Pinning fire, brutal momentum and boltgun

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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As been said, you´ll always do that. There is no “trade-off” you try to make up here. If you pick other weapons, you´ll choose probably what assists them in some way aswell.
So no, it doesn´t have to be taken into account since bolter doesn´t even rely on any of those feats, not even blessings. While dozens of other weapons are only “useful for a majority” if you go build X with weapon X, the bolter will always be a bolter even without building around it.

Not to mention again, that the drawbacks are a joke. A Vet CAN negate them, but DON`T HAVE TO. Just go for your bleed-nades, a bolter won´t care about it. And the ultimates are all viable, there´s just one that is obviously the best choice.
It´s just about the basestats, nothing else… pick the topic: Pinning fire or BM are actually needed to let other weapons perform somehow like a standard bolter.

Blessings and their exeggeration is another issue and it would be nice if poeple would actually look at the weapons in its core. Being like “the weapon is useless, but it has slaughterer, pinning fire, BM” or whatever is bs. The balance SHOULDN`T be based on the blessings you could pick or not, when half of them offer utility only and the other half is just a no-choice because there is a handful of broken ones.
Again… bolter outshines every other weapon in basestats and the possibilities coming with it and you don´t need godrolls to have them. Just pick a white Bolter with maybe 40% and let it compete with a white autopistol with 80% damage on damnation. The autopistol will probably kill 1-2 rager with 1 magazine, while the bolter still kills everything in front of you with 1 magazine aswell.

Yes, maybe it should be this way and it needs other drawbacks to care for. But the drawbacks it has are a joke. Ammo is everywhere and handling is a joke since poeple will get used to it very fast. The possibility to dodge / dodgeslide or the stuff a Vet can bring with it outweigh the bit of drawbacks at any time aswell.

Poeple do understand, they just don´t want it to be a thing, because they´re so deep in lore or heavily relied on such “fun-weapons”.

It happens in every game and if “suddenly” (yes suddenly xD) the nerfhammer comes, poeple are like “I just grinded XY because it´s so much fun and the only way the weapon is viable, blabla…”.
So how does poeple actually KNOW that it´s that much fun to play, if they never had those godrolls, blessings, or the weapon itself? HOW DO THEY KNOW?
I guess because the internet tells that the stuff is so strong it seems to come from another universe… And so far the most NEVER chose the weapon because it´s fun, they chose it because it´s powerful, too powerful…
((Which last in some neurons being activated since you can kill stuff easily and get free-win rewards, so your head is gonna be like “Wuhu… i´m strong, i did it, i carried, look at me and my numbers!”. That´s the fun and also reason why so many dumbed down games with shiny rewards or even FOMO exist and are real cashmakers. And it´s like i say all weapons are viable to clear damnation even without blessings. But hey, it´s more efford and the “good feeling of being great” is missing if you need 3-4 swings for a poxwalker. I would even go so far to tell that a lot of poeple need it these days to push their self-consciousness or as a vent, because the RL doesn´t have such shiny rewards that let you feel great, unless we talk about sugar.))

If everything is op, then everything is…

Yes, if everything is busted, then we´ve balance between the weapons or blessings, but it doesn´t mean that it´s balanced in relation to the game itself.
If you compare weapons or blessings only, then you can clearly say which one is stronger, which one is weaker, or if both are somewhat even. But you can only tell if they´re useless, busted or in a good spot if you take the stuff the game is throwing on you in mind.

So if we bring every weapon on the level of a bolter, or blessings on the level of pinning fire / BM, then we´ve a serious issue and the game will be boring af within 3 runs. (But hey, it already is without high int shocktroop?! Says enough and i still don´t get, why poeple can´t see all those balance issues if they actually need the last difficulty available to have some sort of fun… might rely on "Me killed a lot of stuff, me good! But then FS just need to throw 4k enemies on us on malice i guess…)

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  • Pinning fire: +100% power
    Requirement to build stacks: Shoot and hit 5 times.
    Requirement to keep stacks: Shoot and hit another thing within ~3 seconds.

  • Slaughterer: +75% power
    Requirement to build stacks: Kill 5 things.
    Requirement to keep stacks: Kill another thing within 2 seconds.

  • Headtaker: 75% power
    Requirement to build stacks: Hit things 5 times with melee.
    Requirement to keep stacks: Hit another thing with melee within 3 seconds.

  • Decimator: 50% power
    Requirement to build stacks: Hit things 11 times with melee in a row without missing, or blocking, or stopping, etc.
    Requirement to keep stacks: Keep hitting things without missing, or blocking, or stopping.

  • Blaze away: 50% power
    Requirement to build stacks: Hold down fire for some number of rounds.
    Requirement to keep stacks: Keep holding down fire.

Did you notice the easiest to trigger and keep is also the biggest buff, sounds super well balanced. And in any case, you’ve listed off the meta blessings, all of which are considered the strongest picks on their respective weapons. Pinning fire is the most out of balance, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them all get touched by a patch.

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84

Just to clear something up, power bonuses stack additively with each other. They stack multiplicatively with straight damage increases. Partially why Rampage HT Heavy sword is so strong. One high value power increase combined with another high value damage increase. Multiplicative damage increase as a consequence. Or autopistol on Psyker. Up to +150% power combo’d with up to +50% damage (more realistically hovers around +30% on gun builds but that’s still 2.5 X 1.3 = 3.25 X damage dealt).

So no, slaughter and unstable stack additively with each other because they’re both power, however stack multiplicatively with warp syphon and warp unleashed, which is a butt tonne of damage overall. Same goes for HT + Decimator on Caxe, but on Zealot/Psyker that total power bonus is being multiplied by those class’ +damage bonuses.

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At least try to get the numbers right if you’re going to make a post like this. Headtaker is 25% on all weapons except heavy sword afaik.

Fun fact: Decimator reaches full stacks in 3 hits on weapons that hit multiple targets per hit, like Caxe.

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That’s my problem with this weapon. Like Caxe / PS have also the same problem as melee weapon.
However, for the boltgun… this is far above the two melee weapons I quoted.
The question is “what needs to be done to balance this weapon?”
I agree that it should not be damages… but obviously what is around the weapon (stability, move, ammo clip etc.).
Again this doesn’t mean that there would not a need to adjust also blessings.

That’s not what I said.
I say that the problem is not pinning fire itself… but the gun itself.
This doesn’t mean that there’s no need to adjust also pinning fire.
But adjusting pinning fire without starting by tweaking the weapon, won’t change anything.

Totally agree about this.
We need:

  • balance of feats seen as a balance between classes
  • balance of weapons between the weapon themselves. Weapons need to be compared between them without any blessing
  • balance of blessings between them. A blessing should give you a bonus, but not make a weapon something god like.

I agree with you. I know that we will need nerfs / buffs. However, what I say is… later.
I am the first that would want a balance between weapon. When I see the revolvers, I cry. This weapon is so bad…
When I see shotgun, I see that revolver is the worst gun you can bring.
And when I see a boltgun… I see that there is a balance problem

About BM, I would hate that this blessing becomes useless like devastating strike. However, if they find something good to balance this blessing I am totally in favor (and they can deploy the change for devastating strike and also deathblow).
But, I would not push for such changes cause last patch has hurt so badly players… that I think we need a pause.

Don’t get me wrong. I am totally for a balance between weapons and adjustments on blessings, for one main reason. I love to vary my games. I love to test something new. I love to see various weapons. And so, any god like blessing / weapon goes against this.
What I don’t like is to see a blessing totally useless.
As you pointed, a white bolter is already extremely strong. Pinning fire has nothing to do with the fact that this weapon is strong. I don’t say that FS doesn’t need to tweak this blessing, I say that if players think the bolter is terribly strong, it is not cause of this blessing.

I have no problem with a reduction of the bonus when a blessing is too strong, same for feats.
However, and I don’t think this is what you wanted to say, we cannot compare weapons with taking in consideration feats of the class.
Feats have to be balanced also. But weapons have to be balanced between them.

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Yeah you’re correct I was not trying to say that. My comment had nothing to do with balance and was meant to imply nothing about balance. I was just trying to clear up what seemed to be a misunderstanding, where the claim was made that power bonuses stack multiplicatively with each other.

They do not, that was all I was trying to say really, the aside on how they stack with non power damage increases was just for clarity.

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Just wanted to add that it shouldn´t be just a bonus in general.

I mean, we´ve already different blessings on different weapons and i don´t mind that they´re are more or less powerful based on the weapon they´re on. But i also think that they should be tweaked per weapon.
So if pinning fire is too strong on weapon X thanks to a high sps or something, then it should get tweaked for this weapon, while it should stay like it is on others.

A perfect example would be the revolver and crucian roulette compared to guns with more ammo capacity.

As been stated multiple times, it´s actually a flaw in its own design, but it´s also a perfect example “how to tweak blessings on different weapons”.
I don´t mind if it assists waveclear on an “ok weapon”, but it shouldn´t negate the only drawback from high dps single-target weapons. So a tweak could actually be that the cleave damage gets hardly downscaled or that it lasts for 2 swings and then goes on cooldown for 3s or something.

I actually do think that any blessing that is not something like “You can use your primary while sprinting.” should come with rules, drawbacks and limitations that matter. Killing an enemy on weakspot with a weapon that only has overhead-attacks and oneshots everything which is not an elite is really no condition to care about.

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I agree

Fact is… Caxe was not a cleaving weapon in VT2 (at least it seems… I can only report what I’ve read as I did not play this game). It is not the same in Darktide. In Darktide a CAxe is a cleaving weapon. Like Taxe is also a cleaving weapon.
So, BM brings an help to this.
Is this help too strong? Maybe. I must admit that, when you go from a Caxe without BM to one with BM… you see a big difference.
Doing the contrary shows also that Caxe without BM can do great. This is not like with BM, and that’s fine, however it can cleave well.
My concern is that BM should not become useless, cause it would only lower the number of gameplay possibilities.

Then, you would need same tweaks for the PS and illisi…in fact the special action gives you a cleave effect that is worst than the BM blessing.

I would say that it is exaggerated.

BM should, so, adjusted to the weapon and not be so strong than everybody don’t envisage anything without this blessing.
A number of swings could be an answer. But I am not even sure about this.
I repeat, my concern is that we already have so many useless blessings that I would hate that BM becomes one of them (one more).
If they nerf it like they did about devastating strike… they should remove all blessings if the blessing balance is making, one by one, them totally useless (again a total freedom to build our weapon with a number of points that force you to choose the strength and weakness of a weapon would have been a better system).

So, to summarize:

  • i am not against a balance of BM that would change the way it works
  • Caxe is a cleaving weapon (even it was not in VT2, but we are not in VT2… and that’s great cause I would not play this game otherwise)
  • The change should impact also how deathblow and devastating strike work
  • The change has to not make BM useless… and be balanced considering PS and Illisi force sword
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I´ve played a lot of axes on any character in V2 and they similar to what we´ve here without BM. I pretty much do the same if i play them aswell… light attack spam and push every 3 hits. What´s already better here is the heavy that easily staggers everything.
I do get the wish for more waveclear and know why BM is a thing, but it´s actually just too hard, especially while i always considers axes to be fine in general. (I mean, just pick a range-weapon for better waveclear if it´s needed…)

If BM stays, we just need weapon-specialized drawbacks. Maybe you shouldn´t be able to penetrate armor that well on light attacks anymore, maybe what i claimed above already… there are ways, it just needs to happen without touching the base-stats of the weapon. The drawback needs to be 100% on the blessing and once it´s done, other blessings will be more viable options aswell. (And this should be, as been said, a thing in general.)

I always considers those 10+ cleave targets too strong so. PS and Illisi are still weapons that FS needs to look into. As been said in various thread aswell, weapons should either have one niche or the other… and when they´re made allrounders, they shouldn´t overshine everything else. Strong specials should get drawbacks in general i guess.

I´m actually at a point where i would like to see player-interaction instead of fixed weapons. So let´s say you´ve 4 points to set and every weapon comes with 1/5 waveclear - 1/5 armorpen. So the player itself could decide if they want to tweak the weapon on 5/5 in a niche, or go 2/5 + 4/5 etc…
Just a short example how FS could bring more depth and personality to the gameplay itself. They could even come with like 20 skillpoints you actually set by yourself in “first target”, “mobility” and so on by yourself aswell. In that way everyone can tweak stuff without the need of something like BM or so that bypasses all balancing.

91

Interesting proposal
Someone has also proposed that the weakness of Caxe should be maniacs.

But I agree with the general idea that, every weapon should have a weakness.

I totally agree on this

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How about giving the BM cleave the same treatment as some of the activated weapon specials?
Keep the cleave infinite against non tagable enemies, but make the attack stop when hitting a meaty target (elite or non sniper special).
So instead of “ignore enemy hitmass” it would “ignore hitmass of minor enemies”.

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I would need to check it out for every weapon with BM available, but looking at the axes, which get the biggest buff out of it, i would say it doesn´t really matter.

I mean you can light-attack elites down anyway. And against the bigger targets you´ll probably go for a heavy and they don´t die asap, so it´s hard to make use of BM anyway. Not to mention if elites are within a horde, you would still hit them hard just by killing the trash around it. And i mean… axes are made to deal with elites and not horde so…

I actually thought about the following:

  • When BM proccs, you´ll get 4 stacks of BM that allow you to ignore hitmass for up 4 swings.
  • If you hit 3 or less targets, you´ll only lose 1 stack of BM.
  • If you hit 4 or more targets, you´ll lose 2 stacks at once.
  • If you´ve only 1 stack of BM left, cleave is limited to a maximum of 4 targets. (Yes 4, not 3)
  • BM can´t be reactivated as long as you´ve 1 or more stacks available.

EDIT: Just to mention, those stacks would stay even in general downtimes. It´ll decrease the effectiveness if you fight permanently against a horde, but it offers other options like killing 1 add and go in with 4 stacks into the next horde.
So overall we just take the power from one end and put it at the other where poeple could safe those stacks.

Numbers are not fixed of course. Could be something to fix the specials of PS / Illisi aswell. Players wouldn´t be that limited for a reactivation, but lose extra swings if they hit a huge amount of enemies anyway.

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This means having forced downtime and sounds very annoying.
Also, your idea sounds a bit too complicated to be understandable by most players, especially based on a condensed and short description for a blessing.

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It´s just one weakspot-kill to trigger it again in a horde so…

We really need some kind of downtime to keep it still strong, otherwise it needs to be nerfed hard in cleave-power or should get removed from the game or atleast from axes. And that´s nobody want i guess.

EDIT: Just to mention, those stacks would stay even in general downtimes. It´ll decrease the effectiveness if you fight permanently against a horde, but it offers other options like killing 1 add and go in with 4 stacks into the next horde.
So overall we just take the power from one end and put it at the other where poeple could safe those stacks.

I mean the most descriptions are bad anyway. You get X power, so what is power? There it already starts…
Some more info-popups if you hover with the mouse over the blessings or perks/ stats shouldn´t be a big deal in general.

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Thanks for the correction. I trust your knowledge about these things.

Fixed it to the best of my knowledge.

I’d say stacking can be easier on other blessings, especially with dot effects. Upkeep is also questionable especially on bolter when stacks will be reset on normal (anything apart from vet ult) reload.

While in the vacuum the percentage bonus is larger, it doesn’t automatically make the weapon+blessing combo stronger.

Example: Heavy Sword has the special 75% power headtaker and it doesn’t make it stronger than Caxe which has the 25% version, they are about the same strength.

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This is why you NEVER balance games around what the vocal minority of players on forums say. Gamers will ALWAYS use the most optimal choices in games to maximize their win-rates. That’s how being competitive works. Just because something is popular doesn’t make it ‘overpowered’ or ‘needing nerfs’.

Imagine the NBA banning the Euro-step, or the NFL banning double tight-end plays, or the NHL banning Butterfly goaltending. Armchair game balancers are so cringe it hurts. Only follow the analytics when it comes to nerfs or buffs.

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That’s not a great example. Sports leagues (including those you’ve listed) have banned plenty of things over the years, from tactics to gear to performance enhancers and more. Motor racing practically has a tradition of exploiting holes in rules and getting new things banned.

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If you have played a zealot seriously, you know that you cannot compare a combat axe and an heavy sword…

Combat axe: versatile, big damages, excellent against flak armor, good against carapace, slower swings than HS
Heavy Sword: horde clearer, cannot attack anything with carapace, bad against flak armor, faster than CA

CA is ideal for dealing with any threat. The heavy sword is good against the horde, unarmored and maniacs.
With a heavy sword you can take down a horde faster than any other weapon. You can also get the highest damage dealt in the “scoreboard”. However, an HS can’t allow you to deal with Chaos Ogryns and you’re not really effective against a flak armored enemy.
On the contrary, with a CA, a dreg rager is dangerous (and not with the HS, at least with the MKVI and MKVII). Killing a horde can be done effectively, especially with BM, but never as fast as with an HS.
There are too many differences between these two weapons to think of comparing them.

We have to compare weapons without taking into account the blessings.
Blessings have to be balanced regarding the bonus they confere to the weapon.
Actually, pinning fire is not what make the boltgun so efficient. The weapon itself is really too efficient (any time you see a competent player using it, the scoreboard shows it).
This doesn’t mean that the blessings itself should not be nerfed a little. But wanting to adjust the blessing without taking in consideration the weapon itself won’t change the output.
The OP said:

i don’t have to do anything at all since everything is dead with the boltgun in a second.

The statement is totally true. However, this is not pinning fire that does that. You can do the same with a white bolter.

That’s why when you want to balance you have to:

  • consider the weapons between them
  • then consider the bonus itself to the weapon

You have to balance things, or you get things totally out of control. When a weapon can wipe everything, like flamer before nerf, the other players cannot take fun in the game.
I would agree if we were talking about a game that is played exclusively solo… but not here where we talk about a cooperative game.

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@Ralendil Apart from some very weird new arguments that I feel go against a lot of logic you used on other topics, I don’t think you add anything apart from just retelling your arguments for whatever reason.

The post you replied to was about the fact that we can’t compare Blessing bonuses against each other without taking into account what the blessing does to the weapon that has said a blessing.

Anyway… Here is my reply.

Yes you can, you can compare weapons in their overall efficiency as you did many times yourself.

It’s totally fine against flak (you can do your “bruiser challenge” quicker than with PS), and as I said many times before It doesn’t matter if it’s bad against carapace since Zealot ult makes every ranged weapon good against carapace. Ult + ranged kills crushers faster than Caxe anyway.

Ragers with maniac armor die in a few hits to CA. Special stuns them, or you can ult them for stun too. They die in 2-4 light attacks. CA is super good against Maniac ragers.

Ehm, no just no. Currently, blessings are what make the weapons more or less balanced.

A damage weapon deals a lot of damage, what a shocker. Still less than ogryn.

Seriously you should be less obsessed with the damage charts on the scoreboard.

This is a myth. A fable. You can do well with Bolter, you delete things (more with zealot) you can even kill a few crushers in 1 clip with Vet ult… But, it doesn’t just delete everything, especially without pinning fire.

Look, it’s a good weapon. Still, there are a lot of better ones.

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Ok… on this I agree.
We have to compare the effect on the weapon. That’s why several same blessing have different values for the different weapons.

You compare directly weapons that have same role (so by example versatile weapons between them, so a CA and a PS, or a catachan sword and an HS etc.).
But you can also compare them between their efficiently. So a CA, as you pointed, as no real weakness (like the PS).
If the CA was as efficient as is the HS against horde, there would be a big problem…
but this doesn’t mean that CA doesn’t need any tweak. By example, I like the proposal of DarthAngeal that said that we could make light swings less efficient against flak armored.

Again, saying that you can beat carapace by using the ult is… a non sense.
I know you want to take into account the feats / abilities, but that’s a total non sense to balance things.
The ult you can use it 1 or 2 times. If you have 5 crushers, it makes sense to say that the HS is bad against carapace. And 5 crushers in damnation it is a situation that we meet really often nowadays.

From my experience, with a CA, when playing my zealot, I prefer using my shotgun (80% of the time I play with this weapon) on a dreg rager than taking risks. The CA is not great against them.
But with the heavy sword, the dreg ragers cannot do anything. The HS stagger them and you can kill them without any risk.
On scab rager, things are inverted. The CA is better than the HS.

I totally disagree. Better to consider the balance between weapons, then you can estimate if a blessing is too powerful

While I agree with you that the scoreboard datas havbe to be explained, when you see that a veteran does 300k damages with a bolter when the second player (me) does 180k and the 2 othwers less than 100K… it shows that the bolter is efficient (who said too efficient?)
This is a common situation.

Seriously… Try to wipe everything with a MGXII or a braced auto.