Kantrael Lasguns need love, hearts should be weak points

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I love the Kantrael lasguns, I used to main an XII, back when, but the game has changed since that time.

I’m sure some who are fond of other weapons will accuse me of wanting the lasgun to invade their niche, but the lasgun currently lacks a niche in darktide. (Save the mg IV It’s really only good for long range slowfire which has almost no place in Darktide because of Darktide is too dynamic, the few places where they do appear your rear isn’t safe, there’s an ogryn meat shielding, lack of penetration of cover, no significant multitarget, too much recoil for what comes out of the muzzle, etc.

It shouldn’t be a weapon only for a few extremely skilled players to use when they don’t feel like taking something better.

Out of all the Kantrael lasguns, the only one that I find useable now is the the MGIV, because I can rapid fire the thing like a recon with a mouse button set up for it or run single shot.

The XII might be idea for picking off targets at long range, but the volume of targets, rather slow rate of fire, lack of significant over penetration, and low mobility make it a bad overall choice, and the MG 1a isn’t much better. The MGIV is pretty decent as an all arounder still, but suffers a fair amount of the same.

Mobility in the game feels too limited across the board in comparison to high mobility builds, and the vet in particular feels like he suffers the most, as most of his really good weapons are very very slow.

I’d imagine that Fat Shark thought that a class that was originally designed to be ranged heavy didn’t need as much mobility as a zealot who needed to close with each target, and this might be true of dodge but not of speed. The vet needs to move to a point he can shoot from in any serious fight because of the melee characters meat shielding the targets, and then needs to catch up so he isn’t left behind between fights.

Spamming the lasguns, is punished by fairly odd all over recoil. When the game first came out there was a massive discussion of recoil and lasers, (to my surprise) it turns out lasers DO have recoil, but it’s microscopic. The lasers the Airforce had in 747s were calculated to have about the same recoil as a butterfly landing on a flower.

Compared to this, the autoguns with predictable upward recoil, rapid repeat, other advantages have largely out competed the lasguns, even the recon. I see far less lasguns in randoms then other weapons. Revolver has better pen, autogun better repeat. Bolter has become rare, plasma is moderate.
The Kantrael lasguns could do with:

  1. an increased rate of fire.
  2. More effective multi-target penetration (Especially of soft targets, dregs and pox walkers.) scaling with relative power. (This should also apply to a helbore but even greater.)
  3. Much less recoil.
  4. A significant increase in sprint speed/stamina efficiency. (This last one for the weapon, but also for every class except zealot.)

As to multitarget penetration, this really should be a thing on the Kantreals, especially if they are to have any recoil. At present they are largely out competed by revolvers in every way except ammunition.

It would also be very helpful to make the heart a weak point on enemies for center mass shots. Certainly the head is an excellent weakpoint, and I’m sure I’ll be told this is a ‘skill issue’ and yeah, it is, the angle some the of the time to get to the head shot is a lot harder and this is intrinsic to the controls. This is one of the reasons high fire rate weapons are so popular. Lot of people can’t make regular headshots with slow fire weapons on moving targets and the heart is a very explainable weak point provided the hit mass penetration is high enough.

(It might be okay to make this only a thing on high power/pen weapons and not light torrent weapons.)

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of comments that I should get better, just make do with the better weapons, use something else, that the laser is suppose to suck, that this would invalidate some other weapon, but all of that is second to the fact the lasgun is just not good enough in any role to see often and is an iconic weapon of the franchise, and as such, I hope the devs will listen and give it some love.

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I would take 1, 3 and 4 but not 2. I would also like to see select fire as an option on hold special.

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Hello! As a veteran main I have quite a bit to share or respond with

The XII is still good. It is what I use in my build. I am able to delete Ragers in 1 to 2 hits at 8 meters or greater (depends if I miss the head). Mutants I can delete in 3 if I am hitting them head on. In addition to this, I am the most ammo efficient of any group I have been in. Nearly every group I have had in the last week or two runs auto guns and they are close to depleted on ammo while I am over here enjoying my 500+ ammo reserve

I wouldn’t be opposed to more fire rate and less recoil but… I think the real issue with the XII, 1a, and VI is the percentages. If you hover over the Penetration bar you will notice they all do reduced damage at Near range (less than 8 meters). I think that is a mistake… They should be versatile in that they can handle any range

I can see this weird percentage being applied to say a Marksman Rifle. I know a long time ago I tried suggesting a Marksman Variant of the Hotshot Las Gun so that we can get a Las Gun that can actually penetrate armor

Having less sway while crouched would be another helpful thing. I suppose a Marksman sub class or specialty can have that and the Marksman Hot Shot Las Gun

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I’ve been playing a lot of games lately with the mark IV since it gets the biggest benefits from marksman’s focus while suffering the least from noregs. Still haven’t installed autofire mod. My poor trigger finger. In any case i definitely think one of the worst things about these guns is their poor recoil profile. I think they’re just too bouncy compared to other options which have a lot of controllability. Which makes it hard to have high consistency in headshots. This feels like a miss to me on the base design. So, to reiterate, 1, 3 and 4 but not 2. With select fire built in. Might be fun to reduce damage per shot but increase ROF with full auto over semi. Very fluffy.

The other thing that might need addressing is shocktrooper. I love basically never running out of ammo but i kinda think this should just be built into lasguns instead of being a vet talent.

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I’d still put 2 (multi-penetration) as the most important, as you in theory have a quite powerful infantry rifle, and while it might be less powerful then a bolter, it should still blow through zombies and unarmored men like Victor’s pistols in 1, which could quite easily deal with 5 slave rats with the right blessings.

Second, getting rid of the weird recoil would be VERY important.

True, but that’s a damage thing. The Kant’s problems are not so much a question of damage though, it’s everything else. If you have an XII and distance and time, you’re golden, but how often do tide games give you those?

In particular a glaring problem is the things max out at a sprint of +0.27ish, usually less, and the autoguns can get close to 0.60 with a much higher rate of fire, an easier to predict recoil pattern, and overall higher output of damage per second, especially with weak spot hits. Revolvers hit more targets in a line and are also autogun speeds.

And it seems like the Guard is not unlike a ww2 army with lasers, and on that comparison, I’d expect a xii to have at least penetration of a .30-06 or an 8mm mauser against most targets, and few would say a pointed projectile about .34 of an ounce moving at around 2800 feet per second won’t go through several soft targets. It’s what that kind of infantry rifle does, it’s long range high pen monster. Sure modern armies have moved to rapid fire low pen (relatively speaking) but the slow of the Kants indicates they are closer to the former design philosophy.

Plus, you can say that the high damage of the xii would almost certainly ensure multitarget pen, because the damage comes from the energy put into the shot, and the excess energy past what the target can stop would simply keep going until such time as it hit an object that would stop it.

From a 'Tide perspective the volume of targets has most weapons being able to hit many targets in a unrealistic way, (cleave on melee, not very real. IRL it was mostly one at a time no matter the sword size, and more sword gave more reach, not more targets,) but good for a game.

So from a gameplay perspective it helps the weapon stay viable AND it fits the franchise, and from a realism perspective it does bring the energy required to the stage for this to be the most likely outcome against pox walkers, and maybe even light armor at closer ranges.

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I’ve been running the Ia a lot lately with this build:

This is NOT a weapon to use vs. hordes. You have a shovel (or other melee weapon of choice) for that. So I don’t really think it needs penetration vs. lighting units, because that’s not what you should usually be using the weapon for in the first place.

The emphasis on this weapon is deleting all ranged threats and melee elites. With Executioner’s stance, headhunter blessing, and deadshot (note the extra +3 stamina curio), you have incredible ammo sustain. I barely ever need to pick up ammo.

Being able to highlight and delete all ranged enemies and maintain Executioner’s stance up time is incredible. In big fights, I’ll still be on executioner’s stance when the ability comes off cool down so it’s immediately ready to use again.

With suppression immunity and tons of toughness regen, you can basically sit there and face tank ranged enemies and just keep deleting them. It’s honestly a ton of fun AND quite effective.

Only real build weakness is dealing with Carapace, which is why you bring krak grenades :slight_smile:

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“Needs” is a debatable term. What is true is that as a sharp shooting only weapon is it pretty good. But it’s not versatile, and that’s leading to most of the XII’s in the game collecting dust.

Deleting elites can be done almost as well with a revolver or autogun and those can do other things as well as deleting elites and with the right build they excel against carapace as well.

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Honestly I’ve been running a decent 1a and…outside of Auric, it’s not bad? It could do with a bit of a damage bump for torso shots but it’s snappy, accurate, and reliable. It doesn’t do anything great but you can pair it with a good shovel, krak grenades, and shout to counter almost any threat effectively.

If Exec Stance got buffed into relevance, it’d be even better.

I would make the XII a bit chunkier to make that relevant but otherwise…it’s good enough for base Damnation imo.

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There’s some definite issues with the Kantrael lasguns. Even the XII often simply fails to hit breakpoints on weak spots it needs to be be effective (looking at you Ragers), especially from a cold-start without stuff like keystone or other buffs.

I really like the ammo efficiency and sustainability of the Lasguns, but their non-weakspot killing power is bad, while their weakspot damage is inconsistent relative to some breakpoints and often fails to do the job it needs to do.

Initially I’d thought this was more an issue of just a couple breakpoints adjustments, but it’s also the speed of killing, calmly lining up headshots just can’t compete with the heavy firepower thrown out by many other weapons, and so often ends up only having utility in certain areas (e.g. areas with large numbers of gunners at range), making them much more niche than they should be.

Before Patch 13, I was KXII all day every day. Since then, I’ve rarely run it.

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Where it excels, particularly the Ia mark, is against masses of ranged enemies in a sustained fire fight.

It’s not as quick to draw and dispatch isolated elites as the revolver, and isn’t great against hordes (most ranged weapons aren’t very needed or ammo efficient versus hordes).

But with talents for not consuming ammo on crits you can sit there and fire for 30 second straight without needing to reload. Many of the engagements that teams frequently struggle with are against masses of dispersed range enemies, and the ability to sit there and plink headshots and rarely even need to reload can’t be understated in my opinion.

I just did a test fight (damnation) in the test chamber with my build above versus 25 scab gunners while standing in the open. I killed all of them within 30-seconds and only reloaded once. Never took health damage either as my toughness was almost always topped off despite getting continually shot by a lot of gunners :slight_smile: I don’t know of other weapons that can maintain that level of up-time.

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I think the Ia is better. The breakpoints aren’t that much different but the faster fire rate makes it much easier to quickly land needed follow-up shots.

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No. 5.56mmx45 has better penetration at relevant combat distances then 7,62mmx51 which in turn is basically WWII ammo. That said the idea of a rifle round reliably penetrating several human bodies is pure fiction as the round on its way through tissue will tumble, deform, sometimes even break. Upon leaving the body it doesn’t travel straight anymore and hasn’t much energy left. (Which in tactical context is a good thing as you want as much of that energy in the target as possible.) While it still can cause fatal injury to a second body the likelihood of it penetrating that as well and then still fatally injure a third target is incredibly low.

That said I don’t think it lore accurate that the emperor’s “flashlight” should have enough energy to penetrate several bodies - a hellgun might.

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No, because fragmentation. Can’t do more detail right now because IRL stuff.

But it’s totally normal for a bigger round, especially with the dense groups in a 'tide game which almost never show up in modern fights against non-zombies.

Edit: K, back.

—Hey, I see the below is long, but the TLDR is that small fast bullets do things that bigger bullets don’t, so 5.56 isn’t as good a penetrator as other rounds.

But here’s the long version—>

Basically, you’ll absolutely see spitzer FMJs of 6.5mm and above do multi-penetration of soft targets. A good example is the JFK assassination where they over penetrated and sometimes defelected and overpenetrated. I don’t think we’d see deflection (of that kind) with a laser, but vs a soft target we’d certainly see overpen if we pump enough juice into it, and at the power level that will do close to 300 dmg and pox zombies being shriveled anyway…

Heck, it works with handguns, which is why hollow points were invented. To avoid over penetration being a danger behind the target, and the extra energy transfer to the target being a bonus.

Usually the rule of thumb for handgun defense ammunition is 10-14 inchs of penetration is good, more is bad, due to the danger presented to those who are not the target by an overpenetration. This is why you are advised not to use FMJs for self defense.

In war though, over penetration might mean you get lucky, though it’s unlikely with the lack of dense formations these days, and you have the hague conventions/accords to deal with, if you signed them.

But, when you downscale the bullet enough, you get different effects, which is why 5.56mm tends to twist, deflect, and fragment instead of passing through completely, though there’s sure to be examples where it does, especially when shooting at very skinny people, (Mogadishu, hint hint.)

Indeed, you’ll even find the 5.56mm taking over for the 9mm smg like the mp5 because it’s been found to have less penetration the heavier 9mm bullets… (115 grains and up vs 55 grains and up) and is thus safer for bystanders while allowing longer shots, something that was hard to get suits to accept until recently.

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Thats more of an arguement for nerfing the revolver and autogun if anything. Carapace really should be highly resistant to generic firearms. But in any case the lasguns already have a pen of 2. Lore wise they really shouldn’t have great penetration but they should have enormous usability and ammo supply. I’d love to see the lasgun tranformed a bit more towards this. High accuracy, low recoil, select fire, enormous ammo reserves. The left tree MK4 build i have going has so much ammo availability that for 80% of a given mission i don’t even bother to melee. I shoot everything, hordes included. This is my vision: I’d like to see that normalized into the weapon for any class. The lasgun can be the “left 4 dead player’s first choice”. The gun you pick when you want to shoot all game.

Autoguns would then have higher damage spikes but worse ammo economy. Which is more or less true now. Everything just needs a little tweaking.

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Doesn’t seem like it’s working right, though sometimes it does. Tested this a lot in the meat grinder under various conditions. So you’re right, but not always. Maybe that belongs in bug reports instead of suggestions though. ?

At a minimum, a pen related blessing would be really nice, like the one we had in V1. The sheer volume of targets in 'tide games really almost requires some kind of overpen or cleave on anything not insanely fast repeating, as we see on so many melee weapons.

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Its hitmass based. So some enemies and not others get penetrated. I think…

Hence why i argue for a select fire option. To give that repetition.

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Would help. With a full auto mod/macro it currently works well on the mg iv, but not so well on the others because rate limit and weird recoil impulse.

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Ok hear me out:
Mg4 has select fire, reduced recoil. But no change in damage or rof between full and semi-auto.

MgIA and Mg12 both have select fire, reduce recoil across the board. but when full auto is switched they gain increased rate of fire, reduced per shot ammo consumption and reduced damage, such that the MgIA and MG12 are equivalent to the MG4 in full auto.

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It’s interesting… Seems like it would obsolete anything under the 12 though. Might not be a bad thing…

(BTW, the console controller people will be along to say they don’t have a spare button.)

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Fair point.

Already solved. Special = flashlight. Hold special = switch fire modes.

Already works for the grenade gauntlet’s various attacks or the bayonet heavy vs light stab.

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