Please.
@Fatshark_Hedge @FatsharkCatfish @FatsharkQuickpaw
sorry for the pings, this is just me trying to get through to you, which seems hard most of the times for some reason
Evicerator. Chainsword. Ogryn shovel. Combat axe (so it doesnt need BM). Anything else? Feel free to add in comments.
Iâll be sure to pass on your suggestion to the combat team!
Am grateful 
Enjoy your holidays
Yeah I was gonna make a seperate thread on how og/zeal melee feels like garbage because of how massive the contrast in general killing power falls off between âhorde clearâ and âanti-armor/elite weaponsâ. But this is more to the point and less whiny.
Add all brunt clubs, thunderhammers and vet shovel to that.
I honestly really think cleave cap is a helpful variable to play with to change the feel of different weapons.
I personally wouldnât address blunt weapon horde clear by throwing the whole system out, I would just improve first and, importantly, second target damage where relevant. Would anyone really complain about T Hammer horde clear if the first 2 trash enemies hit by each heavy died outright? I mean they might but I donât think itâd be reasonable to do so.
Cleave cap actually helps make weapons feel distinct from one another. If anything I lament that nonsense like BM exists that completely undermines that. No Caxe would not at all be a bad weapon even without BM entirely.
BM is the only reason anyone uses axes at all though? (Inb4 BM nerf)
Well horde clear is just the tip of whatâs bad about them, like blunt weapons are just low power in general. They hit one enemy type at the cost of everything else, like why is a heavy sword better against maniacs than the blunt club? You can kill a mutant in one hit with his ult and the one heavy sword setup (which with only 5 blessings total Iâve made dozens of across the 3). They have a giant abundance of problems, but for Ogryn they have such terrible elite and armor damage they serve no purpose. Canât spread flak damage for shooters. You need multiple heavy attacks with thrust to take even ragers out. They have no purpose, no function and are a trap. They do so little damage to elites its never worth it to do anything outside 1v1 and everything else you shoot. They have no use.
I say this as someone who uses mainly MK2 bully club. It is a trash pick that makes me do 75% of all meaningful interactions I have with ranged only, because its so dysfunctional at making space on its own, that it canât kill elites by itself. It doesnât help that it doesnât have stagger power enough to just rely on landing the hit alone. They honestly could have left bugged thrust on the Ogryn weapons, theyâre that trash.
And things like the Crusher are just preposterously poor damage in general, against everything, like I donât know how any legitimate buff would not necessitate basically throwing the mold out. Unsatisfying heavy hits with terrible breakpoints you canât reliably land in horde situations are not a good fit. Bully clubs have Thunderhammer issues in density - the slap wonât prioritize targets, pushes wonât either and your best stagger move is a sweep coming from off screen. Especially when the knife kills most of the elites as effectively because it gets slaughterer.
Iâd say itâs the reason Caxe is overused personally. My main point here wasnât that I want BM nerfed but that I enjoy how different cleave distributions change the feel of a weapon and I donât love how blessings like BM on Caxe especially kinda just nullify that.
If you want to talk Caxe though I struggle to see how a weapon with pretty exceptional single target DPS on every armour type, while still having relatively high attack speed and mobility, plus the ability to pretty easily kill a trash mob every swing with that good attack speed becomes worthless without infinite cleave. Mostly the safety of using it decreases significantly and the horde clear rate goes down, but itâs not like you canât clear hordes very effectively with a bunch of ranged weapons, it just presents more trade offs in how you build rather than Caxe being a very easy answer to cover any and all close range encounters.
Again though my point really was not ânerf BMâ. While I wouldnât personally complain if it were nerfed and would definitely still use axes a bunch, at the rate of updates I really donât care if it stays as it is indefinitely if that means other things get addressed in a more timely fashion or at all.
But yeah personally Iâd still use the heck out of Caxe even if BM didnât exist at all.
I see balance suggestions remain as quality as ever.
Cleave cap exists for a reason. Should it be adjusted for certain weapons for balance purposes? Yes.
Should it be removed entirely? Yeah, no.
Iâm sorry but thereâs literally no point humoring that in any manner, itâs that far off the wall. If that does somehow being the direction the game goes in to humor people wanting to turn this game into their 40k power fantasy, itâll likely turn off the last few people holding a candle in their hearts for it to turn it around that arenât 40k fans in the first place.
It says âincrease itâ in the topic title, not âturn everything into launch power swordâ. Thatâs a bit of a leap, but the target limit is less an issue than just DAMAGE in general. Like blunt weapons just need to hit everything harder, and then do more cleave damage, and then they could make a call on total targets. They are that bad, minus ogryn shovel which at least has its own reliable stagger set ups for when you are swarmed and not doing damage.
It says âincrease itâ in the topic title, not âturn everything into launch power swordâ. Thatâs a bit of a leap, but the target limit is less an issue than just DAMAGE in general.
âOr remove it entirelyâ
Youâre confused, people are asking for the mass in excess of the targets cleaved to actually be used in damage calculation and not stagger only.
Or like when you increase power, it should affect the number of targets hit like it does with a force or heavy sword or anything else in the game. A T4 thrust shovel swing still only hits 3 enemies. This strawman about not understanding the question being asked is your own business.
Though Iâll be sure to leave people room to argue with the resident ogryn club master why they arenât complete trash at the minute. Must be those meaty 300 damage hits on carapace.
Bad faith much? The guy clearly stated that heâs also open to more reasonable changes. Itâs fine if you disagree, but donât be a d*ck about it. Make an argument.
Also, I agree with marxist and the OP in the melee weapons other than the usual suspects need buffs in a number of areas. Although I am also skeptical that an outright increase in cleave is warranted.Iâd say maybe up the cap and give low cleave weapons access to blessings that increase it or add BM analogues to weapons that currently lack it.
Maybe this is the case for zealots, but thereâs a reason why almost every vet you see (myself included) rolls either with power swords or BM axes. Itâs a necessity if you want to survive hordes or stand a chance when being overrun, no weapons can match these in CC and anti armor. Especially considering that theyâre the only ones that give us a fighting chance if weâre stuck dealing with a crusher without a bolter or a plasma gun.
Other melee weapons need buffs to be brought up in line with these IMO, before we can even start talking about whether the PS should be smacked again and/or determining if BM is too much. Other weapons just donât have enough cleave or damage, even in the cases of ones with cleave increasing blessings. I love my shovel as a vet, but Iâve given up in using above T4s with anything other than my bolter or plasma (rarely use them, Iâm bored of them). Heck shovelâs V is supposed to be anti armor, but last I checked it barely tickles (although at least it staggers) crushers. The big issue I see right now (for every class) is that in the current meta if you donât have both anti armor and CC (at the same time) you will most likely be dead weight to your team unless youâre with a premade team that actually communicates. This means that everyone will gravitate to generalist or OP gear and feat combinations, everything else will be ignored.
I donât think thereâs any chance we see eye to eye here but Iâll at least clarify a few things here to make sure we understand where each other is coming from.
This is definitely not speaking only as Zealot. I play all classes and in fact have only been playing Vet the past two weeks. Deci + HT Caxe is a great melee pairing for brauto and auto pistol. You thrash every enemy in close to mid range, I know people get scared of not having an answer to snipers but honestly like 90%+ of the time you can just approach them from cover or pull back and force them to get closer to you. Similarly I love that same Caxe blessing combo for Psyker. Especially with Purgatus, but itâs honestly solid for Void and Trauma pairing too. So across all 3 classes that can use it there are weapon pairings where BM is absolutely not needed for Caxe to be highly desirable. Again insane armour agnostic single target DPS is unsurprisingly intrinsically valuable even without cleave.
I really just canât agree with this statement. Yes you definitely want to have good DPS options against every armour type but I disagree you personally need to have large amounts of CC as well as that. You need horde clear, maybe thatâs what you meant by CC? Personally when I refer to CC Iâm talking about group stagger not horde clearing speed. There are ranged weapons for every class that can handle the majority of horde density for you, so having a low cleave melee weapon really isnât an issue as long as youâre pairing your ranged weapon sensibly.
And yeah generally there are for sure some weapons that need buffs, I just strongly disagree BM Caxe is the correct balance point to raise them to. TBC again I really donât think there are any weapons that are unviable on base Damnation currently, which again isnât to say I donât think eg DC Sword, or Ogryn club donât clearly need buffs (they do), but I resent the suggestion that people being meta slaves isnât entirely their own choice. I have seen people using the wackiest combos imaginable clown on Damnation. If every weapon was BM Caxe level powerful the game would be significantly less interesting IMO.
On CC, iâm being lazy and Iâm using it as a shorthand for both stagger and horde clear, I apologize.
Iâm coming at this from the perspective of someone who regularly does pubs (because I hate myself). I somewhat understand where youâre coming from, and even agree somewhat. I donât think what weâre both saying is mutually exclusive.
My overall point is that current balance leads people to build as generalists, and just because you and I can perform well outside the current meta doesnât mean everyone else can. Currently BM is the only way you can get high horde clear potential, plus survivability against armored melee (besides the PS). Iâm inclined to agree that BM may be too powerful, but before we can say thatâs 100% the case other options need to be viable for a comparison to be made or carapace armor needs to get smacked with a nerf hammer so it can reliably be killed by other weapons with the right blessings and feats. And even then, the question of horde clear remains. In a vacuum, besides synergies with class feats and other set ups, it is pretty evident that only a handful of melee weapons are versatile enough to allow mid to low skill folks to be relevant. Before we can say BM too OP, nerf or rework, weapons such as regular swords and shovels need to be competitive. Although I do agree that competitive shouldnât necessarily mean at parity. Then we can talk.
Structural stuff like this is what it is and only FS can change it. Personally I love going off meta whenever I can, but you and I know why the meta is the meta. Just because you and I refuse and are able to not be meta slaves doesnât mean the rest of the playerbase can afford to.
PS. Unless youâre supporting it with specific feats or relying on your main weapon for horde clear, only the Antax is viable without BM IMO.
I mean I donât see why feats should be excluded from the discussion. The option of running regenerating bleed nades or ascendant blaze Ult for instance definitely affects your options. Also I think youâre underrating Rashad way too much here. Yes it has a bit less cleave and a worse push attack than Antax but it also has faster attack speed, and higher headshot/crit damage. Honestly I think itâs generally better than Antax these days so absolutely cannot agree with that statement.
Regarding not having great horde clear melee options for Vet yeah thatâs definitely where you feel DC Sword and Shovel being overtuned. I think if Sword wasnât so weak itâd fit perfectly as a defensive horde clear option to pair with stuff like plasma or revolver.
The only other thing I have to really comment on from your post is what seems to be an underlying suggestion that lower skill players need to be brought into Damnation by making it as accessible to them as possible and I donât really understand this thinking. There are 5 difficulty levels, if people donât want to learn mechanics well they donât really have to play on the highest difficulty. Every weapon dominates on malice and frankly even in Heresy very few weapons really start to genuinely feel bad.
Actually I tell a lie somewhat here. I think I do know where the feeling of everyone should be able to play Damnation comes from. Material drops. And yeah I get that, the RNG progression in this game is horrible and who would want to be condemned to Heresy and below material quantities. To me the issue there isnât making Damnation more accessible to lower skill players, but simply having material drop parity between Heresy and Damnation and probably also increasing Malice and below drops while theyâre at it.
Anyway we certainly agree that shovel and sword donât really fill the niche they ought to and while that remains the case Vets at very least will gravitate towards BM Caxe as one of their best, safe horde clear options.
Although I agree that feats would factor into in someone choosing to use non-BM Caxes Iâm coming at it from the angle of individual options when making builds, hence my inclination to judge em in a melee weapon only vacuum.
You misunderstand me, at no point did I argue for the need for making T5s more accessible. I play T3s and T4s too. Even there the struggle applies from what Iâve seen. Itâs about having more viable build variety and options for low skill folks, that is all.
This rabbit hole has been done to death numerous times. Wanting things like the combat axe buffed so it doesnât need brutal momentum when brutal moment is already an issue in the first place that needs toned down is just going to go round and round. Thereâs a lot of moving parts and the OP didnât leave any room to really get into anything other than a generic statement wanting things removed entirely.
Allowing weapons to have unlimited of anything is typically going to equal problems, no matter what it is. See: Slab shields and the problematic gameplay they encourage while being an absolute mess balance wise.
Again: Things do need adjusted in general, I am not making an argument there. Ogryn shovel, you try. You⌠try. (Barring cheesing with its awkward stagger mechanics) But when thatâs the only thing the OP has to say, while intentionally pinging devs like their idea of balance is much greater than someone elseâs, Iâm not going to sit here and dig into a bunch of nuance to everything. They get the effort in my response they put into their original post.
Thereâs this whole seperate topic on axes too, like how tactical axes never even approach the discussion because they involve movesets and not answering carapace well but are just as absurd in combat. Comfortably place special attack command somewhere you can spam while spamming M1 and no enemy gets a hit past your flurry of blows its like the elf knives from VT2 but with damage and stagger. Maybe not 2 light attack killing ragers in horde like combat axe but they are slept on hard.
But if anyone wants to discuss the myriad of weapons actually suffering this and more thereâs ample subject matter. Like Brunt clubs that canât even kill a Groaner with their crowd heavy attack.
why not just make the game easier at this point