly more damage just keeping Blaze Away at 5 stacks over 5 stacks of Uncanny on anything but the Crusher.

This interaction is not why the weapon is OP.

3 Likes
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It’s definitely one of the reasons but not the only one.

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It’s a perfect combination of Uncanny, Perilous Combustion and Blaze Away. Perilous Combustion and Blaze Away is plenty to get ridiculous numbers because of ability to exceed 16 stack cap with extra Strength applied to all the active stacks. Uncanny is just that final interaction that turns those Soulblaze stacks into a Carapace melting inferno.

Uncanny interaction with Soulblaze shouldn’t exist.

Perilous Combustion shouldn’t exceed 16 stacks.

Blaze Away shouldn’t be on Purgatus.

Enemy hit mass reducing Purgatus cleave is not a bad idea, it’s a good start. But Uncanny interaction at least has got to go, Soulblaze needs to be capped globally at 16.

7 Likes
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All these changes potentially make sense but those focusing only on the uncanny interaction are just not correctly diagnosing the problem. In a perfect situation, where you reach the 31 stack cap while having high peril, etc. it takes 12-15 seconds to kill an Auric crusher if you just apply the soulblaze stacks and don’t hit the Crusher in melee but get your Uncanny off other enemies.

And you have to have your melee out the whole time! I don’t think the average purg staff psyker is doing this every time a crusher pack spawns, it’s certainly not been the case in my experience. Removing this interaction is a 2% nerf on the weapon, it’s negligible. It’s the ease and safety with which it deals with high densities of every other enemy that makes it OP.

2 Likes
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why is nerfing to other classes level is equal to taking all the fun for you? I main veteran and im all for nerfing krak grenades, specially if other classes AOE also gets nerfed. This game is much more fun without spamming AOE that deletes everything.

3 Likes
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What if greatly reduce the burning and soulblaze duration and slow down the rate at which they are applied?
Then it will be much more difficult to apply large number of DoT stacks on a group of spreaded enemies, but it will still be very effective against enemies standing in row

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I mean this is pretty much what I suggested, with the exception that it builds slower if the fire goes through an elite enemy first

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We both suggest making them harder to apply high number stacks, but in slightly different ways
I’d like make flamer-type weapons also weaker against hordes, because hordes don’t even exist as threat when almost every team has flamer/purgatus and these weapons makes anti-horde melee weapons bad pick.

For example if duration of soulblaze and burning stacks are reduced from 8/4 seconds to 2 second, then player will need to shoot same enemies instead if spreading fire around
Or increase the duration of sustained fire needed to apply DoT stack or even make this time different for different types of armor