Hello everyone I am a new player when it comes to Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. I’ve been playing for 4 months now and I just started playing heresy. I tried to master the easier levels as well as possible so that I could move on to the harder ones. I need some useful tips from experienced players, how to beat chaos spawn for example or to see where my mistakes are. So there it is, my second high intensity heresy. As for weapons, I use an Atrox MK IV tactical ax and a Kantrael Mk IX Combat Shotgun. I hope you will like this video. Am I ready for the Damnation or do I need to practice more? What is your opinion? If you want, you can watch it on YouTube here is the link to video
i ain’t giving you views.
your problem’s gonna be the same problem most people have with pubs- you need to work together without communication, which means you need to plan around what your team’s doing instead of what you want. kantrel is probably the worst shotgun right now though, the flame shot is not terribly useful and is just the same thing the normal shots do with no real benefit besides seeing dudes on fire.
the spawn’s the same as the witch, the secret is “don’t fight this thing solo, get some support”
Thank you for your answer… since the players are from different countries and not all of them know English, so I don’t know it well either… it’s really a big challenge to make a well-organized game, where we all work as a team. Do you have any good suggestions for a shotgun?
I prefer the other shotgun that loads a slug (I dont remember the name), even though I dont use the slug.
Lol, tf you are 14 years old the Joker.
You anyway need to try it to adapt.
Not gonna comment all micro moments, but just key stuff:
- Most important - movemvent. You barely dodging and stay too long when hitting smthg in melee or aiming/shooting. Do it all on the move and while dodging, circle around enemies with dodge and dodgeslide backwards when reloading for example. Here you just jumping around and trying to hide, instead of dodge dance
Move your camera faster and much more around to check sides and behind more frequently, you are a bit slow, like observing how’s Tertium nature is beautifull first.
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Awarness, like on 5:24 there is a trapper shot sound - first of all dodge if you hear it behind, maybe it was aimed for you. Second - you are ignoiring your teammate was trapped too long. On higher diffculties you need to save from the net instantly cause how much more there are fire enemies.
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You don’t tag enemies, like at all, probably bad habbit learnd by HP bars mod. Always tag so you can see enemies and their animations through hordes and effects. Your teammates may be not using this mod.
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Use your ultimate more often, you don’t rly need to have 2 charges ready. Keep one if you think you might need it to esacape or to refill your toughness.
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Slide more, especially when you are engagin shooters and also engage them aggresively to stop firing at you
Here you don’t use CTW chagres to refill toughness and you don’t slide to avoid shots, you take all of them in your HP. It’s not cruicial here, but it is on the higher difficulties.
- Use fire shots on shotgun it penetrates through bulwark’s shield, good vs snipers and shooters blobs you can’t reach and when there is no space/time for ads.
Also watch some high skill gameplay on youtube to get the idea about movement.
First of all, thank you very much for the detailed explanation. There is a lot of useful information here that I can implement in my game and thereby improve it. Secondly,
You’re absolutely right, I’ll pay much more attention to freeing a teammate right away.
Tagging is such a big problem for me because I have to concentrate on many other things at once. I really don’t know how to put tagging into practice when, say, a large number of enemies are coming towards me. But I’ll do my best to make it right.
I’m trying and still learning some tricks when it comes to moving towards enemies especially gunners…
Thank you my friend for such a detailed and good explanation. Any criticism is welcome because that way I will become a better teammate for everyone. May Imerator’s blessings guide you through the dark night of the Universe
Watched 5 seconds to see what character you were playing.
Zealot.
The best advice I think I can give you right now is to play more. Play more and you’ll learn more. It’s not really a game where people can [be bothered] to coach you through micro decisions.
It’s about dodging when you see enemy actions. It’s about reflex blocking when you hear a certain sound. It’s about ignoring a horde in front of you when you hear a disabler. Just stuff you pick up by getting hit and or downed.
Then secondly, change your weapons to something a bit more “meta” if you’ll excuse the phrase. Until point 1 comes in to play and you’re better.
Tactical Axes… I’m sorry, but I just think they’re all awful. Try a knife if you like the speed, eviscerator if you want the current best butter slicer. Turtolsky IX if you want to be the Highlander.
Kantrael is okay, but shotfuns in general have been middle class for ages. Z Pistol ftw. Flamer if you can handle elites with your melee option…cos it’s mucho fun burning stuff. Columns Mk5 Infantry Autogun if you just like going Rambo.
Then also, look up a build where the person has taken time to explain the synergies and see if that’s how you play.
Lastly. Chin up. Almost all of us came through the levels. Tier4 is the worst : big jump from 3. Full of people not used to being hit hard, learning how not to. Tier 5 regular is actually a smaller step up.
Copying what other people said here: Keep your head on a swivel, keep moving, and practice makes perfect. Don’t get discouraged, it’ll probably be rough the first couple of games but you’ll get into the swing of things.
While I would recommend changing your melee weapon, all 3 shotguns are fine and perfectly usable. They may not be the most “meta” weapons but can 100% be used in Auric Maelstrom and preform well.
Personally for me, although this is more important for Veteran and Psyker over Zealot, is I still run a +1 wound curio. I’m sure perfectionists will clown on me, but there are occasions where you will go down. Especially when learning having that extra chance before you are out of the game can make a world of difference. You can switch back to no wound curios if you like.
Alternatively you could view playing with 2 wounds as a way to “git gud fast,” as you either learn or die, but the other method worked better for me.
You are consistently as negative if not more so than the people you complain about.
Thank you very much for your reply,
You are so much right, too many people fall because they are not used to a large concentration of enemies, and I have to admit that sometimes it can be confusing and people just like me start to make mistakes. It’s hard for me to concentrate on multiple targets while dressed. In your opinion, what is the best way to take out multiple targets attacking from different sides?
Thank you very much for your reply
I don’t know, man, I have the impression that toughness is more important to me, but you are right when you say that +1 wound gives you a second chance… You have to be wise when it comes to these things. And let me ask you, which curious is the best to set up?
Try not to be in that position in the first place
If you are, use your special to help you carve a way out in one direction. Dodge backwards maybe if you can. Zealots are supremely quick. The old circle strafe from 90s shooters still works here. Zealots have tonnes of self-heal on toughness, so generally keep moving, keep swinging.
It kind of annoyed me how reserved you seemed to be in some engagements. Like it seems like you are having trouble deciding if you should commit or not. With such an aggressive character you really need to learn how to live in the thick of things while constantly pumping out dps, getting rid of key targets while still not allowing yourself to get tunnel visioned.
Obviously we don’t want a knife zealot who is at the opposite side of the map 24/7, but slightly more aggression at certain points of the run would of done lot of good. Obvious example is that you constantly have 2 charges up for your ability.
Anyways I’m not going to repeat all the points already said by others, most of the advice there is really valid and i agree with.
That said i got to agree that the movement stuck to me as something you should work on if you plan on running damnation regularly. Mastering movement to best of your ability will probably help you massively more than anything else macro/micro wise that you could do.
You can check telepots videos on YouTube to get an idea what good movement should look like.
Aw nobody want to watch and analyze your gameplay. This is MY time to shine!
Disclaimer: This is from my own point of view and personal experience. I am by no means a pro player, but I’m no casual either. I play too much video games so I am naturally gifted. I never strive to be the best, because my time playing is for my own enjoyment.
Also, I write messy, so I might be all over the place, but I will do my best to try and keep it readable and understandable.
Now enough about my life’s story.
First thing I noticed in the very first encounter is that you are reluctant to engage. You go in, do a couple of chops and then back out. My initial reaction was “be more aggressive”. You’re a Zealot. Either you’re in the front lines, or you died going there.
Second though, which I already had reading some of the comments. Are you McLovin’ your loadout? I find both shotgun and tactical axe to be, not very good. At least in my hands. I’ll admit that there has been some time since I last played either. My Zealot runs knife, heavy evis or combat axe. I dabble with Crusher from time to time, but it’s not a favorite. Guns are the obvious Columnus Mk5, or Revolver.
You can without a doubt make anything work in the game. I just find that certain weapons are a lot harder to do so with. I, being lazy, gravitate towards the ez pick.
Keep moving. I recently made a tutorial and gameplay video for my older brother, who plays a little Darktide, in order to help him out. I commented how “you always need to be moving, never stand still, always dodge, are you picking up ammo? Dodge. Enemy behind you? Dodge. Walking in a straight line? DODGE.”.
I notice this with you as well. You have moments where you stop in your tracks. And you don’t dodge nearly enough. Dodging is free and regenerates after about 1 second after your last dodge. So dodge away!
I saw comments about this as well. Situational awareness, or as they said, “head on a swivel”. Listen to Specialist and Disabler sounds. They are all around you, netting friends, throwing grenades etc. In Auric T5, you can have an insane amount of specials and disablers active at the same time. It is very much key to be able to… Disable the diablers before they disable you!
This was something I learned through my hundreds of hours in Vermintide 1 and Vermintide 2. Specials, as they were called there (in Darktide we have them separated as Disablers and Specials), were the biggest danger to the group. You’re 4 man strong, as soon as 1 player is diabled mid-horde + monster + 4 Maulers + 3 Crushers + 4 Bulwarks, you lost a HUGE amount of help.
That’s why it’s so important to, listen, hear them spawn in, turn around, 1 tap and back into the fray.
Another comment about movement. I see you being out of range for melee combat, swinging your axe and walking forward to the target. The problem is that your movement speed is reduced while swinging. Instead, stop swinging, walk/run forward and start swinging. Or like the cool kids do, run and slide into combat like a hero. Which also gives you the added “dodging” modifier while you’re sliding.
Chaos spawn is my least favorite monster. I never really learned how to deal with it effectively. I mainly try to not get grabbed. If you see someone getting grabbed, you need to get close so it starts to swing. That interrupts it from regenerating health and will drop your buddy (which was you in this instance).
Another thing I do is I dodge around an object. It’s easier to avoid attacks and grabs then, because he will still attack and grab at you through the object, but you always have a little more room to avoid being hit/grabbed. I’ve also been successful in using elevations. As in, run up a ledge/stairs/whatever, then jump down.
But like I said, I never got good at it. It’s a little bit luck, a little bit skill. Or as I like to say. 60% of the time, it works, every time.
Pushing the Chaos Spawn does nothing but deplete your stamina.
Ammo crate. Not sure if you or your teammates are aware of this. Ammo crate has 4 charges of 100% ammo. So each time you pick up ammo, it loses a charge, no matter how much ammo you were missing. In my experience, it seems a lot of people aren’t aware of this, even in T5. I use a mod called Ration Pack (Ration Pack at Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Nexus - Mods and community), which allows you to see a colored number above it, indicating how many charges are left.
On Heresy, and in your situation at 27:44, it was no biggie. I just figured I’d poke the subject as this is a “request for learning”.
31:24 of the video. In my opinion, never go close to a Poxburster that has jumped down. You can’t push it while it’s on the ground and it’s prime realestate to be shot from a safe distance. As the Psyker did and he also went “BOOM! HAhaHAHahahA!”.
I see this in T5 as well, I think it’s an unnecessary risk. Dispatch of it as quickly as possible so it’s not a threat.
Ability usage. You use your F ability very rarely. It’s there to be used. I’m also not sure if you have the talent that “crits give you 1.5seconds off your cooldown”. Combined with tactical axe, which has increased crit chance, it would give you your F ability back faster. Meaning not using it, is even more of a waste.
This is personal preference. You are free to play your Zealot as you wish. I tend to mainly do melee, as where you tend to do ranged combat. Nothing wrong with that. Though I think that Zealot are very good meleers. This is partially a throwback to the “be more aggressive”-point I made.
I realized this is probably why you don’t use F that much either.
Okay let’s try and summarize it all and try to not sound too negative. I think you did well. It was an eventful game where you almost wiped several times. That one poor player pulled Demonhost TWICE and paid the piper both times.
I think you did a good job at reviving. Also, it was good that the entire group didn’t blindly focus the monster. That’s something I always did in Vermintide. One person can handle the monster, the others can handle the horde and specials until it’s safe enough to go back to the monster.
This happens all the time in T5 where 3 players go and have fun with a monster, while the fourth player is left to handle everything else. I think it’s risky and unnecessary.
I’d also like to add that there are modifiers in T5 that makes them feel more like T4, and modifiers in T4 that makes them feel like T5. Lights Out, Ventilation Purge are both easier in my opinion than Hi-Intensity Shock Troop Gauntlet. There are also Low-Intensity and unmodified missions too.
So once you’re T4, you can basically also play certain T5 missions. And at one point, you just have to try it out. There’s no magic number or time where you are “ready for T5”. Just keep playing, keep killing and eventually you’ll be bored because Auric T5 is too easy and you’ll still on Steam forums all day and complain how Fatshark doesn’t update the game fast enough and the game is too easy.
I can’t be bothered to read through all of my nonsense so I hope it is some help, if not, .
Oh last edit entry. Since you are already using mods, I am going to give you a sCcaAaaaaRrrry suggestion! Scoreboard at Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Nexus - Mods and community. People love it, people hate it, people argue about it.
I think that, in order to understand your efforts and gameplay more, you need to have some sort of performance metrics. It doing most damage doesn’t mean the bestest that ever was. But doing 1/10th of the damage of everyone else, is an indication of “not pulling ones weight”. I suggest you use it for personal betterment and not for belitteling of others.
On all my characters, I run 3 wounds total. Ogryn doesn’t need it, because he has one for free for being BIG LAD. One build on Zealot I run only 2 wounds. And I am not a huge fan.
Coming from Vermintide 1+2, it worked as such, once you died, you were “death marked”. If you died again, that’s a RIP. You’d have to respawn to be revived. Healing oneself removed the deathmark. In Darktide, having just one additional “I can die and be revived on the spot”, is incredibly powerful in my opinion.
Also, there is, for me at least, a psychological component to it. If I go down once, and I only have 2 wounds. Now in the back of my head, I know that if I die again, that’s it. Donezo! Arr Eye PEE. So I favor having 3 wounds. That doesn’t mean you have to, I just find it extremely useful and the players I see dying the most, are the two-wound-cats.
If you want to survive as a Zealot while simultaneously being aggressive, you need to learn how to dodge/slide and block. Sprinting/sliding, dodge/sliding is your bread and butter against shooters. If you aren’t sliding when running to shooters or away from shooters, you need to start. Blocking and dodging is basically something you should be doing every other second when sh*t hits the fan. Spinning your camera, blocking, and dodging. On this note, there is a talent - Thy Wrath Be Swift - that is a MUST have and the tooltip for it is wrong. It says it prevents melee stuns which is true, but it also prevents ranged stagger which is not in the description.
Situational awareness and positioning are key when it comes to this class especially if you want to be aggressive. Knowing where line of sight is, where a corner is, or even a box to jump over - all three of these things might not seem like a big deal but on the hardest difficulties, just one of those can make or break your game, especially if you are one of the few actually making plays.
You should bind your tag key to a mouse button if you have it, not your attack button. I spam mark 150+ times every game. It amazes me at the amount of people who DO NOT MARK AT ALL, even on lights out I am the one marking stuff 90% of the time which is completely laughable. You literally have a tool to give your entire team a giant red outline that shows through walls, fire, smoke, ANYTHING - USE IT. You staring into a huge horde coming toward you? Spamming mark into that horde will let you know if there is an elite mixed in. Giant wall of fire in front of you? Spamming mark will give you a red outline that you can use to get an easy headshot. The idea is, you having mark on a convenient key makes it much easier to mark enemies at any given time. Popping headshots is much easier when you have a giant red outline around an enemy.
I run two +3 stamina curios and one +21% health curio - all three have stamina regen, toughness regen, and sniper damage reduction. I really don’t see a point in running a bunch of extra health nor toughness because the reality is extra health is only needed if you are going to be taking damage consistently which goes against the entire philosophy of you know, getting better. Toughness? Same thing. Your toughness might last an extra few shots against that random gunner but wouldn’t you rather have more stamina so you could dodge/block/sprint for a much longer period of time? I have ran these curio’s for over 800 hours and haven’t touched them and rarely have issues in any maelstrom/hi shock - to each their own though and this is just my rationale
Feel free to watch this if you want, no where near perfect but it might give you a better idea of how to play at certain points, also here is my build
Best advice in the whole thread.
While you are sliding, shooters cannot target you. So you want to be sliding all the time. Therefore configure your keyboard and mouse so it’s comfortable to do. Myself, I’ve set it up so that when I hold the running key (shift) I only have to press one mouse button to slide.
While dodging, melee attacks cannot target you. So you want to be dodging all the time. However, there is a catch. Each weapon has a number of “full” dodges you can do in a row, after which you will only do “half” dodges that are both shorter in duration and distance. After a short cool-down period, you’ll get your “full” dodges back. So you have to learn the “rhythm” of your weapon and mix up some slides when you’re out of dodges.
While blocking, melee attacks cannot hit you. Even melee attacks from behind. However, there is a catch. Blocking uses stamina, and when you’re out of stamina, you can no longer block. Stamina will regenerate rather quickly, so mix up some slides with your blocks, as slides do not consume stamina.
My advice to you is to practice these 3 skills by using them all the time. When you master them, you’ll be invincible.
Woow man, I didn’t expect such a detailed explanation as well as a fantastic critique that in my humble opinion most darktide players should get to improve their game performance. I want to thank you for the time you have invested in this explanation of yours. That is a rarity today. I see you are an experienced player and I would like to play a map together. Having said that, I wouldn’t go too much into the details of your explanation because it is perfect and detailed. It’s really a pleasure to read something like this.
I would only dwell on this detail:
I didn’t know that the speed decreases when you swing the weapon, or I didn’t notice it. Now I have a real question for you and for everyone else who plays with Zealot: does Swift Certainty as a passive modifier boost all previously selected modifiers, or does it affect them in some way? For example on Second Wind, Dance of Death, Good Balance or Duellist. I know it’s a difficult question, but it’s important to me. Perhaps I could open a new topic on this topic, because as you say, dodging and sniping adds additional possibilities in combat.
Anyway thanks for the fantastic explanation and I’m hoping for a game with you, so when you have time or if you want feel free to PM me to exchange Shark ID.
Thank you very much for your reply and I have to tell you that you are one Damn Heretic Destroying Machine. I really like your videos on Youtube especially the one where he plays Auric Maelstrom with Tactical Axe…Brother you are really good. I also noticed you use the revolver a lot. Tell me when you use a tactical ax I see that you mostly have 3 swings and then a block. Is it a good idea when, say, you encounter a horde?
Yes, that’s it, sort of an inevitability when it comes to a good map fit. Just tell me what is the FOV you are using? Did it go to the maximum? Also the build you sent me uses Blazing Piety in it. Why did you choose that particular Keystone?
Anyway, thanks for the wonderful explanation. When I become a better player I would like to play a Auric Maelstrom together.
This isn’t actually true at a high level. What the team is doing practically doesn’t matter on all but the absolute hardest Auric Maelstroms. Being able to adapt to what the team is doing to optimize a run is useful, but you should be striving to rely on randoms as little as possible.
All weapons are different. Some slow you down more, others less. And certain attacks will speed you up. A good example of this is the Catachan Mk 3 combat blade’s heavy attack, where you are sped up incredibly and people use it to move around the map/battlefield.
In Vermintide 2, there were certain weapons where you could do a light swing, then interrupt the swing by blocking and repeat this pattern. Because the initial part of the swing grants the player a speed boost, as to get the player to “lunge forward” and strike their target, followed by a movement reduction. However, when you cancel mid swing, you only have the speed boost, which you can do over and over again for increased movement speed.
In Vermintide 2 you don’t have the ability to sprint, so learning these movement mechanics were very good.
If I understand your question about Swift Certainty correctly sweating, no it doesn’t affect the other talents. Counting as dodging and dodging are two different things.
From Reddit: "The talent lets you dodge gunners no matter your stamina,as long as you’re not running directly at them.
Basically, sprinting makes gunners “lag behind” when aiming at you, but if they “lag behind” and you’re running straight at them, you’re obviously still gonna get hit by bullets aiming behind you."
And when you dodge, successfully, meaning someone took a swing (melee only) at you and you avoided it, you gain the other bonuses. I just tested this out in Psykhanium.