Unfortunately, what you call ‘customization’ is actually just homogenization of every build into it’s ‘best possible iteration’ with absolutely NO variance or play style difference what so ever. I was actually thinking about this just yesterday, as I have mostly ‘finished up’ with my Ogryn experimentation and created 19 builds in total that all function and play a bit differently, and it feels great/had me making a LOT of meaningful choices through out the entire process. This feels the same for basically all the classes, and while I do agree I’m usually ‘one to two points off ‘perfection’’ for a vast amount of builds, that’s honestly a good thing. It keeps one playing, keeps one experimenting with what they have, and keeps one going ‘ok if I swap this for this, will that do better or not? But what if I make up for not having this with this, does that work?’.
Limitation is what breeds creativity, without it, you get the Borderlands Franchise. One build, every point you could ever want, you’re done, get bored and leave.
As an example, let’s look at the latest build I threw together on Ogryn:
Summary
SmallieBigs 'Indomitable Shield Crash' FNP - Build for Darktide - Darktide WH40k
(and screenshot of the skill tree as that’s the point of the discussion)
In this build, I went through a LOT of opportunity costs. I thought about Heavy Hitter, but traded it for Feel No Pain so I could save two talent points by not taking Can’t Hit Me…Again and only needing 3 talent points instead of 4 in FNP. I then make it push centric by using those two points on No Push Over and Hard Knocks, take Brutish Strenth, and now have a push heavy high damage bleed build that focuses on push attacks into heavy attacks and knocking everything over with Indomitable. A very amusing set up, also made possible by taking Confident Strike to make up for not having The Best Defence, and Inspiring Barrage with said Feel No Pain toughness replenishment boost to make up for not having Steady Grip.
Meanwhile, with even ‘just’ 5 extra points, you:
- Take heavy hitter, for one extra point.
- Take Can’t Hit Me…Again for more DR
- Take the Best Defence, allowing you to use Brutal Moment on the Shield for no cost
- Take Steady Grip, allowing you to take Deadly Accurate for no cost
- and Take Frenzied Blows, Maximizing your hits even further.
You now have ‘the best shield build’, period, with the only ‘customization’ being trading No Push Over and Hard Knocks for Implacable and No Stopping Me! if you value that. Said trade now becomes the best Pickaxe build no contest, and these are the only two melee builds that exist in the game. There’s no longer choice, there’s ‘this is the best set up for what you are doing’. There’s no customization, there’s ‘autofill from highest rated build on Darktide lantern, win game’.
This isn’t even mentioning the fact that we are already so broken as characters Havoc needs to cut our stats in half and we still walk through it half the time, this just isn’t what you actually want. Or if it is, I suggest playing Borderlands, any of them at this point really. It will give you the ‘op I can pick up everything I want from the skill tree’ action you desire, while also making you realize how quickly boring that becomes. There’s a reason that franchies needs random drops, if you don’t have a chase, you aren’t playing the game.
Darktide has finally moved away from that, thus build diversity and experimentation is the whole point to keep going. Doing this, will kill that dead. (though I will say, if they keep balancing around Havoc 40, they will probably do this, and do as stated to the game as a whole).
