I started to play the Vigilante again a bit because I desperately needed some change from the Galvanic Rifle and imo, it’s currently still a bad weapon but it could be so good. With Fatshark even saying they want to buff some of the lesser performing weapons, let me give a couple of suggestions:
- Change the recoil behaviour
The recoil is not only too strong on the burst variants, it’s also so inconsistent. I’d recommend to change the recoil for the two burst variants to be very little but with a stronger recoil modifier on the last shot of a burst. Basically a last shot multiplier like Battlefield 4 had on burst weapons. Burst rifles have to be able to hit the whole burst on target to be effective, which is currently not easy even up close as 20 meters. As for the single shot variant, the recoil should just be less random.
The burst RoF on both burst variants is too slow. It should be around 800RPM minimum.
- Add base-kit 10% rending on headshots
The only armor type it’s doing full damage is Unarmoured, which is bad because it means it looses a lot of damage against almost all enemies. This buff would make sense, as it would further make the weapon a skilled headshot weapon while preventing mag-dumping Specialists and Elites up close to be too effective.
- Reduce Suppression effect
This one I would actually consider for all precision weapons that suffer from suppression. We don’t necessary need to nerf suppression into the ground, but a resistance when crouched would go a long way for the weapons not to be completely useless as soon as your getting shot by a single gunner. The Galvanic Rifle comes with almost complete suppression immunity too as a precision weapon. It’s just weird that weapons like shotguns and Recon Lasgun are more effective on long range than the precision weapons like Infantry Lasgun or Vigilante because they don’t suffer from suppression. Other classes than Veteran should at least have a way to work around it and I think a crouching reduction would be good.
It’s rather ironic that the closest thing we have to a marksman/sniper rifle has a crappy iron sight.
This one is unused and would fit so great to the weapon. I do not wish for the zoom to be changed.
All in all I think the Vigilante Autogun has a lot of potential. I also disagree that people keep saying there is no place for sniper like weapons in the game. The Galvanic Rifle absolutely slaps if you have aim and the Vigilante already exists, so there is no reason to not show it a bit love and buff it to be usable. It has so much potential.
What is the vigilant autogun?
Columnus?
I really would like that they put the Agri and Graia on same level of the Columnus (old names, I don’t know the new ones)
The Headhunter Autogun. Not the Infantry full auto.
lol… ok I am totally off topic
Sorry
Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s currently so bad people forget about it’s existence. 
I tried to use it with Veteran.
Must say that I had to use the FoV mod to take advantage of it.
With it you can land critical hits that kill instantly most of the elite.
However, the weapon is bad.
First, I never used the burst versions and only the semi automatic one.
And to say the least, the problem is that, to land such hits that instakill, you need to only put headshot and critical ones. In an Auric high intensity game, you end with few things to kill (because of other teammates that don’t wait for your shots).
Let’s face it, the game is not made to play the sniper role. To be able to play with it, I had to pick a lower difficulty (damnation) to get less spawns. Not really impressive.
But maybe I am just bad with this gun.
About your suggestions… I support anything that would turn these weapons is something else than a garbage equipment.
AN-94 my belowed, I dream of the day Headhunter autogun with 2-round burst is reworked into accurate and mobile hyperburst head tap machine
Yeah that was one thing I forgot to mention. It would be good to increase the standard damage and reduce the critical damage to a point where a critical headshot deals the same as now, but the non-crit deal a bit more. That way you wouldn’t rely so much on surgical and could actually shoot faster.
The burst ones would be actually good after their buff some time ago, if it wasn’t for that horrible high recoil. I really like the 3 shot burst.
It’s not so much about “sniping” or just standing in the backline but rather taking out specials and gunners fast with precision. The Galvanic Rifle and Helbore fill basically the same role and while they aren’t easy to use effectively, they can perform exceptional good in that role. It’s not easy and you have to get used to watching your back while shooting, but there is definitely a place for that playstyle. The gun has to be strong enough to kill the target in time though.
I’m having a lot of fun with this junk on my Zealot.
Formerly known as the headhunters, the 2-burst has never been capable of reliably hitting both bullets on heads thanks to the random, uncontrollable recoil.
Shows you exactly how much fatshark actually cares.
You say this, yet I know someone who could not only hit both shots on the head reasonably consistently, but do so on two different targets’ heads no less (yes I mean headshotting two different enemies per burst).
This was a very long time ago mind you, but I’d be surprised if the recoil pattern has changed much since launch.
Edit: I should be clear, this is not meant as any defence of the current recoil. Buff the handling of this gun for sure. Just an anecdote that reminded me you should never doubt how far crazy people will push the skill ceiling.
That is again the Infantry Autogun, not the Vigilant. Different weapon.
Well, it is possible but it’s a question of distance to the target. The ironic thing is that while it is meant to be a long range precision weapon, it currently only works at short range where suppression and recoil don’t matter that much. Anything further than 20 meters becomes a nightmare to shoot this weapon which is funny considering it has the highest zoom of all ranged weapons in the game combined with bad iron sights. A true paradox of balancing.
That’s why I say reduce recoil, suppression and give it a sight, then alone it would become a decent weapon.
True, that’s why I never used burst ones and always pick the semi automatic one.
But the semi automatic one needs really to not be effective only when you land a headshot. The damage difference between headshot and body is too much.
Now that I thought about it, the two shot burst variant is the only one that has slightly more damage against Carapace. This was the idea behind the AN-94 two burst shot, that the first bullet cracks the armour plate and the second goes through. Fatshark knew what they’re doing, they just forgot about the part where the second bullet leaves the barrel before the recoil sets in.
AN-94 is, IMO, a braced autogun in Darktide. Not a headhunter.
Btw, Braced autoguns should be revised also.
The two-shot burst gun is also the best sounding gun in the game.
“No. Only good weapon allowed to be good. Bad weapon not allowed to be good.”
-Fatshark balance devs
Well we have seen them buffing some useless weapons to become excellent ones. Think back at how insanely bad the Tac Axes or the Helbore were some years ago. The Tac Axes were total meme weapons even too weak to open a can of corpse starch. The Helbore was ridiculously slow, had the worst possible sight and on top of that even worse hit-reg.
Fatshark is capable of buffing things right, it just takes years sometimes but were getting there.
