Pinning fire, brutal momentum and boltgun

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
61

Look, Bolter being good in specifically HiStg isn’t the end all be all. Surge is also a weapon that overperforms. If the game drowns you in specials of course a high dps weapon will be a good addition when you can just lay into the congo line.

I think there is 2 important things.

  1. If you use feats to fix the downsides a bolter has like reload feats (apart from ult) you won’t have bleed nades. If you run anti-shooter ult, you won’t get close to the legend of clearing rooms in seconds.
  2. When evaluating other weapons the ability that you can run nades and anti-shooter for free should be put into the equalation.

Plasma I find worse than Bolter only because it has the worst ammo economy in the game. If you are allowed to pick up around half of the spawning ammo, or if there are 2 ammo crates on the map, it’s already better up until HiStg where being ammo negative on all elite kills pushes it down again. Plasma is also far better starting at mid-range being very precise, and you can shoot through cover and walls.

Braced Autogun can actually lay into hordes and clear them. You can one-shot pox walkers with it once a few stack of damage boost are triggered. You have the ammo to do it, you also kill around 2 with each shot. Braced’s ammo eco is so good that you can basically go the whole game only using ranged on vet. It’s also good on elites and specials outside ogryns, but that’s what grenades are for.

Lasgun is vastly superior against shooters. If your aim is good enough you can match or overtake bolter on specials in most situations in TTK, and it never ever runs out. Again you also have bleed nades to clear encounters, hordes, whatever you like. Again on Stg falls off a bit, but on HiD is just better.

Autopistol… I won’t even talk about it. It’s just nuts.

I’m not saying Bolter isn’t good, it just isn’t OP compared to other options.

I have a pretty cracked one on Zealot and one on Vet and sometimes pull it out to see if I’m still sane (since the bolter players I see aren’t anything you describe can do) and while I am able to delete a lot of things, I just don’t see what all the fuss about. I don’t think the game should be balanced around what’s good or not on HiD Stg specifically.

PS: Although on Zealot I find ammo dumps sometimes more nuts due to the 3 bullet/Crusher cos of the ult interaction, but that’s a very specific “feature”. If the weapon wouldn’t clash with my playstyle on Zealot that much, I’d probably run it there instead of braced.

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62

Before taking about any further nerf (justified or not) or buffs(unjustified or not) - first we need to overload Fatshark with messages about improving crafting system. Every single new thread every day - Improve the Crafting system. Devstrem - every chat message - Improve the crafting system. Announcement of new patch - Improve the crafting system

After actual improvement of crafting system is done and it’s more friendly to players and respects our time - then and only then we can talk about Nerfs and Buffs to items - it will be less painful to get new one or modify existing one - after each balance change. Currently it’s too painful to use and makes players feel miserable.

After it’s done - Fatshark can turn Boltgun into a Nerfgun, and Antax MK V with BM into wet noodle - i will not give a single kark. Because it will be easy to switch to another weapon and modify it to fit new meta.

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63

I absolutely agree with this part.
Also, because being able to use weapons with 100% stats, would already change the balance between the weapons due to new breakpoints being hit.

There is a reasonable amount of diversity in regard to the weapons being used by players of all classes.
No weapon in the game right now, overperforms to such a degree that party members suffer from boredom when someone uses it.

Fix crafting:

  • perk selection from a list
  • removal of perk/blessing locks
  • ability to upgrade all weapon modifiers to 100%
  • option to buy specific blessings to circumvent bad rng

Let us play around with the weapons at their full potential (all stats 100% and free choice of perks and blessings).
Maybe add a 6th difficulty.

Only then, it is reasonable to spend lots of time and effort on proper balancing of the different weapons.

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In theory I am with you on most of these changes, except for the increase in stagger resistance simply because that would necessitate players pushing more and considering how whack stamina regen is already, I’m not sure that would feel good to play.

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Same with a PS activated… except it is one-shot in one strike…
I don’t know what you have against CAxe. Yes it is a strong weapon, but no more than a PS.

Again… same happen with the PS, except that it is not only one enemy, but a pack of enemies.
And for elite, 2 strikes and “you one-shot an enemy”

back on boltgun

In my opinion, Boltgun is really efficient, with pinning fire or without. So, pinning fire is really not the problem. Shattering impact has a big impact on the damage dealt. But here, also, with or without the boltgun is really efficient.

I don’t say they have to nerf it, just that it is in the top of ranged weapons… and that pinning fire is not the problem at all.
So, if the OP thinks that the boltgun is too powerful, it is not pinning fire that has to be nerfed… but the weapon itself.
Tbh, I don’t think that the game needs now a new nerf. It needs new missions, new subclasses.

tbh, I would say that I am really tired of threads about crafting…
Also, it should not have meta in the game… but normal weapons (blade, CA, Sword) / special weapons (PS, chainsword etc.) and both should be balanced.
Special should have great special attack… but at the end, everything should be balanced.

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Seriously what kind of logic is that… so if you want to have X, then you can´t have Y? Isn´t that a case at every time no matter the weapon?
And if the bleeding-nates are so strong that they´re worth to be called like… “You need to sacrifize them…”, then maybe they´re too powerful across the feats aswell?

Bolter is not only on Vet available and you don´t need some sick rolls. A white bolter with a bit of damage is enough to shred through enemies. A LOT OF OTHER WEAPONS JUST CAN´T DO THAT.

Vet is just the “bolter premium edition”. You´re in a bad situation? Bambambambambam… bolter cleared it. And if this is not enough… hey… press F and continue shooting! The ammofeat pretty much doubles the effectiveness of a bolter and is what you want in bad situations.
The other 2 feats aren´t bad at all and yes, they might help to prevent from such situations, but they´re also clearly not needed to perform with a bolter.

Everything Vet can bring is just the cherry of the cake of range-weapons, meanwhile bolter will always be the top of the cake because the basestats are so extremely strong it´s insane.

It´s definately not like “But i´ve to sacrifize other feats for the bolter…”. No, you don´t have to, because bolter doesn´t need any feats to be the weapon for pretty much any situation. But choosing some perks will suddenly increase its performance by miles.
Other weapons might be strong aswell, but definately not that strong.

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67

Sounds like a Zealot problem. Caxe is undeniably strong on Vet. I don’t play a lot of axe on Zealot because I have a godroll crusher, but I imagine it’s pretty busted.

On Vet you can build around a lot of that, including the ult issue. The only real drawback it has that can’t be worked around is the recoil, which is really just a matter of slowing down your rate of fire a little. Whatever you think of it’s overall place in balance, it’s far and away the most versatile ranged option available to both Vet and Zealot.

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68

Seriously… he complains that a melee oriented class is good at… melee
And the one shot after 2 strikes… I have loved.
Off course that you have to aim for the head as a zealot… or you loose lot of DPS.
Seriously, Zealot doesn’t record top DPS cause of their axe… or there would be a long time we would see datas about that.
Maybe it is normal that a class oriented melee do better than the vet that already has strongest ranged weapons DPS and that has a PS that can compete easily with a CAxe.

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69

The logic is that you have to make tradeoffs. You have to take the other feats into account when picking something else to compare Bolter to. It’s not that complicated.

Even if you do, other weapons overtake it in certain situations or in general depending on the weapon you are currently comparing it to. The same goes for saying something like Autopistol isn’t as good against shields… Who cares you can just throw grenades to clear them.

Zealot is good in melee period. My problem isn’t that Ogryn and Zealot is and always was the best close-range classes with the highest survival miles ahead of the other 2 classes.

My problem is that for me getting one-shots on the body is pretty dull gameplay when you just spam the fast light attacks.

I don’t know what you are talking about, it’s pretty easy to top DPS charts with Caxe Zealot unless there is an ogryn on the team.

It’s kinda ridiculous cos of the insane amount of survivability Ogryn and Zealot have compared to other classes, but currently, it’s also pretty easy to bring top DPS with them too… Or in Ogryn’s case, that’s just a given if you bring the damage option weapons.

Caxe is still a lot better than PS even on Sharpshooter.

Again let me get this straight.

We have 4 weapons that straight up perform better than Bolter on vet (K12, Helbore, Braced, Autopistol), with plasma on the side that is also better, but it has ammo issues. The only place where Bolter is a top contender for usefulness and power is HiD Stg… Yeah, it’s well-balanced.

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Off course… Zealot is based on the fact they can avoid the death.
Ogryn is a pure tank *why it does so many damages??). So, we can agree on this.

About the one shot… I must admit that I one shot a lot with my zealot. I won’t expose the why… I don’t want to see call for nerfs :stuck_out_tongue:
But what do I one-shot? poxwalkers, groaners, dreg unarmoured… Something an Ogryn one-shot and something I kill by pack of with the PS of my veteran.

Ogryn I would agree… but what does the best DPS is a psyker that plays it well (so not me… lol).
I have also seen lot of veteran getting best DPS (especially with bolter).
From my experience, this is not zealot that are recording, always and naturally, best DPS.
Sure I don’t pay attention when there is a small difference, but I pay attention when I see a big gap. And here, this is Ogryn and Veterans with bolter (but have seen also vet with inf autogun and also plasma, but the last is rare)
Only zealot I see doing great DPS nowadays is a zealot with heavy sword (so not a Caxe).

Precision: I verified the scoreboard history. Biggest gap are with Ogryn, for sure, and also veterans. Zealot are trully in good position, but sometimes just in top by few, or just under the top by few.

Well, I don’t like K12 and Helbore… but I have never seen in top DPS player using such weapons. This is good weapons, I agree on this… but I don’t remind one time where I wondered what the guy with top DPS had as weapon and blessings and found it was one of these weapons…

But, lot of time I have seen someone with a bolter with biggest damage dealt. And also, and it surprised me, infantry autogun (3 times). I tried this gun, but I am actually bad with it and would need more practice to be able to judge it.

Well, let’s agree that we disagree on this. My main is a zealot, but I play a lot veteran (second class I play as I have 2 veterans). Caxe has always been my favorite weapon, even when lot of people were using combat blade. However, with my vet, I use PS cause, as I said you several times, it is, at least for me, more efficient than a Caxe.
But let’s be honest… I think that I will use more and more Boltgun + heavy sword, considering that I have now 2 excellent heavy swords. I have just received a MK IX with Rampage T4 and headtaker T4…

71

It’s easily the best allrounder. It’s true that other weapons perform better in particular situations, but nothing else does everything as well as the bolter does. It snipes elites/specials, it oneshots most everything else, it nukes entire columns of hordes in a single shot, it laughs at all flavours of ogryn AND it penetrates light cover. And all of that only costs me a little trigger discipline and enough foresight to pull it out a little sooner. The only reason I don’t use it all the time is because I want some variety in my gameplay. The only thing it really struggles with is huge numbers of spread out enemies, which is often just a matter of positioning.

I really feel like a lot of the “bolter aint’ all that” talk comes from it feeling clunky to use, which is totally understandable when you compare it to the smoothness and user-friendliness of basically every other ranged weapon.

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72

Yes this ability should be changed to a reload speed buff rather than an instant reload. But leaving that aside bolters are strong weapons and shouldn’t be balanced against other weapons based on damage or flexibility. It should be balanced by doing what fatshark did by giving it other drawbacks like low magazine capacity, slow switch times, bad recoil management, etc. This is where i would reprise my arguement that if anything at all was to be changed about the bolter it would be hipfire mag-dump accuracy. I also think it should not stagger bulwarks out of their shields.

Even still, i am not really seeing the “this is insane” tier BS on the bolter weapon that i do see in others. The numbers on a good blaze away+pinning fire autopistol are really outlandish for a weapon shooting LOL SPACE 9mm out of quad stacked mags in a simulacra of a VZ 61 scorpion.

You just described a bolter.

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74

I’m guessing you’re moving the discussion in a lore direction here? While I agree that lore should play a role in how weapons are presented, I also think that concessions should be made in the interest of engaging gameplay.

And before that gets taken the wrong way, I’m not arguing for or against nerfs to the bolter. I’m only talking about it’s current place in this game.

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75

Tbh, and I said it before, FS should not nerf any weapon. Why? cause the 2 last nerf are yet not even well understood.
Several have think that it was the end of flamer… that’s wrong
Several think that FS killed the PS… that’s totally wrong

However, what matters is how it is perceived. And it takes time that players realize that. FS doesn’t need new complaints.
So, they should focus on:

  • new contents (map / missions / subclasses)
  • deliver cosmetics that are already in game
  • fixing bugs that impact gameplay and balance of weapons (mainly bugs that concern blessings)
  • buff the weapons that really need it (catachan sword by example, ammo for revolver shotgun and infantry gun as second example)

Then, we will be able to speak about nerf.
But, tbh, I suspect they work on the port for console. Yes we see more content. But, it is delayed content, not new created content.

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76

And i have yet to see solid evidence that its place in the balance is out of whack.

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77

Show me where I suggested that it is.

78

I believe the majority of my post was aimed at Darth_Angel. But was under the impression that you were making the case that the bolter is too flexible and that made it a significant outliar in the balance. Am i wrong?

79

The majority of a one-line response in a post directed at me was mostly meant for darth? Ok then…

Actually you’re correct, I do think it’s an outlier in terms of versatility, though many people consider its clunkiness and weakness in specific circumstances to be a reasonable price for that. I’m not so sure about that, though.

80

Pinning fire DOUBLES your damage and stagger, is trivial to build max stacks, and persists on missing shots. It blows my mind that people try to justify it as not being obviously overpowered.

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81

If everything is OP nothing is.

  • Pinning fire: +100% power
  • Slaughterer: +75% power
  • Headtaker: 25-75% power
  • Decimator: 50% power
  • Blaze away: 50% power

There are also smaller bonuses that are very impactful on other ranged weapons like full bore and deathspitter.

Depending on the weapons these can even be stacked stacked, and they stack multiplicatively with each other. FS: Slaugterer+Unstable Power, Caxe/Taxe: Headtaker+Decimator…

The examples could continue…

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