Infantry lasguns have four main issues for me ; recoil, sway while moving, lots of hitreg issues and the close range damage reduction (because in the state of the game we are in, most of your targets are running around you close to mid range).
I can do with the very low bodyshot damage and the bad breakpoints, but the lasgun absolutely need three things to not be a chore to play in auric games (haven’t tried it in havoc, it’s probably pretty bad).
The same aim assist the revolver or bolt pistol have (the bolt pistol have a bit less aim assist). The lasgun seems to have no aim assist right now, which might be the cause of the hitreg issues I constantly have when scoring headshots on moving targets (the game play the headshot sound and shows blood on the enemy but the shot itself doesn’t register).
Less recoil and precision loss while moving.
The removal of the inverted damage fall-off mechanic.
And by the way, these are no the only issues with the lasgun. All the high zoom single shot (or two round burst) weapons will struggle in the current meta if they don’t have great breakpoints because they need way more commitment and some manner of tunnel vision to be effective than something like the revolver, which is also a single shot weapon but with high damage, high handling and a good FoV.
In Darktide nowadays you’re pretty much always in melee range or really close to melee threats, which means that the 0.5-1 seconds it takes for the revolver to kill an elite or a specialist is night and day compared to the 1.5-2 seconds it can take to do the same with an infantry lasgun.
there’s also the ludicrous ray cast around certain bullets. it can either be somewhat of a negative (plasma) or from the flip of a priority zone crazy forgiving to the point where you basically only aim ‘around’ a target (revolver). having a wide forgiving essentially blast radius around the bullet should be a shotgun thing, but for some reason the revolver with crazy crit/headshot damage can do it and not the lasgun…
LOL comparing a solid round to a light-beam, it takes the revolver 2 solid rounds to do what it takes 45 light-beams to do. Never compare solid rounds to other types as they all play different roles.
One interesting thing to note is what the IL used to have as a niche and still performs best in - shooter clearing.
The holo sight and solid damage allow it to snag untaggable targets easily, and the bulk of your threat environment was gonna be dreg and scab shooters while elites were rarer and more easily focused down.
Unfortunately Darktide has gotten a lot more fast paced and melee focused so the lasguns niche as a firefight tool is basically gone since now 90% of the time you just slide on your butt directly into their firing line.
One change I would Love to see is to make the Mk IIb Three round burst (with a refire timed to make its effective rate of fire the same) Both to spare my poor mouse and to give it some flavour.
do you play this game? there’s like 7 other bullet weapons that don’t AoE autocorrect your clearly missed shot to hit and round up to the head if applicable. they’re also a lot weaker than the revolver even if it (and the bolt weapons after their ‘fix’) didn’t do that. the revolver is also in the light weapon category, making these other weapons even worse through comparison. but yeah, different roles, right.
If lasguns are to have some kind of power increase, please for the love of god don’t couple it with crits. Darktide already favours crits way too much in its current form to the point where going Zealot/Psyker without them almost feels dull. The crits should really be a specific niche to spec into instead of the general meta they are at the moment.
For example, you could have a blessing that gives your weakspot hits 10-40% Rending instead of having it only on crits. More skill expression, less RNG.
SKS in the metro was pretty nutty tho. The downside was carpal tunnel speedrun
Absolutelt this. I love using Lasguns with ES for the OG Imperial Guardsman playstyle, but now you just have to use melee all the time, especially if your team is struggling to do the basic stuff. That one Maelstrom with Skab Ranged enemies is a pure joy to play with the lasgun.
Man, when I was on-point with my aim the SKS was a BEAST in CQC. XD The hackusations when you keep headshotting them at point-blank range were marvelous. Oh man do I miss the AS-Val from BF3, too . . .
Speaking of the Battlefield, the “visual recoil” issue with weapon bouncing randomly was “mostly” fixed and IIRC only applies when you’re supressed.
So yeah, the generic forum troglodyte “skill issue” doesn’t cut. It is a bad and just annoying mechanic. Also it doesn’t apply to the hipfire, so it’s purely ADS animation problem.
Infantry Lasguns give too little reward for too much effort compared to the other weapons:
You need to be much more precise than many weapons because the projectile’s hitbox is much smaller and doesn’t have a weakspot preferential.
You need to be much more precise than most weapons because body shots do very little damage.
You need to be much more precise than most weapons because most of the weapon’s damage is locked behind crits but it only has a 5% base crit and the weapon’s only crit blessing requires chaining headshots.
Zero cleave combined with low non-weakspot damage and lowish RoF means you can’t quickly kill your way through the hoard to your target.
Hilariously inaccurate hip fire. Did someone add an oscillating focusing lense to the gun so it’ll shoot at a 45 degree angle?
And all you get for all that effort is good ammo efficiency that’s entirely unneeded even in H40. I’d rather grab a weapon that requires less effort to kill a target even if it means I need to pick up and manage ammo.
the game is definitely in a better state than launch and build variety is far better than it has been in just about any previous patch, not to mention crafting finally being in a good state
also you can’t seriously be claiming power creep when at launch you could run near-infinite ammo on the veteran and zealots would one shot bosses with the thunderhammer and a psyker with an autopistol could clear the whole map with blaze away + ult build
i think the lasrifles could use some work, at the very least some better sights (esp for helbore) and bayonets would go a long way, i’d love to be able to run my bayonet build on something that isn’t a helbore
Let’s be honest, the current enemy spam environment is just. Not suitable for the ostensible niche of most las weapons (that being ADS precision damage). Tunnel vision will get you killed and there’s too many enemies to waste time aiming at higher difficulties compared to something like, say, a revolver or plasma gun vaporizing heads with a single click.
Khorne_Dawg is spot on about the changes needed to the Lasguns. They shouldn’t be effective against Carapace armor though. Not that he said that, but because we’re talking about Crushers. Anti armor “AR” role should remain with Infantry Autogun.
