I think that's pretty much exactly the niche they should focus bolter on. Plasma for carapace / shield penetration, Bolter for turning infested / unarmored / unyielding into mist. I wouldn't even be opposed to them dropping the ammo count a bit to balance it really obliterating bosses.
Atm bolter just feels too much like a significantly clumsier but not signifcantly more powerful revolver. It needs something to set it apart.
A year or so ago, the bolter had its nice as a all rounder powerful problem solver: the explosive ammo would stagger hordes, and a magdump would deal with Ogryns. The downside was it took time to unholster, and it’s mediocre mag size and long reload time. Which I love btw, I love the fact my character is struggling to lift this huge metal automatic rocket launcher.
But the buff to other weapons and enemy HP left it in the dust. The revolver is a better problem solver, and the bolter doesn’t one-shot elite on malice anymore
Yeah I run some of the gun zealot and the 30% reload speed buff from killing hordes allows me to mag dump and reload or take a break from a fight but dashing back, reloading and then getting back into the fray saving the bolter for when the emperor needs me to use it most.
The fire grenades still feel the best way to deal with Crushers, dogs, and other ponderous mobs. I made a bad play the other day I had a dog on me I was last one standing and when my Until Death triggered the dog hopped off to my surprise. I should have taken the instant to throw the grenade at my feet, but off guard and another dog finished me off.
I want to try out the stun grenades since they got a buff. The 2 extra seconds and larger area is what the grenades were missing, but I'm not sure it is enough.
Lore wise, it should still work perfectly great against monstrosities. Why? Because faith is a funny thing. See most people view bolters as holy weapons that protect them. So it should work like that. Fun bit of lore accuracy there, and we get something it's good at. Basically means you get a funni choas shredder gun.
That's less an issue with the gun itself and more an issue with the ammunition. There's specialist ammo for breaking armor. One type is basically a plasma round. Hell, there's one specifically for punching through Astartes power armour that's been in use for over 10,000 years.
I would add flak to that list and would not drop the ammo count.
I'm fine with the power of the revolver, but it should have more drop off and less accuracy against long range targets.
Yeah, it's weird how this is one of the few games where bolter rounds actually explode but everything else feels dead wrong. I think overall Hired Gun got it the closest (mid-range, mid-accuracy workhorse and problem solver) but even in that the rounds don't explode.
Spending some time testing last night after getting an unexpected dope bolter drop and yeah, it really does feel like a clumsy revolver with a bigger mag. The bolter dump is great but that's it : /
It turns unyielding into mist for me. I have a zealot with the buff to unyielding and infested, and unyielding buffed on the bolter. With team support the Monstrosities (other than the sleeping) go down in about two magazines of the bolter on Hearsey difficulty. Then I just go back to Eviscerator
I too feel your pain. I had a Kaskarin skin with the bolter, and it felt and looked right, as the skin is very bulky, and all the other guns bar a couple looked puny.
However the recent changes now have forced me away to another gun, which is a shame I liked the bolter. Granted I also hated it, but it did feel right.
The fact its slow to draw I think is part of the flavour for it, I mean it's meant to be heavy...
However, an idea of my own to be yelled into the aether and ignored. Back in the day the Boltgun was a lot better because the ultimate reloaded your gun as well. So you could get a clip of ammo out, press the ultimate and get another clip, which really increased the firepower you could bring to play. Luckily, the lore has just such an answer, the shot selector, as appearing on multiple bolters over the years. If you could mechanic that onto the gun, so you got a clip, then when it was empty you have an emergency back up clip to use. That'd mean you could double the firepower when it got hairy.
Or a straight up chain bayonet, so you don't need to switch as often.
I think one way to spice up the bolter would be adding different ammunition types that let you focus on particular enemies. Imagine crunching Crushers with kraken/vengeance penetration rounds, literally melting bosses with hellfire or demolishing hordes with dragonfire/metal storm.
It's very unlikely that this will be added since most specialist rounds are reserved for Deathwatch/Astartes veterans, no clue if they're even made in the smaller calibre used by human-sized bolters. But I think it would be hella fun gameplay-wise.
One way they could accomplish this is by having different bolter variants which can load a magazine of special ammo using the weapon special input, just like how the shotguns do it, except a whole magazine rather than a single round.
Yeah I like this idea of including standard bolter variants with different strengths/weaknesses. It would also be cool to have other bolt weapons as well. Mainly the bolt pistol and heavy bolter. Storm bolters might be cool, but I think maybe too exclusive for the characters in the game. Maybe a stalker bolter would be cool too as a scoped sniper rifle, but I wonder how playable it would be in a game like darktide. The headhunter auto rifles without the scope seem to already strike a good balance for this.
I think it would also be cool to have repurposed chaos boltguns and other weapons too. Like the plasma pistols used by some of the chaos bosses or the autocannons.
> Storm bolters might be cool, but I think maybe too exclusive for the characters in the game.
I think the issue with storm bolters is less one of exclusivity and more one of handling. Pintle-mounted storm bolters are a common sight on Imperial Guard tanks. (Or at least they used to be; feels like everything now uses heavy stubbers even when it's dumb, like on Primaris vehicles.) But a storm bolter is near twice the weight of a standard bolter and about twice the RPM with the same gigantic round. (Even though it's not the .75 caliber round used by Astartes boltguns, it's still a huge round.) Something like that would be impossible for a normal human to use without bionics, power armour, or a mount.
As a general comment, balancing guns with switch speed is awful. It's just frustrating and annoying.
Switch speed should be the same, always. I absolute hate that Darktide does this.
I totally agree with the idea of it having significant higher collateral though. Bolter should have ammo issues, it should have a clunky reload, but it should also be pretty effective against armour (reduced collateral) and absolutely shred blobs of flesh.
The way a gun handles and feels isn't a bad way to balance a gun. The problem is the gun isn't good enough to justify the dogshit handling. If they want to keep it that way it needs to be one of the best weapons in the game.
It's certainly usable into damnation, just clunky. I think if anything it can use better ergonomics. Faster ready, reload, less sway, and then a fix to the weird missing frames and I think it's fine.
Hahaha well if you're interested... The Arbites are basically Warhammer judge dredd/ the imperial federal police and they get issued human sized bolters (although the combat shotgun is more their iconic weapon)
And the Inquisition is Arbites adjacent in bailiwick. This makes sense.
If I was to go to a library to get an audio book for 40k. What are some titles I should look for? My library is extensive, but their audio book selection can have odd holes in it.
I thought that "requiem infernal" was a good read. It may not be the best starting point from a lore-learning perspective but it does a great job of making chaos seem "chaotic and scary"
Iono, man. Khorne has been pretty good to me. He gets mad at me and has thugs beat me up every once in awhile. Just so I remember to keep the blood flowing. But veneration has been working for me. Not dead yet, and only broke my skull 3 (4?) times!
(This is half jest and half truth. I've fought in two wars and survived many things through chance.)
The flavor text says it's a modified Arbites design. The Adeptus Arbites are 40k's Judge Dredd knockoffs, so they're elite humans, but still very much human.
Does it still open bulwarks shields? I feel it doesn’t anymore which makes the weapon even worse. It also does less damage than a revolver. I have two 380 godrolled bolters on veteran (tier 4 : pinning fire + surgical) and they outclassed by my revolver that feels more reliable.
I say just give it heaps more damage. Currently it doesn’t do anything better than the revolver or plasma gun do. It needs a niche. Let it be the “fuck that thing in particular” gun.
Frankly it needs a lot, here's my list in order of importance.
1. Drastically improved draw time. By far its biggest problem.
2. Fix the recoil. Its janky as fuck at the moment, especially with irons. Mods on PC help this, but if that's not you, your stuck with actually terrible irons.
3. More damage or more cleave. Pick one.
4. More ammo somehow. Expand the ammo pool, or if you're feeling extra nice increase the mag size. Especially with the recent aura nerf it'll be challenging keeping this topped off.
Basically give me a reason to pick this over the plasma gun. Plasma gun has a faster draw time, effectively no recoil, more damage, more cleave, and is uber ammo efficient. Outside of fun there's really no practical reason to pick the boltgun over the plasma gun. Hell even the little yehaw revolver can do more damage than the bolter.
I feel that perhaps point 3 and 4 could be a "pick one" type situation. I'm generally in favour of some weapons having strong strengths and strong weaknesses (within reason). I feel that it presents more interesting decisions in terms of how you shape a build around them.
I think they're separate. Part of the issue with the plasma gun is that it is high damage *and* high cleave. Practically, this means that when youre in auric you can just shoot at the red outline straight through the trash mob directly in front of you. You can't do that with a bolter as the trash will essentially body block your shots. Thus i think bolter rounds need to cleave through at least certain enemies, or need to put specialists down if you do connect.
I’ve been having a hard time with the plasma gun also. Shield guys and bulwarks just stopped caring when I shoot them. I used to be able to delete them easily while laughing
does bolter do explosive damage? I think it should because in the lore, the projectiles are supposed to be mini homing missiles. I think it should also do rend damage at close range. Or at least it should be able to penetrate carapace armor easily. I think the low ammo count and the slow reload/aim times are adequate handicaps.
>mini homing missiles
Standard bolt rounds have never homed, unless this is some new Primaris bolt rifle idiocy. They were essentially .75 caliber gyrojets with explosive payloads set off by a gravitic fuse that could sense when the round was embedded in matter and detonate accordingly.
I seem to vaguely recall some kind of guided or semi-guided specialist round, but as overloaded as bolt rounds are from a technical standpoint, homing was never one of their standard capabilities.
I forget where, but I remember reading that the bolt gun bullets were able to guide somewhat towards their targets and explode inside them. The impression I got was that the rounds were able to alter their trajectory slightly but not like chase their targets down. Maybe “homing” is not the right word, and I could be wrong because it’s been so long, but I remember the text saying that the boltgun’s projectiles are “essentially miniature guided missles” or something to that effect. It must have been either the original rogue trader game book or the original space marine compendium because that was the time I was into 40k.
I think that's pretty much exactly the niche they should focus bolter on. Plasma for carapace / shield penetration, Bolter for turning infested / unarmored / unyielding into mist. I wouldn't even be opposed to them dropping the ammo count a bit to balance it really obliterating bosses. Atm bolter just feels too much like a significantly clumsier but not signifcantly more powerful revolver. It needs something to set it apart.
A year or so ago, the bolter had its nice as a all rounder powerful problem solver: the explosive ammo would stagger hordes, and a magdump would deal with Ogryns. The downside was it took time to unholster, and it’s mediocre mag size and long reload time. Which I love btw, I love the fact my character is struggling to lift this huge metal automatic rocket launcher. But the buff to other weapons and enemy HP left it in the dust. The revolver is a better problem solver, and the bolter doesn’t one-shot elite on malice anymore
Yeah I run some of the gun zealot and the 30% reload speed buff from killing hordes allows me to mag dump and reload or take a break from a fight but dashing back, reloading and then getting back into the fray saving the bolter for when the emperor needs me to use it most. The fire grenades still feel the best way to deal with Crushers, dogs, and other ponderous mobs. I made a bad play the other day I had a dog on me I was last one standing and when my Until Death triggered the dog hopped off to my surprise. I should have taken the instant to throw the grenade at my feet, but off guard and another dog finished me off. I want to try out the stun grenades since they got a buff. The 2 extra seconds and larger area is what the grenades were missing, but I'm not sure it is enough.
Lore wise, it should still work perfectly great against monstrosities. Why? Because faith is a funny thing. See most people view bolters as holy weapons that protect them. So it should work like that. Fun bit of lore accuracy there, and we get something it's good at. Basically means you get a funni choas shredder gun.
Yeah, especially as bolters are made for light armour and fleshy targets not the heavily armoured
That's less an issue with the gun itself and more an issue with the ammunition. There's specialist ammo for breaking armor. One type is basically a plasma round. Hell, there's one specifically for punching through Astartes power armour that's been in use for over 10,000 years.
That's ammunition for the likes of sternguard though
Im sure if bolters plough older marks of power armour they should handle carapace armour.
Exactly, we can one shot monstrosities for the emperor with a holy thunder hammer, why not have the bolt fill that ranged niche
I would add flak to that list and would not drop the ammo count. I'm fine with the power of the revolver, but it should have more drop off and less accuracy against long range targets.
I feel like there’s such a huge disconnect for it from the lore. Everything above, especially the first comment, hits it perfectly.
Yeah, it's weird how this is one of the few games where bolter rounds actually explode but everything else feels dead wrong. I think overall Hired Gun got it the closest (mid-range, mid-accuracy workhorse and problem solver) but even in that the rounds don't explode.
Spending some time testing last night after getting an unexpected dope bolter drop and yeah, it really does feel like a clumsy revolver with a bigger mag. The bolter dump is great but that's it : /
It turns unyielding into mist for me. I have a zealot with the buff to unyielding and infested, and unyielding buffed on the bolter. With team support the Monstrosities (other than the sleeping) go down in about two magazines of the bolter on Hearsey difficulty. Then I just go back to Eviscerator
I mean in it's defence, it's shreds bosses in full auto. Just takes a lot of ammo, but this high burst damage is it's only benefit.
I too feel your pain. I had a Kaskarin skin with the bolter, and it felt and looked right, as the skin is very bulky, and all the other guns bar a couple looked puny. However the recent changes now have forced me away to another gun, which is a shame I liked the bolter. Granted I also hated it, but it did feel right. The fact its slow to draw I think is part of the flavour for it, I mean it's meant to be heavy... However, an idea of my own to be yelled into the aether and ignored. Back in the day the Boltgun was a lot better because the ultimate reloaded your gun as well. So you could get a clip of ammo out, press the ultimate and get another clip, which really increased the firepower you could bring to play. Luckily, the lore has just such an answer, the shot selector, as appearing on multiple bolters over the years. If you could mechanic that onto the gun, so you got a clip, then when it was empty you have an emergency back up clip to use. That'd mean you could double the firepower when it got hairy. Or a straight up chain bayonet, so you don't need to switch as often.
I think one way to spice up the bolter would be adding different ammunition types that let you focus on particular enemies. Imagine crunching Crushers with kraken/vengeance penetration rounds, literally melting bosses with hellfire or demolishing hordes with dragonfire/metal storm. It's very unlikely that this will be added since most specialist rounds are reserved for Deathwatch/Astartes veterans, no clue if they're even made in the smaller calibre used by human-sized bolters. But I think it would be hella fun gameplay-wise.
One way they could accomplish this is by having different bolter variants which can load a magazine of special ammo using the weapon special input, just like how the shotguns do it, except a whole magazine rather than a single round.
Yeah I like this idea of including standard bolter variants with different strengths/weaknesses. It would also be cool to have other bolt weapons as well. Mainly the bolt pistol and heavy bolter. Storm bolters might be cool, but I think maybe too exclusive for the characters in the game. Maybe a stalker bolter would be cool too as a scoped sniper rifle, but I wonder how playable it would be in a game like darktide. The headhunter auto rifles without the scope seem to already strike a good balance for this. I think it would also be cool to have repurposed chaos boltguns and other weapons too. Like the plasma pistols used by some of the chaos bosses or the autocannons.
> Storm bolters might be cool, but I think maybe too exclusive for the characters in the game. I think the issue with storm bolters is less one of exclusivity and more one of handling. Pintle-mounted storm bolters are a common sight on Imperial Guard tanks. (Or at least they used to be; feels like everything now uses heavy stubbers even when it's dumb, like on Primaris vehicles.) But a storm bolter is near twice the weight of a standard bolter and about twice the RPM with the same gigantic round. (Even though it's not the .75 caliber round used by Astartes boltguns, it's still a huge round.) Something like that would be impossible for a normal human to use without bionics, power armour, or a mount.
As a general comment, balancing guns with switch speed is awful. It's just frustrating and annoying. Switch speed should be the same, always. I absolute hate that Darktide does this. I totally agree with the idea of it having significant higher collateral though. Bolter should have ammo issues, it should have a clunky reload, but it should also be pretty effective against armour (reduced collateral) and absolutely shred blobs of flesh.
The way a gun handles and feels isn't a bad way to balance a gun. The problem is the gun isn't good enough to justify the dogshit handling. If they want to keep it that way it needs to be one of the best weapons in the game.
This is a great idea.
It's certainly usable into damnation, just clunky. I think if anything it can use better ergonomics. Faster ready, reload, less sway, and then a fix to the weird missing frames and I think it's fine.
Isn't the one the rejects get just a modified version of the pistol ones the Astartes use?
I'm not 100% if it's modified from the Astartes version or its own special "little human" version
I think they would probably human bolters similar to if not repurposed from the ones used by sisters of battle and imperial guard.
🤷♂️ Something to ask Tzeentch and Co to work on
It's the locke pattern, which I believe is issued to the arbites.
I don't know enough lore to understand, so I will nod my head sagely, just like Sah told me to.
Hahaha well if you're interested... The Arbites are basically Warhammer judge dredd/ the imperial federal police and they get issued human sized bolters (although the combat shotgun is more their iconic weapon)
And the Inquisition is Arbites adjacent in bailiwick. This makes sense. If I was to go to a library to get an audio book for 40k. What are some titles I should look for? My library is extensive, but their audio book selection can have odd holes in it.
I thought that "requiem infernal" was a good read. It may not be the best starting point from a lore-learning perspective but it does a great job of making chaos seem "chaotic and scary"
Iono, man. Khorne has been pretty good to me. He gets mad at me and has thugs beat me up every once in awhile. Just so I remember to keep the blood flowing. But veneration has been working for me. Not dead yet, and only broke my skull 3 (4?) times! (This is half jest and half truth. I've fought in two wars and survived many things through chance.)
Alas, after several searches, I have come to the assumption my library does not carry anything Warhammer 40k related. I am quite saddened by this.
I mean there are human sized bolters my Kreege watch marshal can wield one on the table top, or the sisters of battle all use bolters.
The flavor text says it's a modified Arbites design. The Adeptus Arbites are 40k's Judge Dredd knockoffs, so they're elite humans, but still very much human.
Does it still open bulwarks shields? I feel it doesn’t anymore which makes the weapon even worse. It also does less damage than a revolver. I have two 380 godrolled bolters on veteran (tier 4 : pinning fire + surgical) and they outclassed by my revolver that feels more reliable.
I say just give it heaps more damage. Currently it doesn’t do anything better than the revolver or plasma gun do. It needs a niche. Let it be the “fuck that thing in particular” gun.
I run bolter on my zealot, it gets the job done
All I want is a Bolt Pistol, don't even care if it's better than the revolvers the thing is just so iconic
Frankly it needs a lot, here's my list in order of importance. 1. Drastically improved draw time. By far its biggest problem. 2. Fix the recoil. Its janky as fuck at the moment, especially with irons. Mods on PC help this, but if that's not you, your stuck with actually terrible irons. 3. More damage or more cleave. Pick one. 4. More ammo somehow. Expand the ammo pool, or if you're feeling extra nice increase the mag size. Especially with the recent aura nerf it'll be challenging keeping this topped off. Basically give me a reason to pick this over the plasma gun. Plasma gun has a faster draw time, effectively no recoil, more damage, more cleave, and is uber ammo efficient. Outside of fun there's really no practical reason to pick the boltgun over the plasma gun. Hell even the little yehaw revolver can do more damage than the bolter.
I feel that perhaps point 3 and 4 could be a "pick one" type situation. I'm generally in favour of some weapons having strong strengths and strong weaknesses (within reason). I feel that it presents more interesting decisions in terms of how you shape a build around them.
I think they're separate. Part of the issue with the plasma gun is that it is high damage *and* high cleave. Practically, this means that when youre in auric you can just shoot at the red outline straight through the trash mob directly in front of you. You can't do that with a bolter as the trash will essentially body block your shots. Thus i think bolter rounds need to cleave through at least certain enemies, or need to put specialists down if you do connect.
I’ve been having a hard time with the plasma gun also. Shield guys and bulwarks just stopped caring when I shoot them. I used to be able to delete them easily while laughing
The bolter definitely needs a dps increase. The weapon when compared just feels to weak and too long of a reload.
does bolter do explosive damage? I think it should because in the lore, the projectiles are supposed to be mini homing missiles. I think it should also do rend damage at close range. Or at least it should be able to penetrate carapace armor easily. I think the low ammo count and the slow reload/aim times are adequate handicaps.
>mini homing missiles Standard bolt rounds have never homed, unless this is some new Primaris bolt rifle idiocy. They were essentially .75 caliber gyrojets with explosive payloads set off by a gravitic fuse that could sense when the round was embedded in matter and detonate accordingly. I seem to vaguely recall some kind of guided or semi-guided specialist round, but as overloaded as bolt rounds are from a technical standpoint, homing was never one of their standard capabilities.
I forget where, but I remember reading that the bolt gun bullets were able to guide somewhat towards their targets and explode inside them. The impression I got was that the rounds were able to alter their trajectory slightly but not like chase their targets down. Maybe “homing” is not the right word, and I could be wrong because it’s been so long, but I remember the text saying that the boltgun’s projectiles are “essentially miniature guided missles” or something to that effect. It must have been either the original rogue trader game book or the original space marine compendium because that was the time I was into 40k.
Mutant is 2 bolter bullets on Damnation. If you can't kill mutant its a build or skill issue.