As per title, the Helbore guns are all crap and need a rework. The charge up shot is poorly implemented and as a marksman/sniper weapon its worse then every other gun out there.
The revolver is a better sniper the actual ‘sniper’ Helbore rifles.
They desperately need an optic as well as the iron sights are pretty much the worst of all. A red dot will do, a 2x scope would be even better.
I srongly disagree with your opinion - these weapons are great - all three marks. It’s more of a battle rifle then a sniper rifle - and it fullfills this role very well in a variety of builds.
That the revolver right now has the stats of an astartes boltrifle and vastly outperforms other guns in game doesn’t make them bad. Compare them to the more balanced weapons or chase the META and play revolver.
There is nothing about them that justifies the equip time or the horrific sights. Not just in comparison to the revolver, but compared to lots of other viable and good weapons.
My gripe with the Helbore (and ultimately what led me to start maining the Plasma Gun again as of recently) is the pullout time. It takes too long to use the Helbore when you need it.
Due to the Helbore’s pullout time, I’ve been unable to target, for example, Bombers or Flamers before they light the whole area up and that makes me feel very useless as a Veteran. There are other situations where the pullout time’s an issue, but these ones are the most frustrating and the whole list of similar scenarios would be a novel and a half long.
The sights are another issue, because I like the Mk II Helbore the most - but the Mk III’s iron sights are significantly better. I’m not opposed to a reflex sight like the Infantry Lasguns have, though.
The Mk II’s bayonet, however, is just (chef’s kiss)
I also thought they were absolute trash or entirely outside my interest, but I just tried a helbore build by that one Darktide YouTuber, RealAsianRobot? He sourced it from someone else, but had a video demoing it.
You grab the Agile Engagement (+25% damage to other weapon on kill) along with VOC and some marksman tree stuff.
It works pretty well because the MK I and II Helbores special attack (bayonet attacks) hit so fricking hard in melee that it can one shot multiple hordies per stab, and does so fast enough that you don’t need push for anything but bursters. Not sure if that’s part of a bug where the melee weapon blessings are carrying over, he recommends Brutal Momentum on your melee to make it work…but yeah, you get around awful equip times by almost never unequipping it or stabbing on equip.
The only thing it can’t near one stab at slightly longer-than-normal melee range is Muties, Ogryns, and Maulers, and it can shoot those dead pretty quick with a much bigger mag and easier reload compared to Revolver, where you need to dodge dance and retreat to reload if the elite packs are too big. I mean, you’re probably still dodging and shooting instead…but yeah, not too shabby.
Also, unlike a lot of lasguns, it pierces friendlies, so playing with Ogryns is easier. It also regains more ammo than you use to one shot specials, because their ammo reserves are considerably bigger, so it is difficult to run out.
To be fair, I didn’t try it full Damnation, just Heresy, but it felt surprisingly overpowered for Heresy, which is saying something, because I’m not amazing at FPS sniping or snap shots, and I otherwise lean heavy on Plasma or high ROF weapons most of the time. Hell, I did almost 3 times the melee damage compared to ranged damage, and topped enemies killed, and barely took out my powersword doing it (again, granted, Heresy with people probably running less crazy gear, but I’m not running a perfect Helbore and running my farming curios). I did test it in Psykanium at Damnation health levels, and it still oneshots everything there, so yeah, you could keep it out 90% of the time no problem.
But yeah…I’m also playing with weapon customization mod’s reflex scopes to make its sight picture more usable, it can be rough trying to snipe without a better sight.
Technically the Lucius is not a sniper rifle: it is an infantry rifle and its operation in Darktide more or less reflects its lore description. I quote the Lexicanum:
“The signature weapon of the Death Korps of Krieg, the Lucius-pattern lasgun operates in the 21 megathoule range [instead of the 19 megathoule of the Kantrael], but is designed to draw from a standard Munitorum-issue power pack. Consequently, the Lucius lasgun discharges a more powerful shot, but drains the power pack at a correspondingly increased rate. This also puts a great strain on the weapon, limiting the rate of fire and requiring such features as additional heat sink rings lining the exterior of the barrel.”
That said, it sure would be nice if they added a proper long las, like the Hashins Eye from Necromunda Hired Gun.
Just gonna leave this here.
I used to enjoy it before the big patch but not so much anymore. I hardly see anyone use it these day too.
Compare to more balanced weapon I would still prefer something like Mg IA lasgun. Its carapace damage is pretty bad without going full range build(and considering the buff to enemy) so there’s no point using it over other gun that’s better at dealing with general enemy. Unless you’re going for meme bayonet build or something.
Not being able to dispatch a specialist on headshot with that equip time is…pretty bad.
but since I don’t really gonna touch it anymore it can stay as it is for people who prefer it in current state I guess, could just treat it like some novel weapon.
Isn’t that’s before they fix limbsplitter interaction?
Even with the abuse of brutal momentum allowing MK 1 & 2 bayonet to clear hordes well with some effort I find them incredibly mid, and still very much held back by their charged shot mechanic in tandem with the long drawtime.
The weapon failed in almost every regard on my stress testing which involves solo with bots on Damnation (+ additional specials modifier) with Archivum Sycorax every time for consistency purposes, and solo without bots (no modifiers).
I’d classify Helbores as win-more weapons. With team space you can do well, but that applies to any gun at a certain point.
It will not do well for getting you out of very bad scenarios which the stress test creates very readily.
The bayonet does not allow for pushing when you need to create space to pop off a shot, and has a very bad dodge distance. On other guns this is not an issue since you can use your melee weapon knowing you swapping back in a timely manner as an option.
The options you have for a Helbore for a special rolling up on you however is to have your VoC off CD in the middle of a bad horde, or potentially a grenade which you will take chip damage throwing while trying to dodge with a helbore. Only one is effective.
They scored near the bottom of the stress test, and again I will reiterate it was with bug abuse involving the bayonet.
They really don’t need a long draw time. They are a charged shot weapon. I don’t need to elaborate why this is an incredibly stupid design decision.
They should have a near instant swap on par with revolver.
This would make them good weapons with interesting combo’ing choices for melee as well similar to the double melee weapon classes from VT2.
Their current iteration has no value in terms of effectiveness.
EDIT: Since there is a subtle jab at this post beneath I’ll add a qualifier to the revolver swap time statement.
There is already an implicit ready time in the form of its charged shot. It does not need a longer swap animation.
Even with an instant swap time it would take longer for this gun to kill something than a few of the IAGs, some Lasguns, shotguns at shorter ranges, the obvious revolver, and plasma.
It’s not some wild ask to have it be a fast swap.
Yes, it was a total meme run. But the bayonet still does loads of damage. With good positioning you barely need to swap off the gun.
Sure the helbores aren’t the bloody revolver, but they’re perfectly good guns if you like the play style and aren’t in a team with three ogryns.
That picture might’ve just sold me on the weapon customisation mod. Damn, it’s gonna be a bit odd since I rarely deviate from using Vortex.
When is Fatshark gonna add it into the official game? I really don’t wanna risk getting banned, but it just looks so good 
There are people streaming with it my guy. Mod away.
OK, I’m sold. Thank you 
That’s fair, I did definitely end up stabbing so much because I trusted the bayonet spam, and definitely had a special or two where I was just hip firing madly and missing because I didn’t want to spend time ADSing to snipe them, as I was in a crowd. Damnation modifiers are a better test of efficacy for sure.
Also, “win-more” is a very useful descriptor for weapons; it’s kinda how I feel about Surge Staff, which can make small elite packs trivial and delete most enemies before guns can even take a shot , but doesn’t often like a true clutch weapon or even horde-safe weapon unless someone else is tanking or clearing more space for you.
The magazine is literally just Rippergun’s drum mag strap onto helbore tbh, so it would never exist on official game at all.
Also pretty sure Fatshark state their stance somewhere that as long as it’s not visible to other player it’s fair game.
I’ve wanted night sights/glow sights for the Helbores and basically every other weapon which has ironsights to make them much more readable in the darkness of the game and chaos of encounters… But I feel that the Helbores are among my favorites when I do play Veteran.
The revolver is just… so overtuned. I love it, but it’s just far too effective.
That said: pumping the charge handle on equip every single time limits its viability against literally every other las-weapon since literally all of them other than the Helbores just come out fairly quickly (laspistols are a no-brainer, but every other class of lasrifle also just… comes out).
They fill a niche, and while I tend to enjoy that niche, they are definitely not the easiest of weapons to work with. That’s fine-- but combined with the fact that DT servers eat inputs and lasbolts occasionally (more often recently), it puts the Helbores in an awkward position.
I’m not sure I’d classify surge staff as a win-more weapon. It has it’s issues to be certain as any weapon does, but as far as the staves goes its in the better half.
Between its fast charge time, and its instant CC you can put on w/e is closest to you + a couple more it can still be a decent clutch weapon when you consider the other ways you can create space as psyker such as Vent Shriek, Assail, or to a lesser degree Smite (which I say to a lesser degree in the sense of solo clutch plays where you don’t have people capitalizing on the paralyzed enemies).
The Illisi Force sword is also no slouch for creating space. Pretty damn amazing horde clear.
All this being said I’ve not done stress testing with staves so I don’t speak with any authority really.
I could be entirely wrong especially since I play psyker with a gun for a reason to do with the otherwise poor toughness regen available to the class.
i think the crosshair is misleading on what you are supposed to do with it
Takes too long to swap to
Sights are garbage
Charged shot can be blocked by a single trash mob (or teammate) walking into line of fire
Hit reg issues are insanely painful with these
(Not 100% sure but afaik, it is no longer possible to hold a charged shot at all, which sucks)
