These are personal preferences on my part, but I would like them to be added to this game at some point in the future. Currently sitting at ~630 hours for Darktide at the moment mostly playing vet, zealot, and some psyker. Not so much with ogryn. Most of the weapon changes I’ve listed are with regards to human-sized weapons. I’ve got nothing against abhumans.
In my personal opinion, my changes to guns are based on homogenizing gunplay. I think that guns that perform similarly but have different characteristics/aspects makes the game more streamlined and fun, and I think it’ll lead to all guns to be viable at higher tiers of difficulty. There is, imo, only a select few guns being playable at higher tiers of difficulty. Examples include the boltgun, agripinaa mk 8 braced auto (the only good braced autogun), shredder autopistol, mk 2 helbore (mk 1 helbore is passable, but it uses more ammo in general), kantrael mg 12 lasgun, and that, I think, rounds up the more useable weapons in higher difficulty tiers.
Changes to ranged weapons:
-I’d personally like if every ranged weapon had +4 stamina and a stamina consumption while sprinting of 1.00 per second. One reason is too make the transition between ranged combat and melee combat less taxing for all ranged weapons; some weapons like the boltgun and the kantrael lasguns have poor sprint times compared to say the autoguns. Also, I don’t get the reason why my vet can sprint longer with the plasma gun than with the kantrael lasguns.
-Add attack speed as a perk option for single-shot weapons. Zealots can get up to +40% attack speed with ranged weapons, and I’d like to use something similar for Vet and Psyker. Maybe the bonus range can be +5-10%.
-Allow all guns to be able to shoot after sprint jumping. Currently the recon lasguns, shotguns, flamer primary fire, and laspistol allow you to shoot after sprint jumping, but the rest of the guns in game do not allow that. I would like other guns to be able to do that. Makes the gameplay more responsive in a way.
-Reduce or get rid of delay when trying to tap fire with automatic guns. Currently there’s a delay between salvos of automatic fire with all automatic guns in the game. It’s most noticeable with slower ROF guns. I think this has no place in a shooter in the year 2023, maybe in 2010 or something, but that is a game design of the past. Makes the shooting less cumbersome.
Changes to Braced autoguns and autopistol:
-Increase weakspot power for all guns that can be braced. I personally think that doing an additional 15% damage against weakspots with braced weapons is too little for bonus damage. For the braced autoguns, I’d like to seem them do an additional 100% (x2) damage against weakspots (say 160 dmg to the body and 320 dmg to the head with yellow, braced AK). For the autopistol, do +50% damage against weakspots with respect to body shots (66 dmg body and 99 dmg to the head). I like weapons that reward precision, and the braced weapons do not bring me that kind of joy. It seems like these sort of guns were built for COD kiddies and not for CSGO chads. Another reason why this is good for braced guns is it increases their ammo economy because the fewer amount of bullets needed to kill targets equals more ammo spared. I’ve been Hi-intensity shock trooper gauntlet with my Vet with the Agripinaa braced autogun, and I still find myself running out of ammo. Additional weakspot damage can alleviate this.
-Fix issue of the Agripinaa Braced autogun will revert to Columnus braced autogun’s rate of fire when the server becomes overloaded with several enemies on screen. I don’t know if anybody else experiences this, but the mk 8 braced autogun will do this when the game becomes saturated with enemies. Idk if this is due to me running this game with a GTX 1080ti and a i7-7700k cpu, but I want to make this issue known. Perhaps the Fullauto mod is to blame here, but idk how this issue occurs.
-Increase dodge count of braced autogun from 2 to 4. This brings the mobility stat closer to other weapons in game. I feel like braced autoguns reward aggression, but sometimes you gotta duck and weave with the gun out, and the limited dodge count doesn’t help.
-Increase hipfire accuracy for braced weapons outside of braced fire and reduce spread increase while shooting and moving outside of braced fire. This is to help promote the run n gun ideology that these guns bring to the table and the Agripinaa Mk VIII, imho, feels like the most accurate while running and gunning. The columnus and graia braced guns get wildly inaccurate while running and gunning.
-With regards to the braced autoguns, I’d like to see their bash attack be replaced and have the bash attack from the headhunter autoguns be used on the braced autoguns instead. This also gets rid of the stamina usage of bashing since the headhunter bash uses no stamina while bashing with the braced autogun’s bash attack uses stamina. Also, I’d like to be able to do a heavy bash attack with the braced autoguns similar to the heavy bash attack with the headhunter autoguns (you have to hold the special weapon attack button in order to do the heavy bash attack with the headhunter guns).
-Graia Mk IV Braced autogun: Increase mag size by 10, raising its reserve ammo too. Also, increase its sprint speed to the sprint speed bonus of the Kantrael MG IV lasgun and Accatran Mk VId recon lasgun (from +.27 sprint speed at 80% mobility to +.52 sprint speed at 80% mobility). One other thing would be to increase its stability when braced firing; it gets jumpy when firing while braced for a couple seconds before settling down a bit. Also, increase its collateral stagger against Maniacs from what it is currently to match the stagger bonus of unyielding targets.
-Columnus Mk II Braced autogun: Increase base damage by 10, bring its damage output closer to the Agripinaa Mk VIII braced autogun instead of the Graia krinkov. Also, increase its stability during braced fire to make it more effective at mid range. Furthermore, increase maniac stagger bonus from the collateral perk to match the other armor categories.
-Agripinaa Mk 8 Braced autogun: Reduce power and damage by 10 points. I feel like the gun will still perform well even with reduced damage, but the power nerf will make people play with the other braced autogun marks.
-Ius Mk 3 shredder autopistol: Reduce maniac bodyshot maniac dmg down to ~80ish from where it is now (its around ~110 as of this patch with a high dmg and stopping power roll). This is done so that the Graia braced krinkov isn’t being invalidated by the shredder autopistol overall when it comes to maniacs. Also, increase sprint speed stat from what it is to match the sprint speed bonus of the laspistol.
Changes to Kantrael MG Lasguns:
-Fix double shot issue when sprint jumping and shooting before landing. While using the Fullauto mod, I discovered that the kantrael lasguns will “double shoot” before landing after sprint jumping. You can pop off two MG 12 lasgun shots with a 0.15 sec split. I’m just here to make this issue known. Enjoy this bug while it lasts, I suppose.
-Increase bodyshot dmg mod for Flak armor targets by about ~25%. Make the dmg difference between bodyshots and headshots tighter overall.
-Increase unyielding dmg by ~25% overall. Also, increase unyielding weakspot dmg mod by ~25%. Make the lasguns more useable when dealing with bosses and ogryn elites.
-Kantrael MG IV Lasgun: Increase stagger numbers for this guns by ~10-20%. The dmg is good for what it is, but it cannot stagger certain enemies at all.
-Kantrael MG 1a Lasgun: Reduce ammo consumption per shot from 3 to 2. Also, fix its ammo reserve count to match the MG 12 lasgun. I feel like these changes would make this lasgun more viable. Currently this lasgun variant is the worst out of all three Kantrael lasgun variants.
-Kantrael MG 12: Reduce damage overall by 20%. Make this lasgun perform closely with its sister Kantrael lasgun variants.
Changes to Accatron Recon Lasguns:
-Increase base dmg for all recon lasguns by 50%. Also, increase weakspot dmg mod by ~20%. These recon lasguns need some tlc in the damage department.
-Accatran Mk 6d Recon Lasgun: Increase Maniac and Unyielding damage done by ~50%. Also, increase mag size to match Kantrael MG 4 lasgun. Furthermore, increase its collateral stat for stagger amount for far away Unyielding and Maniac enemies to match other armor groups and increase stagger done to nearby Maniac enemies. The gun model is missing its beam emitter; if you look down the barrel in weapon inspection, you’ll just see the body of the gun and no beam emitter like on the Mk 2 recon lasgun.
Accatran Mk 2 Recon Lasgun: Increase rate of fire from 11.11 rounds per second to 13.33 rounds per second. Furthermore, increase its Unyielding damage by ~35% and its maniac damage by ~66%. Makes this gun more capable of dealing with flamers and trappers. Furthermore, increase its stagger amount to nearby unyielding to match its stagger amount for far away unyielding targets. Also, increase the stagger amount for nearby and far away Maniac enemies to match the stagger amount done to flak armor enemies.
-Accatran Mk 7 Recon Lasgun: Increase Maniac dmg by 33%. Furthermore, change collateral stagger bonus of nearby Unyielding and Maniac and far away maniac enemies to match stagger bonus of flak-armored targets. Also, add beam emitter gun model as it’s missing on this recon lasgun like the mk 6d recon lasgun.
Changes to Infantry Autoguns:
-Increase spread recovery rate when ADSing. Currently you need to wait a full second before the spread settles down and you can start taking accurate shots. I would like this to be changed to how the recon lasgun do not take a second before the spread settles down and you can start shooting. I think this is done to prevent snap-shooting, but you can reliably snap shot with the kantrael lasguns. Make these sort of guns less cumbersome. The crosshair remap mod shows that it takes a bit for the spread to settle down before accurately shooting with these guns.
-Reduce horizontal recoil drift for all marks of infantry autoguns. Vet’s ability helps reduce this recoil to manageable amounts, but the Zealot and Psyker gain no such benefit. I’d like to able to hold the trigger down and mow down heretics with a blazing infantry autogun. Even with an 80% stability roll for an infantry autogun, they still kick like a mule.
-Increase body shot damage done with all infantry autogun by ~10-25%. This is so body shots aren’t penalized too much while using these autoguns.
-Increase weakspot damage done against unyielding targets by ~30% for all infantry autogun variants.
-Columnus Mk 5 infantry autogun: Increase sprint speed from +.27 at 80% mobility to +.52 like accatran mk 6d recon lasgun at 80% mobility. It’s the smallest out of all the infantry autoguns, but you run with it like if you’re running with the Agripinaa Mk 1 infantry autogun. Also, increase its mag size by 10 again and increase its reserve ammo to match new ammo capacity.
-Graia Mk 8 Infantry autogun: Increase its base power by 10, bringing it closer to the agripinaa in terms of damage. Also, increase its mag size by 10 and increase its reserve ammo to match new ammo capacity. Also, increase amount of reserves mags carried from 8 to 9.
-Agripinaa Mk 1 infantry autogun: Increase mag size by 5 and increase its reserve ammo to match. Also, increase its reserve mags carried from 8 to 9.
Changes to Headhunter Autoguns:
-Increase spread recovery rate when ADSing. Currently you need to wait a full second before the spread settles down and you can start taking accurate shots. I would like this to be changed to how the recon lasgun do not take a second before the spread settles down and you can start shooting. I think this is done to prevent snap-shooting, but you can reliably snap shot with the kantrael lasguns. Make these sort of guns less cumbersome. The crosshair remap mod shows that it takes a bit for the spread to settle down before accurately shooting with these guns.
-Increase Maniac damage done for all headhunter variants by 50%. It doesn’t make sense to me this category of autoguns deals the same amount of damage against Maniacs like the braced autoguns, and the braced autoguns do not have increased weakspot damage.
-Fix the alignments of the magazine model that’s inserted in the headhunter guns. It looks like the magazine model sits too close to the rear of the magwell when it should be sitting closer to the front of the magwell.
-Vraks Mk 3 Headhunter autogun: The only thing I’d change about this gun is increasing the reserve mags this guns carries from ~8 to ~10. This is because the three round burst nature of this gun makes this gun potentially an ammo waster. Also, I haven’t seen it personally, but apparently I’ve heard from people that this gun will start firing a single shot at a time in certain situations; an annoying bug for sure.
-Agripinaa Mk 9 Headhunter autogun: Reduce the amount of horizontal drift while firing with this gun. Also, increase the burst ROF so that the second shot has a chance to land on the target. Another thing to add is to increase its ADS zoom to match the other headhunter autoguns. One final thing is to fix the issue of this gun potentially firing a single round off one at a time in certain situations. Very annoying.
Vraks Mk 7 Headhunter autogun: This is gun is pretty balanced, so the only thing I’d change about is to increase its stagger/impact by 50%, making it stagger more than the Agripinaa Headhunter autogun; currently the Agripinaa has more stagger than the Vraks mk 7 headhunter autogun.
Changes to Combat Shotguns:
-Increase reserve ammo for all combat shotguns to be over 100 rounds. Sometimes there are games where I play as a zealot with a shotgun and there’s no Vet to help regen ammo. Having additional ammo can help out with large groups of shooters.
-Agripinaa Mk 7 Combat shotgun: I think this shotguns is balanced right now. I would not, however, be surprised if Fatshark nerfs the amount of damage the slugs do to enemies because the right build with a slug shotgun can one tap Maniac Flamers in the head right now while playing Damnation. Very Kruber of Fatshark.
-Lawbringer Mk 6 Combat shotgun: I’d like the cleave of its special ammo to be increased, matching the the cleave of the new Kantrael combat shotgun.
Kantrael Mk 9 Combat shotgun: Increase its ROF by ~30%; I think this gun shoots too slow for its own good. Also, increase the range its damage starts to drop off from 5m to maybe 15m. Another thing to note is I think the flame shell should have its cleave reduced by ~35%, and, more importantly, I don’t think this shotgun’s special shell should be able to pen through walls.
Changes to Boltguns:
-Increase dmg done against infested bodyshots. This is for no other reason than to not think," How can a Poxwalker survive a shot from a powerful gun like the boltgun when it hits them in the chest on Damnation difficulty?"
-Increase dmg done when hitting a critical weakspot shot by 10-25%. The amount of bonus dmg done while landing a critical weakspot hit is anywhere from 0% to 15% dmg bonus currently. I think this would make Cavalcade and Surgical blessing good to use. Maybe +25% for all categories.
- Locke Mk 2b Spearheard Boltgun: I’d increase its mag size by 5 and increase its reserve ammo to boot. Basically change it so you can carry ~6 mags in reserve vs ~5 right now. This is done so zealots can partake in using the boltgun more often like the Veteran.
Changes to Plasma Gun:
-Increase reserve ammo carried from 1 mag to 2 mags. The Plasma gun now feels good to use, but it’s still an ammo hog. Additional ammo wouldn’t hurt.
Changes to Revolver(s):
-Increase reserve ammo for all marks to be over 100 rounds carried in reserve. I think the current ammo amount is not enough, and I’d like to be able to use this gun more with a Zealot or a Psyker.
-Increase Maniac damage done with the revolver(s) by 50%, matching the amount of dmg dealt to Unyielding enemies. I’m looking to make this revolver somewhat consistent here.
-I wish there’d be an option to toggle whether you want to reload the revolver with a speed loader or individually load rounds. Apparently the revolver in game reloaded with a speed loader when the gun was empty during the Alpha or thereabouts.
-Increase sprint of revolvers to match sprint speed of laspistol. I don’t get why you do not run faster with this gun out than with the Accatran mk 6d recon lasgun or the MG 4 Kantrael lasgun.
-Increase the weakspot damage dealt across the board. I’m thinking weakspot hits with the revolver deal x2 the amount of damage a bodyshot does.
Changes to Laspistol(s):
-I think this pistol is better than where it was a couple months ago, but I think that Fatshark is keeping the normal damage done against maniac and infested enemies with this pistol low so that it cannot effectively deal with disabler enemies. The trapper and mutie in game are maniac enemies, and the pox dog is an infested enemy. It’d be nice if the normal damage done against infested and maniac enemies be similar to unarmored enemies.
Changes to Lucius Helbore Lasguns:
-Possibly increase ADS zoom for all variants so aiming with the iron sights isn’t as bad as it is.
-New equip animations so swapping weapons isn’t monotonous. Perhaps increase swap speed as well?
-Lucius Mk 1 Helbore lasgun: I’d like its uncharged shot ammo consumption dropped from 3 to 2, matching it with the Mk 2 helbore. Also, increase the max damage done with this helbore from ~410 at 80% damage to something like ~480 at 80% damage.
-Lucius Mk 3 Helbore Lasgun: Increase it’s min damage from 150 to 240 dmg at 80% damage, and drop its uncharged shot ammo consumption from 4 to 3 . Also, increase its max damage from 480 to 640 and its max ammo consumed for a fully-charged shot from 9 to 8. My reasoning for the damage change here is if Fatshark releases Longlas rifles into the game, I guarantee you that one of the Longlas Marks is going to be dealing at or above 500 damage per shot, so it’d be nice to change this Helbore Mk to be competitive with the new Longlas rifles in the future.
Changes to Weapon Blessings:
-Increase Stripped Down’s blessing effects from 3%/5%/7%/9% bonus sprint speed to 6%/9%/12%/15% bonus sprint speed. I think this would make this blessing more appetizing over damage increasing blessings personally. Also, I would ask Fatshark to include the sprint speed bonus gained from the weapon to be included in the new sprint speed. Currently it seems like a Mk 6d recon lasgun with max mobility stats has the same sprint speed with Stripped Down equipped as a braced autogun with max mobility with Stripped Down currently.
-Increase the duration of the Ghost Blessing duration from 0.4s/0.6s/0.8s/1.0s to something like 1.0s/1.25s/1.5s/1.75s. Increase the duration of the Between the Eyes from 0.6s/0.7s/0.8s/0.9s to 1.0s/1.25s/1.5s/1.75s. Also increase the duration of Hit & Run from 0.4s/0.5s/0.6s/0.7s to something like 0.75s/1.0s/1.25s/1.5s. I personally want these changes to be applied to these blessing because the current active times for these blessings renders them unusable in shooter situations. There aren’t many situations in this game where you can constantly mow down shooters quickly.
-Increase damage with Dum Dum blessing on Infantry Autoguns and Recon Lasguns from 1.0%/1.5%/2.0%/2.5% damage increase to 2.0%/3.0%/4.0%/5.0% damage increase, matching the effect this blessing has with the heavy laspistol.
-Increase the durations of Deathspitter and Fire Frenzy from 1.75s on Autoguns and Recon Lasguns to 2.75s, matching the duration of this blessing on the shotguns. Furthermore, it’d be nice if Fatshark increased the power bonus given from Fire Frenzy by 50% for all weapons currently able to have this blessing applied to them; I recall Fatshark saying they were going to increase the power gained from this blessing for shotguns in a recent patch note, but it never came to fruition. Also, it’d be nice if Deathspitter could be applied when killing an enemy at any range. Now there is a logical reason to be taking Deathspitter over Fire Frenzy; it’s another take on Pinning Fire with different requirements to proc, and Pinning Fire can be procced at any distance.
-Reduce power bonus gained from Pinning Fire Blessing from 5%/10%/15%/20% to 2.5%/5.0%/7.5%/10%. This is so that this blessing isn’t the end all, be all blessing choice for the boltgun and the shredder autopistol.
-Increase the crit chance gained from Cavalcade for all tiers by 1%, matching this blessing’s crit chance bonus with other crit chance blessings.
-Increase damage/power gained from Opening Salvo and Sustained Fire from 7.5%/10%/12.5%/15% bonus damage to 10%/15%/20%/25% bonus damage. Furthermore, increase the damage bonus of Punishing Salvo from 5%/10%/15%/20%/ bonus weakspot damage to 30%/40%/50%/60% bonus weakspot damage (Fatshark has to do the funky way of calculating bonus damage gained from weakspot bonus damage perks and etc.). Also, I would like these blessing to reset faster when ADSing instead of hipfiring with the infantry autoguns, recon lasguns, helbore lasgun, revolvers, and infantry lasguns similarly to the headhunter autoguns. Currently these blessings reset faster with the aforementioned weapons when hipfiring instead of ADSing while the headhunter autoguns can reset Opening Salvo faster when ADSing instead of hipfiring.
-Fix issue of Surgical resetting when doing charged shot with Helbore lasguns.
-Double the damage bonus gained from Deadly Accurate for all tiers of this blessing. I think Fatshark wants this blessing to quickly end target when getting critical shots, but because of Fatshark doing the funky weakspot damage calculations, it’s not doing that much damage overall.
-Falter should be outright removed from the game and be sent back to the drawing board. I think that this blessing is 100% a Placebo effect as I can’t tell the difference as whether this blessing in particular is doing what it’s advertising, or not at all.
-Efficiency blessing needs its reset timer reduced down from 5.5s/5.0s/4,5s/4.0s to something like 1.25s/1.0s/0.75s/0.5s; the current iteration just doesn’t vibe with how fast paced the game can get when playing higher difficulties. Also, the +33% ammo saved mentioned on the blessing is actually +66% in game, so it’s doing more than it should or that’s how the Fatshark wants the blessing to work. Another alternative to this blessing is to have this blessing regen ammo when hitting weakspot hits, so something like 1.0%/1.5%/2.0%/2.5% is regained when hitting enemy weakspots.
-I think Full Bore on the shotguns should have its power bonus gained be doubled for all tiers, or allow this blessing to stack 3 times max. It’s kinda mediocre for shotguns other than the Agripinaa slug shot.
-Allow Scattershot blessing for shotguns to stack up to 5 times like the Headhunter blessing.
-Change Terrifying Barrage activation from close range kill to killing an enemy at any range. Maybe I can finally approach a gun line as a Psyker safely.
-Increase the effects of Powderburn on the shredder autopistol by 10% for all tiers. Also, it’d be nice if this blessing increased the hipfire accuracy of this pistol in a manner similar the bonuses gained for suppression and recoil. Turn the autopistol into a laser beam, lol.
-Double the power bonus gained from Trickshooter for revolvers so it feels like a high risk and high reward blessing. I think the tier 4 version of this with a max potential power gain of 20% is meh.
-I think the crit bonus chance gained from Point Blank on the revolver should be increased by 5% for all tiers. Surgical can provide more crit chance per blessing tier over Point Blank.
- The tier three and tier four version of Crucian Roulette on the revolver should be increased by 1%, matching the crit chance gained from Surgical. Likewise, increase effects of this blessing on the Headhuinter autoguns to .55% crit chance per empty chamber for tier three and .60% crit chance per empty chamber; this done for the sake of the Vraks Mk 7 headhunter autogun, which has a smaller magazine than the Vraks Mk 3 and Agripinaa Mk 9 headhunter autoguns.
-Increase the charge speed effect of the Volatile blessing for the Plasma gun by 1% for all four tiers.
-With the recent nerfs Flame dot dmg does against Flak-armored targets, I think the Infernus blessing on the recon lasguns should now match the Kantrael and helbore lasguns.
-Make reload speed bonus of Speedload match reload speed bonus of the Quick Flame blessing on the flamer.
-Inspiring Barrage blessing is not doing its advertised toughness regen like it says on the blessing description. It’d be nice if Fatshark could fix this. From my personal testing, I was only regenning ~17% of my toughness per full magazine fired with my zealot character.
-Showstopper on the flamer should have its chance to proc an explosion be doubled for all tiers, and I’d like the explosion to deal similar amounts of damage done by a Vet’s grenade. This is to offset the fact that the flamer had its stagger and dmg reduced against flak, maniac, and carapace armor.
-Overwhelming Fire blessing on Ogryn ripper guns should have its power bonus double for all tiers. Also, remove the fact that you have to hit the same target and instead change it to repeated range hits.
-Increase speed increase of Roaring Advance from 2.5%-10% to 15%-30%. I don’t have experience playing a heavy stubber with this blessing, but from my personal experience playing Back 4 Blood, where you can increase the speed while firing with different attachments, 10% is something that can’t really be felt. 30% move speed while firing is noticeable.
-Change so that Adhesive Charge can stick to Ogryn elite enemies in addition to monstrosities.
-Double the power bonus gained from Punishing Fire on the Kickback for all tiers.
Thus concludes my take on rebalancing ranged weapons in game. Feel free to share your thoughts about my balance chances. It took me a while to type this all out. I try to be thorough here. I’ll probably do something similar to melee weapons later.
