Uncanny Strike has to be nerfed

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Title. 100% Rending is trivializing armor, not to mention that Rending actually works on ~75% enemies in the game and with such amounts it notably increases damage against virtually every elite, special and boss on top of it’s intended effect against Crushers/Maulers. The ‘sister’ mechanic of Rending - Brittleness - is even hard capped at 40%.

Almost no other source of Rending/Brittleness in the game goes beyond 40% max (usually much less, 10-20%), and those that do have low uptime (like Zealot’s Fury of the Faithful) or are quirky to utilize against the armor (such as Bladed Momentum blessing on Heavy Sword).

On top of that, much less powerful blessings have been already nerfed - Blaze Away and Ceaseless Barrage for example, neither of which comes remotely close to altering the gameplay anywhere near as much as Uncanny Strike.

There are also other sources of Rending/Brittleness, such as Veteran’s Rending Strikes talent and other blessings - which Uncanny Strike in it’s current form renders entirely irrelevant. Punishing talent on Zealot has been nerfed from 30% Impact to 5% Impact for this exact reason - that it didn’t leave any room for other Impact bonuses, so the same logic should apply here.

Uncanny Strike should provide no more than 40% Rending. Weapons already have base scaling against armor types so it’s not like the heavy armor cannot be dealth with at all when not using Uncanny Strike.

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40% is good enough, i also add that “Bladed Momentum” (Hitting multiple enemies in one sweep gives 4-10% Rending for 2.5 seconds. Stacks 5 times.) on Heavy Swords should be reworked or changed for uncanny strike.

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No, apparently you haven’t tested the weapon in question enough, and the weapons with this blessing is only significant enough to make a difference against the Crusher and Mauler, and there are many blessings that perform well against other elite targets.

For example, for the Duel Sword, Uncanny Strike only reduces attacks twice on the Crusher and once on the mauler, with little change in the number of attacks against other elite targets.

In the case of the Dagger, the situation is similar, I don’t think that a blessing that specializes in armor-piercing, which excels in anti-hard armor, and has no significant difference in other situations, needs to be nerf.

It doesn’t need to change anything.

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No, apparently you haven’t tested the weapon in question enough.

First off, Uncanny Strike’s Rending applies to light attacks as well allowing Dueling Sword to easily clear tough hordes (Bruisers / Stalkers) and light elites (Gunners, Shotgunners) with those since its standard 30% scaling against flak is boosted to >100%.

Second, Rending applies to DoT effects as well allowing you to more efficiently dispatch Flak elites (since they take ~60% damage from DoT) and letting you incinerate or bleed Crushers, something they would usually take negligible damage from. Ever tried playing Soulblaze Psyker with Uncanny Strike, lighting a pack of Crushers on blue fire while keeping Uncanny Strike stacked? Try it, very fun.

Third, Rending works even over 100%, but at quarter of the strength. If you would normally deal 100% damage to Maniacs, with 100% Rending you will deal 125% damage to them. That is significant both for light attacks on Combat Blade / Dueling Sword / Force Sword, as well as for the DoT effects applied.

Fourth, the increased damage has noticeable effects on TTK against Monstrosities and Bosses who can actually take more than one/two strikes from the most broken melee in the game.

Fifth, you haven’t even provided information on the setup about which you’re talking about, not even the weapon in question (there are four weapon families with access to Uncanny Strike, eleven weapons in total). And believe it or not, those things do matter. For example, on Munitorum Mk I Sapper Shovel Uncanny Strike can easily reduce the amount of hits needed to kill a crusher by 12, from over 20 to less than 10 - which is a blatant contradiction that instantly falsifies your statement.
Obviously, it didn’t cross your mind that Uncanny Strike can be used outside of whatever loadout you had in mind.

Sixth, you haven’t addressed the points I made regarding other blessings and talents in the slightest. It abides by Fatshark’s own logic to nerf Uncanny Strike, and leaving it the way it is right now contradicts the reasoning they’ve shown in the past when balancing the game.

You’re wrong on so many accounts I’m not gonna bother responding to you anymore.

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On weaker enemies, those stats only exist on paper, and the blessing of increasing critical strike chance and weakness damage through dodge and add bleeding clearly exceeds this blessing. If your enemies are going to die from basically the same number of attacks anyway, it doesn’t matter how much damage is added at all.

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So it is too strong on duelling swords?
Why nerf the blessing for the 3 other weapons then?

Yes it does work with dots. So it makes dots not useless against carapace.
Uncanny + soulblaze is a very fun synergy, but still does not result in a good time to kill. So why nerf it?
Uncanny strike should stay at 100% for force swords.
It is absolutely no issue there.

On duelling swords, rending is not even needed to delete crushers in no time, so again, uncanny strike is not the issue here. The weapon itself is. Even if uncanny strike was a big issue on that weapon, the blessing could be nerfed for that weapon, or be removed from it.

As far as i know, basically none of the good anti crusher weapons rely on uncanny to begin with.
So why would you nerf rending, when it just makes dot and other options less terrible against carapace armor, without making any of them a top pick?

Ok so it works basically as a blessing with weak +strength bonus.
What exactly is the issue?

Which weapon are you talking about? The duelling sword, i assume. So again, not a rending issue.
Why is a noticeable damage increase an issue by the way?
Did you consider that other blessings also provide a noticeable increase in damage against monstrosities?

Ok so it makes the sapper shovel a little less terrible (but still not good) for dealing with crushers.
And that is an issue how?

Please provide an explanation regarding any of the 4 weapon families being overpowered due to uncanny strike.

What?
Aside from the obvious „it is what i want, so i will claim that it is what they should want“, what is the actual reasoning here?
Why would they have to nerf it according to their own logic?
Because brittleness, the debuff version of rending (that boosts attacks from all teammates, including their ranged weapons) is capped at 40%?

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It is not trivializing armor at all.
According to your own statement, even with uncanny strike, it still takes 10 or so hits with a shovel to kill a crusher.

Do you think that the effect of armor reduction against any other armor type than carapace, is not intended? It sounds like that is what you think.

Ok. So a talent is not good for 4 weapon families in the entire game.
The veteran has access to 3 of those 4.
How exactly does that make the talents irrelevant?
Brittleness should not even be mentioned in this context, because it is a debuff that benefits EVERYONE.

Yes weapons have a base scaling against armor. And on some weapons, that base scaling is terrible.
According to your own statement, the shovel takes 20 hits to kill a crusher, when not using uncanny.
If uncanny was nerfed as you suggest here, it would take what? Around 14 hits? Sounds absolutely abysmal.

What you suggest, would barely scratch the duelling sword (which does not even need this blessing to absolutely delete carapace or anything else) , while noticeably smacking other weapons (shovel, force swords) with the nerf bat, that are not even very strong against carapace WITH 100% rending, to begin with.

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Rending’s full affect applies to carapace. But as far as I can tell it does barely anything to flak, maniac, or unyielding.

Imo, Uncanny Strike’s only sin is the kind of weapons it gets put on.

Thunderous does the same thing, but the weapons it’s on are either underpowered or well below the meta line.

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Rend and brittleness are overall trash mechanics, they should not exist or should be niche and hard to stack.

Wanna do more armor pen? Sacrifice some stats. Range - mag size or/and ammo cap/RoF. For staves - higher perill generation or slower vent. For melee - attack speed, mobility (like your weapon is heavier), etc.

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You are sacrificing a blessing slot.
On force swords that might mean to sacrifice slaughterer.

Can anyone here explain their hate boner against uncanny strike, when blessings like headtaker exist, which are easier to stack and increase all damage against everything by 25%?
Especially, when considering that the weapons that have access to this blessing, do not struggle with armor in the first place.

Why is uncanny strike an issue at all? Which weapon becomes too strong, when using it?

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Particular examples don’t rly matter. Such raw damage boost that obtainable without altering your build or/and imposing severe flaws in other roles is just bad mechanic. There is no reason not to take universal dmg boost till there is some gimmick weapon needed to build around. Most mundayne weapons don’t have it.

Not being able to kill armored brutes for some weapon is completely fine. Making builds means work around drawbacks and solving your character as a puzzles. Slapping universal damage modifier that makes everything homogeneous isn’t that thing, neither rend/brittleness add something fun and unique, with such approach can add just +15% dmg blessings or smthg.

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Take the illisi and the sapper shovel.
Even with uncanny stacked, these weapons are bad against carapace. They are just no longer actually useless against it.

Not being able to kill armor at all, is terrible.
That is why there are many sources of brittleness, which includes talents that affect ranged weapons.
Funny thing is, that some of those talents actually make a bunch of weapons very good against carapace. Worlds ahead of illisi and sapper shovel. But nobody is crying about those.

This is factually wrong.
They both are unique in the way that they turn useless anti armor weapons into ok anti armor weapons. That is something unique. If it is fun, that is a subjective matter.

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Agree

Hand cannon was nerfed to 60%… 40% was what I was thinking as really good enough…

Indeed
Rending should stay… but not so strong.

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Do you find perks +25% dmg vs to be a fun thing?

I do. As i just said above - i don’t like rend and brittleness, it’s just simplistic universal modifier that doesn’t ask you to think about slaping them. The tradeoff is barely exists across the game.

Having such weapons is completely ok. It just means they should provide some other benefits you will be motivated to pick them.

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Not sure why we are talking about perks now.
I find damage perks to be interesting, when they allow you to achieve breakpoints. For example, when they allow you to 1 shot an enemy instead of 2 shotting it, that can make a huge difference and make a weapon vastly more effective against certain enemies. The process of testing, and seeing the result working, are fun for me.

These two modifiers being simplistic, not asking you to think about using them, or not having a tradeoff, is simply not true.

Rending and brittleness are probably the least simplistic modifiers in the game, since their effect can be very different for different weapons, and even for different attacks of the same weapon, on top of being dependent on the target you strike. Some weapons gain basically no benefit from those bonuses.

The tradeoff is opportunity cost, as it is for any other blessing or talent.

Now would you like to tell me what the actual issue with uncanny strike is?
Again, there is no top pick against carapace armor, that relies on uncanny strike. So why should uncanny strike be nerfed?

Why should it be nerfed?

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I feel that sometimes it is too strong.
The change on revolver was good. Not sure that hand cannon is not still too strong. But, who care? it is enough to put the revolver as balanced.

On melee weapon, it is easy to get uncanny strike procs to 5 stacks. It actually gives you +100% rending. Something I feel as really too much.
I agree with OP about the 40% value, but even 60% could change things. Anyways, several talents can permits to increase that.

That’s just my feeling.

And just to precise it, I can be totally wrong, and that’s why I took part in the discussion, cause I read what others think (this is just to avoid the usual comments if someone could convince me I am wrong and this part is not directed to any of the current participants in this thread)

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Ok. The revolver was a top pick for dealing with carapace. It still is great at it.
It was at the top and got a nerf.

Again, none of the top picks against carapace armor (which is the main value of rending), even use this blessing.
For the sapper shovel and the illisi force sword, even with fully stacked uncanny, it takes something like 10 headshots to kill a crusher.
Is that time to kill too short?
Why is 100% too much for them?
Why would you nerf these weapons against carapace, when they are already pretty bad against it, WITH the 100% rending blessing?

The only weapon that was explicitly mentioned as too strong (as a reason for nerfing uncanny) is the duelling sword. But that weapon can kill crushers in 2-3 hits, even without uncanny.
Nerfing the blessing would not actually nerf the duelling sword.
It would nerf weapons that are already nowhere near as strong.

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On illisi, to be honest, I have never put this blessing.
If I want to kill crushers with a force sword, I would prefer obscurus (my preferred for this role) or deimos (that I never used).
For the sapper shovel, that I use a lot, I will use the special (but sure it is not on the standard sapper shovel). And I have never picked this blessing (as I prefer favor a versatile combination (thrust + decimator → so elite removal + horde control)

I think that the OP points Duelling swords. On this weapon, and also on combat blades, you can reach the 100% rending easily.
To be honest, I tried it on combat blades, and that’s good. But I will prefer the +100% rending on backstab hits if I go for something that has rending.

My feeling is that rending changes a lot of things in combat. The same weapon could be totally useless against an enemy, but once it acquires a 100% rending bonus, then here it can shred the same enemy.

But again, I can be wrong. Now, I will just read the arguments of each others here :wink:

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So out of the force swords, two are good against carapace without uncanny and do not really get a lot of benefit from it. The third is terrible against carapace without, and only becomes somewhat usable with uncanny.
—> 100% rending on forceswords is not an issue then

For the shovels, the ones with special activation, do not need uncanny. The one without special activation, is terrible against carapace without it, and only becomes somewhat usable with uncanny.
—> 100% rending on sapper shovels is not an issue then

Yes. People are pointing towards the duelling sword. Agian, this weapon absolutely deletes crushers without uncanny.
It does not need this blessing in order to mop the floor with them.
So uncanny‘s rending is not the issue.

Which weapon is it, that can shred crushers with uncanny stacked, but is useless against crushers without it?

You said that you will prefer to read from now on, so maybe someone else from the „nerf uncanny“ crowd can tell me.

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Because i don’t see raw damage boost fun. There is nothing smart or interesting about, it’s just that simple - more damage and ammount of hits. Same thing with rend - when almost every weapon and everyone in the team can have it it’s just kills cooperation and makes weapon almost like reskins.

There are examples of good blessings - deflector or adhesive cahrge. They alternate how weapons work.

Good - why i want this blessing, what to synrgeise it with, what to rebalance in my build and how to build around or incoroporate it.

You can’t build tactical axe to work like force sword with deflector, this is a unique thing. Slapping dmg modifier is not, it’s trivial thing.

Eeeehh, you can say then you trade off all blessings effects for 1, but it’s not like that. It’s the same thing with not having profit vs loosing.

DRG overclocks system is more closer to what i’m talking about. Want your shovel to deal more flak damage - cool, it’s heavier now, so lower move/attack speed.

Those calculations don’t matter, cause it boosts damage against most danagreous elites. Noone is sitting and calculating how much damage it will give against dogs or poxwalkers with different attacks, till it boosts damage vs crushers and maulers it will be a nobrainer.

Not sure why you keep asking me that, cause my initial take was about that rend/brittleness is trivial overall. But in particular - forceswords should lean more on special attacks to deal with armor, it makes sense for warp charged weapons.

Mundane weapons should be trash against heavy armored enemies, they just need another coolstuff to be viable.

Something like parry special for all sword-alike mundanes, knife, DC’s, DS. Utility blessings, like you can find more supplies with shovel, etc. Poison dot - slows enemies. Hard bonk - stun enemies, blind them, etc. Not just ooooh +% damage.