So I took the latest ‘meta’ Kantrael, the 1a, for a spin, and I can’t comprehend why anyone would use this thing. It doesn’t have enough firepower to my mind, even a 378 rating one failing to hit most breakpoints by a huge margin, it isn’t fast-firing against hordes, and the Hellbore just seems the better weapon for accurate ranged fire while the autoguns fill the ‘spam damage’ role.
The one I’m running has Headhunter IV and Unarmored +25 as picks, with Sprint Efficiency and Infernus IV locked in (yes, sprint efficiency sucks, it sucks less than my other option).
What should I be building for instead, or should I just not bother?
Is that the meta one? I think the MG IV is better at the minute myself. The Kantrael is great for a fast swapping weapon, and pairs well with Headhunter for its built in 10% crit chance. The suppression immunity node lets you totally roll in on damage when using it on Veteran, I like deadly accurate in the second blessing slot. MG 1A should definitely dedicate a perk to flak for killing all gunhands with a single shot, then figure out whatever you think would be best after that.
There’s only inverted fall off on Lucius, the Kantrael delivers more damage than the posted number beyond a certain range and this is only an advantage for the group. Seriously they would be 100% nerfed if they just did the posted number and then less than that at a distance instead, what a bizarre take. Lucius is the only one punished for not spacing properly by delivering less than the posted damage in close distance.
The Kantraels also have significantly less compounded disadvantage than say las pistols, braced autoguns or headhunter autoguns. Sometimes you can totally use the guns that aren’t completely outclassed, and the Kantrael doesn’t underperform heavily enough to be on the buff radar for my tastes. Regularly top damage with it just spamming gun all game, I’m really tired of the takes that everything that isn’t revolver, kickback or plasma is somehow not pulling weight at all. Just the other topic there were people demanding buffs for the Lucius too, like does everything need to fall into the Vermintide 2 style gameplay of spamming melee and dodge and only quick swap shotting? In the game where you can finally outrun enemies?
I’m no lasgun expert, but for starters you don’t have a great 1a. You likely need better perks and blessings, and you can hit a lot of 1 shot breakpoints vs man-sized threats depending on the build (marksman/exec) and buffs. Infernus is nice on bosses but it doesn’t build max stacks fast enough on the 1a to be of much use anywhere else imo, it was good on the “good for 1 month” 6d back in Oct, but you’d be better off with Deadly Accurate or even Ghost for ranged face-tanking to pair with Headhunter when you get a new one.
If it’s for a shouty vet other maybe better options exist, or go for the spammier MG 4 if you want lasgun, or even hvy laspistol.
Horde clearing with ranged weapons not designed for it make Baby Emprah cry.
Semantics. The breakpoints are not met regardless. This is a glass half full, glass half empty scenario.
I am a man in a desert, and a half a glass will not cut it regardless of any faux optimism.
I’m genuinely curious, about your perspective on this one. The pistols actually have a small niche for themselves in my mind as they are extremely mobile, and accurate. Also they out DPS the MG IV which isn’t saying much.
Brautos I hate. I don’t like weapons that don’t let me chain headshot, and they feel like a group that was put in because FS lacked creativity. I am clearly biased on this, but I agree they are worse than Kantraels.
HH are bad, but only because they demand a lot of you. Down to brass tacks they performed way better than the Lasguns in my stress tests. Other than the MK IX. That one sucks.
Good for you. As someone who is also a fellow forum poster (ie you care enough to even come here) I’m assuming you are head and shoulders above 95%+ of players in raw capability. I’ve also top scored with absolutely abysmal gear, and even on low level characters vs max level characters. Not by a small margin either.
This proves nothing.
The unfortunate fact is that player power in Darktide is so immense that the only way to maintain a semblance of challenge is through sheer quantity of specials. Anything that cannot keep up with the special waves is subpar.
In VT2 on Kerillian however Longbow never went out of vogue because it was so clean to use, and still hit all the same breakpoints for murdering specials as its much more overpowered forerunners (javelin, moonbow).
It always comes back down to breakpoints, and usability.
Because it sucks. Asking for shorter swap times on a weapon that has an inherent ready up time in the form of a charge shot is not a big ask. It’s the only thing it needs, and it would still have a solid identity regardless of what you think.
While the game spawns 3-4 fire specials at a time with 2-3 disablers at a time in waves + others then yes.
Only solution other than making the crappy guns good is make all the great guns bad, and tune down player power in general.
I could tell you which ones will go over better with the community, but I think you already know.
MG IV has 300 RPM to the las pistol’s 264, and hits every target except Flak harder, only it will do more damage outside of close range instead of drop off heinously like the non-Kantrael las pistol (which isn’t even in this discussion because of 157 RPM and the same 4 enemy type weaknesses as the Accatran las pistol). One is hinged entirely on crit damage but only one gets Deadly Accurate. HMMMM
It also has decent enough hipfire but more importantly insane ADS strafing accuracy and near pistol level movement speed when doing so. On top of this it has reserves of 530~ average shots to the Accatran’s ~320 (before the always prepared you get stuck running when you need suppression immunity and shock trooper with either weapon for them to be worth using on veteran).
Critting against unarmored and flak while having no range and doing nothing else is exactly why las pistol is bad and if it somehow needs a buff less than Kantrael I really don’t understand where this discussion is headed. Its even an ammo hog weapon…
Headhunters are also ridiculously bad vs Kantraels, again unless critting flak targets. Not sure why they would need a buff less. The braced autoguns that aren’t the Agrippina can’t even pretend to occupy space in the game next to infantry autoguns with no cleave. But here you are, complaining about infantry lasguns which are definite topping mid tier in the current game.
And playing all the same dumb auric mods you guys do without getting high on my own farts and deciding there is some incontrovertible style of gameplay that reigns supreme the Lucius also works fine. I keep poking things in the head, dodging as needed and shooting elites for stagger. If I could quick swap to it there wouldn’t even be a point to the rest of the las weaponry to me. And there’s already 5 useless las weapons in game (las pistols and the recons). I’m also having a hard time seeing the semantics in pointing out that a unique mechanic to the weapon that only functions to benefit it in the current game is somehow not as good as it could be. Honestly if we just removed it like you’re saying it would be a nerf.
Kantrael MG Ia is the meta. It is objectively the best DPS lasgun.
I, generally, prefer XII myself.
Pretty much you need to go full left tree and have 2 blessings for Kantrael lasgun to be borderline OP. You can pick perks depending on which breakpoints you want to meet. You, probably, will need +25% unarmored (against Dreg Gunners) and +25% maniac (Against Ragers)
The important talents are: toughness on headshot kills, executioner stance with two upgrades. weakspot damage. elite dmg. Marksman focus with upgrade. And toughness reduction if you over 75% toughness.
other talents can be swapped for you liking. Feel free to pick “Deadshot” for even more crits
Obviously it’s not as good as Onslaught Columnus veteran. Or braindead plasmagun. But it’s still strong. It’s still fun. And it’s still satisfying to pop all those pesky ranged enemies
I used it quite a bit and it was pretty versatile(good maniac damage, good firerate, good usability) but tbh if you’re good at hitting head I think Vrak 7 HH with Surgical and Deadly Accurate is probably better than it all around.
Not only it’s able to one tap most elite/specialist while also eat carapace for lunch which MG Ia can’t do. Just have to deal with the iron sight unless you use customization mod.
Las Pistols aren’t worthless. Their specific niche is for mobility. You use a really slow melee weapon on a melee build? Las Pistol is pretty great, and can kill one off specials when needed. In a full ranged build? Yeah. No.
EDIT: Got back home to test. MK II Heavy Las does in fact out DPS MG IV. By a very narrow margin. Can upload footage if needed.
They are both crappy sub 500s, but have proper t3 blessings. Both were tested on an unyielding enemy since both the MK II and MG IV had unyielding. The HH at t4 might make the MG IV much stronger. Not discounting that.
The MK X Heavy Las needs RNG to match, but is overall lower other than spikes that can boost it over it. But I don’t count those.
Headhunters are not worse than Kantraels because there are so many flak targets.
Brautos are garbo, but they can be fired forever, and clear horde. Horde clear on gun is worthless imo, but nonetheless it still means they aren’t in the same space. That’s the point.
My implied statement was that it should reach breakpoints without a distanced based mechanic.
I’ll just say I’m trying to get many weapons buffed. This unfortunately risks homogenization, but considering I’ve had friends quit this game because they backed the wrong horse, and lost all their resources on something they found wasn’t cutting it the moment sh*t hit the fan I’d rather stuff be samey, but viable.
I took this advice. Some psykanium testing reveals a lil.
While less shooty than my hellbore, it trades off for more reliable hipfire. This is a benefit imo.
I think with a bit more crit chance in the build somehow, I could get it to be more reliable, but currently headhunter procs are not it for me. I prefer consistent 1-tapping and the 1a does not provide that.
I don’t touch the medium variants of weapons, unless they’re the only ones available. If I’m gonna use a Kantrael Lasgun, I’m either gonna use the MG IV (light variant) or the MG XII (heavy variant), because I’m a Sith that only deals in absolutes.
I thought the XII was the meta, when this was meta, but the meta moved on to mostly higher rate of fire weapons.
That said, I hope someone will tell me I’m wrong, but it seems like this whole family of lasguns has been left behind on punching through a target to get ones behind.
In V1 I loved rupture on my brace of pistols for the 3 rat linear AOE, and if this had that, I think it would be ideal.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have any, but it feels like slug guns tend to hit what’s behind and lasguns tend to miss.
I tried the IA on a gun Psyker build and it almost felt good but the absolutely abysmal accuracy under any amount of suppression killed that build for me. I can see it being decent on Vet due to suppression immunity and general left tree stuff making breakpoints pretty easy but yet to play around with it on Vet personally.
Have we actually played the same game? The MG IV can strafe just like a las pistol. Its the main quirk besides the reduced power pack use. Even throwing Dum Dum on the calculator to make the Las Pistol artificially 25% better than it could be (which is only proccing in 8m) Deadly Accurate alone beats it in DPS at close range and it just gets worse outside that. Remembering the best toughness regen talent for these weapons on Veteran runs you by a node that compounds the Kantrael’s ramp up damage.
This is why I don’t take a lot of balance takes seriously, like there is a scheme of the rest of the game with far worse underperformance. The best las pistol is worse than the spammy las carbine at being a close range weapon. The headhunter autoguns suffer from bad mobility when ADS like infantry autoguns but have almost the same number of target weaknesses as a las pistol. The braced autoguns have no range to speak of and 2/3s of them can’t even put out more horde DPS than a Columnus Infantry that was fishing for bodyshots.
If your take is that the balance should be better, lets start at the bottom and not the middle. Krourk Stubber, human shotguns, list goes on.
The Kantrael MgXII was my most used weapon for most of the first year of the game, but now I can’t justify its usage.
I’ve tried the two other variants, because I had the insane luck of getting godrolled versions of both for my vet, and though they are pretty good in theory (psykhanium) it feels really inefficient in most auric games.
With the profusion of high armor elites, enemies coming in a steady flow from behind you, specials hidden in mixed hordes and lots of threats spawning not in dedicated spawn points but behind corners or basically everywhere close to you but directly out of your field of view, the game just isn’t made for the use of a low damage, precision, mid/long range weapon anymore.
My issues with the kantraels :
They lose accuracy really fast when fast firing.
Coupled with exec. stance the scoping fov is impractical.
Most “real” threats are fast and close and often armored or covered behind trash mobs, the Kantrael is a poor weapon choice for all of that.
Suppression done by other teammates or even yourself (you are pretty much forced to choose the +25% node) is detrimental, because shooters running around or hiding behid cover are targets you can’t dispatch efficiently.
You need to you go all-in in your build to try to get them to perform ok. And they do have a lot of weaknesses to cover.
I have an issue with hitreg while using MgXII and MgIa, a lot of shots won’t register.
