Weapon Balancing Across Classes

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

I know a lot of people have been seeing issues with the Duelling sword since it was moved from Psyker to Zealot and Veteran. And I agree, it’s pretty strong and mobile.

As a way to balance weapons in general across classes, maybe the stats and values should be different across classes. Same move sets and models and marks and such but things like base damage or effective against different armour types (ranged and melee) should be different. Zealot will have more talents and choices to change a melee weapon into something devastating than psyker.

So instead of balancing all weapons across three classes, have the same weapons have actual different values respective of the class. This would solve the potential issue of nerfing a weapon to prevent it from being too strong on something like the Veteran (bolt gun) but too weak on zealot. Etc.

Good suggestions are mark variants that are class specific. So for example

Catachan Combat Blade Mark 3a for Psyker
Catachan Combat Blade Mark 3b for Veteran
Catachan Combat Blade Mark 3c for Zealot
Catachan Combat Blade Mark 4a for Psyker
etc.

That way it’s far more granular and ease of tweaking for Fatshark to balance things without it being sweeping changes that are too broad.

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2

Instead of weapon restrictions how about mark/variant restrictions?

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3

I could see some upset at not having the mark they want… But maybe class specific marks would make sense.

Maybe all marks are class specific just similar across classes.

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Completely agree.

Example 1: Bolters are perfectly fine when used by Zealots, but Veterans have every single tool that they need to completely break Bolters.

Example 2: Duelling Swords are perfectly fine when used by Psykers, but Veterans and Zealots… you know the rest.

But these things need to be surgically implemented, which leads me to Example 3…

Example 3: Lasguns shouldn’t be nerfed for Veterans to accommodate Psykers and Zealots because it makes perfect sense for Veterans to be the most proficient with Lasguns.

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5

A lot of people have seen those issues way before Fatshark decided on that.
I’m all in favour of mark restrictions.
If, say, the mk4 DS was Psyker only, and the other classes got an alternative with a nice moveset befitting their class, they probably wouldn’t complain too loudly. Changing the base stats would just end up confusing people.

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6

I can agree on this. There’s a lot of weapons that will be broken for one but useable ona another. But the question is how would it really work yk? As in how would it translate in game. It does work well on paper but well… yeah you may even say it’d be easier for the weapons to be different variants to keep them better separated (whilst keeping the base models).

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7

So range specialize class should have weaker range weapon while melee specialize class should have weaker melee weapon?

or the other way around I guess.

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8

They have a MK system. They could just make a seperate MK for each class. Too much effort though I guess?

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9

Yeah the idea is the classes, with the right talents should be very effective at melee/range respectively but we don’t want those same weapons too weak on other classes or too strong for those specializing in it.

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10

Now also Boltgun has become over powered!? Oh dear God, I can’t handle it anymore

Even used by the Veteran, with all the bonuses it RIGHTLY gives to the Boltgun (it’s the shooter class not for nothing), it remains a weapon with a slow swapping time, small magazine, slow reload, delay before firing, low RoF (when aimed) and high spread/recoil (when hipfired)

The Veteran’s talents only partially mitigate these flaws… but it doesn’t make them go away

It’s a weapons the suffers a lot from those situations where you would need it the most: clutches and high pressure battles… where the match can be lost in one second

And the Boltgun’s damage is just good, not stratospheric

It still requires a headshot to kill even a simple Gunner. If we have a room full of shooters/shotgunners/gunners… or simply a room with many specials… we clean such room much faster with, for example, a Recon Lasgun or an IAG

Rightly it does damage to Monstrosities and Crushers, heck, that’s its job… but again, still, with one magazine how many Crushers do you kill? 2-3… there are other weapons that can do the same

Against bosses same speech… you damage them, but you certainly don’t make them disappear like you do with other weapons

Really, I have nothing against you, but seems to be a fetish in this forum to make a weapon boring as soon as the developers manage to give it a niche and make feel it strong (not op, just strong)

11

the bolter isnt “perfectly fine” when used by zealot, it’s arguably better as zealot can fire faster and pull it out quickly with a throwing knife

and duelling swords aren’t “perfectly fine” on psyker when you can still easily 2 or 3 shot a crusher with it

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12

I think though, there would be an easier time to deal with this issue if it was class specific still. If, for whatever reason, people think it’s too strong for Veteran (whether it is or isn’t is a different topic) then you don’t have to impact other classes. If it’s too weak on the ranged specialist class then it can be buffed for them.

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Veterans have every tool that they need to completely disregard all of the downsides seen on Bolters wielded by Zealots. Every significant downside of the Bolter is negated easily by the Veterans’ Skill Tree. This is not a call to straight-up nerf Bolters, though. Those things deserve the love that they have recieved after being in the grave for so long.

This is a poor example because it is clearly a bug and needs to be patched.

They are pefectly fine and acceptable on Psyker. Mark IV is easily considered to be too strong across the board due to its weak spot damage, but my point is more so that this is exacerbated to an insane degree on Veteran and Zealot in particular. Psykers, though? Not so much.

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With Veteran, the ranged class, I can one shot crushers to the head with thrust. No other stacks or abilities or crits or procs needed. Just a straight up thrust head shot with the right static talents.

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15

Dueling Swords are not ‘fine’ when used by the Psykers. Even before the update, they killed all other choices for most good players - but at least the Psyker wasn’t proficient enough in melee to murder everything so other players still had their fun.
Psyker just got his melee buffed in the last update though and can murder everything with the Dueling Sword as much as a Veteran can. No, seriously, go make a melee Psyker and try it. Use Disrupt Destiny and you’ll one-shot every elite on a crit. Even with Warp Siphon the damage is more than enough to murder anything less than a Mauler as if it was trash. It’s ridiculous.

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16

Mk 4 Dueling Sword was and is broken on Psyker as well, especially with DD. Nerfing it only for Vet and Zealot wouldn’t change that at all.

Alongside the Pull Out knife knife tech, both Duelist and Dance of Death mean Boltgun is stupidly strong on Zealot as well, close to the same extent as on Vet. This is done with significantly less point investment.

Why would Lasguns be nerfed for Veterans? They need to be buffed for all 3 classes.

I don’t think there’s a need to balance shared weapon families individually across classes. Just finesse and finesse adjacent damage needs to be toned down or harder to activate.

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17

good idea. I was thinking the same thing.
In the end, the usability of a weapon changes significantly depending on the class, skills, or build it’s used with, rather than its base stats.
of course, when it comes to dueling swords, some marks are clearly too strong, so the base stats of these weapons need to be adjusted. however, I believe this issue could be easily resolved by implementing mark restrictions or class-specific stat values.

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18

I wouldn’t want this to be a commonplace. I can see that some weapons would in fact need it, but if you do it for all weapons then for once you’re making an enormous mess where experience from one class is much harder to transfer to another, and more importantly setting a dangerous precedent where weapons might become only balanced with class in mind, and thus eg. a Veteran would have all his new ranged weapons deal 30% less weakspot damage because he can make up for it with a talent.

Now, I think the idea somewhat reasonable and could see it being implemented - but only scarcely and for the worst offenders. Even then, we need to have a separate mark instead of just giving them different stats - we need players to know at a fist glance that this weapon might behave differently than the one they used on the other class.

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No it’s fine. The only people that whine about this is the minority of tryhard players. This doesn’t affect the majority of players and they shouldn’t suffer because of the minority. In fact Buffs are needed to bring the rest of the arsenal up a peg or two.

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There is a bit of a difference there still.
Psyker can 1-shot a Mutant and 2-shot a Crusher with a mk4 DS when having some stacks of Disrupt Destiny active, or using Scrier’s Gaze and getting a crit.
Veteran, with the Talenttree’s Melee Finesse and Weakspot damage bonuses, can do so without any of those. No active, no keystone, no annoying counter to watch, just spawn into a mission and 1-hit any special. This lack of investment, in addition to being a more durable class with a dominant active, makes the stronger weapon more obvious.
The mk4 DS before, on Psyker, was clearly the strongest option, but it wastolerable, especially on a character that would frequently focus on ranged combat.

Additionally, I see the potential. If some shared weapons have a class-unique mark, that could lead to more new and interesting weapon movesets without FS needing to invest in many extra models.

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