If you’re not inviting Hive Scum into your havoc because you think they’re weak that’s pretty troll. It’s another one of those classes that’s so strong and enabling that players get away with too much and end up being in a much higher difficulty than they should be.
I see a lot of Pickpocket/Jittery/Needle Pistols in Havoc 40 who in my opinion don’t really have the mechanics to be there but the class let them get that far. Chem Grenade/Rocket makes the god awful rotten armor a lot easier, and Rampage or Desperado lets Hive Scum solo entire backlines by themselves basically, up to your preference of melee or range. Shivs DPS rotation is extremely easy to pull off and the light attacks have great horde clear. If you need strikedown light the push attack has 3 follow up light strikedowns.
Chem Grenade and Rocket are honestly way too nuts. Fatshark buffs Rocket, keeps chem nade the way it is, and then makes the Havoc modifier Rotten Armor carapace spam it’s like they’re trying to tell us something. I absolutely hate how much the the class have powercrept the other classes, but with that being said I’d much rather have chem nade and stim supply over a smoke vet with the current havoc modifier.
I really don’t think hive scum ranged survivability has anything to do with dodging regardless. Vulture’s Dodge and Desperado make hive scum immune to ranged attacks 99.99% of the time with the only skill required being that you aim at enemies.
Definitely feel like psyker has more damage potential. But its only in some situations and is also much more risky as you actually need to be in the face of enemies to maximize your cleave. Where as gun scum can just spray into a hoard of literally anything and stagger everything + melt elites before they even have a chance to pile up. All while being immune to ranged attacks and most melee attacks.
Maybe its just me but this game requires very little aim skill. Granted I do have like 4000 hours of competitive FPS experience so maybe my baseline aim skill is just hard carrying me without me even noticing it. But I really don’t see it that way.
Really I think the main thing with hive scum is that people just don’t realize how good the auto gun build is. No one has made a auto gun scum build video, and the only person who has tested and said that desperado is the best build is reginald as far as I can tell. And that’s just a example he hasn’t made a build video for auto gun scum. I think people are running rampage scum and getting filtered by the poor survivability, something auto gun scum does not struggle with at all.
90% of hive scum players I see run rampage or stim crate and think that like Mister E said in one of his videos that “Desperado is for noobs and doesn’t give you much”… While also saying that other scum builds are too hard because of poor survivability… Without realizing that desperado gives extremely easy survivability and still insane DPS.
I explained this reasonably I think in this response.
I don’t think its super OP, I just think this build feels a little tooooo easy for what it does. I feel like desperado should probably just be more of a damage buff without giving complete immunity to ranged attacks. Most people probably haven’t caught onto how good being able to just W+M1 gunner hoards is because they are too caught up on “Look at my meat grinder dps numbers with stim box!”. Like I’m not a super good true solo player, but I’m still holding my own in true solo havoc 30 by holding M1. I would not be able to hold up anywhere near as well as psyker.
Maybe it doesnt need to be nerfed, its probably okay to have some classes have some dumb low skill floor builds that are good for just stupid fun. Its obviously not outclassing psyker for DPS. I guess this is just another example of power creep really, most meta builds could use a little off the top. Psyker probably being the main candidate.
So they tried mitigating the Nimble bug, instead of directly fixing its dodge window issue. By changing the dodge linger values. But somehow resulting in a new unintended consequence where every class now has infinite invulnerability to ranged enemies as long as they are dodging, and even when they are at max negative dodge count. No wonder havoc is so easy nowadays.
There’s still the issue with needle shots not counting as a ranged attack when applying toughness gain from Voice of Tertium talent. Not sure if that’s intended, or a bug. Or the blackout grenades gaining various buffs from your melee weapon. Or the In Your Face talent no longer working on needles’ dot the moment you switch to melee weapon, etc etc.
Darktide is like a very buggy, but still extremely fun game, lol.
Because of rotten armor, there are lots of needle using scums in H40 games nowadays. They don’t use Vulture’s Dodge or Desperado. But they are still immune to all ranged attacks because you only need to be constantly dodging, to become invulnerable. This is how the current bug is making all non-Desperado builds and also without Vulture’s Dodge, able to survive that easily.
You basically don’t even need Desperado or Vulture’s Dodge right now, if you exploit the current dodge-linger bug.
But they will be fixing the bug after the holidays, so in the meantime it’s still too early to accurately judge the Hive Scum’s survivability. Wait till they clear up all the bugs first.
Yeah honestly if I had to do rotten armor I would probably just not play hive scum. That modifier is very silly currently and needs builds specifically for it.
Well what I am saying is that even without completely exploiting the bug you can be invincible with desperado and vulture’s dodge. So even if they heavily nerf dodges gun scum is still going to have very good survivability.
Invincible only against ranged, I guess, since ranged enemies are what the entire Hive Scum class is all about, and supposed to counter.
But in balance, the Hive Scum actually has one of the worse melee dps against heavily armored units such as crushers. You can test out Hive Scum’s highest attainable melee dps using rampage + adrenaline frenzy + stimm, against modded psykronium H40 crushers. Then compared it with a vet/psyker’s highest attainable dps using the duelist sword. Or a zealot using heavy evis, etc. The Hive Scum loses out to all of them even with both stimm and rampage on. And when stimm + rampage wears off, its melee dps against crushers is just atrocious. Whereas the Vet’s much higher melee dps for example, does not rely on any abilities or stimm and is constant throughout the entire mission. Melee Psykers can achieve even higher dps than Vet.
So I guess the tradeoff for the Scum’s ranged invulnerability, is its extreme fragility and lowest melee dps against heavily armored elites. Or when being completely trapped and surrounded by melee elites. Just one accidental overhead hit by a crusher/mauler, and the Hive Scum becomes Hive Patty. Using the IAG(or dual uzis) against crushers is like shooting popcorns. Having desperado + stimm’s rending at most let you shoot down 1-2 havoc crushers with the IAG, or just 1 rotten armor crusher, but is a waste of your desperado ability. And in higher havoc there’s usually like 15-20+ crushers/maulers in a single wave.
Desperado Scums using IAG are for example somewhat useless in H40 rotten armor missions, against the endless rotten crusher hordes. You only have rockets to deal with endless waves of rotten crusher/maulers, and 1 rocket is not enough to take down rotten crusher’s hp. So there will be some waves of rotten crushers where you simply have no more rockets.
Just try a Desperado Hive Scum using IAG, in Havoc 40 rotten armor, and you’ll get what I mean, lol. The Hive Scum’s survivability only applies to ranged enemies. Crushers will magnify the Hive Scum’s true weakness/fragility.
I am specifically talking about gun scum here. The invulnerability does actually work against certain melee attacks but that’s besides the point since you can just always stay out of melee range, and gun scum really has no reason to ever melee.
Yeah I did specifically say rotten armor is a insane modifier that should be changed due to how much it requires specific builds. But that being said, you can still kill a rotten armor crusher in about 1 magazine (depending on crit luck really) with infantry autogun, and it still pretty easily melts maulers.
But for any other havoc 40 game? Gun scum can kill crushers pretty fast down to like half a mag (depending on crit luck again). Considering how fast gun scum melts literally everything else, I really don’t think you can be complaining about a below average crusher kill time.
Like really. Infinite, near completely safe, long range, near instant TTK against 99% of enemies in the game, with basically no strings attached like managing perils or ammo. But because it takes just a little long to kill crushers its not good?
I’m not a huge fan of magical ammo replenishment. I would rather Hive Scum get their bonus ammo from somewhere. Maybe like Ranger Veteran in Vermintide, percent chance to drop on kill or something. I have the same complaint for Veteran too.
That could be a decent balance choice. Every time you kill an elite/specialist there is a 1/10 chance it drops half a small ammo pack. That lines up more with the name “Pick Pocket” and also helps your team.
You can use needle to kill a whole group of crushers but that means you can hardly survive without smoke or bubble. Teamwork may be important while anti ridiculous modifers.
Asian havoc games will always have 1 smoke vet and 1 bubble psyker, so ranged enemies are not an issue here. Which is why everyone runs the needle in rotten armor. Plus people here seem to have a negative perception towards autoguns.
It’s not “a little longer”, it’s useless against the constant 15-20 crusher waves, lol. 1 desperado + 1 Stimm to remove just 1-2 crushers from the usual 15-20 crushers in a single wave before the ability runs out, with 40+ second cooldown, is kinda mediocre if you ask me. Since every other class can melee crushers faster than you can gun down just 1-2 with an ability and stimm use.
Which is why there’s tons of needle scums here in SEA/Hong Kong rotten armor missions, and zero desperado builds. Not even IAG users. Havoc players in asia think IAF is a mediocre weapon, and are kind of judgmental towards anyone using autoguns. Be it vigilant or infantry autoguns. People will judge you or sometimes get pissed, if they accept you into the team and find out you are using infantry autoguns. It’s mostly at lower difficulties like auric/maelstrom or up to around havoc 25 range, that you occasionally still find IAF users.
(Edit: But the desperado IAF/Dual Autopistols are indeed good against everything else. It’s sort of like a psyker’s infinite ammo inferno staff that’s much weaker against hordes, but stronger against elites/specials.)
I can clear a havoc 40 datatide crushers & maulers test group in ~45-55 seconds in my attempts (my average is ~53, I will say 45 was a bit of a outlier thanks to crit luck and getting kills at perfect moments to get boosted reloads). That is 4 maulers and 4 crushers. Comparing to Reginald’s Datatide spreadsheet most DPS zealot builds clear that test group in 30-60 seconds depending on weapon. Relic blade is ~35-~40 seconds. So ~15 seconds longer then the relic blade… Yeah id call that a little longer, its on par with MANY melee builds while massively out performing them into everything else. Please actually test this stuff its very easy to test.
This is also the worst case for hive scum since there isn’t a hoard around to keep desperado going for longer.
Obviously there is stuff like force sword psyker that clears that hoard in 15 seconds but thats a bit of a outlier. Overall the infantry auto gun (in this build) is like B+ tier into carapace.
Now yes, this drops off hard against rotten armor. So does like 99% of everything in the game. Saying “Oh well its not the best against the hardest and least balanced condition in the hardest mode” is silly.
Just actually try it into literally any mission other then rotten armor lol.
Against H40 4 maulers 4 crushers, a desperado IAG scum would have 3 crushers left the moment the ability and stimm ends. You can get a much lower average of 45-53s, but that means you used +25% dmg against crusher perk? Which means you will be weaker against maniac types, reducing your role’s effectiveness as a desperado scum, just to be slightly faster against crushers.
In actual practical desperado builds, the IAF won’t have perks against crushers. So it will take more than a minute for 4 maulers 4 crushers. (Roughly 1 minute 5 seconds using only IAF. You might as well switch to melee to be faster, after the desperado + stimm ends. Or ignore the IAF+desperado and just melee with Stimm.)
The second thing is, Relic Blade is very bad against crushers/maulers. So using a zealot with Relic Blade to compare, will reflect the desperado IAF scum in a much, much better light.
Try comparing it with vet/psyker with duelist sword, or orgrn with pickaxe, etc.
For example try martyrdom zealot with Heavy Eviscerator 100% crit build(bloodthirsty + opportunist). Around 17 seconds for just 4 maulers + 4 crushers.
Or for example a shouty vet using duelist sword, around 19.5s.
Psyker with scrier’s gaze and/or disrupt destiny is just too disgusting…so I won’t mention here. (Using light attack mouse macro with Mk4 Forcesword is triple the disgusting value, like ~9s)
Most H40 players in actual practice would achieve much faster time against crushers, than the 30-40s average that you quote for classes like zealots. Vets and Psykers for e.g., very often use duelist swords and Mk4 forceswords. (Is Relic blade using zealots a thing in your country? Since there’s already the psyker clearing hordes with inferno staff.)
So a desperado scum’s ~65s (without perks against crushers in IAG), is actually pretty weak compared to other classes’ 10-20s, assuming no macro users.
In H40 you also don’t get just 4 maulers + 4 crushers, so the full extent of desperado’s cooldown, will be better reflected at around 8+ crushers onwards.
But assuming you have infinite desperado ability with no cooldown at all (there are mods to refresh your ability during testing), you can reduce the time to ~40s(without crusher perk on your gun) against 4 maulers + 4 crushers. Which is still pretty…bad compared to many other classes’ builds, as mentioned above.
No these tests were without +25% carapace damage, with +25% carapace damage sub 40s is probably reasonably possible. I will say that the time here is very reliant on headshots and consistent tracking (Im not even good at tracking according to Kovaak’s like 60th precentile but I guess that realistically puts me at like 95th percentile for overall players) it is also reliant on crits and the timing of when you get kills to trigger speed load and desperado. To get 45 seconds without +25% damage I got very lucky with crits and timed my desperado to kill all the crushers in a row, along with targeting maulers to keep my desperado going longer between them. Definitely not a very useful data point but I think ~55 seconds is reasonable base line that is achievable in normal gameplay for reasonably skilled players. +25% carapace damage brings that to like ~45 seconds baseline. You still vaporize every maniac anyways so I honestly am starting to consider taking +25% carapace damage lol.
Yes I did say that outliers that specialize in carapace damage exist. the ~45 global average is for all weapons not just builds that specialize in carapace. Of course dueling sword is killing crushers faster, of course force sword is killing crushers faster. That is why I say the infantry autogun is like ~B+ tier against carapace. Better then a lot of weapons, worse then others.
However I think that is still a minor negative considering that overall against literally everything else its a S+ tier with some of the fastest clear times in the game second only to psyker.
Just to elaborate a little on the clear times. The theoretical perfect clear, after going frame by frame to calculate perfect kill times with average luck (sample size of 10 averaged). Is about 20.4 seconds, +3.5 to account for reloads, that is 23.9 seconds. So my clear times are not even remotely close to perfect play. Honestly someone who is better at aiming could probably do 45 second clear times reasonably consistently.
Random drug dealer (aka the 1 point stimm pack build) completely negating the full power of Nurgle is just peak performance and comedy, no wonder they brought back goo and rotten armor to havoc. Oh and it lets you survive the one shot overheads as well.
If no goo to deal with just bring Desperado.
The icig on this cake would be if he could also regen ammo for the rocket launcher.