Catachan knifes also need some rework in my opinion. They could be changed towards what Kerillian’s daggers in V2 are - agile weapon with both crit chance + DOT.
DOT fits Catachan theme - there are enough poisonous plants and animals on that jungle hell planet, so use some poison for weapon
it can be not DOT, but paralyzing effect, something like surge staff works, but procs with some chance
it can be some kind of debuff - slowing target’s move speed/atack speed/reducing its atack damage
The combat blade already works like that just with 1 blessing. It has a 15% base crit, and you can use lacerate. On Vet, mine (that isn’t even close to dmg perfect) can one-shot every nonelite with heavy and push attacks too (on a headshot). The only weakness it has is that it’s very bad against pox walker hordes.
Desiu, thank you for your hard work on this proposal. I hope, that what you provided will be if not at least taken into consideration by FS, then rewarded and integrated into the game.
Most of the damage done with cleaver as Ogryn comes from mulching poxwalkers and groaners, if scoreboard gave a more detailed breakdown on how much damage was done to each category of enemy you would see the damage output struggle against some types.
True, i forgot about knife existing, its heavies also have stab animations like daggers.
Well, then maybe catachan swords/knife difference should be kinda the same like sword&dagger/dual daggers, one is better at armor piercing and solo targets killing and the other one is more a middle ground between horde clearing and elites targeting. Cause looking at catachan’s modifiers there is a Finesse, so it’s supposed to be something in between.
Still think there should be some kind of damage or effect over time for CS. Because right now i don’t understand what is CS’s role/niche, it’s like heavy sword but worse.
Yes… I agree that the scoreboard is bad… really bad at giving stats.
It gives you a nice score, that I really don’t care ow it is calculated, but don’t give us what we need as statistics.
I really need stats… not the stats of the others, but my stats. If I want to compare class and weapons, if I play with a weapon I can compare the result with when I played with my zealot…
Until they do something, I have to rely on bad scoreboard… but I see what you mean.
I’ve given up trying to get any good information from scoreboard, trying to replicate run conditions for different load outs is hard to make as fair as possible.
Or at least Kerillien 1h sword… Damn, I loved that weapon even before FS buffed it to a usable level. BTW, I feel like they kinda work similarly in theory, I think I should play around with them a bit more…
I don’t think so at all. The player’s shield doesn’t make them immune from fire from the side and rear, just like vermintide. I also did not propose a speed change. So it would be useful for advancing on groups of shooters in the same way that other players just play slip n slide party ride with dodges, sprints and slides. I don’t see this as a problem because the user still would lose stamina to melee attacks and couldn’t just hold it up indefinitely in all situations.
Otherwise I agree with you on adopting more verminide 2 mechanics. I actually proposed a reversed swing pattern to allow blocks during heavy swings and shoves because someone in another thread proposed it and I think its a good idea. But shield weapons will always be dumpster tier if they continue to do 90~ damage on attacks.
It would mean that ogryn just should be the first one who agro blob of gunners or reapers to completely nullify any risk for the team from engagin in combat with shooters. Sure he can do this already by using shield special, but with great con that he can’t kite.
Most of the time kiting requires some high skills from player (atleast how it’s should be) and it comes with risk - low stamina overall, fragile character, or weapon that not the best at dealing damage per hit, etc. But being able to dodge and block, not loosing stamina from shots at the same time, while playing high HP character, it seems to much for me, i just don’t see any counter balance for this.
How about a significant reduction on stamina cost so he can effectively tank shots while moving to engage instead of breaking from three shooters like he does now? Maybe scaling with the type of fire? Gunners doing more?
I still don’t really see the problem because shooters seem pretty intelligent about switching aggro targets and spreading out to cover different angles of fire. As a zealot i can get within my charge range and literally just press Q (i rebound my F) to charge directly into a wall of gunfire. No cost range blocking would only be truely incredible in really tight corridors, but why not let it shine there?
I’d like to take a second stab at explaining my logic on this description, but like…shorter and better cause its my second try.
I define failed melee weapon design using 4 criteria:
Most weapons aren’t being used in serious play. Only a few weapons are prefered.
Most weapons don’t have a clear identity or use case
Lots of weapons feel like they need something
The iconic 40K stuff is largely being passed over
I know the polls still need some time to cook but so far, even though MY ideas aren’t super popular (bummer for me, I think they’re cool and fluffy) most participants seem to agree on the following points:
Power weapons are executed badly but have clear identities at least
Chain weapons are executed badly and do not have a clear identity
Edit: The Melee weapons aren’t very 40k-feeling
The chain and power weapons and many mundane weapons need something
We know from game experience that most people are just using axes. Heavy sword for Zealot is popular. Bully Butcher is considered the main weapon of choice for ogryn, but most others are just “meh”. Lots of "meh"and little variety for anyone.
So, basically, the design has failed since it doesn’t do what it should do with most of these weapons.
As an aside I am pretty surprised on the chain weapon changes because they’re mostly centered on making them hit harder and I would have expected people to like that. I’d love to hear from the posters who said no and learn why.
I’ll have to break these polls out into seperate threads at some point to see if I can interrogate them in a more detailed way. But for now I’d like to continue this one and just aggregate the feedback the community has. (because darktide is my hobby).
Meta chaser gotta meta chase, lots of people play with what they want to.
Most weapon are generalist, they shouldn’t be too pointed toward a single focus identity
Could be true in certain cases, some weapons are more like gap fillers than anything atm
Seen a lot of people playing with the THammers, Crushers, and stuff. using Axes, swords and other melee weapons are also verw iconic to 40k, the Chain weapons could be buffed slightly though
Power weapon aren’t a catch all term, having them be full powered would not be good for the weapon, the weapons that could/should be always powered should be Shock weapons, where they would have an electricity DoT, at the cost of brute damage
The Chains weapon might have the most identity atm, being could use some stat buff, but not much more is needed atm
Melee weapon are very much 40k
Axe is meta atm, most meta chaser will use it, this will change with balance patches, community changes and stuff. The axes will always be good for their single/first target damage, but other weapon can be considered just as good
Yes, but a lot of weapons do not have clear justifiable reasons to be used besides just doing it for fun. (I play non-meta generally). Thats what i mean by identity. Like the combat knife, i hate it, but there’s a clear ZOOM ZOOM niche value that some people like. Lots of weapons are, as you say, gap filler.
I absolutely disagree with this. Their audiovisual design is only good on special attacks. They occupy a low-middle tier in damage. They feel weird and bad to use. They do not shine at all. Nothing about them besides the special attack says I AM A SUPER COOL CHAIN WEAPON.
Sorry, i phrased that badly and will edit my post. I mean “the melee weapons do not effectively capture the essence of 40k”.
For example “this medeival axe is the best weapon and the power sword is mostly an unpower sword” to paraphrase several people ive read today.
It can be a stat in Defences modifier. If we are talking about shield ability to tank shooters, then i have some random ideas:
bull rush should work with block, like only exclusively for shield, not cancel block how it does in current state
or maybe some blessing that gives ability to run while blocking, and also reduce stamina cost when you are doing this
Yes, and you pay with your ultimate ability to do it, not like you are invulnerable and if there will be one more gunners blob behind that one you already has engaged, then you will spend another charge either to reach them or to get back (if you are using purge the wicked). In first case you are also probably will be out of coherency range and rest of the team will be at higher danger against specials. Sure if you are skillful enough you know how and when to push with minimal risk.
However with shield that completely immune to shots you can push without spending any resources and probably will be able to push with your team staying in coherency even, it’s just a guaranteed free push. Did a mistake? Dodge backwards while still blocking, no stress you loose nothing and game can’t punish you. To counter balance such level of survivability/push potential shield should be a full defence weapon, with almost 0 damage or another variant - extremely slow move speed.
Another personal taste - ogryn shouldn’t be a second zealot, it is much more interesting as heavy support-defender or turtle-tank, but not pusher
Well you can do it with special action right now, shield just a crap weapon itself, bad damage and bad mobility.
That would neccessitate, that you give those swords that high AP, which I doubt Fatshark would do. In VT2 a big chunk of the anti armor usability of stuf like SnD or Dual Daggers came from the fact that you could deal damage to armored elites via headshots. In Darktide elites are armored everywhere.
Maybe it would be more interesting to turn the catachan swords into dual wielding weapons with a sword in one and a pistol in another hand. I know a lot of people wish to see this and apparently it is also grounded in 40K lore.
Point well made and taken, you’ve convinced me. But it needs to be able to push under a reasonable volume of fire or it isn’t a slab shield weilding ogryn from 40k. That’s the entire purpose of them in lore. Some cost or challenge can go with it for sure but its biggest strength really should be pushing shooters and gunners.
Well and on top of that planting your weapon and not moving is totally disjointed from the rest of the gameplay.
To me thats the opposite design paradigm of an ogryn. Ogryn are imperial shock troops. He even has a charge ability. He should be a melee slaughter machine meant to rush in and get busy. I’m not saying he should ignore all balance considerations but i prefer an aggressive design for him. It also compliments the zealot by giving him someone to play with besides other zealots, which as a zealot main i really enjoy.
There’s like two of five doing it in this classic catachan art from the imperial guard books.
What if daggers and the like were able to look for smaller armor gap hitboxes on the models? That could be super neat. Stab the mauler in the eyes. Stab the crusher in the throat. Etc. Bit wishlist but still.
Yeah, but they are also perfect loyal bodyguards. I’ve said once somewhere - i don’t get why current ogryn class we have is called Skullbreaker, it is just a weird mix between Handmaiden and Footknight. Like one of his game changing passive feat is a pure support skill and suppose for ogryn to stay somwhere near just in case (or atleast charge towards teammate to save him)
Hmmm, I said in a bad way. I’m not against ogryn to be a shock trooper at any cost, i just think this one subclass we have in the game, it can’t be good at pusher role, or i should say it’s not rly designed for it ( i mean you still can do it, cause game isn’t so hard). And I’m not sure we need a second zealot alike hyperagressive class just right now. But in the future when there will be more subclasses - sure, why not.
I’d be fine with a flat damage profile for the Power Sword, but the excessive cleave and stagger has to go - there’s no precedence for it in the lore to my knowledge. No non-space marine/ogryn cleaves 2+ targets with any weapon.
A flat damage profile while MAYBE slightly increasing damage. Give it cleave and stagger like a regular claw sword and boom - there’s your lore friendly Power Sword.
Ogryn
The Ogryn from a lore perspective is lackluster. The damage is just missing across the line. From a balance perspective the “blunt” weapons need a damage buff. It’s ridiculous the Ogryn has to knock poxwalkers around 3-4 times before they die.
