If you have it, Bloodthirsty/Savage Sweep makes the Eviscerator feel quite… Eviscerator-y (on the Heavy 1 attack, at least). It rips through hordes*, and bites into elites
It doesn’t necessarily make it good (it’s a gimmick playstyle, you’re always revving) but it’s fairly in line with my mental image of what an Eviscerator should behave like.
I’ve yet to try Bloodthirsty/Devastating Strike with the Chainsword (Bloodthirsty eludes me), to see how that feels
*I would prefer if it split everything it hits in two but that may be a little imbalanced, so I have to settle for moderate damage
I think the biggest mistake they made with it is calling it “eviscerator”. It’s a very good representation of a two handed chainsword, or like I mentioned before an astartes (space marine) chainsword wielded by a normal sized human!
About the gimmicky “bloodthirsty” build, I tried it, really not a fan. By just spamming revved heavy 1 you are giving up on the complicated attack patterns that make the weapon interesting to use imo
And moreover it doesn’t do that much of damage overall… It’s mostly good for chainkilling special and elites I reckon
Like I said, it doesn’t make it good, it is primarily a gimmick - the weapon strike with Savage Sweep while revved (ignoring the activation itself) feels great, and I’d love to see more of that “tearing through hordes” feeling in the rest of the Eviscerator’moveset. What that looks like in terms of a good, balanced weapon, IDK, I just really want them to look/sound/feel the part.
I can’t remember what the damage profile looks like - I think the damage per swing is on the high side (I feel like the falloff bottoms out somewhere between 50 and 100, I’ll try and retest it soon), but the damage per second is dreadful.
They could probably start by finding a way to reduce the amount of time it locks you in place. To me its its biggest downside. It puts you in danger, on top of that you have to deal with the recoil effect, and whats going on around you, making it unnecessarily complicated.
If it terrified nearby enemies or caused them to cower, so at least you don’t get merc’d by everything nearby, it would probably mitigate a lot of its current downsides.
Personally regardless of how much of a bad ass someone might be, I believe seeing the guy next to you get his head chainsawed in half, is a terrifying, or at the very least rather concerning thing to be witnessing.
I think the latching effect has a place in the game, if it could be made less restrictive on mobility. From an immersion perspective, if you’re driving the chain weapon into an enemy, it makes sense that you’re right there with it.
A light tethering effect (say, minor speed reduction, less than what currently exists) which is required for each tick of damage that breaks at a certain distance and doesn’t impair dodges could possibly solve it for chain weapons as they exist today. If you want the full damage, you need to fully commit, but it’s no longer all or nothing - I’d gladly sacrifice 75% of the damage of my attack if it meant dodging away from a crusher before he chunks 75% of my health
I really don’t see the rev commitment as a problem. Its just something you play around and its one of the easier ones to play around since it doesn’t lock your movement and you can position whatever you’re sawing between you and the other enemies. Its a pretty rare case for me to actually eat hits while shredding.
The key failing points of the chain weapons remain:
Bad VFX/SFX on some attacks
quite bad base damage
bad blessing pools
I still cannot forgive that the heavy chainsword has less base damage than the 1h normie axe. It makes absolutely no sense. A 2h weapon should always be dealing more damage than a 1h equivalent. A chain weapon should deal more damage than a mundane weapon. A power weapon even more. this is the obvious heirarchy of weaponry.
I have a little feedback to give on the chainaxe, which I have been running for the most part of yesterday evening: Slaughterer/headtaker blessings.
It’s fun to use, and can do a lot of damage once you have gathered a few stacks of feats/blessings. If you are with 5 stacks or headtaker/slaughterer/rising conviction and go poking some elite… It stings, to say the least! Horde clear is Ok too
I would compare it more to the other axes (Caxe, Taxe) rather than to other chainweapons actually - like the eviscerator which is a longsword. Apart from the chainsaw feature, it plays a lot like the other axes, has the same reach and diagonal oriented attack patterns. I would use the same positioning/approach with the chainaxe than on those.
My biggest concern with it isn’t damage, weirdly, but mobility! (and I use a 80% mobility one ><)
I can’t dodge-dance like I do with most other 1h weapons, and often seem to be lagging behind, away from where I would be supposed to unless I use my ult specifically to close in with enemies. I usually like to run/dodge towards enemies and keep my ult for emergencies. Someone mentioned it before, when I think about it I find it a bit unfair for a 1 handed weapon to be so clunky. It could really use some more dodge distance/count. As of now it has the same as the eviscerator… I reckon that it still has to have a slightly worse mobility than a Caxe given it’s a “special” weapon with a bulkier look and a chainsaw in it.
I think that something around the dodges of the revolver/autopistol would be more appropriate. 4, or maybe 5 dodges at -5 instead of -12(those are the 80 mobility dodge distances of revolver/autopistol and Chainaxe/eviscerator respectively)
It would sit in between Caxe and Eviscerator in terms of mobility
Another option would be to have no Mobility Stat and keep the Defense stat, much like the Heavy sword. Sprint speed is fixed at a neutral point and the dodges are affected by the Defense stat. Idk if you noticed but you can’t run very fast with a Hsword, which makes it a tad clunkier than Caxes, but it still has good dodges. I could see the Chainaxe be like that too.
I think you get used to the lower dodge distance personally. I believe it has better stamina cost drain on sprint than C.axe but worse dodge count and distance. But this is a preference thing i suppose. I definitely see your point after running Chainsword for a bit to try it out.
What i really don’t like is how great it feels with full buff stacks and how bad it feels without them. In my view it should be hitting harder than the c.axe out the gate. Its this rip and tear savagery weapon and it feels weird how it scales up instead of just being awesome from the getgo. At a minimum i’d like to redistribute the scale so it starts a little stronger and ends at the same point. Just making it more consistent basically.
What i really don’t like is how great it feels with full buff stacks and how bad it feels without them
darktide_weapons.txt right there
Chainaxe is one of my favourite weapons - once it ramps up, it feels reasonably good in terms of combat effectiveness (ignoring the SFX/VFX issues for now). When you get enough power (T4 Slaughterer approx, or equivalent), you start cutting right through stuff and that feels rather nice. The Thrust bug makes it feel absurd (in a fun way) but somewhat busted.
I wish FS had taken some of the benefit that blessings unlock, and put it directly onto the weapon instead. I think it’d do a lot of good for a lot of weapons.
I do not believe it does. Maybe it helps for some people because they use the dodge distance as part of their strategy for moving around. It certainly lets you circle a group of enemies better. Personally i find the chaxe to be fully capable of direct stand up fights due to its huge stagger with heavy attacks not even accounting for when its combined with Punishment on Zealot.
Is the “punishment” feat really useful on Chainaxe? you feel a difference with/without? I’m running mine with “retribution”. Will have to try punishment out to compare.
