I never knew anything about Warhammer/40k.... until now

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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I’m a huge fan of the gameplay in Vermintide 1 & 2 and now Darktide. I never really got into the lore, and I knew nothing about Warhammer—I just enjoyed the games in a vacuum. Recently, though, a younger friend of mine (as I’m getting a bit older) began teaching me some of the lore. He’s a huge fan and has read all the novels.

I learned that Space Marines each have a gene-seed taken from a Primarch, and the Primarchs are essentially the sons of the Emperor. Not all of them fight for humanity—some have been corrupted. For example, the Thousand Sons are Space Marines who fight against mankind. Space Marines, as powerful as they are, pale in comparison to a Custodian, who can probably kill thousands of Space Marines single-handedly. Yet, Space Marines are still considered among the top warriors in the universe.

I also learned that the Emperor has been depicted in the games as a sentient being—a beacon of light—a warrior clad in golden armor, similar to the Space Marines but far more divine in appearance. In the present, however, he sits decayed and dying on a throne, essentially acting as a living battery that powers the massive infrastructure keeping humanity alive. He’s also the strongest psyker to have ever lived, though his true power is never fully described or scaled.

Before his weakened state, the Emperor was more of an atheist—despite knowing of the Chaos Gods, he rejected belief in them. He created the twenty Primarchs as his “sons.” I also found out that Ogryns are technically as strong—or even slightly stronger—than Space Marines, though a Marine could vaporize an Ogryn before it ever got close.

This makes me think about the power kits of these characters. For instance, Space Marines can be taken out by a psyker “brain bursting” them. While some Marines have gene-seeds or other protections against this, it’s interesting how power levels in the lore don’t match the game at all. In the games, psykers aren’t portrayed as these unstoppable sorcerers my friend described—they feel fragile and underpowered. Ogryns, on the other hand, do feel physically imposing, especially when using a bully club or pickaxe, but their best builds often revolve around grenade launchers. And as stupid as they’re said to be, how do they not blow themselves up? Four-year-old minds in gigantic Ogryn bodies don’t seem like a safe combination.

I do think the Veteran matches the fantasy power level well, and the Zealot does too—though the Arbitrator feels a little more overtuned than the others.

Based on what I’ve learned, psykers should be much more powerful than they currently are, and the way they’re described in the lore doesn’t match the in-game fantasy at all.

Ogryn — mostly fits.
Veteran — fits.
Zealot — fits.
Arbitrator — feels a bit too overpowered for what’s basically a SWAT role, don’t you think?

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Psyker power level is quite varied, some are pretty much just human but with a trick, be it being lucky or some other thing like that, while are very much more powerful.

There is a graduation for Psykers (and Blanks), where the Emperor is higher even than the normal scale.

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Ogryns are really much stronger than Space Marines. An Ogryn in a cage match will wipe the floor with a Space Marine without really any trouble.

For tabletop comparison, just looking at base stats without gear, a Space Marine is Strength 4, Toughness 4, 2 wounds. A guardsman is S3 T3 with 1 wound. An Ogryn is Strength 6 Toughness 6 with 3 Wounds and a ~17% chance to just ignore any damage suffered.

What a Space Marine has is superior intelligence and vastly superior equipment and logistical support. A dramatically more capable soldier, but not something that is going to want to fight an Ogryn hand to hand either.

They’re not safe, Ogryns are expendable :rofl:

Psyker power varies wildly. Most are simply fed to the Emperor because their powers are weak or unappreciated. Most don’t really have any offensive capabilities at all. Of those that do, some may be the equivalent to Titans, able to reach out with their minds and annihilate companies of battle tanks, while some may only be able to belch flame through trenches or sense enemy heartbeats. They are however, always treated as dangerous, suspect, and relatively fragile.

In Darktide, the Psyker character is roughly equivalent to a tabletop Imperial Guard Primaris Psyker. One on one in tabletop, they’re roughly a match for two or three Marines because they’ve got a powerful ranged attack and a melee weapon that hits almost as hard as a Guard powerfist, but really they’re more for supporting a large blob of infantry with a psychic shield. That roughly fits the Darktide power scale.

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oh there is a power scale for psychers! thats neat

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Oh, so maybe they hit the mark after all, my buddy told me how they could pop the brains of entire armies so I look at the psycher in darktide and think “weak af”

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A good rule with 40k stuff is that things can be as powerful or as weak as any particular story/author wants them to be, so almost everything is possible and probably has an example to reference, but looking at the tabletop stats (while not perfect) tends to give a good reflection of what to typically expect.

Looking at the tabletop Guard Primaris psyker, they basically have a ranged attack that puts out the equivalent of ~2.5x the damage output of a guardsman’s plasma gun against something like a Space Marine squad, and a force weapon that gives them a melee output roughly equivalent to a Space Marine Sergeant with a Power Sword, but otherwise they’ve got the toughness and armor of a bog-standard Guardsman. They can put up a shield that gives them (or the unit they’re attached to) a 50/50 save against enemy attacks. Pretty insanely powerful relative to a normal human, enough so that they cost as much to bring as an entire squad of kitted Guardsmen, and clearly a powerful adversary even for a Space Marine, but not the hardest thing in the world to kill either.

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“Based on what I’ve learned, psykers should be much more powerful than they currently are, and the way they’re described in the lore doesn’t match the in-game fantasy at all.”

Psykers draw their power from the warp. With the Warp, they are supernaturally strong, but once that connection is interrupted their life is often easily snuffed out like a candle without oxygen.

Overall, Psykers are potrayed well in Darktide. Brain burst, Smite and Soulblaze need tuning, some Talent Tree tax nodes need culling, and Psyker could use more damage focused Talents not related to Soulblaze, but the glass cannon nature is the core identity of Psyker IMO and should always be represented as such in Darktide.

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Here is a nice photo of the levels for Psykers, with link below. @Molonious summed it up pretty much, the Psyker is as powerfu/weak as they need to be for the narrative.

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Levels of psionic power by IcyYmir : r/ImaginaryWarhammer

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That’s a great chart, going to save that. I’d imagine the Psykers we seen in Darktide are Zeta, Epsilon rank.

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Quite possibly, better than Wyrdwane Psykers, but worse than Primaris Psykers.

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We’re essentially the “named characters with helmets off” in the lore, our power level can swing wildly from “chosen one Mary Sue” to Paul Blart. Meanwhile, the generic versions of our characters are far weaker in canon.

On the tabletop, we’d be epic heroes, not just another grunt from Cadian squad #530.

Regarding Arbites vs. Guardsmen: Arbites have their own specialized gear, often equipped with carapace armor and high-end weapons. They’re not quite on par with Space Marines or elite units like the Kasrkin or SoB, but they’re definitely above your average 16-hour conscript. Arbites are lifelong professionals, not driven purely by desperation or blind faith like most Guardsmen.

By the end of their arc, our “rejects” would resemble Inquisitorial Agents, unremarkable stat-wise, but narratively significant. Meanwhile, Arbites form the backbone of the Imperial Agents faction, with some units boasting a 4+ invulnerable save. That’s like when your average player in game uses Castigator stance surviving things no normal human should.

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This is what bugs me why Darktide didnt introduce epic heroes, they did such a fantastic job with V2 characters…

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I think that’s tied to the various rpg as well as the character vs class.

BFrpg has you play as scrappy would be heroes. But in the various 40k rpg you’re playing as the cohort of someone:

  • Rogue Trader: Cohort of a Rogue Trader (Often time someone is playing a Rogue Trader, and the rest are playing either companion or even sometime rival RT candidates)
  • Dark Heresy: Cohort of a Inquisitor, their Acolytes (With often times someone playing either a young Inquisitor, or an Interrogator)
  • Only War: Squad member of the Imperial Guard

And having 5-6 epic heroes isn’t strange, but having X of them to enable class stacking could be.
Honestly in the case of 40k I prefer the grunt type of character unless we’re playing Eldars or something.

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Darktide should have been balanced on sedition if we were going to compare the power levels with the lore

but after xbox/ps4 release, the talent tree update of patch 13, malestorm release and havoc release it ever became harder to pinpoint a relation with the warhammer lore

what we got to do in this game became a cartoonish fantasy that can only have a place in some imperial propaganda posters

to the point that then you go play space marine 2 and you feel vulnerable above ruthless

it wasn’t always this way though, i remember those days when you would struggle getting past a single crusher (unless you had psyker with brain burst in your team) as he would act as an effective mini boss

this game was balanced over a toxic gacha like mechanic to get weapons involving shop camping and later on plasteel grind

crafting was bad but the game was balanced around that being bad, we weren’t supposed to break the locks, we would have been stuck in a loop with the promise of better weapons but we would never get them

then after years of complaining devs just dropped the ball and gave us everything we wanted and just increased the difficulty with malestorm and havoc for those who wanted a challenge

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if you like CRPGs take a look at Rogue Trader. it’s a colossal Warhammer 40k lore theme park

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It’s a temporary DLC bonus for early buyers.

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so the emporer of manking is an alpha plus

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Yes, depending on the edition he is even higher (With a mirrored scale existing for the Alpha+ and higher)

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Tier Lists are very popular in the Imperium. Fun fact: While enterprises involving Tier Lists account for only about .002% of the economy, executions involving Tier Lists are a full 2% of all executions. Ordo S is small but busy.

Edit: Some of the lore is … not so great.

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I won’t say I’m a Warhammer lore expert, but I believe Arbitrators are pretty cracked individuals who go under the same progenia that also trains the Sisters of Battle, the Tempestus Scions, and Commisars, so I think they fit perfectly fine. Now in-game, they just have the benefit of being the latest class, where Fatshark has better designed their tree, taking in lessons from the previous classes. Also, some of the arbitrator nodes are currently broken and won’t be fixed until Fatshark returns from vacation.

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