Because they’ve seemed like the hottest, steamiest mountains of the fudgiest dog [redacted] every single time I’ve tried one.
Am I doing it wrong, or are they really as bad as they seem?
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You mean headhunter?
There is 2 with burst, and one interesting that fire single shots. Problem of these guns is that they are efficient only if you hit the head.
Honnestly, like a lot of weapons, they are just average. Far away of OP ranged weapons (Bolter, Ripper gun, stubber mainly).
They can be somewhat interesting for a zealot as they are very precise and can hit far away targets… however the burst fire, doesn’t help in this role (this is why I tend to choose the Vraks MK VII when I want to play with headhunter weapons)
I guess?
They always seem to waste ammo even if everything is on target. Aim for the head, half the burst is wasted because the target dies half way through. Aim for the body, half the second burst is wasted for the same reason. That adds up over the course of a run.
You can’t cut through trash to snipe targets in a pack thanks to the slow fire rate. They’re bad for trash clear for the same reason. They’re bad for long range sniping because even with good stability stats, they still jump around just enough to miss the second and third shots.
The non-burst counterparts just seem to do everything better. I figure I must just be using them wrong, because otherwise I can’t think of any use for them.
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As I said… burst fire weapons never convinced me.
Like you, I feel they waste a lot of ammos.
If it was me, I would put all headhunters as shot by shot…
Honnestly, I prefer the Agri shotgun to snipe, but a bolter is a better choice cause it is a versatile weapon (auto fire, sniping, killing armored target like crushers, staggering etc.).
I don’t see the niche that cover an headhunter… mainly cause, for a lot of weapons, an OP weapon can do better and cover more roles.
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2-3 round bursts suck in any game - so they do in DT in my opinion. As @Ralendil said - the VII with single fire is the only interesting one of the three. I use it regularly on my zealot.
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Myself i am a HUGE fan of the Vraks Mk3 , its top tier choice for me . very good burst damage good swap speed , fantastic in both recoil and suppression resistance. it can easily dismantle entire squads of shooters at far distance or be used to drop the dangerous special at ranged in that half second window between working melee , a good workhorse which also has the extreme range and recoil control to always be able to drop something if you can see it.
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How do you run it and what class and why it over the MG12?
The Vraks mk7 is the single shot one. Someone did a huge analysis and found the DPS and ammo efficient of the mk7 is actually the best when you dig into the stats. But even then, the single shot just feels much better and is more controllable.
In run it with No Respite (bonus damage on staggered targets) and Falter (huge stagger bonus on headshots).
Falter is amazing for stopping pox hounds dead in their tracks or any ranged elites. Follow up shots then do a lot of bonus damage damage and take them out quickly.
I think it’s a great weapon actually for gun psyker. You can stack warp charge and high peril damage buffs to make it do a ton of damage. And it’s a nice compliment to Brain Burst. I also like it on Zealot since it’s a great weapon to help deal with enemy shooters.
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edit the vraks is the mk3 the light variant (i think)
psyker or zealot usually, im generally point/pusher
the vraks does most damage to flak , which is the mk12’s weakness and generally im using ranged to drop enemy shooters and they tend to be unarmored or flak, i like the rhythm of the vraks you can squeeze bursts off a little faster, it feels like its a bit better on recoil and is shaken by incoming less.
the vraks also surprisingly has about 50% more zoom when ads over the Mg12 and it seems to have less sway to, i find that makes a LOT of difference to me in the ease and speed of moving between long range shooter targets and allows for faster DPM when you need to burn down a reaper
the MG 12 is a great gun though i do use it a fair amount myself it feels better on a back line vet than a front line mixed melee , to me anyway.
lot of personal feel in it for sure.
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I’m always looking for new things to try. Post your build for it?
@Reginald Gotta agree with @Padds the Vraks Mk III is very enjoyable. It has surprisingly good body shot damage especially on flak, it really clicked for me when I started thinking of it as a sniper brauto with surprisingly good hip fire accuracy. I use it on Zealot especially a tonne, though the crucian nerf definitely hurt it. The single shot Vraks is nice on Vet. Good break points though a bit finicky to reach, pretty good for careful shots or spamming alike.
All head hunters share an unfortunate weakness against maniacs, which definitely hurts them overall but their proficiency against most other armour types feels pretty nice. The big thing I feel with them over something like Kant MG XII is their greater proficiency in closer ranges and much better feeling hipfire.
And the Agrip 2 shot one is just really bad, there’s absolutely no argument for using that one.
Edit: Regarding builds I think falter + no respite are a pretty good combo these days. The stronger first shot blessing is good for the single fire Vraks since it resets quite quickly.
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dont really do “builds” =)
my zeolot is using feats 1 1 3 1 2 3
the gun has sharpshooter and deadly accurate , which i dont think is particulaly useful
generally i just run with a good stat role stability and stopping power seem to be most impactful , damage doesnt seem to move the needle much
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I’m not sure I really like any of the rifles. Which is a shame since there’s like 40 of them, and 10 other weapons in the game.
The K-XII is the only one I’ve gotten on with. I’ve tried the vraks III but dunno, I just don’t get it. And I know that’s a me thing.
Shotguns all the way 
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Once again I feel like Fatshark shoot themselves squarely in both feet with the fundamental design decisions made for their Tide games.
Let’s say we wanted to tune this rifle to cut through trash mobs at an appreciable rate.
First you have to ask which trash mobs? Recruit difficulty? Damnation? Do we choose a middle number and let a system automatically try and adjust it? For which weapon rarity though? Do we balance with or without perks&blessings in mind? Which blessings? What do we do about the random range in which the stats come about?
Repeat that thought for every stat, every substats, the weapons handling and performance, etc.
There is no possible way to tune a weapon, to actually balance it and define it properly and make it perform consistently across all the difficulty levels. That’s why they’re on a neverending quest to fix, tweak, balance and readjust their systems, but they’re bound to fail.
The end result will always be a cobbled together, unstable house of cards.
Too many knobs to twist, too many variables to take into account…
Darktide has no semblance of weapon balance. Is every weapon technically viable? Sure. The difference in performance between them, even in the hands of a theoretically perfect player, is massive. The best of the Headhunter Autoguns is the 3 round burst variant, but it’s a double weakness weapon (small weakness on Maniacs, large weakness on Carapace), and every double weakness weapon in the game is hot trash without exception.
If Fatshark removes Maniac weakness on things like the Recon Las and Headhunter Autoguns, they’d probably be within striking distance of things like the Autopistol and Heavy Braced Autogun.
Yeah the ranged weapons should probably all follow the Infantry lasgun format and have a target type they niche out on and a weakness, and the ones with 2 failings need to be sorted out. Like give some weapons decent infested damage so they can quickly gun down a dog or burster(s), some flak damage for dealing with regular scabs, some with unarmored for dregs, some unyielding for ogryns and some maniacs for generic specials. Carapace is too widely applied as a weakness, and should be developed as an enemy type if they want to make it so polarizing. But maniac damage is too relevant. Even the agrip infantry auto with its terrible reserves spins circles on the semi auto HH in my opinion because of it doing regular maniac damage. The 3 burst one is fun, the 2 round one exists for blessings? Either way if I use a gun-gun I just use infantry autoguns.
Not at all, because you have TWO weapons. Just take a chain weapon, unironically, or a power weapon, or an axe, and both weapons can just have their niche. Since i prefer chain weapons despite their C tier qualities the Vraks autogun looks interesting to me if it can solve for shooters.
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strong disagree , if this was s ingle player shooter and we were limited to one weapon id say you were right, but DT isnt that its a 4 player class based shooter where we have 2 distinct weapons , blitz’s and class abilities.
i do see a lot of peopel now that will only use the ranged weapon and will get downed before they are willing to swap to melee , and fair enough play your way, but you cant slate game design decisions based on it being an entirely different game.
in a 4 player co op shooter having weakness’s is core , nescessary , and desireable. your not Jon Rambo your 1/4 of a team.
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I said from the get go all builds are viable, but taking a ranged weapon with a double weakness is objectively worse in all situations.
This game is not balanced. Some builds are vastly superior to others.
Wrong
Right.
I don’t think anyone dissagrees with the latter opinion. The question is not whether things are balanced but whether they are too badly balanced relative to lore or allowing build diversity. But the former statement is wrong. The best build on zealot is Bolter+Heavysword. Both weapons have key drawbacks. Bolter is bad vs shooters due to volume and ammo issues but is otherwise very strong. Meanwhile heavysword is zealot’s best hordeclear weapon with weaknesses against carapace and some maniacs. The bolter covers these perfectly.
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