I like the idea of Back Off, since it gives Ogryn’s ranged weapons that don’t work with Lucky Bullet a chance to use Lucky Bullet. For anyone who hasn’t used it, every melee kill gives you a +10% chance to activate Lucky Bullet up to 100% percent. So, 10 melee kills (or 9, since Lucky Bullet is a 15%? Not sure) is a guaranteed free shot. This is horrible for something like a Stubber, but really good for your one shot weapons like Kickbacks or Rumblers.
It feels good to be able to pull out a Kickback and turn it into a double barrel shotgun, since I can two tap a Mutant.
There’s a fun theory build where you can take something like Back Off, Spray and Slay, Reloaded and Ready, and alternate between ranged and melee constantly. Get a guaranteed Lucky Bullet, unload two or three Kickback/Rumbler shots, get a melee buff to melee kill even faster, and rinse and repeat for infinite melee and ranged buffs. I call it a theory build though because I don’t know how practical this is. How often are you going to alternate between horde clearing and shooting things every like 8 seconds?
The less gimmicky and probably better idea is to use a Grenadier’s Gauntlet and look at it as a way to get some free grenades by bashing a Groaner with your gauntlet shortly before picking off a Sniper in the distance. Or as a way to make Blaze Away more viable for spamming into Monstrosities, since you can consistently get +1 grenade, and roll the 15% dice for more.
I think its absolutely fantastic, but it has weird synergy with lucky bullet since a grenade spam build will typically encourage spam, while the Back Off skill rewards trigger discipline.
I’ve found that it works fantastically with a rumbler/kickback spam build. It lets you preserve your ammo supplies for when you really need them by only ever firing the free shots provided by Back Off. So long as you save at least one round for Back Off, you don’t have to worry about running out of ammo.
This is one of those cases where the Fullauto mod is really helpful. Since the mod allows you to toggle automatic firing on and off, you can keep it toggled off to allow you to only fire the free shot provided by Back Off, and when you want to magdump without inducing carpal tunnel you can toggle it back on.
Yeah a lot of fun ranged talents on reload gain damage on empty gain melee perks on melee kills increase range damage and repeat… the only downside of this lucky bullet proc is it messes with flow if you get another proc after… could adjust / improve talent by removing natural proc so it’s even more consistent attack cycle loop.
I think it would be helpful if the single-shot weapons fired automatically when you hold down the trigger. Having to click multiple times to avoid dropping your blaze-away stacks is kinda frustrating. I installed the fullauto mod specifically to avoid it.
You can make it more consistent by holding down the braced button, it also lets you gain benefits from Steady Grip if one takes that too during the times multiple procs happen. So long as you hold the button down more often than not you’ll keep your blaze away, even through reloads like intended. Where as not holding it down tends to cause it to drop off a lot more as the game thinks more readily that you’ve ‘stopped firing’ between shots.
(if you activate Point Blank Barrage it also resets, which is annoying but I think is related to the auto reload forcing it all to reset).
What you call theory, I call one of my favorite builds. It was even one of my more favorite builds to use before the Ogryn rework, but now it actually went from ‘a Gimmick’ to ‘insanely viable/borderline broken’.
The build being:
Essentially runs exactly how you describe. You run around with a ‘mainly single target’ pick axe, that still cleaves through waves fine, but does it slowly. Every time you get 5-8 kills, swap to the rumbler to fire off your free shot. Everything in the room gets either blown up or suppressed, you then go back to slapping stuff around with the pickaxe.
Starting to get overwhelmed? Activate Point Blank and drop on average about 5 ammo into the wave that usually are around 6-8 shots depending on luck. The ENTIRE wave will be gone. All of it, you basically have a ‘Ogryn Nuke’ on standby for whenever you need it on top of the Nuke itself. You also still do great single target damage due to the pick axe, still 1 shotting crushers and the like.
So like, yeah this was one of the first builds I ran when the new tree came out and it felt actually broken. There was no threat allowed on screen, especially if you where in a group with characters that didn’t care to take the ammunition. You just walk through stages nuking most things on screen and it feels pretty nutz. And even if you do need to be ammo conservative cause everyone uses it? You’re still just throwing a grenade every 6-8 kills, and that’s still super strong, any Vet can tell you.
Very much recommend trying it/a personal variant out!
(also on a separate note, I made a different thread for this but backoff works well with Rippers too. 1 lucky bullet proc will allow a triple burst shot to be entirely free, so you get 3 shots for free. Guaranteeing said proc is thusly super powerful, so the talent is also great with rippers if one uses it right! )
it’s good in concept but two issues: the icon doesnt show up half the time (old UI bug that has been in the game for over a year now) so you can’t know how many stacks you have.
other, far bigger issue: i’m playing auric maelstroms with it today and i cant ever actually swing 10 times into anything before my teammates pulverized it. it has a similar issue as that saltzpyre warrior priest talent that never manages to actually build up to 100% if your allies blast everything before you can melee it
the solution to 2 is to make it also charge up at a rate of 1 per 5 seconds or so kind of like how the BH blessed shot recharges on its own (wow vt2 had this exact issue figured out already huh?) so you get mileage even if your team denies you melee kills, which is often with current balance.
solution to 1 is to fix the game, put your cleverest heads to the task and you will manage to bugfix not being able to see buffs within a 2 year timeframe (it’s literally just because the display count on buff elements is capped it’s a literal one number change fix)
tbf, with the changes to melee weapons, I’ve gotten a lot more aggressive in advancing, which has definitely helped in having available targets to whomp. Get 'er in there buddy
depends on team setup really, you arent getting in there if 2 people are unloading their mags 24/7 unless you literally speed off on your own as fast as you can which gets people to complain and votekick you
I mean, Back Off! doesn’t have a fall off timer. So even if you only get like 3 kills in an engagement, you can just go into the next one and get 5 ish more and it’ll be stacked. They stay on until you fire your ranged weapon and consume them.
Also if you play regular Auric you’ll probably not run into such an issue XD at least I’ve never had this problem during all the games I’ve played. Usually always plenty of enemies to go around, and no enhancements like in Malestrom making it a pushover.
The icon issue is a problem though, Ogryns especially are feeling it a lot if you take the Rock, as for whatever reason that talent seems to always be counting both it’s icons toward the display counter right now even wen it’s not on cooldown. Thus you basically never see any of your buffs, which is annoying. Might actually need to mod that given they seem to be allergic to changing that value themselves.
well that sorta plays into what I mean. So you have 2 stacks and a special shows up and you gotta shoot and get 0 mileage.
I dunno are we playing the same auric maelstroms? eevery game there’s 3 ranged players blasting everything before you get to it. The balance is in the gutter rn for melee characters, feels incredibly unsatisfying. Only starts being fun if 2-3 of them die and you get to actually fight stuff
Ahh yeah, well I will say basically all my lucky bullet builds also tend to use rock (as rock can also stack the ‘ranged kill’ bonus too while not consuming the proc), so that probably helps my view a good bit. The token ‘pot shot’ levels of special clear is easily handled by well aimed refunding rock throws, so I only ever shoot when I have a free shot or are overwhelmed enough to need to activate my CA. But if one doesn’t have that then yeah I can see it being an issue, especially if one is relying on a kickback to deal with such things then you’ll always be shooting it before stacking it up with how special heavy stuff is.
And no, as stated we are not XD I play Auric Damnation near exclusively, as as Auric Maelstrom has a bunch of ‘buff player’ modifiers that make it a cake walk. Enhanced Blitz/20% CA cooldown/Only Melee enemies with a psyker present, just makes it so it’s either insanely easy, or it’s ‘oops all mutants/poxbursters/barrels’ and actively unfun/not worth playing.
So I get my fun out of Auric Damnation, where in you’ll sometimes get crews of god gamers that clear everything out, but most of the time I drop in with me and 3 rejects and have quite a lovely time.
I think the playing Auric is where I’m running into issues trying out Back Off. I’m still leveling up my characters, so sitting around Hazard level 3 or 4 means there aren’t enough enemies to make the build make sense. I usually end up twiddling my thumbs waiting for a halfway decent chance to use the Rumbler, and when I do use the Rumbler, it doesn’t feel worth the effort.
The build makes a lot more sense on higher difficulties where a lack of enemy density is the last thing you’re worried about, I imagine. Where I’m at right now, there’s maybe two or three times in a 30 minute match where I would think about using two/three Rumbler shots, and that isn’t worth a talent point in Spray and Slay.
I think that’s one of the funniest things about games like Darktide, where the game is completely different depending on the difficulty level, so something that feels pointless and unrewarding on one difficulty level might be a meta breaking winner on another difficulty.
absolutely correct but i’d say it only picks up to the point where it has high value for high havocs. at which point you’d rather be running melee ogryn. it’s very awkwardly balanced right now
Ahh yeah for sure, the density ramps up quite heavily from even just damnation to Auric Damnation. So it suddenly goes from ‘I don’t really need that many grenades’ to Ohh I am in need of so many grenades XD. I’d probably just get use out of it with kickback until one gets to said higher levels (Made a build just yesterday that has fun using it with great effect, though in lower difficulties you likely run into the issue of not quite getting enough kills to always proc the effect before you need to shoot it. But even just getting a free shot here and there is still pretty fun for a double shotgun shot).
But i dont want rumbler buffed enough screen explosions as is… its so disorienting fighting a pack or approaching one to hear zing…BANG …are they behind their behind me right…=(
Thought I give this a go. There is a fun factor involved it will clear huge area and effective against armour too.
I can see people might not like this as when team is controlling horde it will make enemies ragdoll and go all over the place, so then ones that do survive attack from more directions.
Probably situational for those oh shiet moments much like smite.
You give up a lot of melee damage where Ogryn shines though if venturing right side of skill tree.
I think Back off seems bugged. Could of sworn swiped 2-3 enemies dead in one melee swing but still counts as 1 in stack.
