I was originally gonna make a post about how hive scum is weak because outside of a few overdone nodes vets onslaught (and the perks around it) bodies most of scums damage… Only problem is I didn’t wanna overdo it, have it be a meet in the middle kind of buff because of how op some of the other classes are currently and so I got curious what the community consensus is
top of my head?
yellow toughness
BLO on rumbler
dueling sword
plasma gun
chem grenades
said “overdone” left side scum talents
smite
15 Likes
I am past the point of caring about anything except for perma Smite and Perilous Combustion Purg (Shriek especially). At least every other broken thing requires player input. These two have the Psyker player wiggling their mouse in the backline and winning the game for everyone. Anyone bringing these into Auric is diabolical and I try to avoid them in Havoc whenever possible.
9 Likes
None, except for DS.
Infinite cleave
Chorus
Plasma Gun (slightly, I think it’s fine being the strongest vet weapon just don’t kill it)
Dueling Sword
Melee weapon macroing
Also not a nerf but buff venting shriek. I understand it has it’s own niche with soulblaze builds but it’s mostly overshadowed by Scrier’s Gaze.
4 Likes
But why? Would you rather play with typical Zealots who run away from the team with Stealth or FOTF just to get as many kills as they can for themselves?
1 Like
I do not agree with a Shriek buff, but adding Warp Unbound to Scrier and singlehandedly enabling Scirer to abuse Staves was certainly a choice. Also lmao it enabled the macro ball spam era.
4 Likes
Plasma just need most of its power transfer from uncharge to charged shot tbh, and FS was planning to do just that untill they chicken out because of review bomb after a certain leak.
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That isn’t an argument. Charge and stealth have their own playstyles. Chorus has its own as well but it’s too good at it.
If Fatshark wants to balance Havoc around infinite cleave, stagger, and gold toughness loadouts I’d prefer they just nerf those things instead so we have more variety in build choices.
4 Likes
Yeah, I was hoping the changes would make charging the Plasma have a better damage:ammo ratio because that just make sense. But I guess not.
2 Likes
Too many to count. But part of it is based on how you want the game to feel. Do we want each individual elite to feel like a valid threat? Same with specials? Or do we want to kill waves of them and only being surrounded and overwhelmed be what kills us? I think to answer the balance question of nerfs and puffs its… do you want VT2 and Darktide power levels before the class trees were introduced? Or more the feel of where we are now?
3 Likes
rather than what’s objectively the most broken I’ll say what annoys me the most, it’s when I play melee and someone’s just killing everything while I’m swinging at it so I can’t actually get any of my talents procced and can’t get any toughness and my presence is invalidated by someone who isn’t even taking a risk to do that.
So in that sense, any and all ranged spam builds should go get stomped into the dirt. Hive Scum pickpocket is my own personal 9/11
3 Likes
The game needs a comprehensive overhaul to balance to just to lower the numbers and tighten the drift between meta and what is the point of using this weapon
The damage numbers have gotten ridiculous where enemies needed big hp buff to compensate this year which only solidified what worked and made weapons that have been untouched for a while lag behind even harder.
There’s something comprehensively wrong with your game when the ranged specialist class can kill the biggest hp pool in the game (havoc 40 plague ogyrn) in seven seconds purely with a power sword using a generalist build.
Like the reason why hive scum is considered a glass cannon without the cannon part is because if they made it a glass cannon that out dpsed the current meta the game would have become hilariously even more trivial.
12 Likes
I think Fatshark just lacks the overarching vision, or design coherency, or whatever you would call this, to actually balance talent trees with such fat damage values on them. It’s too many variables and they can’t figure it out.
I often think this games balance would be really easy to achieve if talent trees were all non-damage, non DR things. Just fun stuff like until death, no stat buffs.
3 Likes
Some decent picks so far, can’t say I disagree with most.
Was gonna suggest Chemical dependency because that keystones seems determined to undermine the class’s glass cannon angle while making cdr the best stim pick stim pick while the other keystones lack but honestly it seems like a death by a thousand cuts kind of deal
I have a friend who mentions about the old vt2 like build system sometimes and how it’s fundamentally a better system for balancing while making a class better stick to a theme and honestly I wonder what the game could of ended up like if they stuck with that kind of system
would be interesting to know how often the torch has been passed on since the original combat designer left.
sure feels like a lot of inconsistent fractures and jumps, way disconnected from previous standards.
like didn’t he leave a memo on the fridge:”dear follow-up, do “this” and don’t f-it up” 
3 Likes
With a few exceptions (chem grenade lol) I think they did a good job with Hive Scum all things considered. No golden toughness, virtually all bitzes, keystones, abilities, and exclusive weapons are viable. Crowbar is pretty underwhelming but I digress.
I personally think that Hive Scum is a lot stronger than people say, and comparing boss kill times alone and in a vacuum ignores a lot of nuance of gameplay. Vet killing things with full focus target stacks and a melee with very poor mobility is perfectly fine. It’s just things like shout stagger, golden toughness, and grenades that enable Veteran to do it so safely.
The prevalence of CDR and blitz regen sort of homogenizes the game a little bit in my eyes. It’s becoming less and less of a skill check to keep track of your cooldown rotation on certain buffs, abilities, and blitzes because you either have access to insane CDR, insane Blitz regen, or both. So people can just use these things without much thought because the uptime is too good. This is another part of the powercreep issue that no one really talks about.
2 Likes
My list
- yellow toughness
- DS
- PG cleave
- Chem grenade
- Return rocket launcher to 2 charges only (but keep damages)
- Vulture’s dodge
- Psyker (but I don’t know the class… i thin k soulblaze but not sure this is the only thing problematic)
- Regen grenades
- Holy revenant should be part of Martyrdom gameplay
- Martyrdom is now too powerful and inexorable useless (or really less interesting)
- For Arbites I would nerf a little the toughness regen (really too too much)
- Artbites specific shotgun (slight nerf, but still)
- Ogryn, I don’t play but sure… Rumbler looks a little too good
- Boltgun needs a VERY VERY slight nerf. We are close to something, not balanced, but that I would say not too strong. But actually, it is still in the too strong state
Things to BUFF
- Combat Shotgun… I really would like that they stop to make them critical weapons that need headshots… Because, that’s not the shotgun DNA of all classic games… but if they want to persist in this, at least up again damages. You have up the enemies HP…
- Assault shotgun - make it enjoyable
- Devil’s claw (do something… I don’t know… Change the blessings by example!)
- Lasguns (all… they are not in a good position for various reason… laspistols, lasgun - However recon lasgun have few builds interesting, but still very very powerful, so not sure buffing them would be a smart idea)
- Kickaxe shines too much… Considering the state of Ogryn, I would not push to nerf kickaxe, but make the other weapons of the ogryn arsenal better. But as I play rarely Ogryn, I can be totally wrong
- Power falchion it seems
- Headhunter that I feel not… impressive AT ALL
- Helbore (not sure the weapon is in good state considering I have not seen one for 6 months)
The list is long… I know… Feel free to point my errors 
2 Likes
indeed, i find playing scum more rewarding, as there’s more risk. very unlike castigator for example. rather like gun / melee psyker, but that one has been buffed too.
2 Likes
True but even mixed horde clear the hive scum is outperformed by every class in the game
Not only in dps but ability to take hits as well without losing all their health
Like it’s still insane that significantly more tanky classes can pump out consistently more dps than the glass cannon class
Like hive scum comes with actual downsides to things the other classes essentially get with none.
4 Likes