I am using this build atm.
I am not denying that Hive Scum has strong builds or that skilled players can get a lot out of it, and I am also not saying that those builds should never be adjusted. You clearly play at a higher level than most. I have learned a lot from you and have a high regard for your experience, and I am not trying to dismiss your point. I simply think you are a very good player.
What I am trying to highlight is that for the average player the class feels much more limited. With the current bugs and interactions, stepping outside the few established builds makes things noticeably harder.
I do appreciate you acknowledging that the class is difficult to play. My feedback is not about asking for major buffs. It is mainly about the bugs and conflicting talents that hold the class back. Fixing those alone would make the class more approachable without reducing the skill ceiling that others enjoy.
And yes, I also have feedback outside of bugs. As you pointed out yourself, chem nades and the rocket launcher are good examples. One is clearly very strong while the other falls noticeably behind, but before any major balance changes are made, the bugs really need to be fixed first, because adjusting numbers on a broken foundation often creates new balance problems later.
There are really tons of builds.
BUT, if you consider yourself in sort of difficulty in the game, I would advice something easy.
Take the full left part, in the middle take all dodge nodes, a dual pistol and you’re good. Shoot, dodge, shoot, shoot, shoot, dodge, dodge, shoot again etc… you need ammo, shoot this elite… and so on.
OR, take the middle part. But this is HARDER, and a lot. Here you play a berserker… go in middle of the melee and kill fast… or be killed. You’re not a zealot, you need to kill before being hit.
The class is, as I expected, visceral, and that’s SO great.
If they buff the class, and note that I played it just few missions, I believe that it would make the game a pure joke.
The potential for DPS is… insane on this class. I expect it to get nerfs at one time…
PS: I don’t consider myself as a sort of elite… I am surely not a bad player, but surely not the best. And I don’t play Havoc… cause I don’t like it.
Darktide runs on dedicated servers, while Vermintide 2 uses peer to peer. When you add the much higher number of spawns (which has an effect on the latency but also gameplay overall) and ranged pressure in Darktide, it becomes clear that the two games are working under very different conditions. It is not an honest comparison.
Actually, in my experience, Darktide runs better than Vermintide 2. I dont usually get the issues people complain about on the forums.
Im also much happier that DT runs on dedicated, no more host rage quits ending my games. Can you imagine that in DT?! it would be like 8/10 pub games would end cos of host rage quits.
Also what higher number of spawns? I still think H40 is pretty comparable to Cata DW+3 in terms of spawns. I do agree that Auric Maelstrom is a step up from vanilla V2 Cata though, but is that not a good thing?
I think this is entirely true. Broken stuff should be fixed. Plus I do think new player experience on the class could have been better if the tree had more of the toughness stuff at the top. But most players level up 1 time and then play at 30 for one bazillion hours so….as much as I fully agree I also see it as a fleeting issue on the whole.
Bugs should be fixed. I want to see the tree improved. But as a balance consideration the class landed in a decent spot and that’s actually evidenced by the arguement about it. There is not wide agreement and that’s usually a good leading indicator. Course I actually think some things are kinda badly tuned myself but I’m an “80% right is good enough” person….80% of the time lol.
I think a lot of the comments ITT and also elsewhere are a bit kneejerky. Kneejerk reaction “Hive Scum is weak because it’s fragile”, kneejerk response “It’s meant to be a glass cannon”
Does it actually have the highest damage potential in the game? If not, why is it the most fragile?
PS: I’m not suggesting this means that it needs its survivability buffed, but maybe other classes should at some point be looked at. If you create a glass cannon and it’s still just worse than meta builds on other classes that arent made of glass, the other classes could be the problem.
It doesn’t have the highest damage potential because they refuse to nerf psyker lmao.
Even then Desperado and Rampage can dunk on Havoc.
Yea this is more or less my point. The class doesn’t exist in a vacuum and people are used to a certain standard that has been set by years of balancing. I can absolutely understand why someone who is used to playing Psyker swaps to Hive Scum would think “wait a minute, why is this class just worse?”
Imo it might be a little too late to start introducing classes with serious, major tradeoffs to their offensive capabilities like that. I appreciate the thought but that’s not the kind of game this is anymore.
I think a lot of this class comes down to the fact that its a high skill cap class, where other classes generally are not. Other classes are more forgiving if you make a mistake or get caught out. On this class if you don’t have a high amount of mechanical skill, then you struggle.
So I think a lot of the balance views are going to come from the top end of town not having a problem because they have good mechanical skills, while people not at that level of ability will have probably an awful time because the class isn’t survivable enough for them to enjoy.
Yeah, it’s only been a couple days since release. I’m seeing the class taken into Auric Hi int shock troops and it’s nearly trivializing enemies. I don’t think it needs buffs tbh.
I don’t think this is a bad take, BUT there is nothing wrong about having classes in the game, which have a lot of playstyles which require more actions per minute / have a higher skill floor. This is one reason why I don’t like Arbitrator as a class, it was extremely safe when the class launched and it still is. In general all the power creep and talent tree revamps made even the least safe classes, such as psyker more forgiving to play.
Hive Scum is less safe by default, and new. There is a lot of players who seem to wait for others to tell them how to play, instead of actually looking at the tree and trying to understand the mechanics. So the initial reaction is going to be “it cannot be me, it must be the class”. The class is more demanding to play, with a lot of builds. My take: there is nothing wrong about that.
I really think Hive Scum should have come out with a warning label 
Honestly I have been doing a shiv melee scum and it’s very good. Better than zealot in pure DPS. And I don’t even run dependency.
The ranged build is strong, I just personally find it makes me do stupid things. I keep trying to get the most value out of desperado that I end up taking melee damage because I wasn’t willing to switch to melee.
Range builds tend to bore me really quickly. I still remember how I was grinning the first time I played Ogryn with a machine gun, but that “fun” quickly fizzled out for me.
Aside from Psyker, every class I play is a melee build. Melee is king in this game, especially at higher levels. The potential increases in DPS just seem not worth the lack of defensive options at higher difficulties compared to melee builds for the same class.
And yeah, I already have a lot of other games where I shoot things. Tide games are one of the few that have good melee systems.
but how exactly, in an optional dlc, is that a “bad thing “ given there’s already 5 classes that have been power crept?
why shouldn’t be there one option that seperates the two and offers a distinct skill based result, compared to the dull fire and forget auto clicks some classes rely upon currently?
for example, no matter the performance in numbers, coming from an arbites is automatically null and void in terms of “skill” and respect
Peer to peer is better if your friends are in your region. But when you aren’t in the same host region as the lobby host and have like ~100 ping Vermintide 2 is extremely sloppy and even the most die hard defenders can’t deny that.
issue is… balancing these things around being “hard” for a high skilled individual doesnt mean a low skilled individual wont enter the same game as you with the class that is hard to pilot.
so? happened today with 2 scum on an event map.
both inexperienced and not utilizing the class proper, both dropped and left… match went on nonetheless and successfully at that. 
Totally agree with you here about having different playstyles for classes.
I actually agree with this. The only exception I mentioned earlier is the current bugs, since they make learning the class harder than it needs to be. Outside of that, your take is reasonable and I think it is a healthy perspective for the game overall.
I do not think it is a bad thing for a DLC class to be more demanding or more skill based. Having a class that plays differently from the others is good for the game. My point was simply that for the average player the class feels more limited right now because of the bugs and certain talent interactions, not because the skill based design itself is an issue.
About your point regarding Arbites, I do not agree. I do not think that is a healthy way to look at it, nor is it fair toward a large part of the playerbase. If i would follow this example i could say the same about psycker for example.