How to Make Havoc Truly Challenging and Fun

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Yes. It only takes two things.

1. The core base game should be AuricHISTG + Monster Special
Keep the spawn intensity and the newly implemented horde timer as they are, but bosses should spawn frequently.
All bosses spawn as weakened versions (not at full HP), and every boss type, including the Captain and the Twins, appears regularly.
You might think weakened bosses would be too easy, but I’ll explain in point 2 why that’s not the case.

2. Balance adjustments for weapons, builds, and DoT damage
Fix broken OP weapons such as DS and Plasma, as well as CDR abuse that enables ability spam. Revisit overtuned DoT damage.
Disable the staggering effects of Chorus and VoC that turn bosses into punching bags. By fixing OP weapons and builds, you encourage build diversity.
Adjust CDR so that some abilities can no longer be spammed endlessly.
Soulblaze, burn, and bleed DoT damage are clearly overtuned and need to be toned down—especially against bosses, where they should be drastically reduced.
The main reason bosses get instantly killed is that Chorus or VoC lock them into powerful stagger states, during which DS, boltgun, and similar weapons burst down their weak spots. On top of that, multiple DoTs like Soulblaze, fire, and bleed pile on. TH is designed as a weapon for this purpose, so I don’t see it as a particular issue.

Summary
Believe me: 95% of Havoc 40 players can’t even clear AuricHISTG without relying on meta builds, weapons, or Gold Toughness.
Up to now, I’ve only seen a handful of players with the Havoc 40 title actually clutch in AuricHISTG.
Especially since the last update raised Auric’s difficulty, and with the new horde timer added, the challenge has gone up dramatically.

As an experiment, I asked two friends to help me run AuricHISTG without Gold Toughness or meta builds. We waited until the random fourth teammate wasn’t using a meta setup. One of my friends has Havoc 40 and solid skill, while the other hasn’t played Havoc but is a Damnation player.
Even with this team of four, we couldn’t finish the run.
As you can imagine, without Gold Toughness, players go down—or die—very easily. This makes teamwork absolutely essential. Without Psyker Bubble, you also can’t just recklessly charge in. One thing that stood out here is how valuable Ogryn can be as a teammate. My friend played Ogryn with Revive Curios, and their ability to recover downed teammates was excellent—it felt great to have an Ogryn on the team.

Bosses didn’t get instantly deleted, and they stuck around long enough to spice up the gameplay. While bosses were active, a constant stream of Elites and Specialists forced players to divide roles: some had to hold aggro, others had to deal with adds.
Of course, no one quit the match just because they died.
There were no unskilled Heresy players wrecking the run with smite or Chorus spam.
Without using party finder, joining games also felt straightforward.

Ammo isn’t reduced either, so you can use your guns as much as you want

To me, this is exactly the kind of challenging, well-balanced gameplay Darktide should offer.

Fatshark, why are you repeating the same mistakes—even after players told you during Elite Resistance that bullet sponge enemies aren’t fun?
Why make Havoc even harder when most players can’t clear AuricHISTG in the first place?
You said frequent balance updates would be coming, so I can only hope the game evolves in the right direction.

2

I don’t think removing the only good aspect about book nowadays (stagger) is a good idea

The only good idea to nerf gold toughness is to not allow them to save you from an overhead

If anything I think Havoc monstrosities should have basekit Final Toll included onto them (so that when they fall down to 50% HP they win stagger immunity). And to prevent them from getting bursted you could give them 90% damage resistance for 2s after reaching that point (which the monstrosity could then release a scream and do an animation indicating this, as well as the red angry effect)

And also please make Plague Ogryn overheads act like Crusher overheads

3

What I hate about Havoc is that, in order to counter the meta, the solution has been simply to inflate enemy HP and add more damage resistance.
Even worse is that the only real counter to ranged enemies is the Psyker’s Bubble — there are no other options.

No matter how much base toughness or damage reduction you stack, just a few mob gunners are enough to strip your toughness instantly and put you on the receiving end of damage.
This not only places extreme restrictions on player actions but also forces Psykers into running nothing but Bubble builds, leaving everyone huddling inside the bubble like frightened mice. It feels like combat styles are being severely restricted.

I’ve watched some streamers running Martyrdom or crit-based damage reduction builds, but even then, just a little fire from mob gunners was enough to leave them nearly dead.
I honestly wonder if there are actually players who find this fun.

4

Bugs and crashes aside, I had always found Havoc fun (haven’t played new season).
But I refuse to engage with the party finder promposal mating dance any more. It’s too much hassle just to play the damn game.
Sprinkle on some derank and “seasonal” resets when seasons don’t really mean anything and I’m out for good, barring the low chance they change it up before I call it quits on DT altogether.

5

I believe the ranking-down system itself should be abolished. However, an even bigger issue is that Havoc is advertised as a “challenging game mode,” when in reality, it is nothing of the sort.

A truly challenging game should demand individual player skill, which in turn combines to require teamwork. In contrast, the current Havoc is not about player skill at all—it is about following rigid builds and preset patterns of play, which have become the only key to completing a run successfully.

The most common template I see plays out like this:

  1. The Psyker decides the place to fight and places a Bubble. The entire team must remain inside it.

  2. When a horde begins, the team spams Chorus and wipes out enemies while remaining invincible.

  3. The Psyker almost always uses the Inferno Staff—mobs are burned away by Soulblaze, while Elites and Specialists are taken care of by the other members.

  4. Once the horde ends, the team advances a little further. Upon reaching an area packed with enemies, another Bubble is placed, and the loop repeats.

This monotonous cycle simply continues until the mission ends. As a result, Havoc 40 has been handed out like a bargain sale, and the players shaped by this style of play collapse almost instantly even in regular Auric. The reason is simple: they lack true player skill and can only follow a fixed script.

And I don’t know if it’s because they can’t stand having their pride hurt, but whenever they go down or die in Auric, they immediately quit the game. It’s truly a dogshit.