Now I cant remember where I heard this but I believe it is confirmed we are getting another class. The natural question is what will be the next class. Now I have seen a lot of speculation but after seeing the hive scum + arbitrator bundle it does make me think. These two are opposite ends of the setting, law vs outlaw, tank vs glass cannon, big weapons vs fast weapons etc. What if that will be the case with the next class.
Origionally I was thinking deathcult assassin is sort of the obvious shoe in for next class. Other then that the other options seem unlikely, I know I have seen people mention ratlings but (again cant remember where I heard this) I believe one of the devs said they aren’t doing that because snipers and very short characters both would cause issues with the game. However there is one possible class that perfectly fits as the exact polar opposite to skitarii and would make sense to exist on tertium, perhaps even also found due to expeditions.
Beastmen. I initially dismissed this as I am not sure if GW would like that, they haven’t really included loyalist beast men anywhere in a long time, but with them again giving some more attention to the guard it may be possible that they are looking that way (Beastman penal regiment would be very cool for tabletop if you ask me).
Beastmen are the exact perfect opposite to skitarii in any way. One is refined machinery the other is mutated flesh, one is using highly advanced weaponry the other is using scraps, one is emotionally reserved and chaste the other is loud and brash. It is such a perfect contrast in every way that if they don’t do this I will actually be pretty disappointed.
But that is just a pretty random prediction, I do wonder if anyone else has any compelling cases for what the next class will be.
If it’s not a Ratling then I don’t want to know! (I would begrudgingly accept a squat but really a ratling would fit the DT theme so perfectly). And yes the devs have mentioned not changing height before..but they have said a lot of things in the past and actually the skitarii is a towering monolith compared to other humans so who knows. Ratlings don’t have to just be snipers too.
EDIT: Go listen to the Wraithbone Phoenix audiobook and you’ll be wanting a Ratling class too
EDIT 2: I’d absolutely love a xeno to play as…I find Xenos way more interesting in 40k…but that seems very unlikely narratively speaking.
Also if they release anything before a map pack then i will be flipping many tables.
I really don’t think we’re going to get beastmen. They’re already extremely rare and typically maligned in the Imperium as abhorrent mutants, even if they could technically be useful. It would just seem oddly non-thematic if we’re playing an inquisition strike team rather than straight up frontline trench-meat cannon fodder (really the only place we’d plausibly see beastmen even allowed to exist).
I’m more inclined to think we’d get sub-classes for existing ones, like career specializations. Maybe even officers such as Commissars for veterans, astropaths for psykers, death-cult assassins for zealots, and stuff like that.
I’d rather see more map and story development, with new enemy types (enemy psykers) and special map-associated bosses like there was in VT2.
I fear it will be sisters or battle, better zealots all around, that’s my intuition.
Otherwise we can just check announcements for dlc to rogue trader and it’s next companion and maybe space marine 2 new class, all 3 games completely coincided with mechanicus theme releases, adding some kinda tech brotherhood representative and for arbiters release, rogue trader and darktide got same class, companion’s(dogs) and theme, at nearly same time.
Also we can consider VT 2 classes, from which darktide copies weaponry and skills, shivs and transonic blades from Kirillian, claw is the sword strike from Kruber grail knight, push ultimate on arbiter is from footknight. I think we can expect something like engineer whose ultimate will be some kinda heavy ranged weapon which he can use infinitely on cool down.
A scion with heavy weapon abilities would be cool. Unfortunately, it would further reinforce the theme of a better veteran with stuff that was ripped out of veteran now appearing in paid DLC classes.
We are playing as a penal legion and beastmen are historically most present in penal legions. I imagine we could encounter a beastmen herd in the wastes on the planet who agree to work with the inquisition to remove the heretics encroaching on their territory. Beastmen are actually sanctioned abhumans and are not mutant, so they are allowed to exist as long as they are useful, perhaps they work mines out in the wastes that would kill normal humans or something. There are ways to make them work.
Devs did confirm they are working on a new class Im just speculating on what it is.
I just don’t really see it happening. Its technically possible, a squat mercenary could also work and be not as short as ratlings anyways. But people do primarily know ratlings as snipers and darktide is a game where snipers just don’t work so they would need to add ratlings as something that 90% of people dont associate them with.
listen to the The Wraithbone Phoenix (a really fun auidobook that follows the antics of an Ogryn and Ratling pair of misfits) and look at the latest Ratling Kill Team box…they can be sappers, demo experts, sneaks, mechanic experts, and lots of things that could be turned into very different gameplay mechanics to what we are used to…which is what we need. It needs to be totally different.
I made a whole thread covering various ideas for Ratling class a while back so I will save repeating it here. But there are lots of ways it could work.
If Ogryn hadn’t been released yet and it was just all human sized classes then the same people would shout “iTs iMpOsSiBlE!” at the concept of an Ogryn too. They just lack imagination
Literally anything can be made to work and be fun. It just takes good designers to smash a whiteboard for a while and play with prototypes. Thematically they are absolutely perfect as a class IMO.
I would say it is something that can share a weapon pool with humans or ogryn. A xenos would be cool and orks, beastmen or kroot could have some synergies, although im not deep in the lore.
i just hope its not a sister of battle which can be easily role played as zealot.
I know of that book, Im going to be listening to Dredge Runners soonish (probably) and that is the same characters as that book.
But anyways my point is that if you ask the average 40k fan what comes to mind when you say ratling they are going to say “Short, sniper, hairy, annoying” not necessarily in that order. So that is just what they are known for, its like if they added ogryn and they were using precision weapons and elegant sabers lol.
Also I mean its just what the devs said and I can definitely see how a super short character would break multiple maps. Its definitly a much bigger issue then a large character. A large character you just need to make the doorways wide enough, a small character would probably have a really easy time getting out of bounds or getting into inaccessible areas. It would require a lot of tweaking to many levels to make sure that isnt a issue.
The view from the character could be a fair bit higher than people think tbh. Camera could be tweaked and the physical height could probably be pushed closer to chest height of humans so it’s not exactly like a rodents viewpoint as people are imagining in their heads.
I wouldn’t worry about that. 2 seconds of gameplay footage or a peruse of abilities etc and all that prejudice will evaporate.
Hive scum was absolutely torn to smithereens with “generic man with gun” comments but the designers made it fun nevertheless.
People like to imagine problems without bothering to imagine the solutions to those problems. Easier to dismiss than problem-solve.
1 of the source for there still being classes planned:
Betting on Sister of Battle sourced class next, to avoid being too close to the Zealot, being set around their Faith Magic as the core of the class.
But I could see the following classes being planned:
Beastmen: FS being used as the introduction of the new Beastmen lore
→ Special mechanic: Either sharing some weapons with the Ogryn, or having some bestial aspects
Adept: being set around various advances
→ Special Mechanic: like the Scum, gain access to a second talent tab, with multiple tree that modify how it’s various abilities work
Except that Ogryn by its core design are melee beasts, and that it isn’t really the same situation, if one was to try to argue that an Ogre should work in Vt2 then yes that would be a good comparison, but here the maps are made with Ogryn and medium, not small and medium.
An abhuman that pretty much is solely based around being excellent Snipers wouldn’t play quite well here.
You’ve not listened to the Wraithbone phoenix then, where ratlings put up good fights and knock out a human in a fight etc.
Lore changes and can be stretched like clay in areas. I’m sure there’s lots of stuff written years ago that is no longer relevent…yet everyone loves clinging to old lore exclusively for ratlings for some reason.
Besides, they make good snipers, not because they are short, but because they are exceptional marksman and that could be using other weapons too. But I’d like to see the gizmo/contraption mechanic and sapper/explosions experts explored. Could be some really fun gameplay there.
Yeah they could stretch it a bit, those are pretty old numbers. Not sure if there are any new numbers for them though. Still them being like short human height kind of spoils some of the appeal doesn’t it?
I just mention that a votann mercinary would work better since they could bring a lot of cool and unique weapons and also be just short human height instead of tiny. (Plus then they could add the highly exclusive Dwarves tag on steam, and think of like a drill arm or something)
Not saying its impossible. It could work, I’m just trying to predict what the next class will be and this seems like a lot more work then other options.
Well faith magic can work but currently in lore in 40k there isnt really much in the way of faith magic. GW is a bit wishywashy on it with some questionable recent lore decisions regarding it. But I don’t see us getting someone able to cast faith magic in this game beyond what we already have. Maybe like a miracles tab like hive scum has their stim lab maybe. But I just dont know how they could do it without it just being a zealot+.
Next class is almost certainly going to be Sororitas. It fits perfectly on basically every metric, with the sole issue being that Zealot has strong thematic overlap with Sister Repentias. But they can just ignore the Repentia fantasy for the Sisters class and focus more on the “Bolter Bitches” fantasy. There’s a whole army full of Sister variants that could be explored in Darktide and would fit very well (for example, just off the top of my head, you could have a skill tree split into Dominion, Retributor, and Seraphim that focus on melee, range, and mobility respectively).
And there’s both a historical in-universe trend of the Sororitas being dispatched to assist the Ordo Malleus in dealing with heretical nonsense, and multiple mentions in-game already of the Order of Messelina Vengeant being active in the system. It would make perfect sense for them to volunteer and/or be conscripted into the warband to help put an end to the fighting in Tertium.
The whole Acts of Faith is still used in both the TT and the newer rpg. And also in some games like Inquisitor Martyr (though debatable source at the very least.)
As for the Zealot thing, if Zealot is focusing on aggressive gameplay, I’d see the Sister more toward the controlling field action and keeping things right.
