Every 'tide game has some variant of daggers that invoke all of the eldritch powers of the Rule of Cool to be WAY more effective than they have any right to be. I get it; feeling like that nimble character who darts between the enemies, striking them down with their immense skill fits perfectly with the series. And, of course, a dagger slid into the gaps is one of the most definitive ways to kill something in heavy armor.
But really, can’t this be reigned in? Like, I feel like these types of weapons don’t actually need massive weakspot modifiers on top of massive crit modifiers. What if they had great crit mods but not amazing weakspot mods? Or vice versa? Something that can preserve the coolness factor, keep them viable, but not always make them incredibly powerful choices.
No. Fatshark has never properly learned their lesson about making crits do way, way too much, handing out crit chance out too freely, and what those things do to their games. In fact they’ve regressed quite a lot on that front as Darktide has gone forward.
It’s a blackslisted weapon class for me. I have no idea who is the real life knife freak responsible for those weapons having inflated stats in every Tide game, but this is the only “reasonable” explanation.
Multiple iconic 40k weapons are outperformed by what is essentially the LAST resort weapon, and some improvised shivs. Almost as big of a joke, as foldable shovels.
I wouldn’t mind their crit nerfed if Zealot got a weakspot damage bonus talent that isn’t Finesse
Since Zealot CB deals very pitiful damage if not crit built (or putting all your eggs into Martyrdom), meanwhile Vet CB, Psyker CB and Scum CB deal a lot more without critting
Vet has a +30% weakspot dmg talent, Scum has a +25% weakspot dmg talent and Psyker has Precognition
Zealot is the only class where he gets weakspot damage bonus for a very limited amount of time (Finesse)
Inexorable judgment is really… a poor choice since Zealot rework. And this makes me sad.
Even Martyrdom can constantly permits you to get more attack speed. There is a big problem for this keystone.
One thing that surprises me is block angle. Daggers, historically, actually we’re pretty useful at punching through armor and having strength. They mainly lacked reach and defensiveness.
In Vermintide 2 the low reach nimble weapons generally had awful block angles and stamina consumption on blocking. But in Darktide apparently all weapons have a 360 degree block angle which is very silly.
Cleave should be reduced on daggers and non-weakspot hits should be very weak. In my opinion.
As for nimbleness and dodges and such, it would be interesting if your ranged weapons impacted your overall weight. So your “heaviness” is based on both. No more boltgun and dagger combos with same speed. Would need a pistol or las pistol or something plus dagger to stay the same speed.
Inexorable Judgement is really good for Shroudfield builds
Dodge speed regeneration is extremely good and it’s part of what makes Hive Scum broken as a class (ofc it’s not as good as Scum since Scum gets it from a single node and zealot needs to use a keystone for it and it needs to be proccd instead of being passive)
The most gamebreaking builds absolutely use IJ since it’s the clutch machine
Outside of Shroudfield that I never use (like Chrous), this is a bad keystone.
Martyrdom is far more efficient.
Martyrdom +30% attack speed consistently
IJ +20% attack speed for 6 seconds then, usually, the bonus drop (as you cannot run all the time when you fight).
Of course, IJ give an attack speed bonus for ranged and melee when Martyrdom is onlee for the melee attacks…
But really, I don’t feel that this keystone is really good… or maybe Martyrdom is too good.
It’s been established for years now that Fatshark game designers hate iconic 40k weapons like the Thunder Hammer, Eviscerator, Chainsword, Chainaxe and Boltgun. The knives, rapier and shivs being stronger is their way of expressing this disdain.
I just want to voice my agreement with OP that knife weapons have always been over-tuned and don’t feel like they have enough weaknesses to compensate for their strengths. Same with dueling sword. Using only a knife or knives as your only melee weapons should feel like a risky choice. Instead, they will significantly outperform a thunder hammer (meme boss-killing build aside).
The question is, how widespread and accessible are the practices of using its potential to the fullest (or in other word, how high is the skill floor) - and how destructive it to the experiences of the rest of the team?
Cause we currently have a completely broken crutches, like infinite Smiter builds, krak grenades / boom bringer, Needle Pistol, Purgatus, Arc Rifle and the Claw - which allow anybody with 80 IQ and one/two fingers on some button(s) to remove challenges from their matches with no skill required at all, and which you can meet in almost every your match, often ruining the game for other players on their team who expected a certain amount of challenge from the match. Yet somehow we are overly-concerned with a niche weapon with rather high skill floor that requires immense amount of skill to become really “OP”, and that you may see abused in like 1% of matches you are in? Are we setting our priorities right here?
Inexorable judgement key stone I never used until I tried this build and saw it has a bunch of unlisted bonuses improving your dodges that allow the big relic blade to feel less cumbersome. Dodge distance, dodge speed, and dodge cool down.
