I came through through several stages of relationships with ranged enemies as Psyker main.
Sure i always pop heads of ranged elites, and zzap into oblivion scabs with Surge staff, or suppress with Surge’s LMB dregs while breaking distance to chop their heads off. But…
STAGE 1 - Anger.
But I was very disappointed with Vets that supposed to DELETE dozens of ranged enemy in seconds with their class kit and variety of guns to deal with ranged enemies way quicker than my.
Vets were either:
Really slow and bad shooters that barely done anything noticeable
being wannabe revolver vets that was popular at that period, but most of them performed poorly (skill issue)
good vet player that were having fun with guns not suited for quick slaying of a lot of ranged enemies per second. They did well overall and had Fun - i’m fine with them. And angry with mentioned above.
And only on rare occasion there was an efficient slayer of ranged.
STAGE 2 - Let me show you how it’s done!
I grabbed a gun as Psyker , or playing Zealot while mostly using Headhunter autoguns (there was a massive buff to them but before massive Psyker buff). Mostly focusing of killing everything that can shoot back as fast as possible. Greatly out-killing and outscoring most of vet players i met ( i do still play Zealot like that). To the point that at some games Vets in the team started marking and leaving ammo for me.
And finalizing it by playing vet in a way i thought they should be played to be of the most use to the team. Realizing in a process that it’s like playing FPS game with cheats - it become boring really fast.
STAGE 3 - Acceptance.
To Warp with it i thought. And adjusted my playstyle to compensate for High Rarity of good Slayers of Ranged. Became slightly better at game and less angry.
STAGE 4 - Wisdom.
My view on other players : “Play whatever you like, just please - have FUN while doing so, and don’t be to much of a hindrance while doing so”. I know how to deal with Ranged Enemies - they don’t bother me any more than poxwalkers. I just hate the sound of dreg shooters firing and will put extra effort to make them silent.
A few scattered ranged enemies are far more annoying than a lot of ranged enemies in a pack, simply because you cant easily suppress them. As others already suggested you just have to spam slide all the time so they cant hit you. Thats all there is to it. Its annoying and i even made a macro for it because it feels so clunky to use, but it really keeps you alive
I hate those stupid fights, but if we decrease their damage, then it´ll be a thing on all encounters we meet.
A better step might be to fix the AI director to not allow 50 gunners spawning in a section without a horde you can use as cover and push through etc… nerf the own ranged possibilities a little bit on top since we will encounter it less and it should be fine.
And since they´re static and not timed spawns, it shouldn´t be an issue to fix.
Also it´s often a thing because poeple rely to heavily on range in general and especially Zealot / Ogryns are too feared to go in, while a Vet often runs the “Don´t touch me” feat and Psyker sit on their ultimate to prevent the worst case of 100% peril than using it frequently to stagger enemies even if they´re far away.
Just saying… there goes a lot of stuff hand in hand caused by the players. (Besides the stealth-feat that is only useful in a premade-team and an Ogryn with shield. It needs to be removed. I had enough Vets dealing with enemies behind my, then they stood still and the enemies turned into my back… this feat is a joke.)
My favorite psyker ranged weapon is the Vraks Mk VII Headhunter Autogun (the true semi-auto one). Lots of tools in the toolbox and I find myself struggling with ranged mobs the least with Psyker.
Gunners/elites pinning your team? Peak and BB.
Random mods of gunners everywhere? Headhunter Autogun.
Bulwarks or other elites bearing down? BB
Need to close distance under gunfire? Use the ult for a huge stagger and slide/advance.
Get caught in the open? Deflector force sword.
Incidentally, I’m trying to wean myself off deflector because when I play other classes or melee weapons I’m a bit too aggressive pushing under gunfire. Need to reanimate myself to not having it.
All said, psyker has great tools for dealing with ranged threats IMHO.
It’s because you can dodge slide others find it easier. You can slide backwards from a dodge.
Honestly though, I feel like it’s a bug. The tutorial only mentions sliding from a sprint and pausing stamina Regen. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they “nerf” slide doding/remove it and shooters will become more of a problem. Damnation will be more challenging.
So far I don’t typically have a ton of fun playing Damnation on my Ogryn due to ranged. There are areas of most maps where I feel like I need to hide more than anyone on my team (from ranged), which feels ‘wrong’ for a tank. On the flip-side, by the time players are ready for Damnation every class seems to be capable of handling melee, whether it be culling massive hordes or managing/evading elites.
If I had to bet, I’d wager this is a ‘me’ problem so I’ll abstain from a ranged balance vote. Just weighing in with my personal non-sweaty perspective.
But hey, on Heresy I’m happy to slowly plod along with a stubber where I don’t have to worry quite as much about getting merced by a few shooters every 2 seconds I stick big toe out from behind cover.
We all got used to them and play accordingly. Sometimes you get pinned to the spot by something shooting through the floor though…
Move from cover to cover stagger or stun with a grenade or some sustained fire etc they are not so bad unless they bug out and shoot through terrain or drop in directly behind you without making a sound until they open fire.
The cover playstyle is just not how Preacher an Ogryn want to be played.
If you find yourself in a spot that get peppered by a bunch of range mobs the action that needs to be done is charge into them. Not to desperately look for cover and get torn apart while doing so.
Ogryn has Unstoppable, Bloodthirst, and Blood and Thunder. Once you are in melee and regenerate Toughness via Cleaver kills rolls in the few spread out ones wont harm you. Dodge and push to get them into melee.
Its just as easy with Preacher, with the added option to grenade nasty groups before jumping in. You’ll have to be quicker about gathering the shooting stragglers. Usually not a problem with the Heavy Sword. Shotgun and Machine Pistol make it trivial to deal with pesky specials. Push, Q, unload, Q.
The only cases I wont just go for it is if there are split up elite gunner groups. Get rid of one at range than charge.
Iam not saying there isn’t ever going to be problems, but we have the tools to deal with most of them.
Sometimes you can, yes, and sometimes you have to, but other times the enemies are too spread out and will simply kill you moments afterwards. Not to mention that the Skullbreaker doesn’t get Preacher’s invulnerability during the charge. Besides, shooters are often simply too far and too well hidden for you to be able to rush them without getting hit too much to make the whole maneuver a waste of health. If shooters are on the other side of an open field, your attempt to rush will more likely than not end in getting your grutting ass shot.
It is moments like these that make me hate this game. I play a fricking Ogryn or Zealot; I should not have to hide behind corners like some puny Gears Of War character, I should be out there, ripping and tearing for Him on Terra. But the overtuned damage and accuracy of riflemen forces me to do just that, which feels even worse because these two characters and the entire game in general have no mechanics to support that kind of gameplay. I can’t actively use cover like in Gears Of War, safely crouching behind some grutting wall and knowing exactly when to pop out of it to take shots at enemies’ heads.
Skullbreaker doesn’t get dodge state during charge but he gets another 50% damage reduction with his passive 36% to toughness 20% to HP. People are really sleeping on just using the long distance charge and this in built mechanic to make embarrassing plays with no punish. I do it all game. I can’t think of any faster way for my slab to get to the first train on the Consignment Yard finale when I don’t feel like watching the Psyker brain burst every enemy in the room before dropping like what typically happens in pubs. Ogryn can proceed to hold door infinitely.
I feel dumb but I don’t get it? I see ‘Thick Skin’ and it’s 20% damage reduction to toughness and health (which basically means 20% damage reduction at any given time)… where are you getting the 50% damage reduction and 36% to toughness?
Nah there’s no dumb, none of this is actually shown in the game but people have figured out how it works poking around the code. They even found a 50% damage buff to heavy attacks during the Ogryn charge, which is obviously impossible to access during the game.
But because HP and Toughness DMGR are not seperate, Ogryn’s passive double dips and functions as a 36% buffer to damage on toughness, and 20% HP like listed. And totally unlisted is his DMGR during his charge, which does stack with this passive. If you get hit by a sniper shot during his charge on Damnation you only take 70 some damage instead of the 110 or so it does normally, regular shooters are nothing. Couple Heavyweight and you’ll take absolutely bubkus charging right at a Reaper which would normally be an auto down.
Well honestly if it was just Vermintide but a diffenrent setting then I wouldn’t have bought the game and just have kept playing Vermintide. Whats the point of a new game if it plays excactly the same.
I personally like the new challenges the ranged enemies provide.
Well Preacher has 50% DR (damage reduction|resistance) when sprinting and is a god when sliding so there’s that.
Biggie McBulletmagnet on the other hand is a giant honking target with no additional sprinting/sliding DR besides base (which is good) so he has to rely much more on suppression and terrain and maybe even charging in to melee. A massive aoe suppression weapon like the Rumbler can help a lot here, other shoot’n’scoot weapons help too. The new heavy heavy stubber is good too, avoid the other 2 like the plague, but nothing beats the rumbler as a tool to advance.
Thin the herd out some before moving in to melee, the trick is risk assessment, practice makes perfect. IMHO risk assessment is sorely lacking in most ogryns and zealots, and they usually bite off more than they can chew, zealot having more tools at his/her disposal.
FWIW shooters (dregs) were toned down since launch, it was noticeably harder then.
P.S. Even after dreg shooter fixes, I still think Ogryn can benefit from some innate small arms DR.
I like how deadly shooters get on higher difficulties, needing to worry about taking cover and having an actual firefight is fun, but I main vet. Maybe it’s not as engaging on other classes.
I do hope we get something like a psyker class with a group bullet shield ability. Would really help with survivability in open areas.
Going to have to agree with Eisenfaust on this. Ranged enemies should be dangerous. Melee enemies are plenty dangerous. I see more team mates die in melee than in ranged fights by a wide margin. This is 40k. Guns matter a lot. In fact the maps are designed, according to an interview listined to some time back, intentionally to have sections that favor one form of combat or another. People who want to facerush everything are not going to feel at home. But personally I like this more hybridized style of combat far more than vermintide and I am approaching twice my hours in Darktide over Vermintide.
The skill in a shooter is around manuever and positioning. The skill in a melee is about technical fighting. Both show up in darktide and both are fun at different times in different ways. But this is the ONLY game where you can get BOTH.
Small additional comment: my ogryn friend prefers the rumbler because they are able to blast groups of shooters onto their tushies with the large AOE and then rush them down for melee.
Except if you want to facerush the game you absolutely can, which is why I don’t really get this thread. The lower difficulties exist and they’re a cakewalk. I don’t think I ever even bothered with diff 1 because diff 2 was already too easy.
The game gets harder on higher difficulties? You have to play differently to deal with that? Yeah, that’s the point, play some low intensity missions to ease into it.
That’s the crux of the whole issue though. Everything that makes this game feel slow, undynamic and annoying can be boiled down to hit stun even ranged enemies.
I don’t understand that after all the nerfs to ranged enemies, how there are still people complaining about ranged enemies…
Yep, it’s not VT3 it’s DT with more ranged focus.
This all boils down to this. Vet is already anti-shooter focused, while on Ogryn and Zealot, you have higher skill floor to deal with them on Damnation.
With Zealot and Ogryn you gotta suppress them (if enemies are already alert) and engage, taking out gunners asap.
I could be a bit rude and say “git gud”, but actually the game is just bad at teaching you how to do it. Once how you deal with shooters clicks, It’s pretty easy. Once you learn it you also get a feeling when and how to engage even on vet (if not running anti-shooter setup) or psyker. Those 2 just have a harder time with it.
I’d say start with learning it on Zealot since that’s the most forgiving.