Executioners Stance Buff

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

I think instead of nerfing voice of command we should buff the other ults but especially the stance.

I think Executioners Stance should have 50% ranged damage increase, Toughness damage resistance by 25% and automatically reloads your weapon on activation.

These would make the executioners stance users get into the thick of it to take out elites and gunners. It would make the ult powerful and damage resistance will ease up gunner pressure and improve survival. Also being able to mag dump the bolter onto a boss and then pressing ult fire an instant 2nd volley of more powerful shots to finish them off sounds sick and was in the game at launch

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Not really into the idea of the ranged damage (it already gives you a ludicrous multiplier of 25%, with additional 25% weakspot damage, which feels pretty insane when dumping bullets into said weakspot).

But, I do think toughness DR would make a lot of sense, and the autoreload I feel should just be in there for sure and would fix any real damage issues one might feel like they are having. The fact it still has the ‘mag push in’ animation for basically all weapons when activating it and then doesn’t do it just baffles me, along with the fact that Ogryns get to have that super power but Veterans can’t? Not even just on activation? Just feels wrong given the fact you can just be like ‘WATCH AN LEARN’ and then spend the entire 5 seconds reloading cause ‘opps I forgot my mag was at like 3 bullets and I had to swap off to melee the crowd, guess I won’t be dealing with that special actually thanks.’

Doesn’t really feel right. And the toughness DR I feel is just nice given the other two fully refresh toughness, and I feel with ES being a lot more offensive it shouldn’t do that, but should still have something that helps you keep up that fire down range until it completes. Sure, you can take Exhilarating take down and pretty much all builds I have that use it do take it, but it would be nice to have even just 15% base while it’s active, like you’re hardening yourself and focusing on getting the shots off.

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Yeah maybe you’re right about the damage. That can stay where it’s at. However I really think it needs to have a survivability aspect of some kind. Maybe toughness damage reduction or maybe regenerate 10% toughness on all highlighted enemy kills?

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Executioner’s Stance used to refill your ranged weapon when you activated it, and honestly, they should bring that back. I just don’t see myself ever using executioner’s stance, even over infiltrate. Even with that, I do agree there should be some toughness damage resistance, so you can actually contend with gunners as a ranged character without worrying as much.

Executioner’s Stance is just a really sad combat ability - whenever I use it, I wish I had something else, and there’s no situation ever where I wish I had Executioner’s Stance. Voice of Command gives your team space and golden toughness, infiltrate gives you a damage boost like executioner’s stance, except you actually get to set up to reload your gun, revive a teammate or you can use it for an objective if you really need.

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I feel like Exe Stance got the main buff it needed, getting the reset made a base function. I also feel like, while they’re not universally amazing benefits, people under rate how nice the spread and recoil reductions are.

My main remaining gripe with it is “bigger they are”. Being exclusive to shooter highlight makes it rarely worth. It should at least get some of its pre patch 13 bonus damage back if it’s gonna remain competing with counter fire.

Some minor TDR is sure whatever, I don’t think it needs it but I wouldn’t complain either if it’s kept at 25% or less (can be higher if it’s on a new sub node rather than base).

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free reload back

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I think just the reintroduction of the old auto reload would do a lot for EXE stance.

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60% Toughness on activation, instant reload on first chained activation (or if that’s too strong, 35+% reload speed while stance is active) and highlighting shooters by default but keeping the damage the same.

As for changes to other nodes: One modifier highlights the enemies for your teammates but if a highlighted enemy dies, it refreshes your stance even if you didn’t get the kills. The other modifier adds ogryns and monsters to the highlighted enemies but does not replace the shooters with them.

The talents which add damage in various ways but only last 5, 10 or 15 seconds should just remain active while your abilities are active. It doesn’t make sense that the activation condition is using your ability but they can run out before your ability does.

Infilitrate also needs to be diffent.
It lasts 6 seconds by default and getting a ranged headshot kill extends the duration by 2 to 3 seconds. Shooting also doesn’t remove stealth but that should probably replace one of the modifiers or be a included at base.

Those would be my suggestions.

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Can pretty much agree in every single regard, sounds like a good way to bring it back into the fray without overdoing things. Though I’d be very careful on how much toughness should it replenish on activation. IMO anything between 30-60% is fine.

EDIT: Didn’t think the Infiltrate part through, that one I feel would be overtuned if both could be taken at the same time. Could be that it’s either the headshot kill extension OR ranged attacks not breaking stealth for the duration, but not both. That would be OP as hell otherwise.

As for this… hard disagree. VoC is not ‘too strong’, it’s overtuned as hell and in every single regard. It has immense CC, overtoughness (a broken mechanic in and of itself), instant activation that doesn’t interrupt whatever you’re doing and laughably low cooldown even without any reductions. If you count reductions in, it becomes abhorrent - I’ve even had games on Auric Damnation where I ran some wacky builds and played them like a Malice connoisseur by rushing into every single enemy I see (Tactical Axe Scrier’s Gaze etc.), yet lost no health and was never downed simply because every time things were about to get heated, a VoC would go off and save my stupid arse. With multiple VoC veterans or, even worse, VoC veteran + Psykinetic’s Aura Psyker on team the VoC uptime on Auric Damnation is constant as far as you’re concerned. It will be available every single time you could have a need for it.

I’m not gonna delve into the VoC nerf debate, just wanted to say that VoC has to be nerfed and buffing Executioner’s Stance to its levels is not a solution to VoC problem - it’s leaving it untouched at best and adding a new one at worst.

With that said, yes the Executioner’s Stance could use a buff. All abilities without any defensive merits tend to fall behind or feel somewhat clunky in this game, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

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It looks like what we had before patch 13… wait! ah yes it is exactly similar. And I wonder why they nerfed it… and so I wonder why they would revert this.

Where you’re right is that there is something to do about the balance between abilities. VoC is too powerful compared to others.
Now the question is, does it give something too strong or is it the combination of several talents? Iron will, close order drill help a lot to make gold toughness something excellent.
I am not sure that the solution could not be simply allow the gold toughness only for the veteran and not for the allies. But I guess that gold toughness is for the team (like when you use chorus).

But the instant reload is problematic for me. Less the TDR bonus.

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The thing I miss most on exe stance is the AoE suppression the other abilities give, hence I would like a smaller less potent AoE suppression when killing a highlighted enemy. This can be an optional node and would enable that “shooting priority targets while in the thick of it”. I do not think that ability needs more damage tied to it, I don’t see a lot of breakpoints being enhanced by it and against monstrosities it’s only good with bolter/fanning pistol.

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I don’t think it’s possible to buff anything to be on par with VoC without seriously breaking the game.

Just let it happen, bro. Accept whatever reduction in gold toughness and lengthy cool down is coming, it’ll be fine.

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Very true, though I do think there are two separate points to consider here.

  1. Does Exe Stance compete overall with VoC? Answer being obviously not but as you’ve said that is currently the fault of VoC being overpowered.

  2. Does Exe Stance deserves a buff even assuming VoC is brought down to reasonable levels?

I think question 2 has a bit more room for useful discussion. As I said before for me Bigger They Are is a clear loser amongst its sub nodes, and it would be nice to see that addressed.

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I think in normal play (I.E. Auric Maelstrom and below) Exe stance is completely fine.

If we’re talking about Havoc viability giving it some sort of TDR and/or way to regen toughness would be huge. Really the only way I could imagine running it and having fun without someone babysitting you is a weapon with ghost, and even than the second one of those big melee elite piles jumps you the only defense you have is your frags.

We are in this weird balance state were a bunch of stuff that may not have been meta but were fine to play feel bad (not unplayable but not really fun) in Havoc, and I’m not sure if FS is going to reign in the outliers, buff a bunch of stuff or carry on like normal (this is my guess).

This would suck because it would really limit the variety of stuff you can bring into high level havoc games.

(Nothing is really unplayable obv, but I don’t think a lot of people are going to say they love how the Ogryn Power Maul feels in Havoc.)

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I disagree. It might be fine for those of you playing on the top-most difficulty settings as standard, and more power to you for it, but I don’t think that would be the case for those of us in the unwashed masses playing below damnation as the standard.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’d be an un-fun, seemingly arbitrary disruption. Having a top-down balancing approach where the top tier players dictate the settings to the rest of the playerbase tends to be a risky strategy at the best of times though.

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Chorus has two very competitive choices weighed against it, and it is just as strong, if not better than VoC. The only caveat it comes with, which is why many, me included, dont like to pick it, is how reliant you are that your teammates do something with their 5 seconds of complete invulnerability.

The problem with Executioners is not only that VoC rules supreme, but how it does not offer anything valuable. In the end it is “just” a damage buff with some fancy colors ontop of it. A feature that is losing its advantage the second your screen starts crawling with high value targets. The extra stability you gain is nice to have, but does not add the needed value to be worth the pick.

Zealots Charge, and Stealth are both offensive and defensive tools that allow you to use them accordingly. You are utterly invulnerable while charging, and gain half your toughness bar back on a button press. Stealth makes you untargetable for the same duration you could invuln your whole team on half the cooldown and offers 40% of your toughness back with 20% TDR ontop of it.

Infiltrate isn’t even horrible, but it completely dies the second you want to pickup Survivalist, or if you have no interest to go into the right tree. If you mainly want left and middle Talents, Infiltrate is just a tough pick.

Vets tree in general penalizes you hard for not picking up VoC, but one of the boarder abilities. Just swapping Infiltrates position with VoC would be a huge nerf. (Just as Shredder would get nerfed by swapping its position with Smokes.)

Is it? The uptime in lower difficulties gets gutted. The other abilities do not suffer that weakness. Exe also reinforces a playstyle that is not supported in higher difficulties. Staying back and sniping away just makes you vulnerable. The safest spot is the one that allows your party to remove nets, or dogs immediately.

Currently, I would not pick Executioners over VoC or Infiltrate, even if I had a 100% uptime on it. Having the option to use them to get out of Jail, clutch, or complete an objective without breaking a sweat is more valuable than what Exe has to offer.

VoC could only offer half the yellow toughness with 15 seconds more CD and it still would be the ability most Vets go for, just because of how it is positioned in the tree.

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17

Y’all know I’m probably the last person to weigh in on that, but I’ll give it a shot.

VoC is and will continue to suffer from being good the same way Survivalist does. They gave Survivalist a really hefty tune down, but didn’t reevaluate the other nodes so greater build diversity wasn’t achieved.

Will the same happen if VoC was taken down a peg right now? Yeah, probably; it requires nothing from the user beyond a button press and it works. Not even zealot’s Chorus can claim that (and I saw people with a straight face say it’s OP). The other two ults demand work from the player, straight up. That’s why I think you could give VoC a disgusting 3 minute cooldown and it’d still be meta.

Infiltrate definitely has nothing going for it. Too many optional nodes for meh improvement.

For Ex Stance, i don’t know. I don’t use it because it’s not close to the nodes i want to take besides shredder nades and Survivalist. But every time I watch people like Telepots play with it they’re near 100% uptime. Maybe it’s actually where it should be?

Now that I’m rubbing both braincells together, maybe Ex Stance does ask quite a lot from players to not be bad… it ain’t like PBB or SG, it needs the appropriate targets to be on screen to work and that probably feels bad the less enemies there are.

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I feel like this is misunderstanding the ability. You can use it for backline sniping but you can also use it to be pinpoint accurate while hip firing a laspistol and that playstyle doesn’t really make you immobile or vulnerable at all.

Similarly you can use Exe to vastly increase brauto effective range and run around spraying down half the map.

I feel like your imagination and flexibility in applying Exe might be part of your problem here. It’s more than viable below Havoc.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear before. I think the base ability is fine, I just think Bigger They Are is currently in the “never take” basket which is a bit sad. Also wouldn’t mind a sub node for fire rate/reload speed to expand Exe’s strong use case status to more guns.

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Didn’t FS originally not port that talent over when they redid the tree because it was in the never pick basket, but the very few people who did asked for it to be put back in?

I don’t think you can make that node not-boring. Might as well be transformative and be a 4th ult disguised as a sub node; make ex stance Rannick’s gun.

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It quite crucially gave a significant damage buff to Ogryn and Bosses pre patch 13. Then they buffed the damage bonus because it was still under picked. I ran it almost exclusively on my Vet this entire time period. Now our post still tree version is just the Ogryn and Boss highlight with nothing else and somehow that is meant to be competitive with shooter highlight (enough so for them to be mutually exclusive sub nodes).

So it’s quite simple really, Bigger They Are just needs some other bonus packaged with it to be desirable over counter fire at least sometimes. I have a feeling they don’t want to give it its Ogryn/Boss bonus damage back because that’s already a talent point further down the tree but I seriously doubt anyone would care :person_shrugging:

Give it like +15% Ogryn/Boss damage and there are some weapons I’d switch to it with immediately.

1 Like