Sharpshooter - Is it actually bad?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Big Edit #1
I did edit my post for it to be more clear and coherent on what I meant instead of just pure nonsense rambling
So I feel like Sharpshooter is lacking and in weird spot with how he is compared to other classes and feels just “plain” or should I even say “bad”

  1. Skills:

90% of them focus on Ranged Combat and supportive aspect to add to team.
Let’s talk about defensive ones:

Camo expert - While standing still, enemies are significantly less likely to target you.

Okay so what is an actual purpose of this when most of the time enemies are flooding from every possible angle and maps are so tight cornered in majority places that it’s just pointless? Game literally forces you to move

Duck and Dive - Dodging, Sprinting or Sliding to avoid ranged attacks grants 20% Stamina.

Unwavering Focus - +75% Toughness Damage Reduction Ranged Attacks during Volley Fire

Okay so these 2 actually feel like they got some synergy with other skills on higher/lower levels.
This would be it from any defensive feats we have for the class.
I feel like more feats for more utilitarian approach would fit more than “You regen 8 point of toughness when enemies 8 meters away from you”. Hint hint, we already have passive skill that does regen our toughness with teammates next to us :slight_smile:
No melee feats and melee is majority of combat in this game from what I’ve felt after 15H + sunk in.

  1. Late dodge nerfs/slows.
    Unsure if it’s just bug or intended but sometimes during dodge you get hit anyway and heavily slowed down regardless of heaviness of the attack.
    Now the issue here is, we are supposed to be ranged class but dodging and gaining distance seems hard or close to impossible based on how maps/areas are created

  2. Stamina
    This + dodge and block/counters leaves you with 0 stamina after 1 taken hit or dodge from group. Let’s say you block, shove and those to gain distance and get hit. You are stuck in place and all you did was meaningless.
    Unsure if “in your face 24/7 combat” is intended here.
    Maybe curios/artifacts will change this and make this class move agile

  3. Weapon unlocks & their stats

So far thanks to “bug” preventing me from leveling up after so many missions and hours put in the game. I’ve only unlocked few weapons but did some research and found that we got big variety which is nice.
This variety is giving us unique options to choose from, problem is:
Stats of weapons are just pure poop. When buying weapon there is clear indication which weapon is better or worse.
The only meaningful stat I focus on honestly right now is Stopping power & ammo count, everything else didn’t feel like it mattered that much.
Also, why we don’t have any sidearm slot since pistol ammo count is like around 40 in total(Revolvers as example)? This would make us bit more unique in range combat matter

  1. Shots & Mag Sizes
    So I might not understand this correctly but why does our weapons take 3 ammo per shot and some for example 1?
    This is heavily misleading when making choice of a weapon because one might think he has 900 ammo when in fact he has only 300 shots instead of 900 shown on stat window.
    I actually think this one should be adressed on each gun and if gun has charge option it should specify how many ammo count would be used at max charge vs no charge.

  2. Fighting your own teammates over resources and kills from range.

I think this is biggest gripe of mine with this class.
I’m guessing this is just issue because of beta and people are still new but I’ve noticed that there are people that are focusing on melee combat majority of time and still take all ammo they can rendering our poor sharpshooters effectiveness to hit rock bottom.
Also… You want to kill stuff from range? Sure try that, unless you are in tight area when your big bro Ogryn blocks full shooting area.

  1. My overall feels and opinion:

I truly do feel like this class is underwhelming and least unique from all others due to issues provided on top and has worst experience so far.
There is nothing truly unique other than waiting with your F for special monsters to come in and then you pray and hope you can locate it fast enough and have highest penetration weapon if you are playing on Difficulty level 3+ otherwise it does nothing.

I will try to hit level 30 and then compare it again with other classes but so far it’s bad in my eyes.

Funny enough, this class is easier when you discard your “Primary” and use secondary be it sword/dagger or whatever is your choice. Pure brainless easy mode

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The 70% ammo we got in the closed beta was too much, but 40% seems a bit too little. Should be 50%, like VT. Though some weapons suffer from this more than others. I rarely run out of ammo for lasguns unless I’m using it constantly, but autoguns are very, very thirsty.

The weapon draw animations are way too long, makes switching from melee from ranged break the flow of combat, and gives you less time to do Sharpshooter things before you need to fight off the next mob of poxers.

As for ammo, yeah it’s a problem. The Sharpshooter’s coherency bonus is extremely weak, and won’t keep you going even if all you do is shoot enemies that would trigger it. Having it grant more ammo when your count is low might solve it. It’s easier to get grenades than it is ammo with Sharpshooter’s talents and buffs right now.
Another solution might be to grant you a portion of the ammo drops squadmates in coherency pick up, instead of the scavenger effect.

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Honestly they should just have a mechanic so that veteran sharpshooters can loot ammo from dead ranged enemies.

IMO it doesn’t really solve the issue if you change the maximum ammo count around since your team mates can hamster all the ammo boxes for filling their 1 missing shot wasting the ammo box for good.

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Hello. I will agree that the ammo consumption is a problem (when combined with everything else). That said… I think the real issue with Sharpshooter is the overall design. It was designed assuming people wouldn’t be greedy with taking ammo boxes, or shooting everything that moves. This is further compounded by the fact it has no melee weapon traits

I made my own post on this if you wish to read further. I will focus on your post for now

One thing I didn’t mention in my post and I think can be a contributing factor… Is how long you have to wait before seeing the Bolter and other guns. This limits the playstyle of the person and or the variety

If the power sword was earlier on that would certainly help with the melee side but no, you are forced to a knife, shovel, or claw sword at early levels

I am not sure about the late dodge you mentioned. I am aware that there is times when I try to switch guns and it wouldn’t despite me for sure pressing Q. It leads me to believe that there is a “ghosting” occuring with the keys being received in the game. I know the ghosting isnt on my end as it is a Hyper X gaming keyboard

That is all I can contribute to this

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mark IV claw sword is amazing; like the executioner sword from Vermintide but fun and mobile

that said, I use the mark IV tactical axe atm; heavy attacks rip through moebius guard and stagger ragers. It’s paired with the automatic Recon VI D laser rifle (torrent, not rapid fire) which is like a laser SMG with accuracy.

I got the no melee damage taken achievement with this loadout

Right now on Heresy I’m alternating between that and the chainsword + laspistol. It’ very fun; use the heavy sweeps against hordes, but it does not stagger ragers, so I use the Laspistol with, which does stagger and kills specials from afar. I have one that you can even hipfire while sprinting with

both very aggressive, and very fun

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dbl

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  1. There are enough Maps where you have to defend a Position, which means you dont move.
    I had it several times now that Enemies just ran past me, or were standing next to me while shooting my Team. So…Camo Expert is kinda fun, but like all Skills, situatonal and favours a certain Playstyle.

  2. Yeah that one irritated me too. I would like to see it somewhere written, without me having to test each and every one of them.

  3. Depends on your Weapon. I play Lasgun, and i rarely run out of Ammo. The Passive helps a lot.
    If you use Full Auto or Heavy Guns though, then yeah, you need to conserve your Ammo a bit better.

  4. Personally i love this Class, but i feel that too many Weapons are shared. Preacher has the Flamer and Eviscerator. Psyker has the Staff and Sword. Ogryn is fully unique…and Veteran? Well…we have a Shovel i guess…and Plasma…but most Guns can be used by the others too, nothing really unique there.
    The Enemy Highlighting is also an insanely good feature, especially when shared with your Team.

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I can see that you didn’t play with Power Sword. Power Sword does every Eviscerator does but with infinite cleave. I prefer PS over Evi. Plus if you are max level and max power with good Bolter or Shotgun or Mark IV Lasgun you can delete like 10 elites/special (with refresh talent) before your team will even be able to kill 2.

Back to OP: Actually I think Veteran is the best class now. High toughness in range enemies meta is much better than all other classes. His toughness back on Elite kill makes me during Vollet stand in front of range damage and each elite kill gives him 100 toughness in few seconds + Power Sword just cuts through Ragers and Maulers.

With how OP range enemies are in this game I found playing on on Diff 4-5 with 2/3+ Veterans with Psyker a much much easier way than having Ogryn or Zealot on team.

Vet have some weak talents but overall it’s the most solid class. Being able to just delete a big group of elite specials super fast is just way better than what other classes can do.

Like Psyker kills one mauler per what? 3 seconds? During that time I can kill 3-4 with headshots during Volley.

Vet is super solid and Power Sword is chef kiss. Go to VR room and check power sword damage on special attack charged.

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I think the sharpshooter should get his 70% ammo reserve back from the beta. The entire point of the class is to stay out of melee as much as possible. If a sharpshooter is in melee then you’re doing it wrong. Let classes be distinct, lets not force everyone into melee. Variety is the spice of longevity.

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Personally, I think Sharpshooter balance is in a good place. It’s my main class and I’ve been having a great time, with a decent challenge. I consistently feel I am contributing significantly or very greatly to the team I am in, thanks to the amazingness of Volley Fire, and the chain sword and power sword make the class extremely capable in melee.

My only gripes are with some of the iron sights on the ranged weapons, and the animations of those ranged weapons when equipping and reloading, which I made a big thread about.

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Played a fair bit of Veteran now. I’m enjoying the class overall, but I have some criticisms. Just my two cents.

-Make autoguns a viable pick over lasguns. Currently the ammo reserve is too low and the recoil is too high
-Slightly reduce movement penalty while reloading, especially for shotguns
-Maybe add a feat to allow reloading while sprinting
-Mouse sensitivity feels horrible on veteran. Different values for different states, ie during volley fire, ADS, non ADS, sprinting. PLEASE make these more uniform, or allow us to adjust the values ourselves
-1st and 4th row feats feel uninteresting. Especially the 4th
-2nd row feats are all too good, but free grenade every 45s is too good to pass up. Would love to be able to take the reload speed
-Feats in general lack synergy with other feats and weapons. Feels more like a series of buffs. Could create a lack of interesting builds in the long run, but time will tell.
-Volley fire doesn’t always seem to mark specials/elites. Could be I’m missing something?
-Would like a more audible or visual notification when demolition team procs a free grenade. Difficult to notice during a fight
-Getting shot during volley fire should not bring you out of ADS

Honestly the mouse sensitivity issue is the biggest to me. If you’re playing the first person shooter class it should feel like a quality first person shooter.

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I think volley fire only marks certain specials. Not all.

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I actually love the little combat knife. The light attacks are very quick and it’s very easy to get headshots with the heavy attacks.

Volley fire marks specials only, not regular melee/ranged enemies. You can get a feat which makes it highlight regular ranged enemies though.

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Op thinks vet is underpowered but is actually the best performing class atm.

Biggest shield+ most reliable recharge talents.

And the best dps ult out of all 4 classes.(I could not believe how fast I killed a ogryn heavy gunner.)

Only problem vet has atm is gun balance and ammo which is a problem with all guns that aren’t lasguns.

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Vet is THE career atm. The only reason you don’t run four of them is that you will run out of ammo.

XII Laserrifle is just broken strong in the hand of a Vet.

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@Radina.Shevu dont say anything about XII lasgun its perfect, don’t give them a reason to touch it

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Power Sword is not Class unique though, or is it?
I thought Preacher can use it too.
Thats what i meant. The “unique Weapons”.
I know that most Lasguns are shared as the Psyker and Zealot can use them too, the only one i havnt seen in their hands is the charged-one.

Power Sword is neat, i just couldnt get a good one so far. The one thing i dont like is that the Power only lasts for two swings. Other than that, its either Chainsword or this for me.

I really hope that we will be able to get them with Crafting or so…thats the one thing that bothers me too. I dont really like the Ironsight.

Fully agreed here. There is a singleshot “Headhunter” though that looked nice, i just couldnt test it yet. It performs similar to the Lasgun…but has a lot less Ammo.

Yep. Some of them are not in the Table from the beginning. Gunners, Ogryns and so on can be added with the lv30 Feat.

This pretty much nails it^^
Autoguns dont have enough Ammo, Plasma Gun is overall lacking, and some we havnt even seen yet, like Melta.

You would be surprised by how well it works. Im not sure if the passive Ammo refill triggers 4 times when you are in a full Veteran, but i had a few rounds where we all could skip Ammo. 3 of them had the Full-Auto Las, i had the strong singlefire one.

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I’ll throw my two cents in here: Sharpshooter isn’t bad, but they suffer heavily from “Faceless Blob Syndrome”. Aka, “Nothing really changes”.

The talents for Sharp are either incredibly useful(Sniper, Tac Reload, One After Another) or incredibly mediocre or plain pointless(Deadshot, Grenades talents) and it creates this feeling of having no forward progress in your class. A level 5 Sharp plays exactly the same as a 29 Sharp, and so the class can feel stuck in the mud with dead talents.

Getting to 30 playing Malice+Heresy, I’ve never felt like I got more powerful from talents, only got more situational. What is 1 grenade every 45s going to do for me, when grenades are already niche/plentiful? What use is Deadshot when it tanks my stamina and is actively antagonistic towards weapons with a high fire-rate? Weapons that could make use it need reload speed more, so I’m not taking a 'thematic" talent because it’s actively anti-synergistic. Grenade Bleed may as well tickle enemies for the amount of damage it does.
The level 15 talents are, on the whole, all terrible. 4% toughness on ranged kill while an ally is in melee sounds good, but Toughness means nothing in melee, especially with chip damage being so prevalent. 8% chance for a grenade on elite kill? Highlight at least sees use but it does nothing for a team of all sharps/anybody with two working eyes.

As well a lot of the talents got nerfed between the CBT and this POB, thus reducing their already marginal effectiveness(8% toughness down to 5%, 20% on headshot down to 10%, etc). Sharpshooter’s ammo nerf from 75% down to 40% is mostly just annoying to people who have OCD, and should honestly just be a flat 50%.

I feel like if you did a talent pass to raise up the usability of talents sharp’d feel a lot better; Make Unwavering Focus give 30% toughness resist on ranged innately, with a 45% bonus during volley fire, make the bleed grenade also hard knockdown heavy and elite enemies, give deadshot a movement penalty over a stamina cost, add flat elite damage bonus to allies during Bio-optic, etc.

Most of their “feel” issues would be solved with just some minor tweaks and changes to the way their talents work.

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Also, camo expert needs some screen (like vignette) or/and status bar effect

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I’ve found the ammo sustain the Sharpshooter brings to probably be the best team buff.
Over the course of a higher level game, the ammunition you passively sustain from it is far from negligible…
It’s global, not local so that’s cool