Good day. For those who do not know me (I am actually pretty niche, so that wouldn’t surprise me) I am one of the most relatively well known Chain Axe enthusiasts in the Darktide playerbase. While my fame is minor I am pretty sure I am also the most experienced Chain Axe enthusiast in the game. I have very likely invested around 500 hours of game time in just literally this one melee weapon on both Vet and Zealot. I’m not certain of that but its a fair ballpark. I’ve played about 1000 hours total. This might end up being a bit long because my thoughts are not perfectly formed. Apologies.
I originally started using it because I was getting bored of all the good weapons and someone said it was the worst weapon in the game. I wanted to see how far I could push the hunk of junk. Since that time I’ve created tutorials on how to use the weapon (more coming!) and it kicked off a Youtube channel I use to make stuff for the game I like. Suffice it to say that beyond just enjoying the weapon: I have achieved, very likely, an unparalleled level of mastery with the weapon. I am not alone, however, in my love for this ugly duckling of the chain weapons. There are many others!
After patch 13 and 14’s buffs the new chain weapons are universally better weapons with the exception of our poor friend the Chain Axe. I have collected and collated the data. It is a provably poor preforming weapon. Even squeezing everything I can out of it doesn’t make up for the fact that it isn’t good. I can win any difficulty of content with it. But I am always fighting against bad numbers. That’s just the reality. Sometimes I bring the weapon with me into a game and just get invalidated at the load screen because other players bring gear and weapons that are just better in every single way. As a consequence that mission can be very boring for me. Ok, enough intro. Lets hop into the meat.
Here’s the data:
Please direct your attention to the red lines for easy review. There’s a lot of confounding examples (lotsa testing going on!!!) in this data that might be fun to review if you’re into that kind of thing but suffice it to say the red lines are good apples to apples comparisons.
I have lots of other data on Crushers and Berserkers but suffice it to say these are the major differences between the weapons in horde clear. In terms of crusher killing the chain weapons do not have wide margins of difference between themselves and, for that matter, thunder hammers. It all kinda clusters around 20s give or take. I’m not sure what the margin of error exactly is though. It feels about the same using any of them, safest on (Smol) eviscerator. Hardest on Chainsword. Chain weapons are pretty rough to use on berzerker packs (6, 3 each type) without taking a lot of damage.
Alright I’ve provided some basis for my claims, testing is ongoing. But we’re not here to dissect every single breakpoint in the game. The people I am writing this for know what the weapon can do. Just as I do from my hundreds of ours of experience with the weapon.
The problem can be framed like this:
- What is the chain axe supposed to be, what role does it fill? This is unclear
1a. What it does appear to do is worse at any category of thing than any other weapon - It is not good at killing hordes
- It is difficult and dangerous to the user to use
3a. Lights lock you briefly in place and tear your camera (i don’t mind this but its objectively risky)
3b. Heavies swing slowly
3c. shreds tie you down for long periods - It is not very strong despite these risks against any target
- The shred special attack is its most useful attack - but its not especially better than the smol eviscerator and lacks the reach. Its a bit better than the chainsword but lacks the powerful enemy clearing capacity of it.
- It doesn’t do much damage to elites without using rev special attack
- All of its attacks are very weak until blessings get going
The weapon is much more dangerous to use yet has less horde clear, less bruiser clear, less specialist clear, less stagger, less monstrosity clear, less elite clear. Slow swings, displeasing angular horde clear pattern (diagonals), sticky lights and shreds. Etc. The list of problems just goes on and on. But that’s only because the weapon doesn’t know what the heck it is doing. Its a really interesting and creative weapon with a challenging move set and unique opportunities to be MORE fun than more bland weapons.
My worry is that fatshark will fix this weapon by flattening out all the things that make it unique and fun, or by giving it the shotgun treatment. Just releasing new patterns that bypass all the original issues. Leaving the weapon abandoned and pointless for long periods of time. This would be BAD.
This weapon DOES NOT need a rework. It DOES NOT need to be thrown out. This weapon may never be as popular as other weapons but it can BE GOOD while being WEIRD. I’ve proven it time and time again. What this weapon needs is a reason to exist, and to do the weird things it is doing and I have a simple solution:
This weapon needs to become the king of high mobility single target elite sniping. That’s not to say it should supplant the Thunder Hammer as the eventual emperor. How do we do that? How do we balance that?
PROPOSALS:
- Bad at horde clear
It already is and should largely stay that way to keep the weapon’s role. - Heavy attacks are slow
Lets just speed it up a touch, not a lot, but lets make heavy attacks queue up a bit faster. They still feel like molasses. This is a very gentle increase to horde clear. - Light attacks stick to targets
This must become the mainstay attack of the chain axe for elite targets.
- It must always stick to elites, instead of cleaving them at high power
- It must do boatloads of damage before any buff stacks.
- It should reliably two shot headshot kill a scab or dreg gunner
- it should always stagger maulers and berserkers, gunners, reapers and bulwarks. Notably NOT crushers.
- it should always stagger specialists (especially trappers who currently just shoot you)
- Bruisers should start in the oneshot range for headshot and as buffs increase land in the oneshot range for bodyshots easily
Light attacks must become incredible for anti-elite work. It should be my go-to choice for light elite and all specialists. Heavy elites like ogryn and muties should be dealt with via special attack.
- special attacks are weird
The heavy attack isn’t much stronger than the light and its confusing, with only a few breakpoint exceptions. Buff or nerf something so there’s proper differentiation.
I’m sure someone will want me to put some numbers on this. But this is a first pass to get things out of my head and on the page. To explain where I see the vision for this weapon. I don’t want to change light attacks like everyone else (who doesn’t like the chain axe) thinks it needs. I want to lean into what is unique about the weapon that has attracted those of us who love it. But right now the light attacks are so weak they just feel bad. The heavies aren’t great either but at least they stagger elites a bit. The special is good but highly single target. The chaxe needs more UMPH.
Thanks,
Reginald.
