Should the Helbore be Buffed?

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
1
  • Let me put a scope on it!
  • Faster equip speed.
  • Higher cleave potential at max charge (More penetration than Zarona Revolver but less than the Plasma Gun)
  • Nerf the Plasma Gun to make the Helbore viable.
  • The Helbore Lasguns are fine.
0 voters

It’s actually not a bad weapon at all; it can deal significant single-target damage and with the right build it can destroy carapace and flak easily.

The problem is in the higher difficulties, it struggles against dense crowds of enemies due to the fire rate, the horrible iron sights and the fact that you cannot switch freely between melee and ranged weapons. You can’t just use melee then quick take out your Helbore to snipe elites and specials, since it just takes forever to equip the gun. You really have to commit to melee or ranged, and it feels like you’re limiting yourself in more ways than one by using the Helbore.

The balancing reason for this apparently is that since the Helbore has a bayonet, they want to incentivize you to use that instead of switching to melee. The problem is, that’s extremely regarded because the bayonet only works on like 1-2 enemies at a time, while like 20-30 enemies at the minimum will always be attacking you in the highest difficulties. The worst melee weapon will always be better than the best bayonet on the Helbore.

The iron-sights are of course extremely terrible as well, you will struggle see whatever you’re aiming at, making it much harder to hit headshots since you need to charge your shots while aiming into a crowd of enemies. When I use the Helbore, I try not to aim directly where I’m going to shoot until I’m done charging because I literally will not be able to see what I’m aiming at.

Enemies will constantly jerk around due to my teammates dealing damage to them, changing pathing, literally anything - and it’s basically impossible to see them when I’m using the Helbore.

It feels so much better to instantly fire the revolver. It doesn’t matter much if the iron-sights are bad on the revolver (they’re not) because I can just aim and instantly shoot before I’m even looking through the sights. As long as my crosshair is on the enemy before I aim, the enemy will be deleted. The Zarona feels consistent every time, if I miss, it’s my fault 100%.

With the Helbore, I have to track enemies with these awful iron-sights for a bit before I can actually shoot them, and it can be extremely annoying and feels stupid when plasma gun users don’t even need to limit their FOV by aiming and still have perfect accuracy while having insane cleave that destroys hordes and crowds of literally everything with every blast.

Actually, now that I think about it, the plasma gun is basically just better than the Helbore in every way except ammo economy. The problem is, I will die before I can shoot all of my Helbore ammo, so the ammo is gone anyway. I don’t think the plasma gun should be nerfed, except for max cleave, but I see no reason to use the Helbore when the Plasma Gun exists, basically.

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Short answer, yes:

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Gib build.

At the moment Helbore just makes me angry. So many mid weapons are clunky as heck.

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My biggest complaints with it are the draw speed and sights. The draw speed gets players killed in the streets routinely, it just takes too long to equip to respond to a threat, and often even if the threat isn’t immediately to you the window to engage a target is often missed. It’s also one of the most shot-placement reliant weapons in the game, and clearly has an optics rail, yet it doesn’t have an optic option, only iron sights. Coupled with the draw speed, it makes it very difficult to use the weapon effectively.

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Adjust weapon specialist so the triggers are on melee hit and on trigger pull instead of weapon swap so Hellbore can benefit from both without swapping (while also making WS less annoying).

Rotate the heavy mark melee attack 90 degrees and give it some cleave. It can stay slow it just needs so be a better get off me tool.

That’s pretty much sum total of what I want for Hellbore. Closest option would be “it’s fine” but clearly I DO want something for it so just refrained from voting.

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6

I think that the Plasma Gun could definitely use some CAREFUL nerfs to its Uncharged Attack. Slightly lower its Cleave on Uncharged Attacks and make them not penetrate Bulwarks’ Slab Shields, only allowing the Plasma Gun to penetrate them with Charged Attacks. I strongly feel that the Plasma Gun should rely on Charged Attacks more.

Regarding the Helbore, it feels just that little bit too clunky to be truly fun. If the Helbore equipped 25% faster than it currently does, it would still take a decent amount of time to equip while feeling more reasonable. Another issue with the Helbore is that the Mk IV is blatantly worse than the other two. That goofy ahh Bayonet Slash Special (Bayonet Jab Special is infinitely better) while also having lower DPS on Uncharged Attacks even though Charged Attacks take longer? Horrible balancing blemish, that. Giving the Helbore Cleave on Charged Attacks also sounds pretty cool, just please don’t overdo it.

6 Likes
7

I think it says something when Ogryn has a better sniper weapon.

Helbore could be amazing, but that lack of proper scope and the incessent “flipping the switch” animation is not helping. I had a moment where I probably did the animation like 3 times in a row due to a monstrosity, it’s so dumb and inflexible.

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I love my Infantry Autogryn. :sunglasses:

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Yes, it should. It’s a very clunky weapon that relies on good teammates. The worse your teammates are, the harder it is to wield, because you’re constantly surrounded and have to switch your weapons to protect yourself.

It’s also a weapon that you spend 90% of the time in ADS, it limits your FOV and makes you tunnel vision a lot.

The loading of the shot mechanic is annoying, but I don’t know if it should change or not.

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Just the stab melee on the heavy mark would make all the difference for me. And yeah sights.

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11

It makes no sense that the equip speed on the helbore is slower than on plasma

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12

Yeah but the error is not on the helbore’s side

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It’s good weapon - outside of Auric Damnation, Maelstorm and Havoc

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I think this would be good, as long as the ammo economy changes so that charged shots are actually worth it. Charged shots should use, scaling the same amount of ammo or be even more efficient than spamming uncharged shots. Since charged shots use more heat, more of the clip, and take more time to shoot.

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15

It used to be my favorite weapon on the first year of the game as it reminded me of the kar98 in Day of Defeat, but now it’s trash.

All the options listed are good, but I think a low speed weapon switch would be acceptable if this gun was considered a sniper, with a scope to headshot long distance targets.

Once again, I don’t think FS cares because they don’t play their game, and when they do, it’s T3 maps…

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It does make some sense, considering that the Plasma Gun is more “compact” in comparison to a Lasrifle with a Bayonet. The Helbore is much longer than the Plasma Gun and that would make a difference.

The Helbore’s longer equip time is meant to account for its Bayonet Special and also to prevent it from becoming a better Infantry Lasgun. The equip time is currently a little bit too long in my opinion, but it doesn’t have to keep up with that of a Plasma Gun or an Infantry Lasgun.

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17

I agree with @Durandal94, though.

But ILG’s (and everything else fr) need their own smorgasbord of tweaks, too.

As long as helbores have a clunky charge up attack and silly iron sights (that’s not a sight, that’s the scope mount!) it’ll always be a role-play tier weapon. Infantry lasguns and Vigilant Headhunters can, could, and should remain as the better DMR style weapons if they would just get buffed.

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On this I do agree.

I’ve done a fair bit of my own pushing for Infantry Lasgun to get buffed, actually.

Vigilant Autogun could also use some love but I’m nowhere near as experienced with it, therefore my stance on how to buff Vigilant Autogun isn’t quite as educated.

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19

All of this stuff needs its own thread, but if i could summarize it: HH needs cleave and/or just bigger bodyshot values. No scope means medium range engagement max, so putting all of its power into headshots feels wrong (this applies to helbores as well).

That and TTK is all over the place because of 6 different armor values and tanky limbs.

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I meant from game balance perspective but yeah if you go by realism then the plasma as you said is more compact and handy tho I have no idea what the weight of a plasma gun is

1 Like