Hello there. I’m here to propose an idea that might could be more than enough on it’s own to make Martyrdom viable for things such as Auric Maelstroms.
Change “I Shall Not Fall” from toughness damage reduction per missing wound, to increased toughness replenished on melee kill, per missing wound.
The core concept of Martyrdom is heavily based on Zealot Saltzpyre from Vermintide 2, and it can work, but as it currently stands, the Martyrdom keystone offers no way to benefit from combat beyond “oh you take a bit less damage.”
Toughness Damage Reduction has diminishing returns, so stacking a bunch of it eventually becomes irrelevant, and beyond that, Martyrdom offers no way for the player to survive high intensity combat, compared to Zealot Saltzpyre.
See, Zealot Saltzpyre’s whole “damage increases as health decreases” gimmick works because of Temporary Health, which does not count towards health missing for the benefits.
So, since Toughness is the stand-in for temp health in Darktide, increase the amount of Toughness you gain from kills.
This way, you can stay in sustained combat for MUCH longer, but if you lose situational awareness, get blindsided by a crusher/mauler/pack of ragers, you still fall. And if you let that toughness drop, well, you were already one attack away from death.
Lemme know what you think. I REALLY want to like martyrdom, but i just cant justify it over Blazing Piety or Momentum, and the damage/toughness replenishment both keystones offer.
It is completely viable, and it is completely justified by how it works compared to momentum, literally lose 2 wounds and u will have more damage than momentum and all the time u don’t have those wounds it will provide the buff, not just for 6 seconds as momentum.
I think Martyrdom is very very strong but I will admit that toughness gen can be a bit tricky if you’re not using a weapon that spams heavy attack most of the time. My proposal to help with this would be to buff EWEW. Two birds, one stone, since current version of EWEW is under powered even in isolation.
The TDR bonus is good even accounting for multiplicative DR, wouldn’t want it replaced personally.
The only thing Martyrdom needs to my mind is a functional Cooldown node leading into it. Note that your ults all generate toughness so this would also address that toughness gen concerns.
My proposed rework for Martyr’s Purpose:
Each missing wound increases cooldown regen speed by 15%
That number is conservative assuming IoD (and possibly pious cut throat as well) gets adjusted downwards at some point. If that isn’t the case I’d probably set it to +25% cooldown regen per missing wound.
TDR is fine, I Shall Not Fall stacks additively with small nodes so without 6 wounds zealot has 39% TDR + 15% + other talents like Enduring Faith, Benediction, Good Balance boost it up to 85%. It’s completely viable and tankier than other builds.
The node very heavily wants Chorus, it plays into it’s playstyle and ‘cooldown note’ perfecty, allowing multiple casts of chorus as you lose wounds which is rather nice.
You can make a ‘tank build’ with it too, which can feel rather nice.
If one is hell bent on not using chorus though, my only main recommendation is using this with a ‘inspiring barrage’ gun. Shredder, Braced, or Boltgun can all get it, and they can become nice ‘toughness banks’ for when you start hitting wounds, allowing a nice hot swap into full toughness regen.
This allows you to feel the effect of actually having full toughness with the martyr bonus, which then suddenly makes you feel VERY tanky.
Otherwise, the main thing is the fact that due to not having temporary health, you are deeply beholden to Holy Revanent, if you have martyr without it…dont’, have martyr without it xD. Chip damage is honestly what kills you the most, lack of toughness and DR not so much if you build around it. But being at low HP makes one susceptible to a lot of things, so it would be cool if there was a form of effect that ‘healed you up to your next wound’ off of an obscene amount of kills (like, 0.1 hp per kill up to your next wound or something XD). Would allow you to ‘dance with death’ a lot more, verses ‘panicing for 3 minutes while holy revanant is down then nod doing that’, while opening up build crafting a decent bit more for builds NOT to have holy revanant…
(and if you’re curious, ‘tank build, for the body’)
Because many run around as high damage Martyr’s, it can be nice to see one that’s actually trying to help the team
Killing enemies before they kill your team is helping actually, no point in focusing on tanking when you can do both with a proper loadout. With TDR and DR you either take no damage or 1-2 hp. Also Savage Sweep is not worth it as Eviscerators have a target cap of 4 on lights, Terrifying Barrage on Zarona is a meme.
I personally think martyrdom is perfectly viable for whatever content the game can currently throw at you. Its pretty much the only zealot build i use these days.
I tend to rely on Fury of the Faithful for instant toughness regen, I also pick Invocation of Death to gain more uptime on FotF and normally combine it with a fast weapon that has the Shred blessing to keep the crits coming. It used to be a crazy build with the old version of Invocation of Death, but even after the nerf its still pretty good.
I sometimes use Second Wind for some extra toughness regen, but normally skip it because i would have to sacrifice a damage talent for it in most of the martyrdom builds i run.
Martyrdom is more than viable, it is very strong. Suggesting the TDR be replaced with increased replenishment on melee kill sounds like a big nerf to me and one that’s very much not needed.
I like the idea but with how strong Martyrdom already is right now that sounds pretty busted. As far as martyrdom is concerned that’s basically an unconditional CDR buff. IMO maybe set it at 10% per stack? 8%? IoD is super strong but it at least is reliant on crits and comes with a shitty 2 talent point tax (Punishment & 5% movespeed). Martyrdom’s talent point “taxes” in comparison are actually good.
Whatever idk. I’d just be cautious about buffing Martyrdom. Fatshark recently buffed Vicious Offering and I Shall Not Fall which is very nice but I’m not sure if more than that is needed.
I don’t like how even on a Martyrdom build you’re heavily pressured to spec into crit stuff since giving up IoD is basically reducing your Ult uptime to like 1/3.
I considered 10% first but I don’t think that’s enough to dissuade trying to force IoD into Martyrdom builds. Also trying to account for not realistically being at max stacks at all times.
Of course even more ideal would be a cooldown reduction/regen rate increase that doesn’t rely on wounds lost so it has some appeal across different builds like the other two do. I just don’t have any ideas for what that could look like so went for functionality with its own attached keystone first and foremost.
Edit: didn’t process this properly the first time reading:
Honestly vicious offering was already doing fine work on weapons that heavy spam. It’s always been the weapons that don’t heavy spam that could struggle with toughness going primarily left.
Honestly I’d be happy for them to return vicious to where it was if they gave EWEW the buff it deserves.
Maybe I just can’t relate. I honestly don’t see the potential need for Martyrdom to have CDR when it already grants very strong buffs to the player and FOTF having 2 charges is enough to perform very well.
But I did have a funny idea just now, what if Martyr’s purpose was changed to instead be:
+150% Ability Cooldown Regeneration after losing health, lasting 1 second for every 1 HP loss.
Or something like that.
It’s got the potential to be broken strong while encouraging usual martyrdom talents without requiring martyrdom itself.
Martyrdom is perfectly viable on auric… Even maelstrom
Tested for you. I have even found a build I fall in love with martyrdom and that is built around I shall not fall.
My big problem is martyr’s purpose… Not the keystone and its enhancements.
you’re not though. marty is supposed to be an alternative to crit spec blazing piety, its down a completely different path and got its own unique buffs. the only reason its a problem is because knife can get both benefits easily without any point tax.
Not accurate. IoD is generally too strong to pass up if you can possibly get it. Even with minimal crit chance boosting it’s an insane uptime increase.
you’re missing the point, martys buffs are way too strong to pass up. tdr, damage and atk speed > iod. you just want to have your cake and eat it too, which luckily you can just by using a knife.
No I think you’re the one misunderstanding. You can and probably should force IoD into every build. Knife is not required at all. Even if you somehow only ever proc on your FotF guaranteed crit you’re still knocking nearly 30% of your cooldown off just from that. Get one other random crit and you’ve halved your cooldown. The aggression and safety this allows on any weapon is probably foolish to give up.
Like you can forego IoD and I often do on Martyrdom builds. But even on martyrdom, regardless of weapon, you almost certainly shouldn’t forego it if you want to be optimal. I think that’s very very silly and making Martyr’s Purpose not garbage would be a good way to remedy it.
i dont know how you’re getting this calculation, iod is 4 secs of 200% cooldown so you’re only getting 4 sec extra on proc. which is roughly equivalent to having 3x cdr on your curios.
so its actually 300% cdr and not 200%. definitely worth to get it especially if you have 2x fotf. for book though its not so impactful without crit weapons.
Keep Martyr’s Purpose as-is, but retool Martyrdom:
a) Rather than a flat bonus for each wound, the bonuses increase with wound levels.
b) The Martyr has significant penalties for being a full wounds.
c) The Martyr’s health regenerates with kills.
So: Martyrs have to seek wounds with every fight.
I want to see Martyr health bouncing up and down like a basketball. Make them dribble, and see how long they can maintain control.
