Hive Scum talent discussion: Coated Weaponry/Pocket Toxin/Booby Trap/Bonesaw/Flesh Tearer + Blackout Grenades

[Dumbledood]

I thought I’d already made a post somewhere asking about this, but I just checked and apparently only thought about making one, so here I am, actually making it.

Sorry for the length, wanted to cover my bases.

So I’d really like to see these two talents work together. I currently consider Blackouts to be kind of a dead blitz, although I could see them working with a ranged-focused Pickpocket build as ranged kills made in close range count towards regenerating them. They require a second talent investment to make them apply only three stacks of poison (making them by far the weakest Blitz option without this second talent investment), and have anti-synergy with any builds relying on bleeds or poisons to kill things, which oddly, coincidentally seems to be every melee-themed build I consider using them in (I am not exaggerating for effect, literally every build I’ve thought “Blackouts would work here” happens to also work around crit and either coated weaponry, a bleed blessing or both).

Just so we’re all on the same page, I’ll lay out what they do:

Coated Weaponry:

Melee Critical Strikes infect Enemies with 1 Stack(s) of Chem Toxin.”

Blackout:

“Quick to use Grenade that staggers enemies. Every 20 kills at close range generates one Grenade(s).”

To my knowledge, kills made with Chem Toxin (and regular bleeds) don’t count towards the kills required at close range to generate grenades.

I just tested it by using the booby-trapped Stimm Supply, and the alt-fire on MK II Needle Pistol (the blue AoE toxin) on two separate giant hordes of poxwalkers that I spawned in with Creature Spawner mod in the Psykhanium, and generated zero grenades. I did however regenerate the Stimm Supply instantly thanks to Sample Collector and Practiced Deployment.

That’s pretty much it. Every time I try to make a build using Blackout grenades I run into this issue. There’s some good synergy potential between currently off-meta build that would use Blackouts and Coated Weaponry (as well as the booby trapped Stimm Supply and bleeds), but I can never get them to work because of this anti-synergy.

So.. Why is it like this? Genuine question, I’m here to learn and talk about it.

The main reason I can imagine is that it would potentially be overpowered if the grenades regenerated from kills that they made (when used in conjunction with Pocket Toxin: "Blitz explosions infect enemies with stacks of Chem Toxin differently, depending on your chosen Blitz. Blackout: 3 stacks”).

And then on top of that you’ve got the potential for kills made with the Needle Pistol also regenerating them, but that’s already a topic of debate for balance, with Pickpocket. Spraying into a dense group of enemies with a regular non-poison ranged weapon does however rapidly regenerates Blackouts.

Is it possible to code the Chem toxin and bleeds applied by melee weapons or Blackouts to respectively count and not count towards regenerating the grenades? Or does that not matter and I’m over-complicating things?

Do people want these to synergize? I was hoping this would’ve already been patched but most of the discussions I’ve seen mentioning it get buried.

Edit: Added all of the things with anti-synergy with Blackout to the title. I originally left out the Bonesaw’s on hit Chem Toxin and never explicitly mentioned the Flesh Tearer blessing for the Combat Knife and Dual Shivs, or Flachette, Puncture, and Bloodletter.

[CobaltNinja]

I find the blackouts really good on Rampage builds. While the rocket launcher and chembombs make for good major panic buttons, there are minor scenarios that you may not necessarily want to see escalate, and blackouts are good for that. Small groups of heavy armor, a bunch of trash next to a cornered teammate, enemies shooting at you, etc.

The 3 stacks of tox with the talent tagged lets them kill snipers and trappers with a single blinder, though I’m so strapped for points I ended up dropping that for Jittery for better defense. Overall I think their versatility and availability make them serviceable.

On tox builds it’s probably not that great because of that issue with the whole “DoT doesn’t give blinders” thing but if your main source of kills is direct damage then they’re a good choice.

[Dumbledood]

That’s fair. I might’ve gone a little too far in calling them a dead blitz, but honestly I almost never see them. They’re about as rare as a non-shout Vet in havoc. I think they’d function as intended if they regenerated kills, which they do for physical damage builds. So yeah, they’re basically fine, though I do find that the second talent investment needed to have them do any damage is a little under-powered. For whatever reason the builds where I consider using Blackouts are all melee builds involving crit and either coated weaponry, bleed, or both, that would benefit from having a stagger and space-maker.

This is largely because I think for me I just prefer having the panic buttons on my other builds, and making due with my base tools the rest of the time. I mostly use the Rocket launcher honestly.

Just wanted to try some other stuff (and ran into this again).

[MarxistDictator]

The scum blitzes are just ludicrous, blackouts are more pedestrian but their restock condition is already a little generous imo. I’m pretty sure like most ‘instant kill’ properties Hyper-Critical is limited to once per activation, because even throwing out crits like every other attack at 60%~ crit rate I’m not struggling to get them back. But if you think about it, one of the largest impediments to being a melee-focused loadout are those ‘rush intervention’ and every other code-word for face-spawning groups of overlapping melee ogryns in your face. The rocket launcher is the key to many free clears of those so you can keep being a melee monster without whacking at bulwark shields in phalanx formation. But blackouts are really really good I think, its just like the vet situation where their ‘worst’ grenade is just eclipsed in usage by how powerful the other 2 are.

[Dumbledood]

Yeah, I don’t disagree with you on any of that. I think they could be valuable too, but I opt for the RPG usually since, where the Blackout can create a little space to avoid being rushed, the RPG can both do that and kill.. an infinite number of anything short of bosses that packs into it’s close explosion radius. And then between the Chem nade and the RPG, there are pros and cons of course, mainly the potential for the Chem nade to kill more things and do more damage over time but without the on demand “this needs to die NOW” option (or the stagger, and ability to aim better).

Blackouts can be used more liberally which is a form of utility in itself, since you can use them in less stressful moments that still call for stagger.

I’m sorry if I went off topic too much. I didn’t meant for it to be about the Blackout’s strength so much as the fact that there are these big anti-synergies between them and DoT’s. To the extent that I personally haven’t found a build I enjoy using them on because they all rely on DoTs to some extent, which makes the regeneration a bit too slow.

I might even agree with you that they regenerate too fast from physical kills (and thus might regenerate too fast if DoT functionality was added also) but I honestly haven’t tried it since the class came out as I prefer the other blitzes on most builds.

It just seems like an issue worth addressing. A blitz working much worse with numerous talents the class has, available blessings, and the core of one of the class’s unique weapons is not ideal.

My motivation is just to be able to use it on builds that I find fun. I still think it would likely be “off-meta.” Which doesn’t bother me much.

[IGN_Vera]

@Dumbledood

It just seems like an issue worth addressing. A blitz working much worse with numerous talents the class has, available blessings, and the core of one of the class’s unique weapons is not ideal.

Why not just put Blackout regen on a timer like Shock Mine? 30s without Pocket Toxin, 45s with Pocket Toxin. There’s plenty of them have on hand if used wisely, even if the CD becomes a bit longer with a timer instead of kill based.

They are strong nades but even with Pocket Toxin they’re not Shredder strong. It’s cool they have a regen based on close kills that makes for interesting Rampage synergy; but with Chem interfering Scum basically loses that unique regen on 1/3 of his build types.

Timed regen works. No need to fix what’s not broke.

[Dumbledood]

Are we negotiating? Lol. I’m down. Any solution that fixes my issue would be fine.

30s seems legit. They’re not as good as the Arb’s little nades, and those are on a 45s timer.

[IGN_Vera]

I’m just offering another idea. I’d like Pocket Toxin Blackouts to synergize better with Chem builds too. Tertium needs drugs fast and Toxin Blackouts are just what the Chemist ordered.
Making the next nade:

[MarxistDictator]

I honestly haven’t spent much time with blackout chemist but that would be a massive almost intolerable nerf for them normally. I usually get like 2-3 back per activation of desperado/rampage, sometimes more.

[IGN_Vera]

Just an idea. Maybe increase kill requirement to 30 (50% increase) upon taking Pocket Toxin with Blackouts, and allow Tox stacks to count towards Blackout Regen.