Class and Weapon Balance - A Treatise by Deisu

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Tl;Dr : Ogryn weapons bad. Ogryn class kinda meh. Psyker bad. Zealot meh. PLZ BUFF. Veteran good.

It is one day to release and there are still serious unresolved issues with weapon and class balance that I think will aggravate new players and are worth addressing quickly. Perhaps the complete build will have fixed these already but we have heard no such communication so I cannot help myself and must write this essay (I just have to ok?). I will herein propose what I think are necessary changes to ensure a satisfying launch experience for any class and any choice of weapons. I have the luxury of 100 hours of gameplay experience in Beta. I have the added benefit of friends and a wife who are playing Darktide and as a consequence I am able to try out their preferred classes at reasonable levels and equipment as well as hear their opinions and disappointments.

Section Zero: Philosophy
I believe that this is a PVE game. As a new player to a PVE game I am here for a challenge and for the power fantasy. I would much rather have things be too good instead of disappointing. Every change proposed below is to keep in line with the lore and to make things good or even too good. Gradual debuffs can always be applied after launch, but players shouldnā€™t have a bad time playing with any of the classes at launch.

I will only touch on things I know about. and Iā€™m not writing any user stories, iā€™ll try to be brief where I can skip explanation.

Section One Ogryn Weapons
The ogryn is in a very bad spot. Its knives are the main damage weapons and you get them at like level 2. There is no end game. I assume more weapons are in the hopper given leaks and starting screen, but until then we need to talk about how bad the clubs are. Lets remember. The Ogryn is strength five on table top. This is stronger than a space marine, in cannon and in rules. Just as a point of order a bolt gun is considered less powerful than a melee attack by an Ogryn. Yet at level 18 with a middle of the road club and middle of the road shield/club it is taking 2-3 swings to kill poxwalkers. Here is a description by that level 18 Ogryn of their experience from a recent game:

3 Ogryns and a lady with a chain sword. The 3 big boys we just smack and smack and smack. And we can NOT clear out a horde of squishies. I wanna be at least as strong as the damn sword. I canā€™t bail people out if they are down because I canā€™t kill stuff at any reasonable rate even at [the low malice difficulty]. They have to just wheeze on the floor while I play bongo on squishies for half an hour. By then thatā€™s enough time for a bomber to spawn and BBQ them to death.

Does this sound like a good experience? Is this how players should feel about this class? I do not think so.

I want to reiterate once more: Ogryns are stronger than space marines and their bolters in general lore. Bolters cause people to explode when hit. Getting hit by an Ogryn swinging a plasteel maul should be like getting hit by a car. Common poxwalkers should be exploding when hit with these clubs. Ogryns should be able to cleave through at least 3-5 poxwalkers and kill all of them before damage starts to fall off on their one handed clubs, let alone the anticipated 2 handed mauls.

Buffs: significantly increase base damage and base cleave of the bully club and the shield and club.
Gameplay: add gibbing for targets killed by blows from Ogryn clubs

Section Two: Class Balance
Right now the Veteran is far and away the best. The other classes are all lagging in various ways. The general opinion I hear is that the veteran is best, the zealot is fun but weak at higher levels, the psyker was nerfed too hard and not worth it at higher levels despite being very interesting to many players, and the ogryn is a very valuable ā€œtankā€ in higher levels but tends to be lackluster as an actual vehicle for damage.

Veteran: Do nothing.

Ogryn: The Ogryn is too squishy for something that is toughness 5 on table top. It should have at least 200 toughness alongside its defensive buffs. Considering its large hitbox and tendency to attract shooter fire this would make it tanky enough to wade into las fire to get into those squishy boys without eating health damage.
Buff: Increase base toughness of Ogryn to 200 (iā€™d even argue 300 but he does have 20% reductions)
Buff: Remove the grenade box deploys secondary grenades Feat. Integrate it with the grenade box by default.

Zealot: zealotā€™s F occupies the weird space of feeling like its intended for sniping specials and single targets. But this is a horde shooter. Zealot is a melee class. We already have a special sniper (vet) and veteran sharpshooter has a timed duration based sniping ability. The zealot should receive the same.
Buff: Chastise the wicked now reads - The Preacher dashes forward or towards a targeted enemy, replenishing 50% toughness. Entering a zealous rage the preacherā€™s next Melee Hit is guaranteed to be a Critical Hit. For the next 5s all Melee attacks gain 25% increased damage.

Psyker: I recall psyker being much better in CBT. Most people seem to agree.
Buff: Revert the nerfs to Psyker after CBT.

Section Three Human Weapons

Power Sword: lets address the elephant in the room. This thing is super super incredible. And why shouldnā€™t it be? But it is so good that nothing else is even in the same league right now. Do not nerf it. Sidegrade it.
Resolution: Change the second Heavy Attack combo move to an overhead instead of a horizontal cleave. This instantly halves its general horde clear effectiveness while not making it feel significantly worse to use. Itā€™ll be a fun and awesome weapon with high utility.

Boltgun: This weapon is in a good place and many people argue in favor of certain lasguns at the highest difficulties. This suggests it is well balanced at this time.

Plasma Gun: This weapon is getting beaten out by the Bolt Gun right now. The plasma gun cannot take advantage of Deadshot as it has no ADS. And it has low shots to over-heat.
Buff: Increase base shots to overheat by 2
Gameplay: Change plasma controls to match that of the Lucius las. (LMB is fire/charge fire, RMB is ADS).

A note on Chain Weapons - these are iconic to the setting and MUST be awesome. They should be as good as mundane weapons without revving, the revving should just be added bonus.

Eviscerator: This weapon is in a pretty good place but is just a touch to weak so far.
Buff: add a small amount of base damage. I should never be able to not oneshot a poxwalker with this weapon on any swing type.
Buff: make both Heavy attacks horizontal sweeps

Chainsword: This weapon is much better than CBT but still is a little too quiet. If you can do so, please add more rev as swings are initiated and after. I think literally its just the audio that makes this weapon feel kinda meh. Its damage numbers seem fine in testing.

Thunder Hammer: This was the most disappointing thing Iā€™ve ever experienced. Its a joke weapon in my view. The hammers in VT2 are really fun and satisfying to use, how could this thing be THIS bad? Please keep in mind the stated ambition of the devs is to have hordes more populous than VT2, yet the current iteration of the Thunder Hammer is only able to kill one or two enemies at a time. You canā€™t ship the weapon this way to the public. Itā€™d be a travesty. Iā€™d have to write three illuminated gothic treatises to properly frame how bad this is as a release plan for this weapon, so I hope his gets my point across.
Buff: Add sufficient cleave and armor pen to the weapon, uncharged, that it can deal reasonable damage to carapace and kill at least as many poxwalkers per swing as an unrevved eviscerator. Or (as I understand it) revert the CBT to Early Access nerfs.

edit notes:

  • reordered based on priority of feedback. Ogryn weapons moved to top.
  • shortened Thunder Hammer buff justification for quicker reading and clarity.
  • added an additional buff for Ogryn based on player feedback
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I kinda agree with some things, but kinda disagree with others. Mostly agree though.

Ive only played zealot and vet so i cant say much about our ogryn boy. I will say though that if ogryn was lore accurare he would completely outclass zealot. Thats the problem with what youre suggesting there. Definately agree with adding gore to bully club though

The proposed buff for zealot would actually be reverting the ult ā€œfixā€ he received in 1.08. In that patch fatshark ninja fixed his ult which since the start of the pre order beta was granting 4 seconds of enhanced crits. Literally nobody was saying zealot was op at that point, but it seems like that change has gone mostly unnoticed which is a little disheartening tbh. That ult change is an absoulutely MASSIVE nerf and breaks the interaction zealot had with chain weapons. Id like to see that reverted which would be what you are asking for but better.

As much as i like the boltgun and powesword, lets face it: the easiest way for fatshark to fix the problem with these weapons is to nerf them. The fact of the matter is, their current power level makes the game less fun to play for others. It feels so bad when im trying to use my helbore lasgun and i finish charging my death ray shot only for the enemy im aiming at to get instanly annihilated by some guy using a boltgun thus wasting my ammo unless i switch to melee, but then i have to deal with the horridly long switch animation back to the helbore. Honestly part of this is the helboreā€™s fault, but the point is: the boltgun just outclasses everything so hard that if you got two or more people rocking it in the party and you are using a weaker weapon like the helbore, you are pretty much invalidated.

I havent played with plasma gun much so no comment there.

Eviscerator really doesnt need a buff. Its already one of zealotā€™s best weapons.

Your chainsword suggestions are harmless. No issues there.

I want thunder hammer to be better too. I mostly agree with your suggestions and dont feel like relaying my thoughts on the weapon again.

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What do you think about Autorifles and Lasguns other than Recon?

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Ogryn do not need melee buffs. They already essentially deny most melee enemies from even doing anything (Including and up to crushers) if the player has a brain. Similarly to melee they can completely lock down ranged units with stumble. Not everything has to be about deleting the enemies in half a second.

Lol.

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Iā€™d like to tackle a few points here.

The Eviscerator IS the best weapon on Zealot, or one of them. But it is outshined by the powersword. My proposed changes of a mild damage buff and a moveset buff to the Eviscerator to bring it up to ā€œPowerSwordā€ tier. My design philosophy was to buff rather than nerf. But I did propose a sidegrade for the powersword that might be considered a nerf by changing its strike pattern.

I do not consider the bolter to be better than some of the lasguns, at least not in all cases. I think we leave it alone and give players more time to find the niches and utilities and failures of each weapon before nerfing. Better that a PVE game release with some really cool really powerful stuff, than a bunch of lackluster and unfun equipment.

I do not think this is strictly true. The zealot has access to eviscerators (+2 strength, putting him at equivelence to Ogryns) and Thunder Hammers (S10 or maybe its S2x these days). Additionally the Ogryn is a poor shot, while the zealot has access to precise and useful handheld weaponry. This is a balancing act, but I again propose we err on the side of too good rather than too weak which is where all three non-vet classes are now.

I think the autorifles are weak right now. But I am not certain that will hold true as weapon traits are released or discovered that turn them into absolute shredders. This proved to be what makes the Accatran so good, so I think this is where we should look for improvements to them. I believe the Lucius Las requires optics at a minimum. It might be good in that case. Kantrael MGXII is fantastic but the other two are meh-tier. Not every weapon has to work at Damnation, and I think all of these weapons can be played at Malice.

Two to three hits to kill a single poxwalker is unnaceptable when there are literally hundreds of them on screen at times. Stager is a utility. Its inexcusable that the biggest melee-ist class cannot efficiently kill mooks in a horde shooter. Stunlocking your foe is always inferior to killing it outright, it doesnā€™t help to have 200 stunned poxwalkers. Its just someone elseā€™s problem now. The Ogryn should be a melee blender. End of story.

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I would say it should be both at you wish, have clubs be great Crowdcontrol, and add bigger knifs/axes/sword for efficient killing. So you can be either a control tank or a main damage.

I think instead of more toughness I would argue for more range resilience (like 30-40 instead of 20% for range only) and slightly faster attack spped in close combats. this way better combat timing would reduce damage from Close combat and also reduce the feeling of clunginess compared to other classe.

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Stunlocking enemies does help? I mean, I donā€™t claim to be a hardest difficulty V2 vet, but reading up on it preparing for Darktides higher difficulties I understood it as ā€˜managingā€™ hordes is as important as killing them on higher levels.

I.e in V2 higher difficulties you would have a Bardin with shield pretty much just pushing and blocking while another character cleared out the horde.

In Vermintide we have an Ogryn using shield to the same effect.

iā€™m sure we can get some V2 vet to verify this.

However I do agree that the Ogryns club could use a tweak. At least let it push-cleave a bunch of enemies to the ground instead of just bouncing off them. I mean, the guy is huge.

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I understand your position here but speaking from highest difficulty VT2 experience most people look down on, even laugh at, the concept of ā€œTankingā€. Dodges and parries, with unlucky blocks, and just killing everything as fast as possible is the entire paradigm.

I will just reiterate my point. Stagger and stunlocking enemies is useful, but not if its all you are doing. All that means is that someone else has to kill everything for you. At that point you should have just brough someone else who can also kill things and youā€™d be killing 2x as fast. When I play veteran or zealot I just cleave 180 degree and 90 degree arcs in front of me respectively. With some dodge work I can avoid ever taking any damage at all even on the highest difficulties and the enemies all die in one or two strokes at most. Felling dozens+ per swing. Meanwhile the ā€œtankā€ is ā€œhelpingā€ by clearing out 1 or 2 every 2nd or 3rd swing? This isnā€™t humorous, its not fun, it is disappointing and bad gameplay design. Standing there holding your shield passively while everyone else does all the killing isnā€™t gameplay in the first place. The minimum I would expect out of the ogrynā€™s most defensive weaponry is 4-8 poxwalkers dead per swing with high stagger on the remainder.

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