I’m not a fan of the way activated melee works. It’s just clunky and slows everything down. At higher difficulty, it also means that the activation is dangerous to use, but that’s when it is the most important.
From a lore perspective, it also doesn’t make sense. Power and chain weapons are not “sometimes” activated. They are on. That’s the point of them. It would also help differentiate some of the weapons that are really hard to activate due to long/slow/clumsy activation on some of them. Power maul is a prime example. Its ability should be great for horde control and damage, but it’s slow activation is actually really hard to use in a dense/mixed horde when you need it most. Most of the time it ends up being a worse bully club because the activation leaves you too exposed.
Bake the activated effect into normal attacks and give it a cooldown/off period. It could be made Heavy only, but I don’t think that is ideal. The Evis sort of does this already with heavy attacks having a short persistent rev increase. Activation on by default and discharges/reduces effectiveness over two-three swings and then is off for 2-5 swings before re-activating (numbers arbitrary for example and would need to be balanced).
This would also push the need to revamp the Thunder Hammer. It’s surgical deletion capability would be hurt the most by this change, I think. It already needs some love, so I don’t think this is a bad thing.
Lol. Absolutely NOT.
Activated special attacks increase strategic thinking and give more control/options to the players. Maybe you also want automatic dodge% as well, instead of you having to do it manually? Or your talents activating by themselves?
You’d still have the tactical thinking of when to target a specific enemy. This type of change would at least make the power maul, crusher, and force sword feel better.
The activated special attacks grind on you every time you play the game. A special should be just that, something SPECIAL, not the absolute default the weapon is suppose to bring to the table.
Everyone talks about balance, but balance should be up and down from the ICONS OF THE FRANCHISE, not sideways from a shovel. W40K is science fiction with a medieval theme, not a medieval setting.
Take the 1H chainsword. Redesign it from the ground up until it’s actually really good in every way and feels good to use. That’s where your default should be in a w40k game. Work out from that. If a weapon is way worse, don’t include it outside the lower levels, or give a massive compensation on the flip, like the knife giving you double grenades or much faster ult charge. (Don’t get hung on on the specifics I mention, it’s just examples.)
“But we’re rejects!” Yeah, we’re rejects working for the inquisition as expendable special forces with ogryn and psykers and bolters and plasma guns and power swords and force staves… and somehow we still need a shovel to be viable?
Game feels like vermintide with machine guns, not a w40k game. If balance matters that much, get rid of the shovel entirely after level 29 so it stops pulling down the real weapons of w40k.
Devs have been so happy with the nerf bat that almost nothing is left at full power.
They even nerfed the psyker’s force sword push so bad half the time you miss! And they nerfed knocking people down… they spring back up way too fast.
