Making Inexorable Judgement more interesting, unique, and fun with a few changes

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Alright so this topic comes out of some discussion from Zealot Still Has Major Structural Weaknesses in High Difficulty (Auric/Havoc) , but I wanted to pull it here to make things more pointed.

To be clear: I think Inexorable Judgement is the coolest Zealot keystone, I have the most fun using it, I do not think it is weak, and I am not trying to reinvent it. Using the other Zealot keystones though, there are aspects that make it feel a little derivative/dry. These are:

  1. The majority of buffs conferred by IJ and its modifiers are also shared with Martyrdom (melee/ranged attack speed, melee damage, toughness replenishment)
  2. Two of IJ’s three keystone modifiers don’t add any unique attributes, they only make it easier to reach max stacks on the ability, unlike all of Blazing Piety and Martyrdom’s modifiers

IJ’s unique concept compared to Blazing Piety’s getting in the thick of it team-based crit engine and Martyrdom’s high-risk, high-reward melee sicko mode is essentially an always-mobile melee and ranged damage wrecking ball that is hard to stop after building Momentum.

To synthesize these things, the ability should have more unique buffs centered around mobility—you build stacks by moving and the unique buffs IJ currently confers are bonuses to dodge speed/distance and dodge regen.

First, Inebriate’s Poise should receive the same treatment Blazing Piety had with its previous “Critical Hits also count up towards triggering Fury” modifier and just be folded into the base ability. This talent is never something you want to take since it has no intrinsic value outside of facilitating your buff stack, but it feels like you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t.

Keystones and their modifiers should feel exciting and transformative to pick, not like something you don’t really want but are forced to. To bring more flavor, they should change the talent to: “Gain .25% Movement Speed and .1% Stamina replenished per second per stack of Momentum” (this would be +5% Movement Speed and +2% Stamina regen/sec at max stacks).

Much like BP’s modifiers not only giving effects that are useful on their own (more critical hits = more damage), this would also contribute to the building and maintenance of the core ability—extra movement speed is good for attacking, dodging, traversal etc, and would make Momentum stacks build faster. Likewise, extra stamina allows for more sprinting, which further supports this building movement engine that’s hard to stop once it gets going, aka “momentum.”

Second, Eternal should have an additional effect that’s something like “While Momentum stacks are being expended, add up to 20% Extra Damage based on current movement speed.” Like Inebriate’s Poise, Eternal feels like a talent you’re punished if you don’t take, but doesn’t add anything unique except for stack building consistency and max stack uptime overall. It shouldn’t be folded into the base ability, but why not give it more flavor as the furthest down modifier?

The speed threshold for that max 20% damage should be very high and can only be reached with multiple combined buffs/FotF/Shroudfield. This bonus damage also applies to both melee and ranged (IJ currently buffs both, unlike Martyrdom), so a bunch of weapon builds could synergize well with it: Combat Blade, Dueling Sword, chain weapons with Rev It Up, ranged weapons with Run ‘n’ Gun… there are probably others I’m not thinking of, but these are at least ones I have a lot of experience with. This modifier would support the ability’s core concept, incentivizing smart movement and routing to maximize damage bonuses and uptime.

It’s possible I don’t have the values quite right, but I think thematically this is the right way to highlight the unique aspects of IJ and move it further away from feeling like Martyrdom-lite but without the risk.

tl;dr

  • IJ has most of the same buffs as Martyrdom, so some unique ones should be added based around its core concept of movement
  • Inebriate’s Poise and Eternal are boring Keystone Modifiers that should be tweaked to feel more compelling to choose
  • Fold Inebriate’s Poise effect (3 momentum stacks on successful dodge) into the base IJ ability, like what Blazing Piety got
  • Change Inebriate’s Poise to “Gain .25% Movement Speed and .1% Stamina replenished per second per stack of Momentum” (+5% Movement Speed and +2% Stamina/sec at max stacks)
  • Add an additional effect to Eternal that’s “While Momentum stacks are being expended, add up to 20% Extra Damage based on current movement speed.” The speed threshold for the max damage here is set to require specific builds to reach
2

I think IJ plays an important role of being another option for damage and attack speed buffs outside of martyrdom and FOTF. The current zealot tree relies heavily on keystones for consistent damage and attack speed buffs. The main reason IMO to pick IJ currently are for the dodge buffs (which are very strong on heavy weapons) and to get damage and attack speed buffs without sacrificing survivability with martyrdom, sort of a middle of the road option.

I like the idea of distinguishing IJ more with stamina buffs. Currently the dodge buffs are the only thing keeping IJ from being a “worse” martyrdom. While I think flat movement speed buffs might be a bit too much since Zealot is already so mobile, stamina buffs are a really interesting idea that I think would offer a lot of defensive power and mobility and would work better as a keystone modifier. I agree Inebriate’s Pose is just a tax node at this point, and it should be folded into the base keystone. I’m not sure about a damage node based on movement speed, Zealot already has so many miscellaneous damage nodes that have activation conditions that are all over the place and rarely activate at the same time, and I’m not too keen on Zealot becoming even more mobile when it is already the fastest class.

To add on to your ideas, IMO IJ stacks are also notoriously inconsistent and it is often difficult to build to full stacks in the middle of combat. I think changing max stacks to 10 while leaving the max buff values the same (e.g. 20% damage at 10 stacks of momentum) would help IJ feel more consistent and make it easier to build to full stacks. Another big issue with Zealot’s tree is a lack of stagger or CC options. Perhaps adding a stagger buff that activates while at full stacks of IJ as a keystone modifier could distinguish the keystone even more. Zealot could have a crit-focused keystone, a pure attack speed and damage keystone, and a balanced keystone with options for extra mobility and defensive power.

3

I appreciate the thoughtful consideration. I recognize movement speed is a very delicate thing where it can go from not doing all that much to trivializing a lot of attacks very quickly. Still, for the Keystone that builds “Momentum” stacks by moving, which uses a foot and a dashing symbol for it and the last modifier, I would hate to lose something that directly impacts movement speed.

If 5% at max stacks would be too much, I’d be happy with 3% (.15% per stack). It’s true that Zealots are the most mobile overall class (although Arbites can hang if you go with some of the conditional talents), but you don’t even need to invest in IJ to get that max level of speed, making that level of mobility inherent to all Keystones if you route to Relentless Fervor. If the concept of this one is “movement,” I’d expect it to do that better than BP and Martyrdom. The dodge buffs are big of course, but that’s reactive movement, not proactive.

I’m a little wary of relaxing the requirements to get to max stacks, at least through making each stack better. I think part of what makes IJ unique is the execution and skill requirement to constantly be thinking about your movement and routing the best way through hordes etc to make sure you build those stacks. As you make max effectiveness easier to build, some of that identity is lost. I recognize the Inebriate’s Poise change does a similar thing in terms of making it easier to build stacks, but that’s mostly just because it’s so flavorless.

My replacement talent would still require players to do all that dynamic movement and thinking, it would just make executing that more effective over time. Likewise, the conditional talents you mention on Zealot are a lot of reactive ones (all dodge procs), whereas a speed to damage bonus would be proactive and controllable. It would provide opportunity for skill expression with achieving it or not. Fundamentally, that’s why I feel drawn to certain builds over others. If the conditions for buffs push you to change your play style, I think that’s overall healthy for the game and for other play styles too.

As I said before, I really would like to move it away from “Martyrdom-lite but without the risk.” I also think its defensive power is well represented in Retributor’s Stance; up to 8% toughness regen per second is quite strong. At the end of the day I don’t need something super strong or even something competing with BP/Martyrdom, I just want a little more sauce to work with, you know?