How I'd rework every single Havoc modifier

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

The idea is to make Modifiers less “free games” or “this is impossible”, and put them closer to each other while keeping what makes them fun

Cranial Corruption (Added on Season 1)

  • Increase chances of fodder (Bruisers, Groaners, Poxwalkers and Moebian 21st units) of having the Cranial effect up to 20% (from 10%)
  • Decrease Mauler chances of having the Cranial Corruption to 0% (from 5%)
  • Increase Dreg and Scab stalker of having the Cranial Corruption up to 15% (from 10%)

Kinda simple, add more of these to encourage people needing to adapt quickly and rely less on CC

Moebian 21st (Added on Season 1)

  • Increase the amount of hordes by x2.5 from current value

Another extremely simple change, essentially the idea is to mimic “Send the next wave!” from VT2, which is constant horde spam on the map

Pus Hardened Enemies (Added on Season 1)

(Complete rework, remove everything it does right now)

“Detected frequency of stronger monstrosities and high rank enemies!”

  • Monstrosities and Captains will now have the Pus Aura visual effect on them 100% of the time (Twins not included)
  • Pus Hardened Enemies now gain 50% DR against melee, and 75% DR against range

Going from nothingburger into something that will impact when monstrosities (and caps) start spawning

The Blight Spreads (Added on Season 1)

  • All Elites now spawn with it a 100% of the time
  • Players suffer x1.5 corruption from everything else (Tox gas, Burgle, and so) during this mission
  • Puddle size increased drastically
  • Blight no longer spreads (wow the irony) among enemies

Shifting the “Hordes become fps tanking machines to deal with” into a “Watch your steps among Elites!” should defenitely shift this more into what Havoc is more about

This idea could potentially be bad, so I’d like to recieve suggestions on reworks (That isn’t “remove it”)

Heinous Rituals (Added on Season 2)

  • No changes

Like, of course they should fix the broken rituals, but conceptually wise I think this is pretty good

The Encroaching Garden (Added on Season 2)

  • Reduced efficiency of healing (Both received and given) from Captains/Twins and Bulwarks with shields up (Void shield for caps, Non-staggered stance for Bulwarks) by 50%

I’d say really that we just need to nerf situations that are unwinnable, so by doing that the enemies who deny damage to recieve and give a lot less healing, it should help towards these

The Final Toll (Added on Season 2)

  • No changes

Really another one I’d say it’s perfect and doesn’t need changes

Rampaging Enemies (Added on Season 2)

(Semi-rework, remove everything it does right now)

  • It now only affects elites (Only they will gain power)
  • Orange effect (all effects, from particle on death, to the enemy getting more “orange”) removed (it really tanks FPS and serves for nothing)
  • When an Elite dies near another Elite (4 meters), they will gain x1.5 movespeed, 25% DR, DoT Immunity and their size will increase by 20% (10% for Ogryns) for 4s (in which they will return to normal after that)

Giving Elite packs a “sprint burts” of sorts to make it more spicy, but it’ll be very limited to make sure they don’t instantly overcome foes

Contaminated Stimms (Added on Season 4)

Current stimms are too complex and not correctly explained, so what if instead we add familiarity to them?

  • Green Stimm: Enemy gains “The Encroaching Garden” effect, healing nearby allies
  • Red Stimm: Enemy gains “The Final Toll” effect, becoming immune to CC
  • Blue Stimm: Enemy gains “Warp Rift” effect (Currently unreleased Havoc Modifier). On death, spawn 2 lesser enemies from this one (these 2 lesser enemies can’t get stimms on their own, nor gain any other Havoc modifier like Encroaching Garden, Cranial Corruption, and so, and so)
  • Yellow Stimm: (Stalker, Gunner, Shotgunner and Reaper exclusive) Enemy gains “Cranial Corruption”
  • Now only Elites can use it (outside of Yellow one)
  • Reduced chances of an Enemy (Elite) using a syringe to only 20% (from 30% average). Ragers still remain with their 40%
  • A specific Stimm can’t apply if the other modifier is the current existing one (For example, no Green Stimms if the game already has The Encroaching Garden)

This way, we make stimms the “Havoc RNG!” simulator, which I’d personally think Stimms were meant for

Rotten Armour (Added on Season 4)

  • Ranged DR scaling with health removed
  • Movespeed for Rotten Armour enemies back to x1 (from x0.85)
  • Rotten Armour enemies gain +25% HP and 60% DR to DoT (Nurgle’s blessing!)
  • Rotten Armour enemies now have a 100% Vulnerability to Bullets (included Lasguns) and Explosions (Their decaying armor…)

Shifting from a “Lets make ranged a nightmare” into “Let’s actually BRING ranged and GUN THEM DOWN!” modifier. Could make weapons like Infantry Autoguns worth to bring for classes like Zealot as well

General Changes

  • Now all modifiers are into rotation, instead of being locked to 4-5 per season

With this, now Havoc should be a lot more varied than just

  • Purple rotten
  • Purple stimms
  • People wanting to die
6 Likes
2

Eh, I’d take any changes to Stims. It is so badly implemented. And it’s really just a big FU to people who are color-blind, ZERO chance of knowing what stim they’re using.

3

Yeah I gotta use a mod to outline blue stimmed enemies currently xddd

4

Wasn’t the dev announcement for Rotten Armor that their armor class changed to infested?

A bunch of the buffs Rotten Armor gives enemies makes sense if they’re not invincible to 90% of melee weapons

5

It’d make sense to turn their armor into infested, but I’m more interested in just making them weaker to ranged so that build variety can thrive

6

Yeah Cranial Corruption is about the only thing in Havoc that has any interaction with ranged attacks besides “Don’t”

7

Some of the suggestions are good, some are pretty bad.

Your stimm rework just makes them even more complicated and bloated, and they have too much overlap with other modifiers which is gonna make every other mission feel the same, because you’re going to see the same buffs every other mission. But blue stimms definetely need to be more visible and others need to be more fleshed out. Green stimm can heal enemies in AOE once upon use, orange stimm can make Trappers shoot twice and bombers throw two bombs at the same time (etc for other enemies), blue stimm can make enemies fast and stagger immune without the damage reduction, red can give enemies damage over time burn which applies if you get hit.

Pus Hardened only affecting bosses is not a bad one, until you remember Havoc already spawns 3+ bosses regularly in every other mission. This will make fighting them even more of a slog with most builds because of melee damage reduction. Instead, maybe, they should receive EXTRA 50% or even 100% damage from melee, with damage significanly reduced from abilities and ranged guns.

I’d rather not touch Moebian 21st. It’s already pretty good. It fits the “secondary modifier” role perfectly, so I’d rather not change something that most people already like, if it can potentially make it much, much worse. Also if I remember correctly, 21st now makes every seed armor-based, no?

Garden should have a cap on how much it can heal (2x of the enemies total HP?). This way the modifier will be endurance check, rather than DPS check. Bosses should not get it at all, especially shielded one’s.

Your Rotten, Cranial suggestion and Rampaging are pretty good, but

When an Elite dies near another Elite (4 meters), they will gain x1.5 movespeed, 25% DR, DoT Immunity and their size will increase by 20% (10% for Ogryns) for 4s (in which they will return to normal after that)

DOT immunity hurts Vet’s Shredders, Zealot’s Fire Grenade and crits, Ogryn’s Bleed and fire damage from Power Maul. While I understand the intent behind this (nerfing Psyker), I’d rather not make some of the niche options even more weak by introducing something like that.

At this point they should just come out with a modifier that gives enemies full resistance to warp-based powers, instead of DOT, to force more unique team comps or Psykers going full melee/ranged damage without soulblaze talents.

1 Like
8

Thanks for the feedback!

It shouldn’t feel that way because every modifier would become available rather than only having 4-5 in a season

I like this, my only concern is that I don’t like the idea of Specials being affected directly by modifiers

Most builds are melee oriented so I don’t feel making them vulnerable to melee is a good idea

Also, of course, it would make fighting bosses a lot more harder, but because they’re not there 70% of the run, I think it’s a fair trade for a Modifier slot to have such huge impact on bosses

I don’t think 21st makes it Scab only no

My current issue with 21st is that it’s a nothingburger of a modifier at the moment, so ramping up their constant hordes should help on the idea that they’re flooding the team

I really like this

Maybe, but I also feel bleed (vet melee talent) and fire (from flamer) are a little bit overtuned right now and could maybe use the reduction

But you’re right, it defenitely makes more niche options less good which I do not want

1 Like
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