Were spawns actually changed?

Usually after every patch it seems people are like “oh something happened to the spawns!” but now I’m really feeling like it. I’ve seen others say how the special spawns are crazy, and I’m really seeing it. We get overwhelmed while I’m literally picking off every special as efficiently as I can. Skill issue? Maybe, but it actually feels more like they’re outspawning my DPS. I can turn around and see four Tox Flamers running at me, focus heads with Recon Lasgun gun, burn them down one at a time. Before I’ve finished killing them, two dogs are coming at me from another way, dodge them, keep picking off Flamers, now there’s multiple trappers, I start on them, and now there’s grenades and tox bombs going off . . .

And if these were spikes, that’s cool. But it just literally does not seem to let up.

Or is this all in my head and I’m just too tired?

Special spawns have been getting more and more absurd over the past two years. It’s been a never ending (dark)tide of them for the past ~6+ months and it will continue to be so until the game gets scaled back.

So they literally were increased last patch?

I’m trying to make sure I’m not nuts, and that it’s not just me sucking.

I feel it too, especially with bombers, 3-4 spawned at the same time is the norm now and that’s in auric.

I don’t actually know. Feels the same as before last patch to me.

It’s baffling that there’s not a hard cap on certain Specialists, if there is it doesn’t appear to work. No more than 1 tox bomber alive at a time, 2 trappers etc.

Last man standing = Spec cooldown period. Specs all require sound cues, sound cues are a big part of countering Specs. If sound cues aren’t playing properly, there’s a good chance there’s too many Specs spawning.

If they’re going to lower the specialist cap then they need to make specialists both harder to avoid and tankier. The main reason they have to spam them is because the cues are loud and resonant and timing a dodge is really easy. Only time I ever really get got by one these days is if I either brain fart or screw up my positioning and get stuck and can’t dodge.

It’s pretty easy to snipe a specialist before they can even attack because you can pinpoint their exact location before you can even see them and players deal enough damage that you can oneshot pretty much any special easy.

This is part of the “scaling back darktide” thing I keep mentioning all the time. You always have to dedicate a lot of your brainpower to specialists, and the rest you gotta autopilot to get through.

Yeah, maybe I was just tired, it just felt like even giving 100% with an optimal build I could not keep pace with the specialist spawns. And I’ve never had that problem, if I’m on specialist coverage I’m usually very good at it, even in H40.

There is an event on Havoc that spawns 4-5 Tox Bombers at one time. It’s been there since Havoc release and it’s crazy

Not this update.

It wasn’t in the patch notes, but from my experience Auric HiSTG has been turned up a lot.

It’s like another poster described. I had a game where snipers spawned in faster than I could kill them with a heavy stubber. And that was amidst other specials roaming about simultaneously.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the unintentional result of another change.

the post was special spawns, which were not.

thats about the current spawn rate yeah maybe a bit more

Yeah, unless the AI director decides to introduce some downtime (like after killing a boss or completing an objective), then in Auric you get a specialist spawn every like 8 seconds, single or double or sometimes more.

When you’re leading the charge, or bringing up the rear, then 50% of your job is dealing with them before they cause any damage. In QP it gets pretty tiring when the 2 chumps in the middle of the team never help you with that. Sometimes I just dodge the mutant and let them deal with it, ‘cause I’m so exasperated at the number of specialists trying to clap my cheeks.

Since the latest update the game has become dodge net simulator 2025.

So many specials are boring AF. easily the biggest fun sponges in the game when at this volume/density.