Hive Scum weapons

[f8fqgfm]

In Havoc 40, the Antax is stronger than other Battle Axe variants because it has 1.8 base Cleave, slightly higher than the other variants, and can break through the key 4.05 threshold with the Cleave provided by Headtaker + Rampage + Battering Strike, achieving a qualitative change from hitting only one enemy to hitting two. The Rashad variant, with only 1.5 base Cleave, can almost never hit two enemies.

After Battle Axes were buffed in the new version, I also tried the Antax’s combat performance. It’s okay, but its attack speed and Finesse scaling are clearly lower than the Tactical Axe’s, and it struggles to reach the one-shot thresholds for many elites, so it’s definitely still far inferior to the Tactical Axe.

I’ve always felt that Hive Scum’s talent design is far too biased toward high-attack-speed, high-Finesse weapons. Rampage strongly encourages high-attack-speed combos, the crit chance provided through various sources strongly encourages high-Finesse weapons, and the core Toughness-regeneration talent Precision Violence directly ties crit × attack speed to Hive Scum’s survivability. And many other talents like hyper violence. The entire Hive Scum talent tree is basically telling you to either play Shivs or play the Tactical Axe. No other class has this kind of extremely exaggerated bias, which is not good.

Heavy sword + perfect strike + hyper violence have good chemical reaction. It performs excellently in Dreg environments but is noticeably much weaker in Scab environments. I use a mod that predicts the enemy type in my own Havoc lobby, and I’ll use it when the enemy template is Dreg—it’s pretty fun. But it performs much worse in random environments.

[f8fqgfm]

I heard that several years ago, in an old version I never played, Brutal Momentum underwent a huge nerf, to the point that its scope of use was greatly reduced.

I haven’t tried Brutal Momentum on the Tactical Axe. Its moveset has a lot of diagonal slashes and vertical chops, so it’s not easy to trigger Brutal Momentum repeatedly. Brutal Momentum has the best synergy with the Power Sword MK6.

[Hrupo]

Heavy Sword + perfect strike with hyper violence is probably my favorite build so far.

[JanZamoysky]

I don’t play Hive Scum often enough, but I found a few recent ones. I might revisit the class again soon. I often end up playing Ogryn and zealot as everyone wants to play something squishy and with little staying power, so I rather stabilise that frontline.

Those 2 would be a chain axe games, Blackouts, no toxins, just pure damage / power:

That would be a bonesaw game, again blackouts (no tox upgrade), I don’t think I was even running Chem dependency here, just Adrenaline keystone and extra cleave.

[Rvl]

Share your Bonesaw build, I’ve never managed to reach 1 million melee damage with it. Or better yet, next time you’re playing with it, record a game, I’ll watch that for reference how you play it.

[JanZamoysky]

@Rvl

Share your Bonesaw build, I’ve never managed to reach 1 million melee damage with it.

Keep in mind no game is the same, and if you have a psyker vacuum cleaner on the team or few other broken setups that affects your perception, especially with weapons which don’t have a high one hit one kill potential.

There is nothing crazy there, I cannot login atm, but I think I run two variants, with different keystones. In both cases I try to lean into extra cleave, Swift Endurance is a must, and everything else is a matter of choice, whatever you want to lean into more kills from pure damage, slightly more attack speed (Adrenaline) or more crit and toxin based kills. Crit has some nice synergies on Scum as it is more damage, toughness regen and more toxins. I have played BOTH setups without Hyper Critical and Hyper Violence, but not enough to have a clear idea whatever that noticeably impacts your performance. Rampage and toxin carry this weapon anyway.

Chem Dependency:

Bonesaw - Chem Dep - Hive Scum Build for Darktide

Ah, looking at it now, the above stim composition is probably not what you want. Chem Dependency gives a 30% CDR, and I actually have a mix of 3 other stim tracks there, no the cooldown reduction.

Adrenaline Frenzy:

Bonesaw - Non-Chem - Hive Scum Build for Darktide

Secondary weapons and their config are a matter of preference, I’m sure I ran this with Dual pistols, heavy shotgun and bolt pistol. You can even use Needle Pistol, but I prefer something which guarantees quick kills on specials. Curio wise, I would say +3 stam helps a lot, you could even consider +2 stam as a Bonesaw perk, maybe instead of Flak, but I’m fine with Bonesaw speed without that compromise.

If you run Adrenaline, you will be less pressed with talent points. With Chem Dependency, you could make an argument to sacrifice Forge Below to pick even more cleave from Battering Momentum, just to lean even more into that toxin spread, but it’s not a must.

With Bonesaw blessings, Shock & Awe is supposed to superior to Wrath, due to how cleave from different sources is put together, but I ran Wrath few times and it’s not like it broke the build. Less cleave, but can be easier to stack it in certain situations. Decimator vs Shred…again this a matter of preference, even if you run Chem Dep keystone with Coated Weaponry. One should give you more overall damage, other happens to trigger more class synergies.

Keep in mind I haven’t played since the Rampage supposed Strength nerf, but I doubt this affected the setup much. Combo wise, light spam into horde is “fine”, light into heavy also. Single target Heavy into light, with big boys IF you have time you can do that push cancel hidden heavy into Heavy 1?

Toxic Blackouts are a fine idea too, but first, you are likely stretched with your talent points anyway. Also as far as I know Toxin kills from Bonesaw count towards that 20 kill regen (?), someone correct me.

None of those builds are hyper-optimised, I’m not that obsessive about running the most optimal combos, but I tired to build around the weapons and keystones strengths etc.

[GMG_Pie]

The only Combat Axe that was buffed in the patch is Achlys, which is now easily the best mark. Also the only change to Brutal Momentum was that it can no longer cleave Ogryns. It is still one of the best blessings in the game and an autoinclude on every weapon that can take it except Power Maul and maybe Power Sword if you want Sunder.

[GMG_Pie]

For Scum weapons I’ve been enjoying putting them on other classes to see how they feel without triple damage. Bone Saw is good and performs similarly to other balanced melees while Crowbar has a truly awful blessing pool and some low numbers. Also the sticky attack steals your camera harder than usual which feels bad.

Like in terms of melees that could use buffs: Chainsword could use some small numbers tweaks to not have some of the worst cleave in the game and maybe some more carapace damage on regular attacks. Crowbar is Shock Maul levels of not fun and needs genuine saving. They balanced a weapon around Scum damage when you could use a weapon that’s already good to begin with.

[JanZamoysky]

@GMG_Pie

Also the sticky attack steals your camera harder than usual which feels bad.

Chain Axe Mk IV is notorious for that. I’m not kidding, on FotF zealot you can end up doing donuts around elites you latched too.

@GMG_Pie

Crowbar is Shock Maul levels of not fun and needs genuine saving. They balanced a weapon around Scum damage when you could use a weapon that’s already good to begin with.

This is why I’m not a fan of introducing a lot of damage stacking buffs from the talent tree, and weapon blessings. That must be a nightmare to balance. A weapon should stand on its own before you apply anything to it, it’s a weapon.

[f8fqgfm]

I disagree. Achlys’s cleave is too low—light attacks can only ever hit a single target, which makes it fundamentally different from Antax.

@GMG_Pie

The only Combat Axe that was buffed in the patch is Achlys

↓

@FatsharkQuickpaw

• Combat Axes

  • Added Allowed during Sprint to all attacks and attack starts

@GMG_Pie

maybe Power Sword if you want Sunder

Sunder is better than brutal momentum for power sword

[f8fqgfm]

Bonesaw somehow has the lowest cleave among all weapons. What do you mean by saying that the agile crowbar strikedown attack has the same cleave as the clumsy bonesaw vanguard attack. Considering this is a heavy weapon, the massive difference in base cleave is even more laughable.

Not to mention Battering Strikes and Battering momentum are the worst of all cleave talents. Meanwhile toxin kills prevent you from triggering Battering Strikes.

[GMG_Pie]

Just put Brutal Momentum on the axe man. Brutal Momentum Decimator hits Moebian 21st breakpoints at this rate.

[f8fqgfm]

So you’re not running Shred? HS’s crit rate doesn’t just affect damage—it’s also highly tied to its Toughness recovery and to the trigger frequency/effectiveness of Hyper-Critical & Hyper-Violence.

[GMG_Pie]

10% base, 5% small node, 5% aura, 20% Float Like a Butterfly, 15-20% Chemical Dependency. Why would you run Shred on this character?

Even on Arbites I’m taking Brutal Momentum Decimator on Achlys.

Actually more importantly, why wouldn’t you want Brutal Momentum with Hyper-Violence? There’s a reason Tactical Axe is so busted on Scum.