Unarmored enemies are stronger than Armored ones

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

I don’t know if anyone has the same feeling but generally unarmored type enemies seem harder to kill than armored ones. My experience mainly comes from playing 4/5 and some 3/5 (surge staff), but it generally applies.

Bolter takes out most flak armored shooters with a single shot but the unarmoured type takes 2. Flak armored gunners and shotgunners take 2 shots to take out while unarmored take 3-4.

Eviscerator kills flak armored shooters with a headshot but the unarmored ones survive. This goes for the melee enemies too. The mid-tier melee enemies that are armored (except on the head) can either be killed by a light headshot or cut in half with a heavy attack, but the unarmored ones (masked half-naked dudes) take the eviscerator to the ribs or head like a champ.

Surge staff is even worse at dealing with unarmored enemies. It takes multiple casts to take care of them while the flak armored enemies die in one cast.

The most noticeable of these enemy variant differences are the ragers. While the unarmored variant is an absolute brute, the armored variant dies in a few seconds from any armor-piercing weapon. This together with the fact that unarmored enemies spawn in higher numbers makes that variant a far greater threat.

I’m not writing this because I want either to be specifically stronger or weaker, I’m open to any changes that make it more… logical I guess? The way it currently is feels just plain weird. The seemingly elite highly geared enemies are a breeze (less TTK, fewer numbers) and the hypothetical chaff in rags (or half-naked) are the real threat.

TLDR: Unarmored enemies are far greater threats than flak-armored ones due to being both higher in number and taking more shots/hits to kill. This makes the “elite” feel like chaff and the chaff feel like the real deal. It feels weird.

PS: I’m aware of health pool differences, and weapon traits that can help to hit breakpoints it’s not the point.

2

Some of this depends on individual weapons.
Any weapon that has both the Crowd Control and Penetration stats can make easy nosh out of flak armored enemies, as both traits contribute to damage against them, and in sufficient balance can effectively negate the protection offered by the flak armor, where their lower health pool just chunks under it.
Maniac type enemies are also a special case in that they just take… really, kind of absurdly low damage from most sources, but the Scab rager is wearing flak armor and is taking damage based on that table, instead.

3

I’m aware of the cause, the post was about the effect it has. It feels super weird.

It feels weird when a half-naked skinny dude takes an Eviscerator to the ribs and just falls to the ground after you cut an armored dude in half with one hit.

When you see a group of “elite” or “armored” enemies you feel relieved that they are not the more numerous and tanky supposed chaff.

4

fwiw, I think the dregs are, on average, more Nurgledy than the Scabs, so it’s also not implausible that they’d have that unnatural toughness going on.

It does make it really glaring that the Scab Mauler doesn’t have a Dreg equivalent, though…

5

Well we wouldn’t want weapons that are better against both unarmored and armored.

I suppose they could increase hp on armored targets? But most weapons are poor against armor to begin with so I think that creates a bigger balancing issue.

Not using the bolter so it doesn’t feel like that for me.