Chain Weapon Suggestion (Power/Force Balance)

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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TL;DR - Remove activation animation-lock from chain weapons (instant activation) so they are more fluid to use, which should significantly buff their gameplay while retaining the complexity of managing their rip (alternatively or in conjunction, shorten the rip duration without changing damage). The clunkiness of the activation & rip duration make them more risky to use in higher levels of play (where time is at a premium due to enemy density) compared to power and force weapons. Lengthy comparison to other activated weapons (power/force) to follow.

Firstly, Chain Weapons are perfectly viable in Damnation as-is and I’ve used them all there extensively, but none of them are ‘good’ compared to the top dog weapons. I’d argue the Chain Sword is the best of the lot - not great against anything, not awful against anything, good mobility/defensiveness, fastest activation. Eviscerator is the middleman, slow, ponderous, complex moveset (H-L-L-BA or BA-H), notably slow to kill hordes, worst defense but strong cc, and slowest activation. Chainaxe is the worst off, it crushes single targets but without chainsword’s mobility (to single out targets for rip) or eviscerator’s group cc, getting the rip off is slow/dangerous and leaves you quite vulnerable even with its high stamina; for hordes you’re reduced to blockattack/heavy which is slow and leaves you open to being overwhelmed.

I would argue a problem is that these weapons are balanced around the rip, but the activation step + rip duration in their attack chain takes too long and makes them risky to use in high level play - so they’re not able to use a good portion of their balanced power effectively. To use the rip, you need to pause and gun the chainweapon before attacking and then plan for the rip animation lock. As a note, you can gun rip while blocking before a block attack, but gunning the rip before using a light / heavy and riding out the rip animation requires timing and space on all three weapons (easiest with fast-activating, mobile chainsword) which are in shorter supply the higher in difficulty you go.

This activation is a feature shared with the power and force weapons. Let’s compare them:

  • Power weapons: Activate, attack. Very simple. The activation creates a pause in gameplay, but it’s rewarded by an empowered attack that otherwise is the same in handling as a normal attack. (Thammer, Psword, Pmaul)
  • Chain weapons: Activate, attack, rip. The third step, rip, ~locks you and the enemy in place giving it risk to use. Depending on the attack, rips can cleave through/impact multiple targets before getting stuck in one. To be clear, the rip is a JOY from a gameplay perspective (visceral/fun).
  • Force weapons: Illisi behaves as a power weapon (activate, attack), Deimos/Obscurus similar to a chain weapon: Activate, attack, force surge. Like rip, force surge ~locks you and your target in place. However, Deimos/Obscurus are dueling weapons with high mobility (dodge range/count) and their force surge is single target whereas chain rips can be multi-target. You pick your target, position yourself, take the time to activate your Force attack, and strike. They also have a touch more range than the chain weapons, so between mobility and range they’re safer to use - but single target.

I would argue Power Weapons and Force Weapons are perfectly fine as is from a gameplay perspective; you can argue PSword still needs nerfs and Illisi/Deimos Slaughterer needs to be tuned down, but this thread is focusing on core gameplay/useability. Chain weapons are double-penalized with the activation and rip stoppages and lack Force swords’ mobility, making them more risky to activate and without any great payoff. They are lesser tier weapons, which is sad given how iconic they are in 40k.

I don’t think the answer is significantly buffing the chain weapons damage output. They actually do quite a bit of damage (potentially to multiple targets) when you have time to get a rip off, the challenge is finding enough time to do so, which is increasingly difficult in higher levels of play as you’re swarmed by more opponents (and aside from the chain sword, these are not mobile weapons).

Therefore, my proposal is to remove the activation animation. Imagine if you could gun the Eviscerator as you’re charging a heavy swing, or the chainaxe/chainsword instantly before a block-attack or heavy-attack. I would argue this would instantly elevate gameplay for those weapons by making them more fluid to use, which is the main problem with them in higher tiers of difficulty. The damage output is quite reasonable, it’s getting activation + rip off safely that is the challenge, and they still require skill / care to use because the rip will still get you stuck in targets.

That’s my proposal. I really love the chain weapons, they are peak WH40k and their gameplay is visceral and fun, but they are awkward and risky to activate. Remove the activation animation. Alternatively (or in conjunction), the rip duration could be shortened (same damage in less time), which would reduce the awkwardness of their use as well. As is their activation is clunky to use in higher difficulties (despite being gorgeous and fun) which makes them sub-par.

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If you compare them toe to toe, chain weapons are worse indeed. I think that those 3 weapons archetypes (chain weapons, force & power swords) are meant to be used on specific careers. Power sword: veterans. Force sword: psykers. Chainweapons: zealots. They shouldn’t even have put chainweapons available to other classes than zealot when you see how useless their are on a vet or psyker regarding other choices they have. Chainweapons on zealot actually makes more sense because it synergises very well with the class. Using your ult when shredding an enemy is very strong. For this, you have to use your ult AFTER starting the shred animation on your target, not before, why?

  1. it will not put an end to your 4 seconds chastise the wicked, meaning after the revved up attack ends, you can do another one while still in ult, meaning guaranteed crit, +25% damage and ignore armor for another revved up attack (even with the slower activation of the eviscerator, you have time to do so)
  2. It will slightly stagger surrounding enemies while you are shredding, thus preventing them from hitting you while you are locked in the animation.
    About mobility I 've mentioned a couple times that that the “rev it up” blessing gives you insane movement speed/dodge distance. People really should try it.

I would say shorten it on all 3 weapons, not totally remove it. On the chainsword it’s already almost instantaneous when you think about it. I play eviscerator a lot, the activation time doesn’t bother me much, but having it a bit shorter would be great. A bit like when they reduced the stun after the thunder hammer special attack.
My problem with totally removing activation animation is this: with the eviscerator I can already imagine people QQing revved up heavy 1 all the time, or go install the mod “only first attack” to do so. It would render the weapon absolutely dull and uninteresting. What I find appealing in the eviscerator is the intricate attack patterns that renders its skill ceiling actually quite high.

What I would suggest for eviscerator and chainsword is this: add the effect of the “savage sweep” blessing directly into the weapon stats. As of now, you have one blessing slot which is blocked, because you have absolute necessity for this blessing, otherwise the weapon is useless. Those weapons have ridiculous base cleave. Having room for another blessing would increase eviscerator and chainsword’s performances without making them broken imo. Like for example I would run “rev it up” + “bloodthirsty” or “rampage” on my eviscerator. Or let’s keep savage sweep as is but increase both cleave targets and cleave damage stat on both weapons to make them better vs hordes.

The chainaxe I think deserves a total rework :confused:
Those heavy swings are a purge. They are so sloooow and deals no damage. I like the concept of the light attacks sticking into target doing little shreddings, but it’s not enough damage. Increase damage on both light and heavies, and probably increase heavies attack speed I would say. For the blessings the chainaxe has access to very good blessing pool (headtake, slaughterer…) so I think it would be in a good spot then.

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I think most of them just need a straight up damage boost. The cost of using chain weapons should be that they hit less targets but will straight up one shot most trash and specials.

The biggest problem right now is that it takes 2 hits for my chain axe to kill most trash mobs. The elite killing power means nothing to me if I can’t clear the trash to safely execute it.

My biggest complaint though is that you need to saw an enemy for far too long. I want all the damage frontoaded, and then just play the saw animation if you actually kill the target.

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As the resident Chainaxe enthusiast, and author of a tutorial on its use, I wouldn’t propose a rework. But it does need some mild buffs to bring it in line with other weapons. Thanks to headtaker and slaughterer and its ability to have both it can act as a strong weapon, but it is far too weak from a cold start and it is really quite annoying that it basically requires at least one +power blessing if not both to use it effectively. With such blessings it is the best of the chain weapons. Heavy attacks, once buffed, are quite strong actually for their intended niche. Light attacks have all kinds of value adds.

More light attack base damage
More heavy attack base damage

The Tigrus MKII Heavy Chainsword is thoroughly dissapointing as a weapon. It doen’t do enough base damage in damnation to be effective against hordes. It has a strong body priority on horizontal swings. Its lights feel more like swinging a paddle than a giant whirring chainsword, and it is just kinda clunky. Its inability to get +Power blessings is obviously a core problem but only because all the weapons are basically balanced against +Power blessings. I’d love to see it get access to Slaughterer. That’d probably push it over the line for usability. Though I think it needs better cleave damage distributions in general. Its kinda a shame how few targets it hits.

The Chain Machette is too short and also doesn’t have +Power blessings and so will be dumpster tier until it can hit any breakpoints on anything.

I think you might need to rephrase this, I had some trouble understanding if you meant the latch time on special attack or the rev up time when pressing the special button. I see you mean the animation time when pressing the special button before an attack.

I support the idea of reducing the activation time on pressing the special button. I am not sure whether or not it should be eliminated all together but conceptually I like the idea, it could be very fun.

I don’t think its duration needs to be changed but perhaps its damage distribution needs looking at. It takes an awful long time to kill one poxwalker with a special attack, whereas it takes basically the same ammount of time to kill a Mutant. That feels wrong. However its super fun to use on normal horde enemies so I dunno if changing it is a good idea. Just a watch item maybe.

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In my experience with Slaughterer and Headtaker the Chaxe is the best of the 3. The chainsword’s mobility is great but you just tickle enemies, while the Eviscerators preformance drops horribly on Damnation, even using the extended combos don’t help.

Honestly I feel like activations are actually the best part about current chain weapons. The trade off between chain weapons and the force/power is that you don’t nees to activate to get the max potential out of them normally. Chain Weapons just need some damage boosts on their normal attacks, and I would like to see the Chainsword and Eviscerator get some better blessings.

Disagree here, with the 2 blessings you mentioned you can 100% make it work on Damnation. The heavy attack animation on the Chaxe is a bit misleading and a little jank, and you don’t need to hold it as long as you think you do. While without buffs active I would also like light attack damage buffed, when you have enough power blessings the light attack will hit multiple enemies and rip the last one, meaning it preforms super well in certain situations.

This is what I would recommend, as they don’t have access to the power blessings other weapons have. After they’re preformaning better normal, than we can see if activations need more changes but I think they’re in a fine spot as it is.

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