Trying to move from malice to heresy on my shieldgryn I notice a couple things:
Stocism is cool and justified and all that. But apparently you are somewhat alone in your notion that you can tell if you are meaningfully contributing without a scoreboard. Scoreboards provide objective data that allow a player to see their relative performance in this and future games to other players. Which some players obviously really need or we wouldn’t be having a conversation about the surprised reaction by those players that the shield is so bad that they are catching flak just for using it.
So either they cannot tell how useless they are being due to a personal perceptional flaw, and objective measures have value for such persons. Or something about the game makes it hard to tell whether or not you’re being useful or not, in which case objective measures have value.
Added:
I just wanted to show what I am talking about. This is an example case, but its a pretty common one. I gave most of the ammo pickups I found to the flamer zealot and ogryn all game. So this is my score despite having no ammo for large portions of the game. I’m using notably C grade gear like the TH and Shotgun. To be clear this means I was the 3rd ranking player in the hierarchy of usefulness from a purely stats perspective (I did most of the reviving but that’s not recorded here.). No great e-Score ego points for me since I’m obviously being 3rd place here.
I didn’t insult the ogryn, we all had a fun game. But when you look at this do you honestly feel like
MAN I can’t wait for another shield ogryn?
I find shield Ogryn pretty useful when played well, like if there’s a massive group of shooters the shield Ogryn can draw most of the gun fire and then the rest of the team can poke their heads out and shoot the distracted enemies. Melee enemies will also be drawn to the shield ogryn much of the time as well.
Glad I never met such people so far (~200 hours in DT and more in VT) - and if, they just leave and I do not notice it.
Also I have many (like 20~25%) “shields” in my games and they are always ok, at least not worse than other players or weapons.
But then again I do not play Diff5 at all so far, can not speak for that area.
I like shields and I love Ogryns =)
But true, if an Ogryn only uses the special of the shield the whole mission it gets a bit annoying.
I literally just want to see my kills and damage. I literally don’t care about anything else. And right now the only option for that is the scoreboard mod.
Scoreboards provide data points that are wildly subjective in their interpretation. Numbers are not objective because they’re being processed and presented by subjective beings, namely us. Numbers can be spun to tell whatever story the person presented them want them to tell.
I don’t give a flying fig about those numbers, because they don’t tell a meaningful story about the run, nor about the equipment. Why did he take that much damage, why did you take so little compared to the rest of the team?
Why did no one stagger when the shield pretty much only staggers? That right there brings everything else that mod says under question.
I will 100% take a shield ogryn any day, and not care about whatever green circles… I mean yellow numbers show up because as long as I’m actually doing my part, that’s the only control I should have over someone else’s gameplay in a pug game.
You’re absolutely not wrong, scoreboard does not tell the whole story, it can give you a peek into it though. A seasoned player can spot other’s contribution and the scoreboard becomes almost redundant, but it can a useful metric.
If I see a shield+stubber, the 2 worst weapons in biggie’s arsenal (fight me Discord mafia!), I know there’s a very good chance I’ll have to step-up my game and not rely on that teammate.
I’ll even go as far as saying that in this instance (the score screen) the damage taken is due to the Stubber, that thing requires you to sacrifice your own blood every shot; it practically demands you facetank while shooting and deploying or even thinking about shooting. Like the shield, it’s one of those weapons that very few seem to use well.
Have I been wrong on this ? On occasion, of course, and I’m happy to be proven wrong.
But far more often than not, certain weapons or weapon combos means you’re ~1 teammate short. Lately it’s more like 2-3 teammates short, maybe that’s adding to the “hate”.
If you get your information of best weapons from this forum and not the Discord, then believe me, shield was never considered best Ogryn Weapon. Currently it is and has been BB (Bull Butcher) and GG (Grenade Gauntlet). Ripper with 25% carapace damage and rend currently is running good, but it is due to a bug with the Rend Blessing. Also, Billy Club is making a push right now, but not 100% sure of proper blessings for it. Skullbreaker channel on the Discord server is best place to get an idea where the meta is.
The club is in a fun place right now! Skullcrusher+Confident Strike is still best IMHO, though some swear by a high tier Haymaker (afaik it doesn’t give toughness on insta-kills).
I’d take some of what’s being said on Discord, especially “tier lists” with a grain of salt. From what I gather, it’s heavily influenced by a select few self-appointed “influencers” who often push their biased opinions to the foreground, many of which would not make sense for your average player in a random group. Look for a bit of consensus across discussion platforms and try for yourself.
P.S Watch, one of the more, uh interesting Discordians will probably show up here with videos and scoreboards about how awesome they are; it’s like bat signal.
You know, man, I wrote such a huge post for you, but… Looking at all my work with the post and my arguments, for some reason I decided to go to your profile and see your comments…
In short, in a nutshell, I see no point in communicating with you at all and proving anything to you.
Good luck with the shield in the game, may the Emperor help your teammates.
It was a go-to weapon in November and early December. Back then the community had no idea how to play the game on higher difficulties. Darktide’s most dangerous enemies are ranged so a weapon that can block gunfire was considered good.
Yeah, I’m one of these shield Ogryns. Now that I am playing on damnation I will start experimenting with other weapons more, but so far nothing has the pure stagger potential of the shield which I really love.
I complete more Damnation runs than I lose. Typically when we die it’s because someone (often a Zealot) has rushed ahead and gotten themselves killed, but I will never complain when seeing a Zealot in my group. Psykers are typically very durable and skilled (required of the class). Sometimes I do something stupid and die. I’d think we all do. My favourite group has one of each.
I did play a run with people who complained that I was using shield. These were good players mind, but the atmosphere in the group was rock bottom at the end and everyone just charged in different directions and we wiped. Two of these comprise my entire ban list. Most people are nice.
So yeah, a scoreboard can’t come soon enough and I am well aware that numbers do not tell the entire story, but neither do people who seem to think that keeping groups of marauders pinned and staggered for extended periods as not contributing to the team… or who think that toxicity and scoreboards are in any way related.
Oh I do, but I also run with some of the top streamers as well in Damnation only. I use all weapons but the 4 I named are the best currently. All are viable, except maybe shield due to complete lack of damage even with Bleed, but the 4 named are the best of the batch.
I just could not deal with how much screen real estate the shield covered
It’s extremely slow, it barely kills anything, and for some reason people using it bring the stubber 90% of the time which means they can’t quickly take care of specials/elites unlike the gauntlet/ripper. It also limits vision a lot, which may be why I see shield ogryns getting netted, hounded, and mutant’d constantly.
I’m not saying it’s a bad weapon or that it’s impossible to make it work, but as a classic butcher/gauntlet ogryn main, this has been my experience playing with most shield ogryns.
People don’t like shield because it is not as powerful as the rest of ogryn weaponry for clearing hordes nor killing elites / armored ogryns.
So, as we spend 30+ min in a game for :
having fun (not having the feeling to play with a pot of flower)
earning resources (let’s be clear, playing with a shieldgryn is like being 3, not 4)
We don’t want to lose at 20th minute so our time has been wasted
For me shieldrgyn is like having 2 psykers in the team. An unnecessary added handicap.
The grind is already high in the game, I want to finish my game.
I am not votekicking them but if game not launched (dam+, in low intensity it is still manageable) I am leaving the party.
What if the Ogryn could slowly move with his shield plunk down?
Which is his current block costing stamina.
So what to do with that?
It won’t change the core problems we have with this weapon. Moving slowly is still a pain on a dynamic game as this one…
Ehhh, i wouldn’t say the best comparison since some psyker builds that can pair really well together (a surge + purge build has been pretty busted and being the only zealot on the team made up of 3 psykers was a surprisingly easy clear on Damnation) but the big problem is that the shield just doesn’t have great team coherency even at the best of times.
If the plant itself did a guaranteed stagger or follow up hits after a block resulted in more damage then it would maybe be worth it. Alternatively replace the plant with a short charge and shove that has a guaranteed damage + knock down against larger enemies.
Really it just needs better blessings as well. The current blessings suck and there could be some good ideas like blocks resulting in your team having more damage, blocks with follow-up attacks, reflected shots, etc.
I think for something that big it also needs way more damage against hordes. You are effectively swinging an entire car door at someone with the speed to back it up, that kind of attack should be caving in skulls and not just knocking people around.
