Damage increasing weapon perks should go

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1

99% of people pick the same two weapon perks, Usually Flak+(Maniac or Unyielding), some weapons benefit greatly from carapace, but other weapon perks are left behind.

I truly believe the perk system would be much more interesting if we removed all flat damage increase weapon perks, which are: Damage Vs Flak, Maniacs, Infested, Groaners+Poxwalkers, Carapace, Unarmoured, Unyielding, and Specialists.

As it currently stands, you will never take perks such as sprint/block efficiency since you will be missing out on free damage, +25% is no joke, also more situational damage perks, such as +10% critical/weakspot hit damage.

More interesting perks can be added, examples: ignore 50% hitmass against hordes (Groaners, Poxwalkers), -50% move speed penalty from charging heavies, enable parry, reduced recoil (for ranged), -50% push cost, +1 dodge, +50% Impact.

These could actually change how a weapon feels, or enable some unique builds, maybe you will go for push attack build with the reduced push cost, or skip cleave blessings and take the -50% hitmass against hordes, or go for a stagger build with an unexpected weapon with the +50% impact.

This all comes from the fact that I had stockpiled perfect roll weapons, and now at 1400+ hours, I decided to scrap them for pocket change, I really couldn’t find more than 2 configurations for each weapon, so why keep the extra ones, please rework blessings and perks, the game still can be even more fun.

18 Likes
2

Now that character trees have been finalized for the most part, perks & blessings need the next batch of reworks to actually give us real and interesting choices. Completely agreed with everything in the post. Like the +damage% perks, this should also be the case for the +Strength% on trivial action blessings like Slaughterer & Headtaker. It’s quite difficult for other blessings to compare with extra damage, cleave and stagger on such trivial action like on hit or kill. +Strength% should come with a bit more stringent requirements or maybe be removed from weapons and exclusive to character trees.

4 Likes
3

I forgot to mention, if all damage perks are removed, weapon damage values need to be adjusted accordingly, so no power is lost, but we have new interesting choices.

1 Like
4

I really dislike “damage vs type” stats, they feel extremely boring and only to play around the breakpoint game. Also, convoluted temp chip-stat-stacking blessings clogging the buff section of the HUD.

I want perks and blessings that really change the feel of the weapon and are a meaningful choice for a playstyle. Direct, noticeable always on buffs that you don’t need to track like an accountant.

Build up Foolhardy stacks on each successful backflip that evades a headshot or spread Brutebasher stacks every time a Nimbleness check returns undetermined or worse? I DON’T KNOW!

1 Like
5

The devs are moving away from simple damage stacking on hit or kill blessings. They are rare on new weapons.

Proc or stack on dodge or other conditions remain interesting imo because they do promote combinations.

3 Likes
6

Yeah, damage perks and most blessings should go.

Perks should increase reload speed, max ammo, stamina, reduce movement penalties, etc.

7 Likes
7

Would be cool to have more blessings like adhesive charge and Infernus, would add variety and make existing weapons feel like “new” weapons by changing their functionality/adding utility.

+Damage blessings are boring because they are either weak/bis (sometimes both), how about make them huge bonuses with a downside? Just like DRG overclocks? that way they wouldn’t be boring anymore at least.

Like idk, make bolter have an ammo pool of 30, but each shot deals 1/3 of a boss damage with a overheating/blow up mechanic like plasma gun.

Thunderhammer could have a blessing for being always empowered, but swings much much slower etc.

3 Likes
8

care to elaborate what’s weak about increasing the dmg modifier of vs X to reap multiplicative benefits?

When your basedamage gets multiplied by x0.25 vs X, everything benefits, weakspot+/crits especially noticeable on anything with low base values.

What are they going to put in perks to make a difference? Attack speed? Oh yeah lets go from DMG to everyone using attack speed on their melee. Making one hell of a difference are we.

2 Likes
9

I don’t think we need more power creep.

4 Likes
10

“You can now reload at [25-100]% reload speed while sprinting.”

THAT would be a cool blessing.

Some things like the clunkiness of “activated” weapons should be fixed globally. A better display of charge status and cooldown, the ability to activate them while swinging or blocking or better yet, the “activate” action is an attack by itself, which then would leave the weapon activated or make X swings do the thing (for weapons that are ONE activated attack + extras with a blessing).

Also, I don’t know how, but I want a KICK action to shove enemies away while reloading.

11

I don’t think he’s suggesting everything should have the same damage as they do with stacking blessings as a base, but rather the weapons should be rebalanced to still be useful after these blessings are taken away.

There are definitely a few weapons that come to mind that are pretty useless without their obligatory stacking damage buffs and it seems they’ve been balanced assuming the average player is going to be just maxing out damage with no regard for anything else

3 Likes
12

I mean, everything boils down to DMG really, or a precursor to it. Just different means to the same ends.

Faster reload - so you can deal damage quicker.

Bleed - so you can damage more enemies quicker.

Brittleness - to apply more damage than before the effect etc

Everything boils down to killing enemies in as efficient way as possible, and choosing a blessing that best suits your build to achieve it.

Sorry I know that’s a fairly dry opinion :laughing: I’m all for inventive ways to change play styles though. I guess removing the direct damage blessings could work if they’re being chosen by the vast majority by default.

1 Like
13

It’s not surprising that some people’s brain structures align perfectly with the Arrowhead.
If most people choose an option and than you just delete it, how brilliant is that?

The real question is why no one would choose those options.

Adding new options is a good idea, but the solution should never be to simply remove the old options; instead, it is to enhance the overlooked options while providing more new choices.

2 Likes
14

i would like it more if we get red weapons which have an unique effect/blessing to them…kinda like the mortis trials indulgences…like applying fire stack on melee hit, no ammo consumption on crit and so on

15

Because flat damage increase is the best.

If that’s your question I understand why you can’t comprehend the reasoning of removing flat damage increase perks.

1 Like
16

This achieves nothing.

Perks and blessings are not the problem, it’s enemy composition and unique enemy types which require different perks. We still don’t have an infested or unarmored tank enemy that would require getting +25% infested or +25% unarmored.

We could have unique mission modifiers which have more hordes with even stronger units than moebian 21st, so that horde clear-focused melee weapons get a better spotlight.

Fatshark is already moving in the right direction by adding Plasma Gunner who is carapace armor, which means little by little Flak/Mutant/Unyielding combo will not be the only three talents you choose. Carapace is already more useful on some loadouts, since some weapons already 2-3 shot mutants without the perk, so buffing carapace makes more sense so that you can still deal with Crushers and Plasma Gunners.

ignore 50% hitmass against hordes

Thunder Hammer has a blessing like that and it’s near useless.

+1 dodge

That’s way more broken than 25% damage buff to specific type of enemy. Because weapons with low mobility now don’t have a weakness anymore with a perk like that.

-50% push cost

You don’t need to push enemies this much to warrant a perk like that.

Reworked Zealot has new talents that enhance push attacking and aura for that.

Ogryn has lots of stamina at base and can already push enemies all the time.

+50% Impact

All melee characters have impact talents in their trees, and they are more than enough.

Many people already avoid them, if they’re playing super meta loadouts only.

-50% move speed penalty from charging heavies

Both Ogryn and Zealot have a talent that gives them 100% heavy attack movement reduction. Adding a perk like that would mean that players have less reason to get them in the skill tree and just go for pure damage talents instead.

enable parry

Makes Dclaw even more useless than it currently is by giving every better weapon this feature.

1 Like
17

Your replacement idea is just what blessings already do.

Personally, I think perks are fine. They’re uninteresting and dull but that’s kinda their purpose, just to move breakpoints and ttk by 25%. Blessings on the other hand vary between incredibly impactful and completely forgotten. Dominant ones that give players power need to be nerfed or removed from the game, mid ones need some adjustment buffs, the ones people never use simply need to be completely redesigned.

2 Likes
18

Given the comment context, I read that as the hypothetical question the devs should be asking themselves, not the poster’s own question.

Arrowhead was notorious for “spreadsheet balancing” by nerfing “overused” weapons not realizing they were only overused because they were the only viable options.

They should have, being professional game devs, asked why no one was using the other options but didn’t.

2 Likes
19

Blessings that change and enhance the unique elements of weapons should be encouraged. Like Power Cycler before it was made mandatory at 1 energized swing baseline. How are boosted options going to compete with that? They should have left the energized period alone and made power cycler more interesting. Like my favorite mechanic that left the game and was unique to it - having charged heavies increase the duration instead. It would even be a reason to use Scandar power sword over the godly Achlys. Or if the energized duration was still increased for normal attacks, but it was just to extend a combo. So you would have to choose between raw killing potential or more energized swings. Instead in game more energized swings eclipses all the options in game by a mile. I’m not overly obsessed with power sword this is just an easy example without getting too into the weeds. At this rate of armor unit spam I don’t think Sunder is negotiable either.

Instead we get boring power boosts that contribute stagger and cleave too, so any weapon with all 3 already has no options. Just play power.

2 Likes
20

I think a good start would be to nerf these perks to be +15% Vs X. That would reign in their supremacy a bit