I haven’t tried alternative builds with the Eviscerator yet, but Shred/Savage Sweep and Blazing Piety blends through anything I’ve come across. Since the base cleave is improved, I want to try swapping SS for Rampage. The crit/weakspot multipliers for the light attacks are pretty good IIRC and you can get around 75% crit from Shred, Blazing Piety and Merciless Strikes(?) which is easily accessible at the top of the tree.
I haven’t tested it out yet, but if Wrath stacks multiple times per hit, it could be preferable to SS (if you stick with a cleave blessing) for the extra versatility when you’re dealing with tougher enemies that limit the ability to hit 3+ targets.
Any chain any charge weps are shitty in general. They are not fluid. When it comes to higher difficulties, slow and jerky weapons are shitty.
They should totally remove the stupid power on chain/energy animation and make it instant. I know it sounds too good. Just give it a cooldown 5-6 seconds or whatever, so we can enjoy a fluid combat.
Try it with blazing piety and crit cooldown reduction and DR on crit it’s wild, don’t even really need shred with +25% crit chance from piety and guaranteed crits from chastise.
Alternatively, if you were to drop Punishment/+Move Speed, grab Scourge and slap Shred on the chainsword, things get silly. Technically not as speedy, but it melts things. I’m using a pre-patch Shred/Devastating Strike chainsword right now (I’ll probably craft a replacement eventually )
Stripped Down braced autoguns are also fun for Inexorable Judgement; I tried it with the Columnus (which is my preferred brauto) but the extra fire rate was probably a liiiitle detrimental. Gonna go again with the Agripinaa and see how that goes!
Throwing knives is currently on a trial run, but the rest is Certified Fun (another aura would’ve been nice, but I don’t really want to pull 2/4 nodes from elsewhere to cross over the tree then back again for Shroudfield
Eviscerator/Chainsword and Blazing Piety/Inexorable Judgement feel like a match made in heaven. I prefer Chainsword with Inexorable Judgement (insanely fast, nimble and you’re not wanting for damage), and Eviscerator with Blazing Piety (with Inexorable Judgement, I know it’ll never match the speed of Chainsword ). I’ve yet to use Martyrdom, but that kind of ability has never appealed to me :shrug:
Also, I feel like something with Stripped Down is a must for Inexorable Judgement. Being able to run at near light speed is great fun, and the faster you move, the faster it stacks.
On an semi-related note, the Devil’s Claw is also wicked with both keystones. Rampage/Shred, and away you go. The extra cleave from Rampage feels adequate to justify skipping Wrath/Savage Sweep. Crits with the sweeping heavy attack can behead 4 poxwalkers in a single swing, which is very entertaining.
Coming back again. Changing my build to use the Momentum keystone, this feels like a whole new weapon. It’s definitely competing with my stealth thunder hammer build now, though the Holy Revenant Nerf is…not ideal lol
Obviously i have a lot of testing ahead of me but all the chain weapons in this patch using my above build are landing at TTKs in the 15-20s range on 50 poxwalkers which makes them competitive with illisis and bully butcher mk3s from Patch 12.
Update after some breakpoint testing. The Chain Axe now, wierldy, has by a moderate ammount, the weakest shred attack. A similarily rolled distribution grey chainsword, heavy chainsword (small eviscerator) and chain axe reveal a final tick damage for the first two at around 2200 damage to mutant bodies which allows a single revved heavy to kill a mutant in 1 hit with no perks. While the chain axe tops out at a final tick of around 1700 and fails to clear they 1 shot breakpoint by at least 1 or 2 unbuffed light attacks. This seems dumb. It should have parity on maniac if not superiority to the base chainsword.
Likewise the chainsword and heavy chainsword both put out higher base shred damage against unyielding and equivalent on Carapace. While the venerable Chaxe can hit cool breakpoints with Bloodletter, headtaker and/or slaughterer and/or the right perks this makes building chaxes much less versitile and maintains +maniacs as a Tax. Which I can’t say is exciting to me as a chaxe enthusiast. Chaxe tax feels bad man.
Otherwise all of these weapons are good, simple as. Lots of improvements all around.
I like that the iconic 40k weapons were progressively buffed since release.
Now, let’s give the eviscerator the proper size. Eviscerator is the size of the chainsword, and chainsword is more like chain… machete? If that’s a thing. We are not supposed to see the end of eviscerator while blocking
A space marine Chapter Master with a proper superhuman Astartes-Sized Eviscerator as reference. Astartes himself is of course proportionally bigger too (Source WH40K Lexicanum)
The chainaxe is really funny because you can see from the patch notes that they buffed the hell out of rev lights then just forgot to adjust rev heavies accordingly:
Orestes Mk IV Assault Chainaxe
Light Attack Base Damage (0%, 80% Damage Stat):
From 50, 90 to 80, 144.
Light Attack armour Modifiers:
Unyielding: 100% to 150%.
Flak: 100% to 150%.
Carapace: 40% to 75%.
Light Special Base Damage (0%, 80% Damage Stat):
From 50, 90 to 100, 180.
Light Special Finish Base Damage (0%, 80% Damage Stat):
From 200, 360 to 300, 460.
Heavy Attack Base Damage (0%, 80% Damage Stat)
1st Target: from 102, 156 to 150, 270.
2nd Target: from 55, 91 to 100, 180.
3rd Target: from 20, 64 to 75, 127.
Heavy Attack Cleave (0%, 80% Cleave Stat):
From 3.5, 7.5 to 5, 9.
Push-Followup Base Damage (0%, 80% Damage Stat):
1st Target: 80, 144 to 100, 180.
2nd Target: 10, 34 to 50, 90.
3rd Target: 5, 25 to 30, 54.
4th Target: 0, 0 to 5, 17.
See how there are adjustments for both “light attack” AND “light special”, meanwhile there are “heavy attack” buffs but no “heavy special” adjustments.
So now it’s in a really weird place where, without thrust, you rarely have a reason to use rev heavies over rev lights. On Zealot with augmented chastise you can easily one shot crushers with rev lights. If you want to benefit from Chaxe’s supposed single target advantage you basically have to full send with Thrust + Bloodletter to really feel that advantage, but it’s cumbersome, only genuinely matters on Crushers and bosses, and shreds the versatility of the weapon and throws your horde clear out the window.
Alternatively you can ride the super buffed lights and run head taker + slaughterer. You actually need both to cleave through an unstaggered poxwalker with lights now their mass has been increased to 1.5. However going this route, while more flexible and feeling better in most situations, throws pretty much any potential advantage of the weapon over its chain brethren out the window. Now you’re unambiguously just using worse chainsword that relies on 2 short duration blessings and incredibly variable breakpoints.
It’s a really weird spot for it to be in, because on one hand it’s been unambiguously buffed, and being able to one shot a lot of things with rev lights rather than rev heavies definitely makes it feel swifter and better. On the other hand with the amount the other chain weapons got buffed, and the neglect of rev heavies, it’s arguably in an even worse state by comparison post patch.
TBH chainsword rev lights probably do a bit more damage than they should for the speed, versatility, and mobility of that weapon (and also how quick it can actually get a rev attack off). Even that aside needing thrust to make Chaxe rev heavies worthwhile is a really awkward situation for the weapon.
I like that the chain weapons that are being buffed, but they seem to be hellbent in doing whatever they can to make the power sword the worst melee weapon in the game (it feels and performs worse than the Catachan Claw sword), and the plasma gun feels like a forgotten stepchild (almost no synergy with the talent tree, ammo changes affect it more than most weapons, ammo return on kill doesn’t return enough ammo for even a shot and small ammo pickups give 60% less ammo (by % of max ammo) to it than other weapons). The bolter is still semi-decent, but it does feel relatively a lot weaker (compared to some of the stuff that got buffed to it’s level or higher, but doesn’t have its inconveniences).
Chain weapons not feeling like clubs is appreciated though.
I did not notice that at first and that is hysterical. @FatsharkCatfish can you please alert the combat team to this one? It seems an oversight. I did confirm, by the way, alsozara that lights appear to be essentially on par with heavies in almost all cases when testing with greys. I’m quite fond, right now, of bloodletter+headtaker as chain axes go, it does well in all situations as long as you have general zealot buffs going. But the fact that the chainsword can mysteriously oneshot a mutie on light rev attack but the Small Eviscerator cannot is additionally bizarre.
Yeah that’s probably the best general use combo, it’s just that running that setup I can’t shake the feeling I’m running rampage + bloodletter chainsword after cutting the chainsword in half and shooting my leg off before the mission begins.
The only advantage chaxe has on chainsword right now, besides cool memesfactor, is high stagger on special. Its quite hard to solo fight 4 crushers with chainsword but chain axe i can do handedly. In that sense though the microeviscerstor…smolviscerator…is still the best for that due to improved reach.
I would not say it has better cleave compared to cleave blessing powered chainswords and heavy chainswords but the heavy attacks are quite usable and overall the weapon is in a good place. I just think the special attack being thr weakest rather than tied for 2nd is a bad change.
It also has higher stagger power. This is less relevant for Zealot, but hitting Crushers and Maulers with the chainsword is a bit risky. So my Veteran prefers chain axe so I don’t randomly get smashed by the enemy I’m rip sawing.
Update of issues discovered with chain weapons so far:
Chainsword special light and special heavy do more damage than Chaxe special of either type to most key targets despite having far lower windup and thematically being insensible 2. Micro-Eviscerator/Heavy Chainsword Heavy 1 and Heavy 2 can almost oneshot a mutie with no buff stacks. This is consistently possible with buff stacks. Dealing a combined 2200~ damage from the two ticks.
This isnt quite right. It does a lot of damage but wont oneshot, thats only possible for mutant waves maelstrom modifier spawns.
Bloodthirsty (crit ability) WILL proc off second tick shred kills on heavy attacks
The same effect is not present for bloodthirsty on Chaxe.
This is likely a bug but also seems cool but entirely makes bloodthirsty worse on Chaxe beyond it already having no cleave on special and being worse.
Most of the audio and visuals I had prior are still present.
)
). I’ve yet to use Martyrdom, but that kind of ability has never appealed to me :shrug:
