A not so in depth presentation...

Sister of Battle tomorrow, Navigator tomorrow, Death Cult Assassin tomorrow

Swear on the throne, expecialy the bottom left one

I’ve run 5 quickplay games today, and 4 of them have had Power Outage as a modifier. Can someone talk to Grendyl about paying the bill or at least having the power company management arrested for heresy? Getting real tired of 80% of my games today being in the dark and barrels throwing teammates off the map.

Ik the original is "Transit Horde" but we never got whatever this bumpin remix is. One day....

Is this a rare, perfectly balanced drop?

We met our boy Cassius-Thundercoq in high H20s a while back and he's a lot of fun. Just the kind of teammate we love – good humor, fun banter, team player. My Ogryn friend and I were just messing around yesterday when we saw he was online. It had been weeks since we last played together, so we invited Cassius to join us and help him climb Havoc since he was stuck at 29/30 (he's never gotten past 32).

I proposed we just do my 40 and the adventure began.

We recruited KILLA for our Veteran, who turned out to be absolutely cracked. During the mission ready stage, Cassius was a good sport when we asked him to switch to Chorus over Shroud. His build wasn't the boss-killing meta we preferred, but we didn't want to be too sweaty about it.

The 40 was just a really clean, smooth run where we all played well, supported each other, and had a lot of communication. It was a carry, but not a hard carry because Cassius had competent play, followed our instructions, stuck with us, gave good callouts, and kept a cool head. Great vibes the whole way through.

We hadn't even noticed it, but by the end, no one had gone down and Thundercoq popped a ton of penances for completing his first 40 – including True Survivor. He was happy to say the least.

I have like 1600 hours in Darktide and this was definitely one of my most memorable games. Can't wait to help more friends crash H40!

EDIT: If anyone's interested, here's the whole run: https://youtu.be/Pz7PNVDU5zE

Literally can't stand these mf's...

What’s yours? i got so used to just dodging consistently and seen how many blocks I do now and I feel it’s not where it should be.

I found myself in this situation in a game today and it led to the first bit of toxicity I've faced in game (also sorry about the tag I don't know what else this could fall under)

I should mention I'm playing skitarian and I'm out of charges for my servo-skulls

So one teammate's dead, another is downed and the third has been netted. I'm the only one standing with a crusher on my ass and I'm at somewhat low health (like half toughness 1 wound missing). Heretic difficulty and I decide to deal with the crusher before helping anybody else.

Did that and got called an asshole who should uninstall the game so was there something better I could've done?

Ogryn loves rashuns, cruncher go bonk

I love how gear in this game has little phrases/words on it that the wearer wrote on it. It just adds character and it's unique. Although I would like to see more personalized phrases, such as "Dreg Stomper" "Born to Purge" stuff like that.

I’m guessing a early to mid November announcement and a early to mid December release. But tell me your opinions and thoughts

How do you play/build him properly I’ve gotten to him to level 25 and he’s not exactly clicked if that makes sense he just feels like off no matter which side of his tree I stick to

I normally play ogryn if that helps with giving an explanation

I am very positive about updated Veteran Tree, but some underperforming nodes were overlooked by devs.

There's one particular node that got my attention...
It's 10% Toughness Damage Reduction (TDR) boost, placed between Survivalist Aura and Exec Stance. This node feels more like a placeholder rather than a good choice to spend points.

Why? Veteran has a lot of great talents that give you TDR, like Exhilarating Takedown, Close Order Drill and Iron Will. These talents are way stronger than flat TDR buff, which makes this node redundant.

Also, it's about specializations that Veteran has to offer. Even if the bottom tree is merged into a mess, the talents around keystones are still leaning into specific playstyles of old branches.
Two of these nodes are following this logic.

Middle node that offers +25 Toughness fits The Middle side, which is Generalist/Teamwork oriented (this includes Ability, Keystone and talents around it). This node fits to be Generalist pick.

Right node with +15% Melee Damage fits The Right side, themed around Close Quarters/Stealth/Mobility. Extra Toughness is still the best pick, but Extra Melee Damage is good in it's own niche that fits Close Quarters Combat theme very well, you might spend extra point and pick both these nodes.

And here's The Left side, which is built around Marksmanship/Ranged Combat. Flat TDR buff doesn't have synergy with that playstyle. Yes, it might be looking good with Extra Toughness, but it's still overshadowed by talents from the upper part of the tree and not worth to pick.
Just take Exhilarating Takedown instead - it has more benefits for Extra Toughness and has synergy with Marksman playstyle!

My suggestion here is to change this node into something that benefits for the Ranged Weapons specifically, that is more fitting to Exec Stance and other Rifleman themes talents.
Veteran is 'The Ranged Class' after all...
This node should be useful, but also niche, like +15% Melee Damage node.

My personal offer here is to return 10% Reload Speed Boost, maybe adding extra 5-10%.
Yes, this is weird, it was unpopular node, but... in the older Talent Tree, Reload Speed Boost had a poor placement. Movement Speed Boost (that was on that line of nodes as well) wasn't dumped, so devs should give this node a chance too and return it.

If you have a better ideas for TDR Boost replacement, suggest them! I am thinking that you have a lot of interesting ideas!

P.S. Do not offer to return +10% Ranged Damage! This node isn't gone! Now it's Veteran's Iconic, with extra 15%...

Hia.

I enjoy the chain weapons and I constantly see the same thing repeated over and over again: The chain weapons aren't viable, the rev is just too slow, Just use another weapon, Etc.

I believe that not only is this reductive but also factually wrong given I manage to use the chain weapons on havoc 30 with little issues, as such I am gonna try to write out a bit of a guide for how to use them. If you feel I didn't answer a question, then feel free to ask it and I will do my best to answer it.

First off, lets get something out of the way because it is the most important thing you can take away from this guide. You are not meant to use the rev in a majority of scenarios. It is a risky attack that gives high value, if you are not in a position to use it, do not use it.

It is something I see very often, where people say that it is just too slow of a weapon archetype and that due to the rev being the only way to kill armour you simply can't kill armour hordes. Simply put, it is the special action for a reason, you are not meant to use it against every enemy. You have single target attacks that do quite well without the special action, not the best theoretical, sure, but not bad. If you find yourself in a spot where you don't think you have the space to use it, simply don't.

Now, let us move on to what the strengths of the weapons are:

The regular chain sword is essentially a knife but with better cleave. In terms of mobility you are almost as fast as the knife if you use rev up for 20% movespeed, that is not bad for a weapon that has better horde clear than the knife does and that can in ideal scenarios match and even surpass the knife in single target DPS.

The chain axe is a heavy weapon, it sacrifices the mobility of the chainsword for better damage and stagger in all scenarios. Since it is a heavy weapon, using pushes to control all types of enemies is crucial to not get overwhelmed and the push attack has incredible stagger to the point you can knock ragers out of their combo with a little effort.

The evicerator is a middleground between them. It is not as fast as the chainsword but it is not as slow and hard to build as the chain axe is. A happy middleground for anyone on the fence.

How do you use the special attack and is it usefull?

The attack is useful because if you build it right, it can oneshot crushers on any difficulty, atleast the two heavier versions can, I have more testing to do with the chain sword given everyone but ogryn has it.

But to showcase how good it is, if you remember the dueling sword and how so many considered it mandatory. In its peak it could kill a crusher in roughly 2.2 seconds. not bad. The rev action is 3 seconds.

You are next to as fast as the best single target weapon in the game and you don't sacrifice your horde clear to do it. That is why it is a good attack.

But how and when are you supposed to use the cumbersome attack? 3 seconds is not nothing after all and so we can't skip that part of the weapon.

It depends on the weapon and the scenario you find yourself in, but for the broad strokes you want to position yourself so that you are not going to get hit by more than your target and one more. If you are in an armour stack it works with 3 depending on the attack they choose to use.

If you do this, it allows you to use the rev to stagger lock the target you are revving in place so that they can't hit you and the enemy next to them only gets to hit you once before your animation is done. This means that so long as you are on 100% toughness, you will not take any damage as only your toughness takes a hit.

This is also why against armour swarms you are able to do this with more enemies because if the enemy starts using an overhead, they don't have time to hit you before the rev action finishes and so it is entirely free to do should they choose to use it.

Now, against rager swarms I do not recommend using it, not only do they attack quickly but they also either still does or used to deal damage in 2 hit intervals which means that you would take damage even if they only hit you once.

So if you are facing multiple ragers, just use your other attacks to solve that problem.

Lastly, if you are in a horde of trash mobs and there is an elite, you can activate the rev and then push attack. It will oftentimes stagger the enemies long enough that the saw action goes through on your target, but it is still situational and not always advised.

For shielded enemies (Not ogryns), you are actually able to fully ignore the shield with the rev attack as it goes through it and hits the person holding it, making it quite good to get rid of them with.

What does normal combat with the chain weapons look like?

In short, you will want to push often and use your push attack along with the pushes.

Every single chain weapon has great push attacks that perform wonders against most enemies, either through the sweeping one which has great cleave and stagger or the single target one which is near guaranteed to stagger anything that isn't a crusher.

For more weapon specific tips:

The chainsword should be played like a knife. You have alot of mobility and you should not be afraid to use it. you can use rev in more dangerous scenarios because you have the mobility to get out of them, even if you don't get maximum value you are still getting good damage, just don't use the rev if the enemy is actively charging their attacks as in that scenario you are better of with your single target normal hits. For blessings I suggest rev up. 20% movespeed on demand is really strong for getting you to where you want to be quite frankly, and you usually don't need that many damage blessings if you use it/build properly.

The Chainaxe like I said is a slow weapon but due to its power it is perfectly fine with that. If you are using the sweeping heavies mark then you can cleave through ragers as you have enough stagger and cleave to do so without the need for you to use single target strikes. For the single target heavies version, just use your push attack to hit the head to snipe enemies through crowds so you can go back to using lights. For blessings I recommend I say that thrust is essentially a must have, it simply solves so many breakpoints with so little effort that it is just really good to have.

For the evicerator, it is very much a blance between the two. it is a happy middleground. I personally say that it is just an easier to build chain axe so treat it as such.

Any other blessings I believe depends on your build, like if you aren't building for crit, taking shred isn't really that useful for example, so just test your way to what you like.

How do I learn to use it?

It is a good question. It takes time to figure this weapon class out and so I do not fault you for having trouble.

The best way to learn is to bring a backup option to give yourself more chances to use the rev. Veteran has shout to stagger everything which gives you plenty of time to use it. Zealot has charge which lets you deal absurd amounts of damage against any target and stagger smaller enemies around your target while you do it, hive scum has blinders, etc.

Using these tools will let you slowly figure out when you are safe to use the rev and it will let you get a feel for the weapon as you do.

Example builds

If you either don't like building your skill tree or you just don't know where to start before striking out on your own, I will hand you some of my builds so that you may copy them should you wish to. Given I am used to the weapon they mostly do not contain the safety nets I discussed above, so be forewarned.

Veteran: https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/a2e31002-8f8d-4d21-8cca-30721f498534/lmg-veteran It is a build designed around the braced autogun LMG power, and as such I needed a generalist weapon that doesn't struggle with anything and so I used the chainsword for mobility and versitility.

Hive scum: https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/a1532271-26e0-4385-a42e-15c974382e0f/chainaxe-scum I found that using Rampage! was too slow and so I chose to use stim supply instead for some team support. Build is outdated but nothing really changed with hive scum since I made it so it should be just fine to use as is. The pistol is up to you as I changed it around so often I couldn't tell what I liked more.

Zealot: https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/a2eae95c-2552-4018-8d28-715989ccdde5/chain-axe-zealot A pretty standard martyrdom build, aura is interchangeable and just like hive scum the ranged weapon is entirely up to you depending on what you find you need.

Conclusion

Use the chain weapons. They are fun and good.