Weapons still needing to be addressed

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Okay, I really want to get this out here, while I’ve got it somewhat forumulated in my mind.

1:) The Bolter

This was, at one time the most popular weapon in game. And rightfully so, it is perhaps the most iconic weapon in 40k, alongisde chain weapons.

It looks and sounds perfect.

However, we need to go back to the drawing board on how its balanced. Throw all your assumptions thus far out the window.

Each bolt is a perfectly crafted miniature warhead capable of punching through ceramite and detonating internally in a violent, gory death.

Lets get it feeling right, whatever it takes please.

2:) The Kantrael MG IV

Holy Emperor please, how long has it been since beta? How many posts were there saying its causing R.S.I? That the fire rate is absurd and there needs to be either a burst option, or make it full auto.

How has this not been addressed? Why are we a year in and its almost exactly the same in terms of damage, fire rate etc?

Did someone on the team say “No we can’t change it.” I’m sorry, but you have to. No one is using it, and its blatantly obvious why. Poor damage, and not even efficient on ammo in the slightest.

Back to the drawing board here, please!

3:) The Accatran Recon variants

It seems to me the intent was to give players a fun spray n pray lasgun, with the option to use its ADS for some accurate shooting.

In general, since the games release the opinion seems to be that its always had severe ammo consumption issues. And more importantly, its relatively weak against Ogryn and specials.

This has sadly meant that what should be a very fun weapon to use, is rarely chosen by players. It really needs a rebalance to make it more viable.

I may update this some more, but honorable mentions also should be: Las-pistols, can we try and find a place for them other than as some kind of meme psyker weapon or whatever?

If I’ve gotten any of this wrong, hopefully my comrades can help me out below.

Please join us and add your own thoughts on weapon balance at the moment. Feels like a good time to get them out there!

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  • Firebullet shotgun needs buffing to be competitive with the other shotguns; shotguns in general are weaker than other options.
  • Recon lasguns are piddly compared to infantry autoguns and need to be brought up in line.
  • Thunder hammer needs a rebalance to not simply be a daemonhost-nuking meme weapon and have good utility outside of bossing.
  • Brace revolver is a straight downgrade compared to ADS revolver and needs its own niche along with actually passing through enemies.
  • Flamers do a job that melee weapons do better, especially on the melee weapon class, at the cost of a useful gun slot and ammo.
  • Ripperguns are too weak to justify being ammo inefficient.
  • Single-fire guns are underwhelming and require extremely consistent headshot skills to be of any use, unless it’s the plasma gun or revolver.
  • Psyker staves are fine, weakest is Surge but still entirely serviceable. Gun Psyker is a fun off-meta build but currently significantly weaker compared to traditional staff Psyker.
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Bolter doesn’t really need more power…if you build right it clears screen.

One bolter aspect which MIGHT need some improvement is its handling, where the “iron sights” are pointing and where bolts are actually going. I personally don’t mind this. Being unwieldy and difficult to control is likely there for thematic and balacing reasons alike. Too much control and precision will shift bolter’s power levels too much in the wrong direction. We really don’t need another game breaking weapon like plasma in the game.

Weapons which actually need looking at, as they were forgotten or just “meh”:

  • Power Maul
  • Force Swords, this includes their caused by “high” ping bugs. I like Obscurus and Deimos, but they aren’t in a good place atm, especially Obscurus
  • Mk IV lasgun
  • recon lasguns
  • Ripperguns Mk II and VI minium pellet counts. Mk V is fine
  • the new fan revolver cleave (+1 at least so it ignores friendlies and can pen at least one light target)
  • Devil’s Claw Mk I (“meh” category)
  • Ogryn’s Maul + Shield needs some work to make it fun. Atm most of its attacks are not used
  • Ogryn cleavers, III and VI, or at least Mk VI. Mk IV is fine and fairly fun to use for an ogryn weapon
  • Thunder Hammers
  • Dueling Swords. I would love to see dueling swords being more fun and practical in prolonged melee. Cleave, or lack of there of, still “makes or breaks it” melee weapon scenerio.
  • A LOT OF weapons special attacks are terrible and serve no real purpose. Change that.

Weapons which actually need looking at, as they were overbuffed:

  • Plasma cleave and the NO risk overheat mechanic
  • Voidstrike, trauma, surge, purge staves dps / armour penetration / cleave etc etc.
  • the OG revolver cleave
  • Columnus IAG
  • Dueling Sword MK IV heavies
  • the new Tigrus Heavy Eviscerator - OP and boring to use
  • Turtolsky Mk IX Heavy Sword - if you know, you know
  • General over-inflated ammo counts / ammo pack ammo regen for multiple weapons

It’s late so I’m sure I have forgotten something…

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I hear you, but what I want Fatshark to do is sit down in one of their flat meetings and say “alright, Bolter has dropped out of favour and its an iconic weapon. What can we do?”

Thats all!

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Honestly I’m fine with the Bolter not being in the spotlight. This is already a 40k game where spess mehrens don’t make an appearance for once, I think we can afford to let the Bolter take a backseat and let the flashlights *BLAM* Versatile Astra Militarum Soldier Rifles be the main gun here - or at least they should be, were they not so mediocre compared to the autoguns.

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My favorite. A real beast.

The biggest problem with the bolter is the plasma. If I could single tap while ads and get clearer irons or a dot, I’d be fine. I already have the mandatory stagger blessings.

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Flamer, Thunder hammer, most lasgun variants and powermaul need some minor or large changes.
Bolter needs some fixes so you can actually hit something you are pointing at.
Plasma needs more of its power shifted to its charged shot so that it might actually overheat. Might warrant further changes if this alone is not enough.
Rending in general is just overtuned, which in turn makes many weapons better than they probably should be.

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It has the best normal shots and it’s not close IMO. If you want to just aim centre mass and reliably 2 shot most key targets out to medium range it has the other shotguns beat. Special shot is largely irrelevant on all but Agrip anyway.

Since it came up in another thread and reminded me. Achyls Caxe needs help desperately. I have no idea what it’s meant to be for.

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Mk5 Ripper is great and one of the best weapons in the game overall. Its the others that you could buff substantially and they’d still be a lot worse than the Mk5. Like if we were to add 1 more pellet to the Mk6’s average damage at distance, it would still only be 80% as effective in damage on a per shot basis. Not that they shouldn’t, but this should point out how this is the worst case of the 3 variant system in the entire game. The Mk2 Ripper has a tiny bit of bonus damage it loses in the span of a fart, then the Mk5 overtakes it massively. The Mk6 was never even in the running to start with.

Brace revolver is complete bunk, definitely needs at least 3.0 hitmass but also to not lose all accuracy because you touched any of WASD keys. It also feels fundamentally bad to speedload 5 bullets, where is the 6th round at. They should nerf the Zarona down to 4.0 so its not clowning so many elites in a line while we’re on the stub guns.

Lucius lasguns definitely need to be less crit focused, like I feel trolled by the developers playing with damage numbers on and not hitting a crit. They didn’t get any adjustment to the new numbers and its painful in some niche cases. Normally I don’t care just Weight of Fire spamming but it definitely leads into their low use being so build dependent and often unsatisfying inside that. There’s also the issue of the bugs - try telling me Mk3 bayonet attack is finished watching that animation when it cleaves. And the Mk2 amazingly after 15 months still doesn’t have the same idle sway values as the rest.

I’m also really against las pistols being so bad. Like they literally hit 2 of the most skill issue enemy types for decent damage, and fail against the rest of the game with high ammo consumption. I literally hate how terrible these weapons perform, especially the one they just added. If you don’t crit it does nothing, if it didn’t headshot don’t bother. And the pay off is nothing.

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It was accidently buffed together with the other 2 marks, it wasn’t intentional.

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Well said! This should have been fixed a long time ago.

EDIT:

Really appreciate everyone dropping their thoughts in here. Hopefully we can get some of the worst offending weapons fixed up this year.

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My personal fix list:

Kantrael Mk 12 seems to not be pulling its weight anymore in comparison to its damage and ADS necessity, lasguns in general seem overly crit-reliant which is always a bad sign. Lucius lasguns could use a bayonet buff to make them more ‘one-shot enemy mobs’ and encourage keeping them out.

Fanvolver is a fun meme but even with a handcannon crit build on melee vet it’s only really good for deleting a crusher at a time and panic situations. This can work but its ammo efficiency is Not Great and though I make it work I constantly feel like I’m struggling for normal performance.

Plasma charging needs a look-over.

Flamer needs buffs, it was nerfed into the ground due to Chastise the Wicked and didn’t deserve that. It currently has a niche as a ‘delete this chokepoint’ weapon but doesn’t excel even at that.

Thunder hammer needs buffs or crushers need to stop appearing in packs of four on Damnation. This thing has too many drawbacks to the special attack to be having to two-shot crushers with Thrust IV and a ton of melee talents.

Recon lasguns needs a balance pass, even with a specific build they feel like a meme weapon rather than something useful.

Power Maul. More damage.

Rippers outside the Mk5 need some help.

Honestly though most of the weapons should just not exist though. This game is so transparently built on the bones of actual weapon customization that it’s infuriating. Let people pick things for themselves and consolidate the countless variants into basic weapon groups.

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Thats something that sits at the back of my mind in this game too.

Variants on top of random weapon stats. Its a very false way of expanding weapon variety. I too would prefer weapons had stronger identities, perhaps each variant could have something distinct, maybe a different attachment but then that raises the question of “Why can’t I put this on this instead?”

Ugh, they dug their own grave with this.

I do agree with you though.

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The Bolter just needs to have its crazy bouncing brought into line, and even more importantly its point of aim to actually match the sights. That’s it, other than that it’s a powerful weapon that clear screens or pick off distant targets.

I think Shotguns are well balanced, except I would hope for a quicker reload. Damage-wise they’re great. I wish weapons were balanced around these, tbh.

Infantry Lasguns really need some love. I’d give them some actually useful secondary fires, like, I dunno - a pulse fire mode that uses more ammo but gives them some damage against heavier armor. I don’t care if it’s not loreful, the lore is inconsistent anyway. Or a bayonet! It’s kind of crazy that none of the Infantry Lasguns have bayonets!

Flamer just needs a total rework; the weak poofs are lame. It should shoot pressurized liquid that has impact, can bounce off walls, and create damaging pools. It’s not something you should hold down the fire button for ten seconds; it should empty its tank very quickly but do massive damage. I would literally make the projectiles be affected by gravity so that if you want to hit further away you need to aim up to ‘arc’ them a bit further.

Oh, the SMG also needs something, it’s useless right now.

The biggest problems are the brokenly strong things like Plasma Rifles, Voidstrike, and Trauma staff. These just trivialize the game - Plasma needs to not be a hitscan, perfect-accuracy railgun with great ammo efficiency and infinite cleave. Increase the charge-up time and decrease the cleave on uncharged attacks and make it eat more ammo would be a start. Voidstrike just . . . I dunno. It just kills everything. And Trauma damages and controls everything, which is also just too strong.

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Trauma is solid for the glass-cannon that is the pskyer, but ‘kills everything’ has not been my experience with Voidstrike. Unless you’re running one with Surge and crit-psyker.

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You forget that you’re just some guy using the bolter, not a genetically enhanced super soldier. Of course the recoil is going to be insane! I think it fits well and really makes it feel like an automatic rocket launcher.

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Counterpoint: these are the human-scale bolters used by the Arbites. They should be controllable.

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Disagree. Totally. Gunpsyker is VERY efficient in right hands. Surge staff is great.

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This is a great discussion, and hopefully the fact that there is some contention surrounding the Bolter encourages Fatshark to at least be cautious with any changes they make.

I do think that purely from an IP perspective, the Bolter should be competitive for top weapon. But considering the current state of balance across all weapons, it should be handled with care.

I REALLY wish I had some idea what changes are planned with regards to weapons and classes. Some kind of list perhaps of “Weapons currently planned for rebalance”, and maybe an idea of whether the classes are getting changed again. This is why I was reluctant to offer weapon feedback too early, as Fatshark refuses to tell us the roadmap for changes, so I don’t even know if my feedback is relevant.

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Developers should always post their upcoming balance ideas before an update drops so that the playerbase has a chance to discuss them. We’re kind of shooting into the dark right now, but my two cents for the bolter is that it shouldn’t be dominant in the meta, but fun enough to use frequently. At the moment I only think it’s a weapon that really works on Zealot.

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