zarona revolver and plasma guns should certainly be weakened.
As far as bolter are concerned, its difficult. so strong enough that it should be weakened when used in certain veteran builds, but not so much when used in zealots.
agripinaa revolver, powermaul, obscurus force sword and shredder pistol need some buffing.
See: Paradox and how every major update is preceded by beta testing, discussion, and weekly posts about certain elements of upcoming updates and DLC.
Right because bolts are self propelled it shoudn’t be probably, powder charge is there just for initial bolt launch.
But problem isn’t in recoil, in DT bolts just don’t hit where the iron sight points, there is some disconnection. Like recoil applies not to the bolter, but displace your next bolt with further shots.
The initial bolt launch is also extremely strong, if it was just propelled by a small charge it would be like the gyrojet and wouldn’t be effective at all in close range and as we can see the bolt is already fast and extremely lethal when it leaves the barrel.
A bolter is a very strong assault rifle with the added bonus of a self propelled explosive ammo, not a gyrojet with bigger bolt and in real life it would have a very bad recoil made worse by its weird design
in real life
Welp, wh40k physics doesn’t work when cool stuff is involved.
And it’s not like in the lore bolters are used buy weak hobo prisoners (we can pretend that we have access to that staff cause of inquisition, headcanon ok), but by people who have access to some sort of genetic procedures, augmentations, stimms and stuff, like arbites and commissars.
Why not tho? Like if bolt propeller is activated almost immediately?
Some of the bolter’s problems come from the underlying concept having problems.
They’re described and artistically rendered in voluminous but often contradictory and vague details (they’re caseless! no they’re not! The initial charge is really just a low-pressure oomph to get it out the barrel but at the same time recoil is somehow omgwtfbbq powerul). The basic described principles don’t actually make for the most functional or accurate of weapons where the projectile accelerates after leaving the barrel (as concepts like the Gyrojet have proven, or trying to hit anything smaller than a tank or building with an RPG much beyond the minimum arming distance if anyone has had the opportunity IRL). The weapons are often shown firing full auto bursts but have humongous shells with comparatively tiny magazines, and nobody ever appears to carry additional mags in most of the art. This makes it difficult to translate into interactive mediums like videogames in a fun and consistent way.
The Bolter’s handling in Darktide however has been the main reason I’ve never really touched it. It’s slow to equip, slow to reload, has painfully small magazine sizes, and is painfully difficult to keep on target. It somehow feels lore appropriate but also terrible to use at the same time. Improving some ability to make follow up shots, reducing reload time, and increasing mag capacity a bit across the board would help a lot I think.
Relaoding isn’t a problem on vet with 2 talents for reloading, and VoC provides protection and space for weapon swap (aswell as frags). On zealot you can skip swap animations with throwing knives (crutch mechanics, but still).
Clunky ass ads is the only real problem with bolter on vet. Well not having a glowing iron sight also, hard to see anything sometimes.
Imo they should separate vet and zealot bolter profile, either way would be tricky to balance it.
Yeah the idea should be to focus on fun rather than realism IMO. To use another game as an example the recent arcade shooter: BOLTGUN, seemed to get it right, as far as I could tell?
Just from talking to other players I get a sense of disappointment from the Bolter in this game.
AHEM. The HOLY Bolter
I guess to really sum up what I want done to the Bolter, I’d just like it not to feel clunky. Clunky isn’t fun at all.
The real issue is that the point of aim does not stay consistent with the crosshairs. It makes it feel really bad when you’re actually playing skillfully around its massive recoil, because you literally can’t know where it’s actually aiming. These should be synched up so that player skill is utilized.
If you run it on Vet with Executioner’s Stance and Deadshot, it actually feels pretty good.
Bolter on Zealot with Blazing Piety, Cavalcade, Dance of Death, and Duellist is downright filthy with how much damage you can pump out. Dance of Death with -75% spread and -50% recoil turns the full-auto mag dump into a laser. Telopots has a great video on youtube about the build, if you feel the bolter is weak on zealot you should check it out.
All I’m saying is… Power maul feels REALLY bad to use. it’s the equivalent to smacking around mobs with a toilet plunger.
The activation needs to have 2 charges and I think that change alone should be good.
now look what you’ve done
I just want an actual sniper weapon for the Vet, because it’s actually called Sharpshooter but has no proper weapon for that matter. No, the Hellbores don’t count, altho they tease us with their scope mount. At least the Long-Las which is used by the Scab Sniper…
I want see u with sniper rifle in the middle of the horde.
since i almost exclusively play ogryn i can´t speak much for other classes, but 
*power maul could be a fun weapon if it wasn´t the wet noodle right now and while damage itself powered up is fine, i´d let the electric fly swatter keep buzzing for 10 light / 5 heavy attacks to be in the same ball park as the mk IV knife or mk III club.
*shield could have some squishing feature from its planting move, like charging over a herd of poxwalkers and stomping them flat with the SPIKED ( what other reasons are there on the bottom of a shield ?!? / yeah i get it, ogryn strong,smashes into the ground…hodor ) part of your shield instead of endlessly heavy/push/light/repeat.
could make for the same result with a more rewarding feeling of “oomph” to it.
Basically true but not even immersion breaking for me. Bolters wer developed during the height of science in the “dark age of technology” - somewhere 20,000-25,000 years in the future from now. It’s as if a person from the late stone age tried to understand a javilin anti tank missle.
For me it’s fine to imagine that the human race in 20,000 years does have technological possibilities that we could never imagine to actually work with what we know today.
That said I agree with OP that especially iconic weapons like the bolter could use slight buffs. The Boltgun should feel more powerful then a slug throwing revolver - which isn’t the case right now and that feels wrong.
You mean the horde that dies from 1 shredder grenade followed by a couple of activated power sword strikes? Don’t threaten me with a good time, lol
Hope i will see u shredding that endless horde on auric.
After VT2 Cata hypertwitch Auric T5 is a wellness weekend.