So I’m interested if any of you know of any particularly fantastic specials & push attacks for the many melee weapons in Darktide?
It’s so hard to test out all of them, and often even a seemingly underwhelming special / PA can do things that aren’t immediately obvious. For some weapons these can be so game-transforming they literally raise the weapon from an obscure “meh” into “fantastic”!
Here’s some examples I know of, hopefully something new for someone reading this:
Crusher - The PA on this is insane! It’s strong, fast, has fantastic cleave & stagger and does about the same weakspot dmg as the 1:st heavy. All while being extremely safe. Skullcrusher blessing gives it +40% dmg too. Many also don’t seem to realize that special & heavies has a much better radius & stagger than lights, making it ideal for controlling groups of elites.
Combat Blade III - I’m ashamed of how late into the game I finally realized how good the knife PA is. It’s literally the solution to the knife’s biggest issue of getting overwhelmed by too many mobs or when out of dodges, all while easily taking down specials & elites.
Force Swords - It was only 4-5 months ago I realized the PA from Force Swords has a 9m range(!) and always counts as a weakspot hit (so stacks talents like True Aim, procs blessings like Uncanny etc.). Considering it can knock down anything but a mutie and can be safely used while blocking even ranged, it’s completely essential for any Force Sword user.
Illisi FSword - As the only FSword with a spammable special, it can easily help you push peril up to 80% for the 6-stack Soulbaze from Vent, and/or stack Unstable Power either for buffing your DoT’s or to buff Vent itself! That +20% power is enough to make Vent stagger even crushers.
Power Swords - PA is a the optimal starter for single target combos on either sword, and does fantastic weakspot dmg
Combat Axes - At least Antax & Achlys PA is incredible, even without Brutal Momentum it easily controls and cleaves large groups for nice dmg
Shield - This is hopefully obvious to most by now, but shield just doesn’t work without the PA. The push on the shield is already huge in range and stagger, procs all kinds of tank talents, and again sets up Skullcrusher. The attack is a fantastic high dmg headshot. The shield special likewise is amazing not for sitting behind, but because it actually activates way faster than it looks like so you can reactively tap it to counter snipers or maulers etc. The special also blocks melee from all directions, only needing to worry about where the ranged are shooting from.
I’m a llama. I like a weapon with simple light and simple heavy chains.
I only ever use push attacks on Ragers with my antax. Scrub I know! But dodging is cheap, so I do that most of the time. Maybe once a game with the mk3 knife, but generally, I stop at a block-push rather than transitioning in to the block/strike.
I can’t work out if I’m really missing anything. I’m sure the mechanic is a hangover from Vermintide2 where obviously that was a core technique. I’ve just never felt like I’ve missed it in DT.
I did try out the Deimos push attack after watching a youtube vid, i.e. hose Crushers and Maulers with Purgatus, then use a push attack to knock them back and trigger Uncanny Strike … but other than this one move & its transition in to Heavy2 (the one with double damage) I just hate this sword and its strike pattern. Gimme the illisi any day. Swish swish.
I love the strategy of calling down a supply hellpod right on an enemy. Especially when it’s an EAT, and you kill a charger with the hellpod itself, and still have two EATs to kill two more chargers!
I really like posts like this, although coming from Vermintide 2 (V2) and knowing all these features exist, I still feel overwhelmed by all the buff icons, blessings, talents, etc. Additionally, I haven’t concentrated on a specific class like I did in V2.
I have multi-keybinding and I love the interaction of pressing special between attacks for additional stagger/dps on the Ogryn weapons, as none of them have a flashlight. The sheild I’m starting to love again for the reasons you’ve already highlighted…
I’m ashamed of forgetting about the charge-up attack; I remember ThePartyKnife showing weapons that do this in v2 2h-hammer and rapier. I wondered when you can let go sooner to receive the charged up status (I’ve been using thrust for the visual). So, I tried a charged attack build with mixed results, but it’s certainly better against the big boys, especially when throwing it in occasionally with a couple of pushes, heavy hitter keystone, and refresh on light attack.
I don’t have much kit on psyker to know which force swords to use, I miss the beam staff for the shotgun blast for quick ‘peril’ so thats a game changer and will have to look into force swords…
I feel a number of these interactions need a demo. However, with a lack of content creators, I feel a lot of this detail goes missed by a large part of the community that leave the tide games. This might be why FatShark insists on giving no tutorial, only the tools to find these things ourselves by playing and trying them out… (remember explaining the beam staffs different attacks to players 3 years in)
I mean we have enough doom and gloom, as understandable as it is. I just wanna talk about the game I still enjoy playing.
Yeah I get you. xD Just knowing what each icon does is one thing, but tracking them is something else entirely. I just got into modding about 3-4 months ago, finally, and I have to say it really makes just such a huge difference! Some of the UI mods let you customize it so you can personally move specific buffs anywhere you like. Moving talents like True Aim, the vet’s Weapons Specialist (3 melee kills > next ranged is a crit), or blessings like Thrust right there next to the crosshair so I always know exactly what their status is was just a game-changer.
It’s so odd that there are so many talents & blessings that absolutely need to be tracked to be truly useful, yet the game just doesn’t give us any tools to do it.
Yeah I’ve always found it a bit odd too. Tbh for a long time I was annoyed by it, but eventually I came to appreciate Darktide’s depth in an era of games where everything is just laid out, simple, and predictable. It’s hard to find a game where all build planning doesn’t just boil down to the same 1-2 builds per each class because anything else would just be worse.
But Darktide is definitely not an easy game to learn to understand. None of the hundreds of details are available in any one single location, much of what the community says is just wrong, and above all it’s hard to look for something you don’t even know exists!
I have this geeky dream of one day finding a place where all us experienced and curious long-time players could share in what we all know, just so I could learn about all the things I’ve still missed.
I actually really like the bashes on some of the ranged weapons. Bashing enemies in the face while on the move or mid-reload feels very cinematic. Real badass vibes.
It’s a real shame that they’re all so slow and weak that it’s always more effective to just quick switch to a melee weapon and then switch back.
Yeah, I agree. I think I’ve only ever used a weapons bash in error - quite early on I was wondering what “special” did on a stave, and it just does a jab.
Looking back; a “handling” stat would have made much more sense than mobility on ranged weapons, controlling for swap time, maybe jitter around the target point (spitballing, not thought it through).
I know it exists as a hidden stat somewhere to control equip time for powerful weapons such as flamer and boltgun, but being able to select a weapon with a high handling stat for better quick swap makes much more sense as a trade off vs. the other stats, whereas (imo) mobility is a redundant stat as I inevitably insta-switch to melee to move quickly or hit someone.
Great points from both of you and I agree! My thoughts likewise have always been on that equip speed. Like, staff special can be charged for a surprisingly strong knockback effect but what’s the point when you can take out your melee and hit in a fraction of the time?
It’s interesting to imagine a Darktide where weapon swapping was more of an investment though. Whether it took more time, some stamina, even a dodge count. If most weapons didn’t magically switch out in 0.2 seconds, suddenly bashing would be a better option when you’re caught by surprise. Ofc, they could just add / rebalance some blessings or perks for that too. Most weapons only have 1 essential blessing for a build, so using the other slot for something that made it viable for melee is something I could definitely see myself doing.
For now though, outside of Laspistols on psykers, Helbore I & II on vets, or even Rippers on oggies - even without Can Opener that poke is fast & strong and with oggy’s slower switch & melee attack speed it’s surprisingly often worthwhile - most ranged bashes serve very little use. And even the ones I just listed are so niche you can easily just do without using them at all.
I might get into testing these at some point though, bc tbh I doubt many have actually explored what the different weapon bashes do in detail. I remember watching some revolver stream last year where they pointed out it actually turns the enemy, letting you do some fun tricks like flip bulwarks around etc. But it was such a niche little thing I never really bothered getting more into it.
Edit: Oooh! One thing instantly thought of here, was that psyker Laspistol special + Dumdum, and turns out it actually counts (and it’s per hit, so hitting 5 mobs with 1 special instantly caps the blessing)! I didn’t even know that! AND! Dumdum buffs DoT dmg too! So Vent & Creeping Flames while spamming that does CC & +30% burn dmg! It’s not a big thing but, it’s new to me!
It would transform DT into turn based game. Melee is your defense tool.
What staves need is different utility special attacks that have their niche and look and feel cool, something like You shall not pass for trauma - hit the floor in a fast manner to cast AOE that staggers (some) enemies around you, small radius, low dmg. Now you can create some space for yourself without need to charge trauma blast and aim under your feet, aswell as there is no need to switch to melee everytime. Basically push like you have on melee, but cool and thematical, unlike just hitting with staff.
And different staves need different primary, secondary and special.
Yes I definitely agree. I doubt anyone wants a turn based DT. xD I didn’t mean those things as some working fix to slap on to the current game willy nilly. Besides, any fixes like those would at the very least need a talent / blessing review too, since there are builds explicitly focused on frequent weapon switching.
Better weapon specials would absolutely be fantastic. I’ve used Trauma a lot and feel like another stagger isn’t what it needs, but I really want to imagine some kind of a warp-charged melee attack for high single target dmg for staves in general. Or maybe even a kind of parry like the Devil’s Claw but with way reduced dmg. Or as you said, something unique to each or some of them, like if a Surge special would quickly push the tip of the staff to the enemy and keep shocking them for high CC and low dmg until released (basically a single-target smite with instant guaranteed CC)?
As for other weapons, there’s just so much fun & useful stuff they could do! Like, imagine if the revolver (or knife etc.) special was a simple kick to just flat out knock down anything that wasn’t an oggy, mauler or mutie? What holding the special with a Helbore would do a small charge & stab for some really heavy dmg? What if tapping the special again on Deimos / Obscurus after connecting would release a small warp blast to stagger the nearby mobs, offering a limited yet risky way to use it even in smaller crowds? What if tapping the special again on a chain weapon would rip it out instantly for a boost in dmg but still not as much as if you’d held on to the end, for a similar idea of rewarding its use even when you can’t afford to wait until the end? What if …
Well, yeah. Going off-topic here. Anyway, there’s just a million things they could do with those!
