Currently both marks of Eviscerators and Chainaxes, unlike Chainswords, have the target cap on their attacks which makes them less reliable at killing hordes.
For example, Mk XV Eviscerator’s light 1 has the target cap of 4 enemies so the following enemies don’t take any damage at all. As a result, the only benefit from extra cleave blessings is the ability to stagger more enemies with attacks.
Pre-ogryn rework update his bully clubs had the same issue. As an example, Mk I Bully Club heavy 2 could only damage 3 enemies despite having 10.5 cleave. It obviously made this weapon quite underperforming.
In my opinion, the target cap has no place when game mechanics such as weapon cleave and enemy hit mass exist so removing it would be a nice buff for these weapons.
I vote we lower the target cap. It’s not realistic that a chainsaw can be swung like a sword and achieve a similar amount of cleave, as the sharp edge doesn’t point toward the direction of the swing but rather in the direction the chain travels.
We also already know that revving the chainblades is for sawing through a single target (and is only truly effective at cleaving through multiple enemies on the Heavy Eviscerator), so don’t recommend that.
I do want chain weapons to be rethought about, but right now Chainsword really does fill a horde clearing role Chainaxe doesn’t do while Chainaxe can hit risky 1-tap breakpoints.
Chaxe’s horde clear is riskier but doable; maybe it’s too honest given the current state of the game.
Chainaxes are fine, they’re good anti-armor with some okay cleave. They can put out near-absurd damage without revving with the right blessings.
Evis could do with some better blessings. MkXV cleave being limited to four is fine IMO, as the focus of that weapon is really the heavy strikedowns. It’s the MKIII that needs to have it’s cleave target cap and cleave value/damge distribution upped.
All of Evis’s low-cleave strikedown attacks should also apply the stun that the MkIV Chainaxe does.
It’s a little video gamey but it’s a balance consideration. Different cleave damage profile means the weapon will be slower/faster at killing large amounts of enemies. The actual targets hit still get staggered, so that’s a seperate consideration that determines how safe the weapon will be to use in big crowds regardless of how fast it might kill them. The end result is that you can have different types of weps with good cleave: Some that damage everything they hit, whittling it slowly (this suits a big hammer) and some that chop the first couple enemies apart but only slices the others lightly, still staggering them (this suits a big sword)
I’m aware this sounds kinda pedantic now that every class has infinite aoe bleed/fire stacks, but this game used to actually have such indepth balancing goals. I for one am really looking forward to see what the old Fatshark combat director will be doing with his studio.
How so? I picked up Darktide around October 2024, so I wasn’t there for the old combat system. I do agree though, fire and bleed stacking is pretty busted now especially with how they synergize with Blessings like Uncanny or Blaze Away.
Indeed, it’ll be interesting to see what his studio does. Hopefully he’s able to do well for himself. Things are much different these days with social media enabling people to build a following relatively quickly if people like what they put out, compared to the turn of the last century.
It kinda never came to fruition for Darktide because the game was plagued by balance issues since launch (as usual) but the system is kinda taken over from VT2 where it did end up relevant after a lotta dev time.
The example I gave of 2h swords feeling very different from 2h hammers despite both of them doing horizontal swings that hit a lot of enemies is a really relevant difference in VT2 that makes the weapons feel drastically different and makes them feel unique and different. They were both cleave centric 2h weps but they were both totally different regardless. No gimmicks like special attacks, just actually how the lights and heavies function.
In Darktide there’s remnants of it, but they got powercrept and new weapons that just have the best of both worlds were introduced and others buffed to that level, so now using the crusher feels surprisingly similar to using the relic blade or pickaxe.
You can see this in some of the launch weapons that have very obvious weaknesses. For example, the Heavy Sword has excellent cleave and high damage against unarmored/maniac, but is okay against flak and tickles carapace.
However, this sort of balance philosophy never really was a thing as do-it-all weapons have existed since launch. Brutal Momentum pretty much functions the same as it did since launch, turning the Combat Axes from a high single target weapon to an arguably better Heavy Sword and making the cleave/cleave damage distribution stat useless. Knife still dominates everything in melee and has only been buffed since. Plasma contiues to melt everything it gets pointed at, etc., and etc.
With the gradual introduction of a highly customizable Talent tree system and Blessings to choose from, it was just a matter of time before the best Talent and Blessing combinations would become mainstream. Then gradually other Talents and Blessings begin to feel lackluster in comparison leading to eventual power creep.
In a way, do-it-all weapons are now a necessity. Granted, there should be some noticeable movement penalties for 2 handed weapons that are capable of being noteworthy do-it-all weapons, and for the most part that exists amongst the 2 handed weapons.
This is just melee I’m talking about though, ranged weapons are different.
Unfortunately specialized niche classes are not going to work in a game that pits 4 random strangers with highly customizable talent trees together for the majority of the difficulty levels.
So, yeah I guess my point is Darktide is beyond the point where where each specialist - Vet/Ogryn/Psyker/Zealot fulfills a specific niche and there’s no putting the genie in the bottle.
Personally I like the build variety, but I can see where players who are used to the old system - Vermintide system - would find the current state of Darktide off-putting.
