I haven’t really played the game in several months, and although I purchased the arbites class it didn’t didn’t really tickle may fancy. The Hive Scum class seems to fit my play style a bit better as a Zealot main. And I’m thinking of jumping back in to try it out…. But I’m stuck at work, so I have to satisfy the urge here instead.
1 Like
let me put it this way:
I have ql 400 transcendent guns (dump stat mobility 60) and shiv at lvl 15 and i cannot do a heresy run if i get thrown together with other scum.
Do you think auric missions are boring on your zealot? Then you will have a good time.
If not, you will find the scum to be weaker all around in every aspect which only multiples if you are in a team of 3-4 (which will likely be common until the end of the week when the novelty wears off and people will have hit 30).
1 Like
hive scum is the complete opposite of the word “teamplay”. you actually have to chase kills
Extremely fun! Way more fun than arbites.
5 Likes
Hit 30, the class is a ton of fun to play. Running the dual autopistols and blasting into hordes with desperado feels great. Shivs feel good to use, definitely need some sort of AS boost from the tree to reach their potential. Only two weapons I’ve used so far. Gonna try Bonesaw and Dual stub pistols next. So far, the class seems ethical so I’m pleased in that regard.
2 Likes
Double pistols suck ass even on damnation, I was using them with 500 rating etc. Uzis far superior that these and very good. Special spin don’t give much. They either need better cleave or stagger.
Shiv ok, but need autoclicker for hordes, I didn’t use them much because all mods broken for me.
Crowbar strong, Fatshark decided to add superiority to it, very good for melee and ranged builds.
Bone saw exist for some talent interactions, kinda weak otherwise and very slow.
Needle pistol strong, I’d say strongest weapon for non gun ultimate.
Stimm crate still didn’t figure out how to use properly, need more games, had only one.
Infinite ammo ultimate good. Run and gun blessing actually good on this class
Melee ultimate great while active, but 75% drop in stamina regen and other rebuff hit pretty hard, but not to the point of making it unusable, with custom stimm and left bottom tree you can somewhat offset stamina fall off. Just need to use it after ultimate.
Class feels very fragile, psyker is Titan compared to it. Weak enemies like shotgunners actually dangerous, everything is dangerous, except pogryn.
Blind nades ok.
Rocket launcher kinda bad tbh, it’s got uses, also need to try it with bolt pistol and lethal proximity.
Chem grenade feels strongest, very high damage and radius, way better than zealots flame nade.
How do you figure? Admittedly the Shivs suck at first so I’d recommend any returning players swap to Taxe as soon as possible until other weapons are available or just don’t because Taxe supremacy is a real thing. Stim Supply provides your team with Custom Stim buffs though, that’s pretty useful for teamplay.
Great class, loving it so far. As someone who usually runs melee Psyker, it’s got a similar feel but missing the Toughness regen madness that Psyker is capable of - not necessarily a bad thing.
2 Likes
All the keystone seem viable to me atm which is a good thing. I think the stim dependency keystone on the right has the most potential to be really reallyyy good but I can’t say anything for sure yet.
1 Like
Stimm crate chem build is very fun, can still reach inifnite ammo at 30. Needle pistol goes brrr
1 Like
Maxing out crit potential in talent tree, stimm lab, and weapon, then activating Rampage and injecting stimm leads to massive damage. Crushers no problem with shiv
Hive can reach to higher damage potential if able to engage his stim mechanics tactfully, rather just firing it whenever. But with that the need to be proficient in melee mechanics and avoiding taking hits more paramount than Arbites/Ogryn that can brush it off.
Many players leaning into stagger, so adjustment to this class is a different curve. Dodge, block , evasion, something casual playerbase will find challenging.
The lower toughness regain than other melee classes balance leads to the risk vs reward gameplay. Similar aspect to Marty Zealot. Well actually Marty Zealot can reach higher potential but at highest risk.
It’s no easy M1 spam, toughness back mode. It plays “differently” to reach that potential.
It feels like a older version of melee psyker
1 Like
I said some this in a different thread but have added to it:
I’m about level 15 ATM and maxed out all the currently unlocked weapons so far and I’m struggling to find anything that feels really good tbh.
The bone saw sounds so good on paper but it feels very clumsy. Despite having loads of cleave buffs etc it still feels like it jams into whatever it hits. The attack patterns don’t feel great either. The difference between the topdown strike and the wide strike are very difficult to differentiate from each other when in the action. The wide is more of a “slightly diagonal" and doesn’t feel very effective tbh.
The pistols feel ok. But you end up doing more reloading than killing. Uzis are rubbish at mid/long range and that’s the whole point of ranged for me.
The ganger is more fragile than humpty Dumpty. I like to get in to the action and kite/dodge whilst slashing but I find I’m getting hit a lot and I can’t work out why. Feels like ganger is more suitable for guns than melee. Stamina is high, dodge counter is not empty…but melee weapons feel really weak sauce. Nothing feels very powerful.
I might go back to crowbar but wish the special just did an attack instead of changing stance.
I have ADHD and have always struggled with remembering different buttons etc. I always sucked so hard at beat’em’ups for that reason but I excelled at simple twitch gameplay like quake etc.
So I think this is why I’m struggling to gel with ganger. There is SO MUCH micromanaging and I don’t like that. Activate a stim for this! Switch stance on weapons for that! Try and remember what colour does what and what concoction you made in the stimm!
If you have ADHD memory then ganger is a nightmare tbh. Relies on switching between lots of very niche activations in the heat of battle.
I just want to be rewarded for my reaction times and combat judgment/approach without having to remember all the buttons in a flight cockpit on a super fragile character that needs to remain untouched all the time.
I found the crowbar special hook animation locks your movement, makes you vulnerable for a moment. So if surrounded you have to watch not just front but any overheads that clips from rank behind.
Shiv. Lucky it has heavy move speed boost like knife as this class lacks dash ability like other melee classes. Found it easier for crushers to zip in and out stab safety where crowbar special can momentarily make you vulnerable in hook animation, with the way overheads from rank behind can clip through.
Desparado - After 1st mag dump, really feels reload eats into 1/3 buff time.
Stim Supply with yellow stim - Pushing entire team ability cooldowns. That’s pretty sweet. That’s like proc of burst damage for whole team. Probably best team ability of all.
Yea it’s not a frontline melee class. More DoT, buff. Support maybe? I would say mobility for elite/disabler melee sniping but feel it lacks dash ability or needing needle gun to counter range with more precision than unarmoured effective only auto weapons.
I mean worst case scenario that needle gun is get out of jail card for crusher patrols if stuck, fire, forget and escape while it does bleed.
Arbites actually feels like its own thing, Hive Scum feels like they just cobbled together Zealot and Vet. However either class on its own feels better imo.
1 Like
Yeah I wish special was just an instant strike with the pointy bit instead of the faff of having to activate it and then unactivate it. For super dense gameplay (high havoc or auric) where armoured and unarmoured are all mixed up together - that will be a real nightmare.
For a glass cannon class, there is too much micromanaging of stuff. I wish much of it was passive or situational. Having to remember to press different buttons all the time is not ideal for a paper-mache soldier.
It also feels like a lot of the gameplay pivots around Crit.
As a rule I’ve pretty much ignored anything to do with crit in DT as it’s based on a randomiser and can’t truly be planned for or weaponised. Like…it’s nice of it happens but you never know if it will…how can people like that as a mechanic? “You might get a bonus on this hit but you might not!" Meh.
So yeah I’m drowning in inexperience over a large portion of the ganger buffs as I never select anything to do with crit.
That’s OK. Me too I prefer front line melee flat damage nodes or choose more consistent ones, only the more involved mechanic ones that I feel fit with me to use them and consider their real uptime in combat based on my own playstyle.
Remember when new skill tree for Vet first released. I skipped all the bottom keystones and went for all the other flat bonus nodes for consistency. Many others did too.
Rather than “do this against natural playstyle, you get this buff” I’d rather “You get this buff for what you’re already doing in your preferred playstyle”.
With content drought Hive is a welcomed distraction even when I go back to other classes to main. Once I’m bored, back it goes in cupboard and no doubt see what interesting changes it will have in future to pop back once in a while.
I get the feeling in future new class DLCs they’re going to start adding in more mechanics otherwise just ends up copy/paste. But hope they consider level of simplicity in skill node options as I did with Vet skill tree.
The way to make crit builds work is to raise your crit chance high enough that you know you’re going to be critting every few hits. Especially if you use a weapon with fast attack speed or high fire rate, while you may not know if any individual hit will crit, you know a crit is going to be happening every few seconds regardless. This works well for abilities and blessings that activate buffs on crit. But you’re right that, outside of a few outliers that guarantee crits, relying on one individual hit to crit isn’t the way.