Why is the boltgun an inaccurate rng type piece of doodoo?

What the title says…
What’s the point of this gun, it seems it can even miss from point blank range because of some rng mechanic?
The recoil is way too much and the sight picture kinda sucks.(small sights). It doesn’t penetrate and the range is not something to write home about either.
It’s a shame such an iconic 40k weapon feels really meh and is kinda useless.
This gun needs some love and buffs!

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I swear I’ve heard this said once or twice before.

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It’s just being true to the tabletop version. Base bolter is mediocre there too.

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Because you aren’t a Space Marine. How it doesn’t blow your arm out of its socket with each pull of the trigger is beyond me. I mean, these Bolters aren’t even modified to have a simple butt stock for normal human use so of course it’s gonna have crazy recoil.

That is, of course, the lore explanation.

Fatshark tend to be real sticklers about the lore and in the case of the Boltgun, they let the lore govern their implementation of it a bit too much. Normally I’d applaud that, but at the end of the day, this is a video game, not an hour long youtube video about Astartes weaponry.

As Zealot, I treat boltguns like an ultimate ability and sometimes it’s fun like that.
As a Veteran, however, I forget bolters even exist half the time.

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It all comes down to the post kick twitching. Whether that is a bug or not, it completely erases any hope of being reasonably accurate with the bolt guns. Seeing as the same thing is present on the recently added Bolt Pistol, I don’t think it’s unintentional (ie, a bug). If they got rid of it, which they obviously should, all would be well in Bolt Land.

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Bolter is easily the only gun I found worth running the right side of the tree for on Veteran. Bolt pistol can use weapon specialist. An impossibly melee focused Psyker build could use it if you’re sick to death of Zarona.

Eh, there’s still worse guns in the game to me…like headhunters, the shooter buffs really highlight my complaints about them being a miserable experience.

Now now, the Headhunters are not bad at all when used in an accommodating build.

This thing absolutely wrecks on a marksman build. We’re talking one shotting reapers and doing several thousand damage points on monstrosities in just a couple shots. It’s just a far more methodical weapon than anything in the game and while that really limits the amount of ways you can use them, they still pack insane amounts of punch under the right circumstances.

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Right, its a lot more limiting than a boltgun, with a lot less damage potential. There’s also 2 variants that are completely dead and can’t even be saved by veteran’s suppression immunity. This is why I say ‘there are a lot worse guns to use than a boltgun’.

I wouldn’t say it’s less damage though. I haven’t crunched any numbers on this and compared the two, but one to two shotting ogryn is about as punchy a ranged weapon as you’ll get. Even the middle mark Headhunter (I forget what it’s called) can do this, just less consistently. I’d say the damage potential is as high as it’ll get, but it’s definitely way, way less versatile and less compatible with a variety of playstyles compared to the boltgun.

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Its most limiting because it has suppression penalty, at this point with the lethality of shooters its making too many weapons unviable. When the las pistol creams all of these options from the plain fact that it hits where you aim under fire alone its pretty sad. Even recon lasgun does gun psyker better because of this.

Hopefully suppression is on their list at some point. You can’t even stand in a bubble dome and use it. One class weapons are exactly my argument behind terrible weapons that aren’t fun to use.

I don’t know, I had fun yesterday turning shooters into red explosions. And gunning down a horde of Maulers is also satisfying.
I run Weapon Expert, so I reload my magazine passively while in melee.
It may not be perfect for the high-intensity gameplay that is far too fast to have the extremely long ready times when switching to it, but on easier difficulties, the gun is fun to use.
But I guess we are always talking about Auric level 10 missions with extra try-hard on top? - Well i guess its not competitive and fast enough to react to these kind of intensities.

I have almost the same roll. The headhunter autoguns shine in open spaces with a lot of distance to cover, like the new mission for instance. The first event has so many distant spawns in all directions, you can easily pick every gunner apart before they can become a menace.
Even better after the elevator ride. That long frozen corridor is basically a headhunter shooting range.

They’re clunky in close to mid combat, but that’s why they pair nicely with a zealot imo. You’ve got knives and melee for that.

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The reason humans can use them without a stock or other means of dampening the recoil is because bolts are two-stage projectiles (if that is the right term). The initial propellant is enough to get the bolt clear out of the muzzle, whereupon the bolt’s internal rocket takes over. It all happens so quickly that it appears to be one single shot to the human eye.

This is why we have had quite an array of Imperial Guard and some Necromunda miniatures wielding bolters and bolt pistols, with Gunnery Sergeant Harker being ridiculous and lugging a Heavy Bolter about.

The best real-life comparison - and possibly an inspiration behind the bolter - are gyrojet firearms, which literally shot little rockets, with apparently little recoil. They were a true 1960s ‘space age’ form of weapons development. If you take that and cross it with grenade launchers like the M19 and M32, you effectively get the concept of a bolter.

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stub revolver, columnus V, knife, shovels, autopistol, laspistol, mg1a

all above have litte to do with lore behavior on my book

they should start feeling underwhelming in Heresy +, like it was in the original concept of the game

patch 13 ruined every semblance of lore behavoior this game had

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What is it with people and wanting balance to, reflect lore? Even GW throws lore out the window when balancing the official game.

If you want the game balance to reflect lore, your characters should immediately die once they step near some infected area. In fact, Atoma should be a nurgle wasteland due to the presence of multiple Beast of Nurgles. Remember, those things take the fire power of entire regiments to take down.

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I doubt it is about being irked weapons do not get balanced via novels or some tabletop.
If you read a couple, or a couple more, you will encounter many inconsistencies in how they are described to function, or what kind of situation they can deal with.

It is more about the fact that, in Darktide, common gardening tools somehow outperform Chainweapons. I still remember the one handed Chainsword being great, which held up for a bit until they got nerfed severely. Combat Axes, and the Knife are top dogs since forever. The Machete got hit hard by the recent patch but was up there for just as long.

The recent addition of the Bolt Pistol, which is terrible on damnation and in every way a downgrade to the already existing Zarona for no reason, opened the lid on that discussion again.

Up until that point, I was already content to fight heresy with silverware.

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only thing they did was to nerf the cleave on the initial strikedown of the light combo, i played the chainsword mk4 recently, and its still vastly inferior to the new mk13g

because of that problem, the first light attack being so weak that you are forced into spamming heavy attacks burning your dodges all game

I use the Boltgun as one would use a sniper gun. With the Surgical blessing, you aim for 3.5 seconds and are guaranteed a critical hit. Aim for center mass or head if practical. One shot one kill.

I haven’t tried the bolter in awhile and dusted one off in the meat grinder, it feels way different, it’s like instead of hitting things like it used to do, it’s like a little explosion that apparently doesn’t do much, it used to slap whenever it hit before…did not like

Standing still for 3.5 seconds… wait what, how do you manage that?
Are you playing on auric damnation?

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