Questions Regarding Zealot's Current State

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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I’m not one one to really complain much about the balance of the game; I tend to play what I enjoy regardless of whether or not it’s seen as good. I have a hard time pulling information from Change Logs so I usually don’t bother (it’s difficult for me to break apart big list) and I’ve never really felt the need to either.

But I’m a Zealot main, and I usually end up solo queuing. Before the Update, I was playing Auric Heresy and Damnation pretty consistently, and completing maybe, to low ball, 75% of my missions. I don’t think I’m the best player out there; I’m aware of the mistakes I’m prone to. But I could at least run through a mission and only go down once or twice. Now though? I’m lucky if I manage to complete two or three missions w/ my best builds.

I’d much rather post about the things that I’m enjoying about the game, but honestly, at this point, I need to know. What exactly has changed about the game that seems to have tanked my performance on a class that I felt like I had more or less mastered?

I know about some changes, like Gunners having Tighter Spreads and Dreg Ragers attacking faster. I know Invocation of Death got what is considered a major Nerf. But I feel like I’m having problems even outside of Gunners and Ragers, and the build that I had previously considered my strongest, or at least most consistent, doesn’t even make use of Invocation.

All of my weapons generally feel sluggish compared to the speed rush I could get before the update. The “Crackhead Run” of the Mk III Combat Blade feels non-existent. In fact, trying to do it feels like you’re slowing down instead of speeding up. When I’m using a build w/ Fury of the Faithfull, the class ability doesn’t seem to trigger half the time I hit it, forcing me to have to spam tap the key to get it to activate. A similar problem comes up with Zealot Chorus Shout, albeit not as frequently. I used to feel like a vanguard, or cavalry, able to take the Hoard head on or make a mad dash across an arena to save an ally who was stuck in a jam. Now, more often than not, I’m the aforementioned ally in a Jam, or I’m getting bodied by a small group of Bruisers, Groaners, and Pox Walkers.

All the options that I used to rely on just feel far more inconsistent, if useful at all. Being able to lean on my toughness to trade in melee. Having the capacity to leverage my speed to get in and out of fights. My weapons killing certain enemies at a certain rate. Even just knowing that my Class Ability will pop when I hit the button. And melee, the place that I feel like my Zealot should shine, just feels miserable to the point that I find myself having a far more consistent experience on Vet or Psyker. If the answer is that, over the course of a few weeks, i’ve just gotten that much worse, I’m willing to take that at face value. But I’m wondering if anyone else, especially other Zealot mains, are having similar problems, and if anyone happens to know all the changes contributing to the classes current state?

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i haven’t really been keeping up to date on class changes too much other than seeing the titles of a few posts here and there, but in the few games i’ve been able to play since the machine gods update, i haven’t even noticed anything out of the ordinary from before in terms of gameplay.

i play on auric-d with randoms as a default and everything seems the same as before other than the game’s actual performance issues. i’m probably not using the same perks as you but i played a few games last night before my game crashed(lol) and it was business as usual.

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Invocation of Death nerf means you can’t spam FotF for instant toughness as reliably as before.

FotF no longer has a Ranged Rending bonus.

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They didn’t just buff enemies they also buffed spawns rates and made the AI more consistent. I have 1400 hours on this game, 1000 of which are purely Zealot. The game definitely got harder - most noticeably on Auric Maelstrom and Hi Shock - you need to focus more on tactical gameplay and smart decision making rather than whatever you were doing before. I will show you some examples of my gameplay to maybe give you a better idea -

There is nothing more important than positioning in this game. If you are constantly dying and having enemies shoot you/sneak up on you, its a positioning problem. You need to be aware of how you control the flow of the battle/how enemies move with your movement and actions. The more you realize this, the more you will “flow” with the battle itself and be able to avoid all kinds of damage. Sprint/sliding - dodge/sliding are your best friends against gunners. I run one 20% health curio and 2 +3 stamina curios, all 3 of them are 15% sniper damage, 12% stamina regen and 30% toughness regen.

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I agree with OP. Something feels wrong but i can’t say what. I think it may be latency. I’m getting small reversals on things that i shouldn’t like dodges or swings. Ive noticed a lot of cases where noregs are worse than im used to too. Maybe i’ve just gotten noticably worse but it feels weird.

Here’s a perfect example i think:
I get a case of the classic sniper no warning instashot latency issue, no fun for sure, but it happens possibly during chatise itself which normally shouldn’t happen.

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The AI is more responsive so it feels like things are sped up, that is what you are experiencing. Sniper instashots I haven’t really experienced too much but they can happen. Ghost hits however I experience about 15 a game and I solely play with a revolver so it is very noticeable. That is not even counting melee ghost hits lol. Also with you dying in your charge it looks like you died right after the charge ended. If you make contact with an enemy or a wall your “immunity” instantly ends. In this game as soon as you got to the bulwark it ended and the sniper shot you.

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Looks like they might be targeting the other player, they dodge and you chastise into the place they were?

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I actually like the current balancing for the Archetypes!

Zealot isn’t the straight-up best Archetype anymore and thus others can shine just as brightly now.

I think Fatshark should prioritise these after their Summer holidays:

  • Buffing the underperforming weapons.
  • Fixing the Director’s Gunner spawn spamming.
  • Working on the Crafting overhaul.
  • Working on the PS5 port.
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I bet you’re right, that’s probably what happened. Though I stand by my statement that things feel janky.

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Don’t forget shooter’s ridiculous tracking. They can shoot you at 90+ degree angles.

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i personally think the ranged scabs/dregs and the elite shotgunners /gunners are currently overtuned.

what i mean is about balance , if you think of the challenge the enemy face at any difficulty being made up of a whole finite budget then too much of that budget is on shooters right now.
too much threat is focused through them it puts very uneven pressure on the team , danger should be from more varied and even sources

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This is a much broader issue than only Shooters, I’d wager.

I’ve seen Trappers and Pox Hounds doing that nonsense too!

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Things do feel… wrong, somehow. Could be region specific for all I know. Sometimes I swear it’s like the server (and enemies) is moving at 1.2x speed. Like it’s trying to catch up on lag or something.

Input lag is certainly noticeably worse, with a lot more ghost weapon swaps and ghost hits.

Sound problems are at least as bad as before for me, with sometimes completely silent enemies, burster ticks muting the entire rest of the game, certain walls/rooms muting everything and other strange inconsistent sound problems.

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My issue is mainly the Gunners having insanely overturned spawn rates.

Shotgunners? Meh… they’re fine.

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Assuming you’re a high skill and high experience player in this game, most of the skill at the highest levels is knowledge of how the AI works and what its capabilities are.

If a horde and 50 elites+specialists come right at the players from the front, chances are most Auric Maelstrom groups won’t even flinch and easily kill them all. If that same pack comes at the players in quick waves, from 10 different spawns points, from multiple elevations, now the success ratio of those players probably drops to 50% or so. With the latest AI update, these kinds of things happen more frequently.

I had an Auric Maelstrom game earlier in Metalfab tonight where the room was literally empty and quiet. It was the large open space between the rail-cars, the medicae, and the stairway up. We go to heal, and literally with 1 second, the horde drops from the ceiling directly onto us, followed by 12 crushers (who physically blocked both exits), followed by 2 bombers and 2 gas bombers who covered both door exits with fire and gas. Two players were downed instantly, the two who lived somehow exited the room with no toughness, who were then met by a conga-line of busters, who instantly killed them. It was probably the cheapest thing I’ve seen in this game yet.

Stuff like this can only be avoided by knowing it’s possible, and either avoiding the room entirely if you haven’t triggered a horde recently, or using a single teammate as bait to trigger the events (avoiding an anti-wipe). Class balance doesn’t have a lot to do with it. Hell, Fatshark still has the Crusher/Mauler bug in the game where they treat player sliding state as neutral during start-up swing, and track players 180 degrees around themselves.

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Just wanna point out that the recent patches buffed the enemy spawns quite considerably. It’s not just a zelly problem but affects everyone in a number of ways.

For example some psykers have noted that assail, Voistrike etc. feel weaker, or you might have noticed how weapons now cleave less than before. But it’s not that. More enemies means more mass to cleave through, so it feels like everything is less effective but really it’s just bc they need to put in more work per second.

That’s something you can address however. For example:

  • Previously assail users would typically go for Disrupt Destiny bc it buffs everything not just the blitz, but now the massive extra power & free charges from Empowered Psionics actually matters and supercharges assail to a poin where it can easily handle those big masses.
  • Likewise, previously most cleave weapons went with Rampage (+36% Power) because it was more than enough while also adding dmg & stagger, now those cleave blessings like Wrath & Savage Sweep will often be way better.
  • With cleaving ranged like Voidstrike, simple mid-charge blasts were enough to handle most trash so most ppl would just perk for +unyielding / +carapace. Now you either need to get used to much higher charge levels for enough power, or opt for +flak etc. instead.

All in all what’s going on is that the build & play meta has simply adjusted somewhat on account of the more aggressive spawns. Personally I think that’s a good thing… if it only wasn’t for those bugged to heck cheating soundless trappers & dogs.

Edit: Btw the map changes also play a part in this. Many usual spawn points have been adjusted so the enemy tends to approach from more directions than before. Many of the usual camping spots have also been removed. All in all we’re fighting more enemies, in unfamiliar territories without many of the crutches we’re used to. All of which makes the game harder, at least for now.

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Can’t say I’ve noticed anything particularly wrong about the game. If anything it has been running surprisingly smoothly after re-install.
Granted i haven’t had much time to play in the hotfix patch so it could be something recent i haven’t just noticed.

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Yesterday I ultimately got too frustrated w/ Darktide to play anymore, and nothing I saw on the forum here felt very helpful to the problems I felt like I was having. Some of the early responses focused on Invocation O.D. which is a class passive that I mentioned not actually making use of. Another response tried to give some good advice in regards to pathing and target prioritization, but that also wasn’t really my problem. Still, I wanted to give some of the suggestions I received here an honest consideration instead of just dismissing things.

Before heading to sleep, I validated the integrity of my game files (temporarily shutting down my mods in the process). I rested, woke up at 2:50 AM or so, booted up my recording software, and recorded my main Auric - D Build that I tend to make use of, and headed in (without rebooting any of my mods). I wanted to be able to record and review my footage, and also just play without any potential issues mods might cause. I played two Auric Damnations before coming back here, starting to type, and then deciding to play two more to test one of my other go to Auric - D Build that actually does make use of Invocation just to make sure of some of my results. The following is what I found.

My first two games were on my more Support focused build. This is a build that, generally speaking, I don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to clutch w/, but the entire build is focused around trying to avoid the need to in the first place. I was a bit groggy, but both missions were honestly kind of quiet. I never thought to check what either were, but my guess would be Vanilla Hi-Intense Zones. I played more or less how I normally do for the sake of attempting to establish a Control Example. On my return third game, I again played as I normally did with my Priority Target build. This third game was a Hi-Intense Shock Trooper. Just as w/ my first two games, I entered in fully expecting to get bodied, but aside from getting trapper netted once, I didn’t even go down. I tried a fourth and final mission, this one a Hi-Intense Blackout. I lost, but not for any of the reason that I can firmly place singularly at my feet. (If anyone is really interested, a teammate woke a Demonhost during a Beast of Nurgle fight. I cleared the hoard, but got knocked off the ledge and was stuck holding. Our Psyker was pinned by a dog. Our Vet got the dog off the Psyker before being swallowed by the BoN. Our Psyker did not move to get me up and instead spammed Smite into the BoN’s back, assumedly to try and get it to drop our Vet, before getting pinned by the dog. Again. I fell. Our Vet and Psyker got Corruption Killed.)

Despite the loss of my last game, I really just didn’t have any of the problems that I had grown accustom to and that inspired me to make this post originally. The game, at times, would feel a little sluggish, but it was typically in short burst instead of entire firefights. I could do the “Crackhead Run” without issue, and even w/ the Invocation Nerfs, I never had a problem regaining my Ability w/ my build that had access to that passive. I did have some points where issues would arise. A Shotgunner who’s tacking was a little too tight, even w/ me dodging a sliding, on one mission. On another, I got hit by a sniper shot despite the fact that, even after rewatching my gameplay and slowing the video down, I was clearly nowhere near the Beam. But these were actually exceptions to the experience, not rules. Even after reenabling mods, I didn’t have much trouble.

Based off of this, the assumption that I feel like I’m left to make is two fold. Firstly, the past two weeks of play I’ve had have been under a heavy load of latency, or some other similar problem outside of any real Balance Changes. The game had been unstable after the initial release of the update, but after the Stability Hotfixes can out, I took the assurance of fixes at face value, and instead assumed that the issues I was having were either due to balance, or my own poor play. The consistency at which I was having these problems further reinforced this perspective. I was, admitedly, playing less than I had been, but in fairness to myself, you can only get bodied 10 mins into a mission so many times before you rather just not play. The way I would seem to get hitched on nothing, get staggered out of most actions, or otherwise feel as though all of my character actions were being performed underwater just wasn’t enjoyable enough as an experience to justify putting more time into it. Based upon playing so early in the morning and having none of those issues though, I felt foolish, and as if I had panicked over nothing.
The second thing I noticed (and this might come across as pushing the blame somewhere else) was the quality of my teammates. In the games that I had trouble with previously, there was a consistent lack of team coherency. A teammate would die in front of me to a hoard of ragers and leave me with a mess to clean up. My allies would wander away from fights, fail to help take out priority targets, or draw more enemies than we could reasonably handle. I would go down, get netted, or be pounced on by a dog, and my team would simply abandon me. Not having those problems this morning made me conscious of just how often it had been happening these past two weeks. In short, I don’t know how to fix the aspect of my issues that seem to be more server side, but apparently if I want to do Auric 5s, I need to play in the wee hours. Otherwise, my teammates are just…all over the place? This doesn’t feel like a good lesson to learn. It’s a silly moral that leaves me unsure of what to do w/ myself.

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You haven’t gotten worse, the game is harder. Also there’s a new influx of players trying their hand at Auric which puts more pressure on you as well probably in some games. I’m consistently getting 700K+ damage in Auric Quickplay which wasn’t usually the case before the patch, it means it falls more unto me and other seasoned players to deal more damage than usual.

I like it the difficulty, but what I do NOT like at all is the no reg issues as Reginald points out. They’ve gotten far worse. I’d dare say 3x worse.

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Also to be honest there’s probably a lot of people playing with unfamiliar weapons which weakens their skill level. I dunno about other people but whenever new weapons drop I also start trying out really stupid builds on purpose just to see if I can find some weird niche concept to exploit. Usually I do like half my usual damage.

3x worse sounds right to me. Feels really nasty sometimes.

My advice is to focus on just getting better at the game. You can’t win every situation, sometimes things just go too badly and you aren’t in a position to win it. However - as evidenced by people like ChocoB and Telopots the skill ceiling in this game is incredibly high. If I remember right Telopots was thrust into a situation where he had to solo a I-II-V-E-G (the harder monstrous specialists) and won the game solo, so it can be done.

Some skills I personally work on to get better:

  1. soloing monstrosities without taking any damage
  2. positioning to avoid getting caught out
  3. deliberate ability timing

Try doing some damnation solo runs and look for weaknesses in your gameplay.

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