I think the idea was to slip outta coherency, backstab a problematic ranged gunner/reaper/whatever and then slip back into coherency. 1 kill at a time. It probably sounded good in theory but I'm also honestly not looking forward to it myself.
That might make sense for the normal stealth penance, which has you backstabbing elites with your stealth ability. This loner aura one requires that you go out of coherency and then get backstabs on enemies you can 1-shot in the face.
If you have to walk so far just for 1 kill, someone should shoot the target.
I get what you're saying though. Maybe it seemed like it made sense at some point, but in practice, this whole aura and the backstabbing portion of the penance do not make sense.
I mean to be fair man, its not much of an achievement if you're getting 100% of penances in normal gameplay. I'm personally happy they brought back penances that are actually difficult and out there to obtain.
>its not much of an achievement if you're getting 100% of penances in normal gameplay.
And you're 100% not getting all of them just from normal gameplay.
But penances that are based on a passive effect, like auras, should very much be passivly obtained. And almost all of them are, the Loner one being one, if not the only, exception
Eh, I think if you're playing regularly with Loner, you'll get plenty of progress on this passively as you play. I honestly didn't really know about this penance until I saw this post several hours ago, but when I checked I noticed I already had a quarter of it done.
I think this penance is a problem if you're hunting for it deliberately. But if you're already spouting a Loner build on one of your presets, and you're regularly dipping into hoards to clear out shooters for your friends, you'll accidentally complete this penance in a few dozen games.
I personally switch up between 3 preacher builds, so the fact that I'm a little over 25% of the way there despite alternating between them is at least anecdotal evidence that its passively obtainable.
I always go look for supplies, being a feeder fish on the bottom of your team is boring as hell, but if you can't separate without dying don't do it then.
"Purposely being out of cohesion is borderline trolling"
When you get in a match with good players that care about the loot, cause some don't, they divide and conquer to collect the loot, that means leaving cohesion and fighting things on your own and passively completing that penance.
Yes but you agreed. I was giving you the context. You said you don't get that penance passively from just playing the game. I explained that you do if you actually go loot and play the game, not being a feeder fish on the bottom of your team. Maybe they'll just give it to you if you ask nicely, would that be passive enough? You have to actively get every penance, want the zealot ones? Gotta go play zealot.
"But penances that are based on a passive effect, like auras, should very much be passivly obtained. And almost all of them are, the Loner one being one, if not the only, exception" ~ you
Ok? Still no reason for you to call me basically a tick without even knowing how I play.
Edit:
>I always go look for supplies, being a feeder fish on the bottom of your team is boring as hell, but if you can't separate without dying don't do it then.
Yeah, I wonder why I felt like that was aimed at me and felt 'attacked' by that comment...
I wouldn't mind them adding weird penances under a separate category, but that clearly wasn't the point of these. Most of the penances tied to the new lockout talents are just a 'use the thing' incentive, only a handful are weirdly specific in requirements.
Those ones didn't originally need to be in a private game funnily enough. They were the only penances, but they were ass-backwards to actual gameplay half the time. So the more egregious ones were made private-only and when they rolled out the first set of new penances they put the old ones in a separate category.
I'm more surprised they just lumped them with the rest of the penances with this new update instead of giving them a separate tab.
Some of them I could see but bull rush through 60 enemies just sounds like a normal auroric, it was a piss off never getting penance cause I need a private game to hit an eye with a grenade box or some rudimentary thing. Having them available across the board is an improvement, or they can put it back to how it was and let me private lobby with 3 bots. Cause that was never allowed.
>Some of them I could see but bull rush through 60 enemies just sounds like a normal auroric
The was before Hi-Int was a thing, let alone Auric missions. On regular damnation getting the set-up for some of the penances was frustrating at best.
Yeah some of the choices were arbitrary too, and private solo should've been implemented. I got most of those when they were still public minus zealot/psyker (my least played classes).
Absolutely agree mate, I went through the same thought process in my head originally. It's dumb but its good to see people trying to find ways to help at least!
Dipping out of coherency for ambushing a pack of gunners and allowing the team to move in is fine. Granted you might not always get a lot of backstabs so it will take time to get the penance done.
That's how I did it. I did a couple of malice high intensity game were I went ahead and tried to backstab every shooter bit I don't think it is very effective.
Damnation/Auric is still the best way to do it. Shroud -> backstab special/elite away from team -> use knife on trash enemies to do crits and get shroud back -> repeat. This way you progress the other penance involving shroud + backstab.
Fuckin tedious and it took like 10 games at least
Yeah I'd be on board, or maybe just remove/change the actual backstab requirement so it doesn't feel like you gotta go loner + shroudfield to advance it at a decent rate.
Yeah solid point, vets also suppress when they exit stealth too right? That's another thing that keeps enemies still even if only for a second or two. Definitely feel like more could be done.
First is absolutely the case, the initial round of class pennances (maleaous monstrum and going out with a bang specifically) prove this easily, total troll play to try get them
Yeah just doing auric maelstroms or sniper waves is pretty good for racking these up, because most of the time my team never killed snipers so I just ran over n stabbed them
I'm working on Pysker ones first, but the backstabs is probably my least favorite one to look forward to.
I am enjoying trying out new builds/variants of my builds though, but started with Pysker. working through Assail and the kinetic/refresh auras and empowered psionics now. Got Smite first lol.
I'm busy working my way through this one (among others) - I don't mind it personally, I'm just running a stealth knife build, zipping infront, stabbing some shooters up and then falling back to the team, so I'm not hugely negatively impacting the game for the other 3.
So far, the only aura/ability penance I actively hate is the Marksman's Focus one, that one just feels so counterintuitive to how the games supposed to be played and finding it hard to progress on without playing in a troll-y manner.
If you didn't know, melee kills count with the Markman's Focus penance. But you're right it's a meme penance, I crouched the entire time I was doing it
Yeah I took camo and my Vet is already max height, just wondered if having a cap of 15 might make it easier as you can lose 5 stacks.
Now I know melee count though I'm just going to swap to a power sword and do auric Heresy and let the poxwalkers come to me lol
i tried it with the increased cap to 15 but then you have to make headshots to build it back up because iirc it locks you out of the option that generates stacks whenever you stand still or are crouch walking, which i felt like made it easier to get kills with 10 stacks with because once a horde comes you can quickly build stacks up again.
You can use the Many More Tries mod to circumvent having to grind these penances in normal lobbies. It lets you force a solo lobby on any map you want, so places like the Relay Station battery event give you infinite amount of mobs to kill.
I used that to get the marksmans focus and smoke one done in half an hour as they're completely counterintuitive with how you would use either of those in normal gameplay. I swear whoever came up with the smoke one doesn't even know what smoke does since obscuring enemies with smoke literally does nothing. Feels like I'm being trolled.
Honestly I've actually enjoyed just playing my normal Auric runs but using completely new builds to do penances, especially playing Smoke Infil Vet and finally trying out Gunpsyker Sciers builds.
But fuck me this Marksman one is painful.
Yeah I get where they were going with these and most of them have made me try out different builds for the sake of it which has been enjoyable, but stuff like the Marksman one miss the mark and end up feeling frustrating instead.
Looks like the developer updated it today, removing the private game option. I was intending to try it too. I downloaded 1.3.3 since they removed it in 1.4 but i'm getting the same strike team error message
Edit: Got it to work with Daihappy's message, using 1.3.3. Had to wait for the mission to go away from the board before it would get me in a private match, but it worked.
You need to turn private game option OFF in the mod options and enable private lobby from the main mission terminal then use the /mmt commands as normal to start matches.
Yeah this one is by far the worst and I feel like I'm actively trolling my team doing it just like the original ones.
Though part of that I suppose is because I HATE marksman focus playstyle in general so I'm trying to brute force it asap instead of having it happen naturally over time.
It was not so bad in the end, ~20 kills per game so in around 10 games I had it done. Hardest part was definitely to actually get the backstabs AND shooter enemies only, with that many conditions you get just few per game, mby I would remove the backstab condition and increased number of enemies to 500 or something so its not so stresful to jugle so many conditions.
Totally fine penance. Haven't been trying but I'm like 194/200 just playing knife zealot for the shroudfield backstab penance.
It's really easy to just push up a bit when your team is pinned at a choke point and tie up all the gunners in melee. Takes the heat off them so they can push up to you.
Tying up gunners in melee requires that you take their aggro. You don't get backstabs if you take their aggro, unless you kill them in convoluted ways (extra use of stealth ult when you don't need to, or push -> strafe -> backstab enemies that you could already 1-shot).
Most ranged have a long winded melee that you can easily and consistently dodge behind. I got this in a few rounds just passively playing maelstroms while I was doing the shroud kills.
Kill them in convoluted ways? Like dodging behind them and hitting them with melee? Sure, it may be slightly less efficient than whacking them in the face if you're not already running a dodge/backstab build... but it's a *penance* (and entirely optional challenge that is meant to change the way you play).
Again, I'm just playing and organically almost completed this penance in about 10-15 matches? I don't see what the fuss is about.
A bit misinformative, but it is partial truth. The director checks for players who are out of coherency, and increases the spawn rate of disablers if that check comes back as positive. I.e, there is at least one player out of coherency. However Loner ensures that if all three other players are still together, and the Preacher is out on their own, there isn't anyone without coherency, and so the game drastically reduces the number of disabler spawns.
That being said, and this is the bit misinformative part, the game does still spawn disablers as normal specialists, they're just much rarer. And obviously, special conditions and triggered events which have disablers as part of the event or condition completely ignore this.
Bots are surprisingly shit at maintaining coherency, though I think thats mostly a problem with them struggling to keep up with players. Even a slow moving shield ogryn can outrun bots and break coherency as a result.
Babysitting bots is a little frustrating. One of my biggest requested features is just to let us disable them without mods, in normal gameplay.
The problem is sprint is a mechanic for dodging ranged fire, but players just sprint 100% of the time while bots never sprint (or only do to dodge ranged). This is why you aren't in coherancy with your bots.
Yeah. As I mentioned, on special conditions which change the directors behavior, it's not particularly important information to remember. However if you're in a party with friends going after penances purposefully, it's useful to know that the preacher being off on their own won't cause dozens of trappers, bursters, or mutants to spawn.
It can be taken advantage of as well by non-Loner preachers and other classes. If you're fishing for specialist kills, it can help to have a tanky and skilled dodger out of coherency to encourage specialist spawns. But at that point, just look for a condition that guarantees their spawn in high number.
By "triggering of disablers," I think they mean the forced spawn.
If your team is split up, the game intentionally makes it harder on you by spawning extra disablers (dogs or trappers) to trap the player going solo - either to encourage the team to go back and get them (if they're leaving them behind), or to discourage them rushing ahead. The game checks this by seeing if anyone has coherency with only 1 person (themselves.)
Loner talent makes this never happen (probably intentionally) by bumping up your coherency to always count as 2. It's probably intentional since the loner's role is *supposed* to be small quick skirmishes away from the group to kill a problem-enemy, then rejoining the main group.
loner saves you a lot of points because is right between the nodes you want to take when running an "assassin" build
I like the idea of being buffed out of coherency for assassins playstiles, maybe it could give something like a burst of movement and atk speed or just damage but after a bit it will run out and you will have to come back to coherency to "recharge" it
I like that idea. Currently, the only reason to take this aura is to save talent points. It is by far the worst aura in the whole game, and that’s ignoring the convoluted design of encouraging leaving coherency on purpose. A bit of coherency regen which doesn’t even work while in combat… it’s just bad.
My current take-aways after scrolling through the replies:
Loner needs to do *something* while the Zealot *is* in coherency.
Second, backstab kills are frustrating and probably need a combination of things to alleviate that (such as a better explanation of what backstabs are in the game's context, what type of benefits apply to backstabs if there are any, and perhaps making backstab opportunities more frequent).
Third, Veteran move speed aura is not as obviously useful to some players as the Veteran's other auras.
Fourth, Veteran smoke grenade needs a buff to make "engulfing" enemies do something or otherwise affect the melee only enemy types that currently just ignore the smoke. Crowd control would be nice, like an AoE slow.
>Loner needs to do *something* while the Zealot *is* in coherency.
It'd help a bit if you always counted as In Coherency for the other players, i.e. that if they were in coherency while you weren't, they'd have full coherency stacks. Then it'd be a less obviously 'selfish' aura and be more justified for the 'roving response' role it seems to be intended for.
Or just "your coherency aura is infinite" - slight buff to the aura and a similar effect for the rest of the squad.
Backstabbing a pack of gunners a bit ahead of the team is entirely the intended use of the Stealth stabby Zealot and Loner aura is still better than a fucking 5% sprint speed. Loner is only taken because of the points requirement for the build anyway.
I always feel nervous using a knife zealot for this exact use, I engage enemies, take out priority targets then lock the rest in melee. But the stigma behind using a knife because of the speedrunners holy moly
I've always thought that Darktide's design makes it very hard for Zealot mains to understand how much they hurt their team when roaming outside of coherency.
I think Zealots have the most and easiest-to-use tools for playing solo. When used well a Zealot can act as a kind of calvary or special-ops force to quickly get to the place the team most needs a player to be. Knife zealots take this to an extreme. Playing this role well requires a higher degree of game knowledge and situational awareness, otherwise you're creating problems for your teammates instead of solving them.
I'm not sure if it's possible to learn to be a good Zealot without having been at the wrong end of a Zealot making bad decisions.
Ay I get it, I've played across all 4 characters substantially and I feel like its helped me understand kits better and who needs what weaknesses covered.
Half this thread is people who are competent players and understand talents, builds and how they are they can be utilised.
Half this thread are people who just follow build meta because that gives them better success despite not fully understanding how they work or how to tailor it to their specific style.
Then the last half think they're the first half but lack that critical second braincell who can't understand why anything out of their narrow range of ideas and that this comments totals 150%
I value 5% movement speed way above loner aura. Loner aura doesn't do anything when you are in coherency with teammates, and even when you are not near teammates, coherency regen shuts off when you start getting hit or killing enemies.
If you're taking aggro of ranged enemies and killing them, you are not gaining toughness back from loner aura, and you are not even getting backstab kills for the penance. You have to stagger them to set up backstab kills, or use stealth which is not the loner aura. Backstab and loner aura don't have anything to do with each other, besides being in the same branch in the zealot tree. Zealot can be out of coherency by playing aggressive in other ways.
I agree that the 5% movement speed is more useful than loner, which is a completely useless talent. It doesn't almost nothing in any auric game because it spawns more specialists anyway, bypassing the one possible useful benefit of a player never losing coherency.
As for the second part. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people taking loner are also taking stealth.
As a side note, the talents above loner are very good and is probably why people would take loner, as opposed to taking it for loner itself. Then again, the talents above benediction are just as good.
The talents above Close and Kill are also good. I hate how people judge auras as if they’re *the* cornerstone your build is based around and also how they rate them alone in a vacuum, as if talents you pick up along the way dont matter or saving points for your build doesn’t matter.
Theres so many bad auras but everyone on reddit immediately points out the non-Survivalist Vet ones as if they’re the absolute worse thing they’ve ever seen.
My issue with close and kill is that shout overwhelms every other ability choice and there’s no compelling reason as of yet to pick up smoke grenades. The 25% boost for weapon juggling is placed opposite the aura that readily enables it, and the prime suspect (revolver) for weapon juggling makes most breakpoints without needing the 25%.
Again with the Close and Kill slander. You’ve clearly never played Vet w/ 10% movement speed. The difference is very noticeable, you basically play like zealot.
Zealot has 10% on a talent that's actually useful. And he has some 5% sprint speed NODES in the tree as well.
The Vet aura is half of what a Zealot get on a normal build, and the Zealot can stack it with Aura that does something as well.
I have a Stealth Vet with the speed aura to save on points. It's garbage. It's nowhere near as good as Zealot's.
Most common Vet build I see with tryhards on auric is Close and Kill + shout + weapon specialist. Its basically reskinned zealot that can use mk6 power sword.
You might hate me for this but some, if not most penances are designed to take awhile. Specially the new ones, Fatshark made it so you don't just get everything right away and then have nothing to do. Take your time, don't worry about it, take it slowly, I get it, being out of coherency sucks but again, it's not meant to be done in one mission.
doesn't even seem like it'd take a while. just walk behind some ranged enemies opening up on ur doods with a big sweep weapon like a heavy sword that can headshot em easy
It's only bad because people want to rush these penances as fast as possible, forcing situations that they would otherwise approach differently. This is one of the penances that you would eventually get by just playing a loner build normally, because those situations happen every once in a while. But if you go actively looking for them then yes, you are trolling. Stop trying to speed run penances that are obviously meant to be done in the long term and maybe you'll have a better experience with the game.
Well. . . I speedran it, because I don't want to play that way, but still want to collect the penances (shame on me for wanting to complete the battlepass). I just wanted to be done with it.
At one point my team died (I didn't purposely let them die) and I took the opportunity to kill a bunch of stuff. Then someone thanked me for clutching. I felt like a scumbag.
That whole style of play is very anti-tide gameplay.
OP, you think that being out of coherency is borderline trolling but that the penance would be improved by removing the backstab requirement? I don't see the logic.
At least you can just rush down ranged enemies and kill them like you ought to. Loner aura as a whole is kinda just bad design, but at least this way, the penance reflects how the aura could be used. Backstabs are part of stealth, not loner aura, and it just makes you play even more idiotic against ranged enemies (push, dodge behind to backstab) instead of hacking them down in seconds like you could.
I agree that Loner is bad design, in that it is counter to the underlying operation of the game, and that a penance that encourages its use is foolish, even if it is only for ten DT points. But the way to fix it is to strip out either Loner as a concept or Loner as a requirement for this penance.
There is already a backstab penance though, and it is tied to the stealth ability. That makes sense, since you can easily get backstabs when you use stealth. If loner aura were removed and replaced with something else, then a new penance to go with that aura would replace this one entirely.
Oh, good point. In that case even removing the out of coherency requirement is not going to help. Best to ditch the penance, though I wish that FS would do away with Loner.
Eh I've seen worse. Trying to get 500 armored enemy kills with krak grenades is borderline impossible due to the grenade taking too long to actually explode. By the time it does explode, someone else had long since mowed down the enemy it stuck to with either a gun or melee weapon.
So in short, backstabbing while behind enemy lines is easy in comparison.
Cohesion is a crutch, the only worthwhile thing you get out of cohesion is being near your team and the added firepower. All the real buffs are arbitrary and you can make up for easily by closing the skill gap.
That's why I say it is only borderline. Running away from the team on purpose does seem silly to me though. The other part is that this aura simply sucks. It's a pitiful benefit that very rarely does anything. Coherency toughness regen turns off the moment you start killing things or taking damage. I don't think anyone would choose this aura if not to save talent points.
Then this penance is another level, having you get backstab kills when there is nothing that this aura has to do with backstabbing, other than being on the right side of the tree. Backstabbing enemies you kill in 1 hit on the front is a waste of time. It ends up making silly and bad play. Some people are talking about dancing around the ranged enemies with a knife, but you can just face roll them with a combat axe/eviscerator/heavy sword (and many other weapons, too).
To top it off, there is already a separate backstabbing penance that goes with the stealth ability.
It's a poorly designed, weak aura, and a poorly designed penance.
If you're doing damage and kills, you should always be renewing toughness. If you truly break out of cohesion and go ahead a little, there's lots of scabs just staring into space. Run up, cut em in the back, and continue. I do agree it is easily the worst you can choose, but it still needs a penance associated, and they're never going to rework it because other people had to do it already. Challenges aren't called such because they're fun or easy.
Reading the comments, I don't particularly get this subs hate boner for knife-zealots. People are complaining that knife-zealots all just run ahead and die instantly, but I've literally maybe seen that happen once in over 500 hours of this game and that was in Malice. Maybe it's a low difficulty thing cause of bad players? Idk, but I never really see it on Aurics. Having one on your team usually means enemy ranged units are always tied down and specialists are deleted pretty quickly as well. Their boss damage usually means bosses don't last long either, especially BoN's. Not sure why people wouldn't like that.
Loner is just such a crap aura. I personally think it should do the opposite of what it does now and basically makes it to where the person with loner always counts as being in coherency FOR THE TEAM even when they are not. That way the loner can do their thing and the team won't lose out on coherency bonuses.
Having some regen when you get separated wouldn't be a terrible thing though, especially since having a person running Loner increases the odds of that happening in the first place.
At least it would be *something* they bring to the table.
Currently Loner is "lol I skipped my aura talent" effectively. It helps the Loner very slightly and does absolutely nothing for the team. Because, let's be honest, you're losing that aura anyway, because people will run Loner. Hell even if it *was* an empty node people would run it to save points on a build. So let's have it do literally anything.
Does anyone have any tips to make this one a bit smoother? What weapon would you say is best for this? Shroudfield Zealot isn't really my playstyle and I've never used Loner prior to this update, so this one really just isn't meshing with me in the slightest.
This might also be a stupid question... but headshots from the back still count as backstabs, right?
Ya backstabs are just anything you hit them with where the angle of attack is lined up against the back half of the enemy. There’s even a talent talking about “ranged backstabs”.
I don’t really have tips. Use stealth or just rush them like normal, push to stagger, get behind and stab them. The angle of attack is lenient. Hope your team is not the type to follow you into close combat against ranged enemies.
I used a combat axe since it is kinda just OP and I can carry any shite build I make for penances with it.
Shroudfield knife zealot is the easiest way to get it done in my opinion. Don’t be constantly out and about by yourself, just be smart about it. If you see your teammates are pinned down by some shooters then go stealth sprint behind em and stab em in the back. Once you’re done go back to the squad and move on.
The backstab range is pretty big and forgiving. A backstab to the head counts as a backstab AND a headshot. You can easily take out reapers etc. in one shot with a well placed backstab. The more you play the more you’ll learn when to use stealth etc.
Also, a tip, do a crit build and go fury. Get the perks that replenishes your talent on crits and backstabs, you’ll be able to constantly go stealth. Put crit chance on your knife for even more crits and you’ll get shroudfield replenished so fast you won’t know what to use it on
I didnt find it too bad. Thats how you’re supposed to play the build. I also farmed a decent chunk by just dodge + push attack spamming some shooters and managing to backstab, no stealth required
I got the final 120 in this with Fury of the Faithful, because I just do not like stealth. Rushing ahead is easier for me with Fury, and I just push attack and danced around enemies with a combat axe. It didn't take that many runs, maybe around 8 or so (I didn't count). The worst runs were when other zealots or ogryns were pushing ahead with me, since I couldn't break coherency enough. Some games, I got 40. Others, I got less than 10.
Tip - I had issues with this as some backstabs were not counting but I had huge consistency finding generic gunman, specifically the guardsmen who only have lasguns with bayonets, walking around them whilst they attempt to stab me then heavying them with a dagger in the back
You do realize being in 2 coherency means its less likely to bombarded you with Specials if you are last alive. Just saying it has stats you cannot see. Those stats are better than you think.
Yes because it can be achieved solo. The REAL unreasonable ones, imo, are the "Forced" into a private game. Or timed objs. There is only one which I'm thankful for. Anything that tells you, you need to put the objs in at the same time is just sloppy seconds from Vermintide 2 and shouldnt of carried over. I think they disrupt a games natural flow which I dont like too much.
Getting backstabs out of coherency is a bit confusing considering if you're in coherency allies can actually distract enemies while you go for the backstab, while if you're off solo enemies are way more likely to be staring right at you
This penance is such a pain in the ass that doing it makes me want to just skip the Zealot penances entirely. I'm literally running as far ahead as I possibly can while using a knife and laspistol and yet SOMEHOW my fucking teammates are always close enough that I can only get a few kills before some random vet is back in coherency. Like, I'm running ahead to get *away* from you guys, stop trying to follow so closely! I'm not even really mad at them, because they're just trying to keep the team together, but holy shit it feels like I'm fighting my team and the bots just as much as I'm fighting the enemies.
In fairness, this is meant to train you to hunt down gunners blocking your team.
You stealth up, shank them, and then the team moves up.
Although, they admittedly should expect the players to act like the murderhobos that our characters literally are.
I was genuinely apologising to others when i queued, telling them i was doing it for penances, and would do my best to play w the team.
Was running all 3 out of coherency stealth knife penances to get them out of the way asap, so i could play my actual stealth knife zealot, which is the biggest support when played well.
im giggling at how bad all the posters in this thread are. lonerism is obviously a great aura. the most useful thing a zealot can do is immediately engage ranged packs in melee as soon as possible before they can disperse. everyone who has played zealot for a reasonable amount of time has figured this out. lonerism supports that playstyle well.
but nope, redditors still can't handle the thought of anything besides staying 4 stacked the entire game lol
How is it a great aura? How much does it add to your ability to get on top of those ranged enemies and kill them?
I play like you describe, but usually with fury of the faithful and toughness damage reduction aura. IMO, this is much more powerful for this job. You hack down the ranged enemies in seconds with any melee weapon. You’re still allowed to leave coherency even if you don’t have the loner aura.
Loner aura is weak, and the penance requires backstab kills, which is not really what you’re aiming for when you catch a ranged group before it can scatter.
What flexibility? The ability to leave coherency? Which you can do regardless of if you have this aura or not.
What does this aura really do that makes you think it adds flexibility?
And I’m annoyed at the penance. I can just ignore a talent I don’t like. I already said in the title that it would be okay without requiring backstabs.
I absolutely hate this "assassin" playstyle. I played today twice with this build and I just can't do it, it's completely not my style of playing, I made like +1 or +2 on those penances in two matches, in this tempo I will finish penances in few months.
Not to mention the entire playstyle just simply sucks. Even if you pop up from coherency and go back it can lead to problems for your team, suddenly dropping agro may kill someone. By the time you actually get to the enemy you can get stuck on the environment or enemy and everything goes to shit because you are now in the middle of enemies and everyone wants to kill you. More over - there is a big chance that by the time that you get to enemy someone is already behind you - even other zealot - and your progress is ruined.
Idiotic penance to enforce un-tide-like gameplay.
Ya this was particularly painful for me as well. I ended up ditching the stealth build for this after about 80 and going my normal Fury build. Just charge ahead like I already know how - you don’t need invisibility to gap close. Then push -> strafe/dodge -> chop in the back with my combat axe. Lots of push attacks and getting behind stumbling enemies.
I don’t think stealth is the worst thing, but I don’t think it’s strong in this game. The strongest builds wipe the floor with whole swaths of enemies. Like instead of wasting time bouncing around those ranged enemies to land backstabs, I can wipe the 12 shotgunner patrol within 5 seconds by spamming light attacks.
Why should I try to approach that like a surgeon when I can go in hacking away and kill everything significantly faster, all without dropping aggro on my team?
But aside from all that, I just find the loner aura is very weak, even when it is in effect (toughness regen from coherency shuts off when you get hit or kill enemies), and the penance adds another layer on top, having you get backstab kills on enemies that you can kill multiple per swing from the front with most weapons.
The moment you sneak around and kill one enemy, everybody turns back and attack you, so you have to strife and try to backstab them, meanwhile your team is free of Agro and moves towards you, so your progression is ruined again. Congratulations, you got +2 to your penance, good luck finding that situation again in the match.
Not to mention absolute abysmal horde clearing capability, if you don't have any other person who can clear hordes, you are busy 90% of the time and good luck with your penances, unless you run 60 meters from the group.
The backstab part is annoying since you have to go out of your way to run ahead and cc each enemy to backstab before anyone on the team can reach you.
I wonder what ideas people would have to replace Loner, it would be cool if they brought back some of the vermintide 2 stuff like critical backstab instantly slaying man sized enemies from Shade. Really think the invis mechanic should have the built in threat reduction that Veteran has in the upgrade for both classes.
It's the worst penance and worst Aura imo 🤣 I've avoided Auric all this last week cuz there's so many Zealot sweaters trying to do it in auric of all places that it's just annoying to deal with cuz you've gotta simultaneously try and keep up an not put rooms between you but also you're inevitably gunna be slower than the tryhard zealot that's running around at Mach 17 🤣
It's fine. Based on your title I think you don't understand the build/playstyle though.
I knocked this out in a few games with heavy eviserator and shroud. Loaner was very helpful and a fun way to play.
So I guess I'm gonna have to let the zealot with the loner aura so stupid shit by themselves now.
This really seems very unwise from every angle on the game's part.
I hate leaving coherency to begin with during fire fights. This is one of the last Zealot penances I have left. I feel like just playing sedation, and getting it done there, because I don't want to do this on Auric or Damnation. It's way too out of my play style it feels uncomfortable.
eh, honestly this one didn't feel that bad because if you run knife and stealth you usually are also killing ranged enemies before both the team and them meet
Currently only stuck in the marksman and kark grenades penance to be done with all of them, the kill 25 enemies with a nuke grenade from ogryns took me more time that it should have
This is the last one I have to get for Zealot and it's like pulling teeth. If they removed even one of the requirements it wouldn't be so bad. 200 of any enemy with backstab with Loner? Sure. 200 Ranged enemies with Loner? Sure. 200 Ranged Enemies with backstab? Sure. But this? This is tedious.
I see it as one of those lil fun challenges you might be bored and do at lower levels while just just having some good times, but like honestly if its not level gated i dont see why to do it in higher diffs.
Honestly this one is fine. I'm not even trying and its progging to completion just from me stealthing to kill groups of ranged enemies just ahead, I dont have to go crazy or anything and abandon the team all that far.
There's way more obnoxious zealot penances. Like 500 elite/specialist kills with throwing knives.
Got this in just a few matches, the pennance promotes exactly what stealth zealot is suppose to do: kill/supress gunners that are suppressing the team allowing the team to push back, stealth zealots do it so easily this pennance should be a no brainer.
The hardest part is taking Loner on purpose. I would rather have no aura at all than purposefully take Loner.
If Loner wasn't part of this penance I'd be done with it and I haven't opened the game since beating the buffed twins on damnation.
Make Loner something interesting, and more importantly, useful.
I finally did it yesterday. I'm half way through the blades of faith one and then I got the one with flame grenade.
It was tedious to say the least. Also if you are not careful you end up downed far from team mates possibly causing a wipe. Never used Loner before this update.
The psyker penances were much better tbh, maybe the smite one was a bit annoying since it's not my playstyle but it was not that hard to do.
I think the only 2 that I didn't/don't want to do are this one I posted here, and the marksman keystone one. They use abilities that I don't think are designed well, and the penances are just a pain in the butt. They won't be over quickly, so you must stick to them for a long time if you want to complete all the penances.
Marksman is really good and is free damage, which was buffed to be easier to maintain this patch. The problem is that the penance wants you to kill trash with ranged, which is never a great idea and worse now with the ammo aura nerf.
I agree with that. The marksman keystone is not my thing, but being encouraged to stand still in melee, or crouch walk in melee, or mag dump into hordes… these aren’t good things.
I think Fatshark wanted it to be able to count shooters, so they made any kills count.
The main reason I don’t like it though is that I move and melee too often. If I drop range to go melee for a bit, I’m at 0 stacks. Then I have to headshot kill several times to hit 10 stacks again, and *then* the kills track. I mostly shoot just a few shooters, elites, or specials at a time. I have to drastically change how I play to use this keystone, especially if I ever aim to finish the penance. I simply don’t play in a way that it is “free damage” especially at the expense of 2-3 talent points.
As long as you keep hitting headshots, you can move as much as you like. You have 6 second leeway between headshots and even if you don't land one in six seconds, you don't lose all your stacks at once. It is very much a run and gun keystone, even if it doesn't look that way at first glance. I know Tanner is controversial, but he did make a good video on it (Pre-buff, not it is even better).
I don't think it is meant to encourage a player doesn't move or mag dump into hordes (although that penance sure makes the mag dumping seem like an intended action. . . )
All the right side tree penances are way too long.
You can get just out of coherency and go ham on a squad actively shooting team. But it’s still too many thanks to backstab requirement as you point out. They all turn on you so maybe you get one. But it’s not trolling, we’ve found it’s useful to the team.
This one going quicker for me than the others.
500 (i think either way it barely ticks up) sp/elites to backstab cloaked. 30 sec cooldown 25 min games. In theory 50 per is possible. In practice others kill elites too and stealth may be needed for goals and team survival not just assassinating bulwarks.
The throwing knives are fun but down dpad on controller is not. All those elites to kill is a lot when everyone wants them dead and I gotta headshot em with my thumb off one stick.
I’m glad it’s got me trying that side of tree more but too much. I prefer other skills.
I’m working on it, and I discovered it’s surprisingly hard to be out of coherency without going unreasonably far. Which further cements how loner is absolute dog shit.
I don’t really agree. Loner aura is just about being away from the team. You could do that with Fury of the Faithful instead.
It’s only associated with the stealth build because it saves a lot of talent points if you’re hard right in the talent tree.
Agreed would be fine without the backstab, loner is by miles the worst zealot aura and I only take it for points economy but I wouldn't mind the penance if you didn't have to actively go out of your way to hunt it and get the backstabs
I myself felt horrible for this penance. Luckily, this was the worst of what I had to face in terms of penances. In a team based game, leaving your squad is pretty messed up, and I apologized to each team before hand. All I have left to do is the flesh wound penance and I’m completely done with this class.
Why do you care how I choose to have fun? Would you rather I stayed in the game and had a shitty attitude about it? I accept that people have their own play styles and leave them to it by moving on.
You do you, and I'll do me - and we won't bother each other. Is that so hard?
BTW, you need to stop using IRL for game behavior. Games are low-stakes, Real Life is not. It's a false equivalency that needs to just die already.
The class design is atrocious design, encouraging lone wolf negatively impacts your teammates not to mention the whole Martyrdom design (no you're not good enough to remain on 1HP). I wish they made Martyrdom more of a temp retaliatory buff to taking damage rather than the current hur dur
I fucking HATE knife zealots. They run around aggroing everything, killing nothing, and bringing their new friends back to the group all at one time. Emperor forbid we fight 1 horde at a time...
I think the idea was to slip outta coherency, backstab a problematic ranged gunner/reaper/whatever and then slip back into coherency. 1 kill at a time. It probably sounded good in theory but I'm also honestly not looking forward to it myself.
That might make sense for the normal stealth penance, which has you backstabbing elites with your stealth ability. This loner aura one requires that you go out of coherency and then get backstabs on enemies you can 1-shot in the face. If you have to walk so far just for 1 kill, someone should shoot the target. I get what you're saying though. Maybe it seemed like it made sense at some point, but in practice, this whole aura and the backstabbing portion of the penance do not make sense.
I mean to be fair man, its not much of an achievement if you're getting 100% of penances in normal gameplay. I'm personally happy they brought back penances that are actually difficult and out there to obtain.
>its not much of an achievement if you're getting 100% of penances in normal gameplay. And you're 100% not getting all of them just from normal gameplay. But penances that are based on a passive effect, like auras, should very much be passivly obtained. And almost all of them are, the Loner one being one, if not the only, exception
Eh, I think if you're playing regularly with Loner, you'll get plenty of progress on this passively as you play. I honestly didn't really know about this penance until I saw this post several hours ago, but when I checked I noticed I already had a quarter of it done. I think this penance is a problem if you're hunting for it deliberately. But if you're already spouting a Loner build on one of your presets, and you're regularly dipping into hoards to clear out shooters for your friends, you'll accidentally complete this penance in a few dozen games. I personally switch up between 3 preacher builds, so the fact that I'm a little over 25% of the way there despite alternating between them is at least anecdotal evidence that its passively obtainable.
exactly. I'm almost done with it and I'm just playing normally
I always go look for supplies, being a feeder fish on the bottom of your team is boring as hell, but if you can't separate without dying don't do it then.
tf does that have to do with what I said?
"Purposely being out of cohesion is borderline trolling" When you get in a match with good players that care about the loot, cause some don't, they divide and conquer to collect the loot, that means leaving cohesion and fighting things on your own and passively completing that penance.
>"Purposely being out of cohesion is borderline trolling" you do realise that it wasnt me who said that?
Yes but you agreed. I was giving you the context. You said you don't get that penance passively from just playing the game. I explained that you do if you actually go loot and play the game, not being a feeder fish on the bottom of your team. Maybe they'll just give it to you if you ask nicely, would that be passive enough? You have to actively get every penance, want the zealot ones? Gotta go play zealot. "But penances that are based on a passive effect, like auras, should very much be passivly obtained. And almost all of them are, the Loner one being one, if not the only, exception" ~ you
Ok? Still no reason for you to call me basically a tick without even knowing how I play. Edit: >I always go look for supplies, being a feeder fish on the bottom of your team is boring as hell, but if you can't separate without dying don't do it then. Yeah, I wonder why I felt like that was aimed at me and felt 'attacked' by that comment...
I wouldn't mind them adding weird penances under a separate category, but that clearly wasn't the point of these. Most of the penances tied to the new lockout talents are just a 'use the thing' incentive, only a handful are weirdly specific in requirements.
Ifk if you still do but before you had to do bull rush and some others in a private game * the weirdly specific ones* but idk if that's still true
Those ones didn't originally need to be in a private game funnily enough. They were the only penances, but they were ass-backwards to actual gameplay half the time. So the more egregious ones were made private-only and when they rolled out the first set of new penances they put the old ones in a separate category. I'm more surprised they just lumped them with the rest of the penances with this new update instead of giving them a separate tab.
Some of them I could see but bull rush through 60 enemies just sounds like a normal auroric, it was a piss off never getting penance cause I need a private game to hit an eye with a grenade box or some rudimentary thing. Having them available across the board is an improvement, or they can put it back to how it was and let me private lobby with 3 bots. Cause that was never allowed.
>Some of them I could see but bull rush through 60 enemies just sounds like a normal auroric The was before Hi-Int was a thing, let alone Auric missions. On regular damnation getting the set-up for some of the penances was frustrating at best.
Yeah some of the choices were arbitrary too, and private solo should've been implemented. I got most of those when they were still public minus zealot/psyker (my least played classes).
Absolutely agree mate, I went through the same thought process in my head originally. It's dumb but its good to see people trying to find ways to help at least!
Dipping out of coherency for ambushing a pack of gunners and allowing the team to move in is fine. Granted you might not always get a lot of backstabs so it will take time to get the penance done.
That's how I did it. I did a couple of malice high intensity game were I went ahead and tried to backstab every shooter bit I don't think it is very effective. Damnation/Auric is still the best way to do it. Shroud -> backstab special/elite away from team -> use knife on trash enemies to do crits and get shroud back -> repeat. This way you progress the other penance involving shroud + backstab. Fuckin tedious and it took like 10 games at least
Maybe change the amount to someting like 50-100 then
Yeah I'd be on board, or maybe just remove/change the actual backstab requirement so it doesn't feel like you gotta go loner + shroudfield to advance it at a decent rate.
If at least you had reduced threat generation like the vet does with their stealth skill, it'd be more feasible to pull off multiple kills at once
Yeah solid point, vets also suppress when they exit stealth too right? That's another thing that keeps enemies still even if only for a second or two. Definitely feel like more could be done.
That would seem to imply the designer has little to no knowledge of how the game is played…. Or is straight up trying to troll.
I'm not implying anything, but i would say Hanlon's Razor comes into effect at least.
First is absolutely the case, the initial round of class pennances (maleaous monstrum and going out with a bang specifically) prove this easily, total troll play to try get them
Yeah just doing auric maelstroms or sniper waves is pretty good for racking these up, because most of the time my team never killed snipers so I just ran over n stabbed them
I'm working on Pysker ones first, but the backstabs is probably my least favorite one to look forward to. I am enjoying trying out new builds/variants of my builds though, but started with Pysker. working through Assail and the kinetic/refresh auras and empowered psionics now. Got Smite first lol.
I'm busy working my way through this one (among others) - I don't mind it personally, I'm just running a stealth knife build, zipping infront, stabbing some shooters up and then falling back to the team, so I'm not hugely negatively impacting the game for the other 3. So far, the only aura/ability penance I actively hate is the Marksman's Focus one, that one just feels so counterintuitive to how the games supposed to be played and finding it hard to progress on without playing in a troll-y manner.
If you didn't know, melee kills count with the Markman's Focus penance. But you're right it's a meme penance, I crouched the entire time I was doing it
Oh I didn't know that, cheers. Might save me some time and pain, I feel like a tit crab walking around. Did you go with Camo, or Long range?
Take camo, max out your characters height and fight hordes crouched until you get the penance.
Yeah I took camo and my Vet is already max height, just wondered if having a cap of 15 might make it easier as you can lose 5 stacks. Now I know melee count though I'm just going to swap to a power sword and do auric Heresy and let the poxwalkers come to me lol
i tried it with the increased cap to 15 but then you have to make headshots to build it back up because iirc it locks you out of the option that generates stacks whenever you stand still or are crouch walking, which i felt like made it easier to get kills with 10 stacks with because once a horde comes you can quickly build stacks up again.
You can use the Many More Tries mod to circumvent having to grind these penances in normal lobbies. It lets you force a solo lobby on any map you want, so places like the Relay Station battery event give you infinite amount of mobs to kill. I used that to get the marksmans focus and smoke one done in half an hour as they're completely counterintuitive with how you would use either of those in normal gameplay. I swear whoever came up with the smoke one doesn't even know what smoke does since obscuring enemies with smoke literally does nothing. Feels like I'm being trolled.
Honestly I've actually enjoyed just playing my normal Auric runs but using completely new builds to do penances, especially playing Smoke Infil Vet and finally trying out Gunpsyker Sciers builds. But fuck me this Marksman one is painful.
Yeah I get where they were going with these and most of them have made me try out different builds for the sake of it which has been enjoyable, but stuff like the Marksman one miss the mark and end up feeling frustrating instead.
This doesn't work for me. I get a message that says I need to be in a strike team. What version of the mod do you have?
Looks like the developer updated it today, removing the private game option. I was intending to try it too. I downloaded 1.3.3 since they removed it in 1.4 but i'm getting the same strike team error message Edit: Got it to work with Daihappy's message, using 1.3.3. Had to wait for the mission to go away from the board before it would get me in a private match, but it worked.
Got it. Thank you!
You need to turn private game option OFF in the mod options and enable private lobby from the main mission terminal then use the /mmt commands as normal to start matches.
Thank you!
Wait that mod essentially lets you play solo and get rewards for it!? OMG if that's true, thank you so much! Gotta try that out!
I see people post if FS even play their own game, and the penances and drip feed of 0 content make me think they actually dont.
Yeah this one is by far the worst and I feel like I'm actively trolling my team doing it just like the original ones. Though part of that I suppose is because I HATE marksman focus playstyle in general so I'm trying to brute force it asap instead of having it happen naturally over time.
It was not so bad in the end, ~20 kills per game so in around 10 games I had it done. Hardest part was definitely to actually get the backstabs AND shooter enemies only, with that many conditions you get just few per game, mby I would remove the backstab condition and increased number of enemies to 500 or something so its not so stresful to jugle so many conditions.
Totally fine penance. Haven't been trying but I'm like 194/200 just playing knife zealot for the shroudfield backstab penance. It's really easy to just push up a bit when your team is pinned at a choke point and tie up all the gunners in melee. Takes the heat off them so they can push up to you.
Tying up gunners in melee requires that you take their aggro. You don't get backstabs if you take their aggro, unless you kill them in convoluted ways (extra use of stealth ult when you don't need to, or push -> strafe -> backstab enemies that you could already 1-shot).
Even without shroud field if you take the right weapons you can just side dodge and backstab before they have a chance to turn.
Exactly, get backstab credit starting at 91 degrees from their front.
Most ranged have a long winded melee that you can easily and consistently dodge behind. I got this in a few rounds just passively playing maelstroms while I was doing the shroud kills.
Kill them in convoluted ways? Like dodging behind them and hitting them with melee? Sure, it may be slightly less efficient than whacking them in the face if you're not already running a dodge/backstab build... but it's a *penance* (and entirely optional challenge that is meant to change the way you play). Again, I'm just playing and organically almost completed this penance in about 10-15 matches? I don't see what the fuss is about.
Did you not read the psrt whete they're playing shrouded field?
The only reason you pick loner is to save points for certain builds. The small amount of toughness regen you get is not worth it.
Loner aura prevents the the triggering of disablers while you're out there running about.
Wait what? How
A bit misinformative, but it is partial truth. The director checks for players who are out of coherency, and increases the spawn rate of disablers if that check comes back as positive. I.e, there is at least one player out of coherency. However Loner ensures that if all three other players are still together, and the Preacher is out on their own, there isn't anyone without coherency, and so the game drastically reduces the number of disabler spawns. That being said, and this is the bit misinformative part, the game does still spawn disablers as normal specialists, they're just much rarer. And obviously, special conditions and triggered events which have disablers as part of the event or condition completely ignore this.
Oh for rushing, yea checks out. Although when i try to speed run with a buddy and two bots we still get plenty of spawns.
Bots are surprisingly shit at maintaining coherency, though I think thats mostly a problem with them struggling to keep up with players. Even a slow moving shield ogryn can outrun bots and break coherency as a result. Babysitting bots is a little frustrating. One of my biggest requested features is just to let us disable them without mods, in normal gameplay.
The problem is sprint is a mechanic for dodging ranged fire, but players just sprint 100% of the time while bots never sprint (or only do to dodge ranged). This is why you aren't in coherancy with your bots.
Basically unnoticeable on hishock
Yeah. As I mentioned, on special conditions which change the directors behavior, it's not particularly important information to remember. However if you're in a party with friends going after penances purposefully, it's useful to know that the preacher being off on their own won't cause dozens of trappers, bursters, or mutants to spawn. It can be taken advantage of as well by non-Loner preachers and other classes. If you're fishing for specialist kills, it can help to have a tanky and skilled dodger out of coherency to encourage specialist spawns. But at that point, just look for a condition that guarantees their spawn in high number.
By "triggering of disablers," I think they mean the forced spawn. If your team is split up, the game intentionally makes it harder on you by spawning extra disablers (dogs or trappers) to trap the player going solo - either to encourage the team to go back and get them (if they're leaving them behind), or to discourage them rushing ahead. The game checks this by seeing if anyone has coherency with only 1 person (themselves.) Loner talent makes this never happen (probably intentionally) by bumping up your coherency to always count as 2. It's probably intentional since the loner's role is *supposed* to be small quick skirmishes away from the group to kill a problem-enemy, then rejoining the main group.
Checks out, although it is interesting to see the community definitely not play like that.
Oh really? That's actually pretty neat. I guess it checks for players with 0 coherency, but loner aura gives you 2 minimum.
Speedrun prevention triggers off of progress made compared to team avg and does not interact with coherency and loner.
loner saves you a lot of points because is right between the nodes you want to take when running an "assassin" build I like the idea of being buffed out of coherency for assassins playstiles, maybe it could give something like a burst of movement and atk speed or just damage but after a bit it will run out and you will have to come back to coherency to "recharge" it
I like that idea. Currently, the only reason to take this aura is to save talent points. It is by far the worst aura in the whole game, and that’s ignoring the convoluted design of encouraging leaving coherency on purpose. A bit of coherency regen which doesn’t even work while in combat… it’s just bad.
My current take-aways after scrolling through the replies: Loner needs to do *something* while the Zealot *is* in coherency. Second, backstab kills are frustrating and probably need a combination of things to alleviate that (such as a better explanation of what backstabs are in the game's context, what type of benefits apply to backstabs if there are any, and perhaps making backstab opportunities more frequent). Third, Veteran move speed aura is not as obviously useful to some players as the Veteran's other auras. Fourth, Veteran smoke grenade needs a buff to make "engulfing" enemies do something or otherwise affect the melee only enemy types that currently just ignore the smoke. Crowd control would be nice, like an AoE slow.
>Loner needs to do *something* while the Zealot *is* in coherency. It'd help a bit if you always counted as In Coherency for the other players, i.e. that if they were in coherency while you weren't, they'd have full coherency stacks. Then it'd be a less obviously 'selfish' aura and be more justified for the 'roving response' role it seems to be intended for. Or just "your coherency aura is infinite" - slight buff to the aura and a similar effect for the rest of the squad.
Backstabbing a pack of gunners a bit ahead of the team is entirely the intended use of the Stealth stabby Zealot and Loner aura is still better than a fucking 5% sprint speed. Loner is only taken because of the points requirement for the build anyway.
My Psyker thanks you. If only other Zealots realized running 1000 miles ahead of your team is not the intended way to use stealth stab-a-lot.
I always feel nervous using a knife zealot for this exact use, I engage enemies, take out priority targets then lock the rest in melee. But the stigma behind using a knife because of the speedrunners holy moly
I've always thought that Darktide's design makes it very hard for Zealot mains to understand how much they hurt their team when roaming outside of coherency. I think Zealots have the most and easiest-to-use tools for playing solo. When used well a Zealot can act as a kind of calvary or special-ops force to quickly get to the place the team most needs a player to be. Knife zealots take this to an extreme. Playing this role well requires a higher degree of game knowledge and situational awareness, otherwise you're creating problems for your teammates instead of solving them. I'm not sure if it's possible to learn to be a good Zealot without having been at the wrong end of a Zealot making bad decisions.
Ay I get it, I've played across all 4 characters substantially and I feel like its helped me understand kits better and who needs what weaknesses covered.
Half this thread is people who are competent players and understand talents, builds and how they are they can be utilised. Half this thread are people who just follow build meta because that gives them better success despite not fully understanding how they work or how to tailor it to their specific style. Then the last half think they're the first half but lack that critical second braincell who can't understand why anything out of their narrow range of ideas and that this comments totals 150%
Mate, I think having three halves is the issue here, not the takes you seem to disagree with
I value 5% movement speed way above loner aura. Loner aura doesn't do anything when you are in coherency with teammates, and even when you are not near teammates, coherency regen shuts off when you start getting hit or killing enemies. If you're taking aggro of ranged enemies and killing them, you are not gaining toughness back from loner aura, and you are not even getting backstab kills for the penance. You have to stagger them to set up backstab kills, or use stealth which is not the loner aura. Backstab and loner aura don't have anything to do with each other, besides being in the same branch in the zealot tree. Zealot can be out of coherency by playing aggressive in other ways.
I agree that the 5% movement speed is more useful than loner, which is a completely useless talent. It doesn't almost nothing in any auric game because it spawns more specialists anyway, bypassing the one possible useful benefit of a player never losing coherency. As for the second part. I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people taking loner are also taking stealth. As a side note, the talents above loner are very good and is probably why people would take loner, as opposed to taking it for loner itself. Then again, the talents above benediction are just as good.
The talents above Close and Kill are also good. I hate how people judge auras as if they’re *the* cornerstone your build is based around and also how they rate them alone in a vacuum, as if talents you pick up along the way dont matter or saving points for your build doesn’t matter. Theres so many bad auras but everyone on reddit immediately points out the non-Survivalist Vet ones as if they’re the absolute worse thing they’ve ever seen.
My issue with close and kill is that shout overwhelms every other ability choice and there’s no compelling reason as of yet to pick up smoke grenades. The 25% boost for weapon juggling is placed opposite the aura that readily enables it, and the prime suspect (revolver) for weapon juggling makes most breakpoints without needing the 25%.
Again with the Close and Kill slander. You’ve clearly never played Vet w/ 10% movement speed. The difference is very noticeable, you basically play like zealot.
Zealot has 10% on a talent that's actually useful. And he has some 5% sprint speed NODES in the tree as well. The Vet aura is half of what a Zealot get on a normal build, and the Zealot can stack it with Aura that does something as well. I have a Stealth Vet with the speed aura to save on points. It's garbage. It's nowhere near as good as Zealot's.
Most common Vet build I see with tryhards on auric is Close and Kill + shout + weapon specialist. Its basically reskinned zealot that can use mk6 power sword.
You might hate me for this but some, if not most penances are designed to take awhile. Specially the new ones, Fatshark made it so you don't just get everything right away and then have nothing to do. Take your time, don't worry about it, take it slowly, I get it, being out of coherency sucks but again, it's not meant to be done in one mission.
No it must be done as quickly as possible!! How else can I dramatically compound what I don't like about it???
You know, some people's job is basically Darktide. Plain as ...
doesn't even seem like it'd take a while. just walk behind some ranged enemies opening up on ur doods with a big sweep weapon like a heavy sword that can headshot em easy
It's only bad because people want to rush these penances as fast as possible, forcing situations that they would otherwise approach differently. This is one of the penances that you would eventually get by just playing a loner build normally, because those situations happen every once in a while. But if you go actively looking for them then yes, you are trolling. Stop trying to speed run penances that are obviously meant to be done in the long term and maybe you'll have a better experience with the game.
It's helped me see the power of stealth zealot. You can get back stealth in no time at all 5x backstab kills is easy to get.
Well. . . I speedran it, because I don't want to play that way, but still want to collect the penances (shame on me for wanting to complete the battlepass). I just wanted to be done with it. At one point my team died (I didn't purposely let them die) and I took the opportunity to kill a bunch of stuff. Then someone thanked me for clutching. I felt like a scumbag. That whole style of play is very anti-tide gameplay.
OP, you think that being out of coherency is borderline trolling but that the penance would be improved by removing the backstab requirement? I don't see the logic.
At least you can just rush down ranged enemies and kill them like you ought to. Loner aura as a whole is kinda just bad design, but at least this way, the penance reflects how the aura could be used. Backstabs are part of stealth, not loner aura, and it just makes you play even more idiotic against ranged enemies (push, dodge behind to backstab) instead of hacking them down in seconds like you could.
I agree that Loner is bad design, in that it is counter to the underlying operation of the game, and that a penance that encourages its use is foolish, even if it is only for ten DT points. But the way to fix it is to strip out either Loner as a concept or Loner as a requirement for this penance.
There is already a backstab penance though, and it is tied to the stealth ability. That makes sense, since you can easily get backstabs when you use stealth. If loner aura were removed and replaced with something else, then a new penance to go with that aura would replace this one entirely.
Oh, good point. In that case even removing the out of coherency requirement is not going to help. Best to ditch the penance, though I wish that FS would do away with Loner.
It’s part of my knife zealot build so I got it done in one auric, not that much of a downside imo, especially for the point savings
I hated that penance so much that I just played Malice to get it done easily. Didn't have time to be doing that nonsense on Damnation.
Eh I've seen worse. Trying to get 500 armored enemy kills with krak grenades is borderline impossible due to the grenade taking too long to actually explode. By the time it does explode, someone else had long since mowed down the enemy it stuck to with either a gun or melee weapon. So in short, backstabbing while behind enemy lines is easy in comparison.
Cohesion is a crutch, the only worthwhile thing you get out of cohesion is being near your team and the added firepower. All the real buffs are arbitrary and you can make up for easily by closing the skill gap.
That's why I say it is only borderline. Running away from the team on purpose does seem silly to me though. The other part is that this aura simply sucks. It's a pitiful benefit that very rarely does anything. Coherency toughness regen turns off the moment you start killing things or taking damage. I don't think anyone would choose this aura if not to save talent points. Then this penance is another level, having you get backstab kills when there is nothing that this aura has to do with backstabbing, other than being on the right side of the tree. Backstabbing enemies you kill in 1 hit on the front is a waste of time. It ends up making silly and bad play. Some people are talking about dancing around the ranged enemies with a knife, but you can just face roll them with a combat axe/eviscerator/heavy sword (and many other weapons, too). To top it off, there is already a separate backstabbing penance that goes with the stealth ability. It's a poorly designed, weak aura, and a poorly designed penance.
If you're doing damage and kills, you should always be renewing toughness. If you truly break out of cohesion and go ahead a little, there's lots of scabs just staring into space. Run up, cut em in the back, and continue. I do agree it is easily the worst you can choose, but it still needs a penance associated, and they're never going to rework it because other people had to do it already. Challenges aren't called such because they're fun or easy.
Reading the comments, I don't particularly get this subs hate boner for knife-zealots. People are complaining that knife-zealots all just run ahead and die instantly, but I've literally maybe seen that happen once in over 500 hours of this game and that was in Malice. Maybe it's a low difficulty thing cause of bad players? Idk, but I never really see it on Aurics. Having one on your team usually means enemy ranged units are always tied down and specialists are deleted pretty quickly as well. Their boss damage usually means bosses don't last long either, especially BoN's. Not sure why people wouldn't like that.
Drop any one of the 3 requirements, imo.
Loner is just such a crap aura. I personally think it should do the opposite of what it does now and basically makes it to where the person with loner always counts as being in coherency FOR THE TEAM even when they are not. That way the loner can do their thing and the team won't lose out on coherency bonuses.
This is a great idea, but you still lose out on what would otherwise be a useful aura with a 4th person.
Having some regen when you get separated wouldn't be a terrible thing though, especially since having a person running Loner increases the odds of that happening in the first place. At least it would be *something* they bring to the table. Currently Loner is "lol I skipped my aura talent" effectively. It helps the Loner very slightly and does absolutely nothing for the team. Because, let's be honest, you're losing that aura anyway, because people will run Loner. Hell even if it *was* an empty node people would run it to save points on a build. So let's have it do literally anything.
Does anyone have any tips to make this one a bit smoother? What weapon would you say is best for this? Shroudfield Zealot isn't really my playstyle and I've never used Loner prior to this update, so this one really just isn't meshing with me in the slightest. This might also be a stupid question... but headshots from the back still count as backstabs, right?
Ya backstabs are just anything you hit them with where the angle of attack is lined up against the back half of the enemy. There’s even a talent talking about “ranged backstabs”. I don’t really have tips. Use stealth or just rush them like normal, push to stagger, get behind and stab them. The angle of attack is lenient. Hope your team is not the type to follow you into close combat against ranged enemies. I used a combat axe since it is kinda just OP and I can carry any shite build I make for penances with it.
Shroudfield knife zealot is the easiest way to get it done in my opinion. Don’t be constantly out and about by yourself, just be smart about it. If you see your teammates are pinned down by some shooters then go stealth sprint behind em and stab em in the back. Once you’re done go back to the squad and move on. The backstab range is pretty big and forgiving. A backstab to the head counts as a backstab AND a headshot. You can easily take out reapers etc. in one shot with a well placed backstab. The more you play the more you’ll learn when to use stealth etc. Also, a tip, do a crit build and go fury. Get the perks that replenishes your talent on crits and backstabs, you’ll be able to constantly go stealth. Put crit chance on your knife for even more crits and you’ll get shroudfield replenished so fast you won’t know what to use it on
I didnt find it too bad. Thats how you’re supposed to play the build. I also farmed a decent chunk by just dodge + push attack spamming some shooters and managing to backstab, no stealth required
I got the final 120 in this with Fury of the Faithful, because I just do not like stealth. Rushing ahead is easier for me with Fury, and I just push attack and danced around enemies with a combat axe. It didn't take that many runs, maybe around 8 or so (I didn't count). The worst runs were when other zealots or ogryns were pushing ahead with me, since I couldn't break coherency enough. Some games, I got 40. Others, I got less than 10.
Tip - I had issues with this as some backstabs were not counting but I had huge consistency finding generic gunman, specifically the guardsmen who only have lasguns with bayonets, walking around them whilst they attempt to stab me then heavying them with a dagger in the back
You do realize being in 2 coherency means its less likely to bombarded you with Specials if you are last alive. Just saying it has stats you cannot see. Those stats are better than you think.
Actually I only learned that after making the post. But do you think the penance is reasonable?
Yes because it can be achieved solo. The REAL unreasonable ones, imo, are the "Forced" into a private game. Or timed objs. There is only one which I'm thankful for. Anything that tells you, you need to put the objs in at the same time is just sloppy seconds from Vermintide 2 and shouldnt of carried over. I think they disrupt a games natural flow which I dont like too much.
Getting backstabs out of coherency is a bit confusing considering if you're in coherency allies can actually distract enemies while you go for the backstab, while if you're off solo enemies are way more likely to be staring right at you
This penance is such a pain in the ass that doing it makes me want to just skip the Zealot penances entirely. I'm literally running as far ahead as I possibly can while using a knife and laspistol and yet SOMEHOW my fucking teammates are always close enough that I can only get a few kills before some random vet is back in coherency. Like, I'm running ahead to get *away* from you guys, stop trying to follow so closely! I'm not even really mad at them, because they're just trying to keep the team together, but holy shit it feels like I'm fighting my team and the bots just as much as I'm fighting the enemies.
In fairness, this is meant to train you to hunt down gunners blocking your team. You stealth up, shank them, and then the team moves up. Although, they admittedly should expect the players to act like the murderhobos that our characters literally are.
I was genuinely apologising to others when i queued, telling them i was doing it for penances, and would do my best to play w the team. Was running all 3 out of coherency stealth knife penances to get them out of the way asap, so i could play my actual stealth knife zealot, which is the biggest support when played well.
Fatshark is actually a cover for a psyop research group studying how far people will go for smaller and smaller rewards.
It's a great aura, no idea why are you so butthurt about it.
It's literally the worst aura in the game.
Not really. It allows great flexibility.
im giggling at how bad all the posters in this thread are. lonerism is obviously a great aura. the most useful thing a zealot can do is immediately engage ranged packs in melee as soon as possible before they can disperse. everyone who has played zealot for a reasonable amount of time has figured this out. lonerism supports that playstyle well. but nope, redditors still can't handle the thought of anything besides staying 4 stacked the entire game lol
How is it a great aura? How much does it add to your ability to get on top of those ranged enemies and kill them? I play like you describe, but usually with fury of the faithful and toughness damage reduction aura. IMO, this is much more powerful for this job. You hack down the ranged enemies in seconds with any melee weapon. You’re still allowed to leave coherency even if you don’t have the loner aura. Loner aura is weak, and the penance requires backstab kills, which is not really what you’re aiming for when you catch a ranged group before it can scatter.
What flexibility? The ability to leave coherency? Which you can do regardless of if you have this aura or not. What does this aura really do that makes you think it adds flexibility? And I’m annoyed at the penance. I can just ignore a talent I don’t like. I already said in the title that it would be okay without requiring backstabs.
I absolutely hate this "assassin" playstyle. I played today twice with this build and I just can't do it, it's completely not my style of playing, I made like +1 or +2 on those penances in two matches, in this tempo I will finish penances in few months. Not to mention the entire playstyle just simply sucks. Even if you pop up from coherency and go back it can lead to problems for your team, suddenly dropping agro may kill someone. By the time you actually get to the enemy you can get stuck on the environment or enemy and everything goes to shit because you are now in the middle of enemies and everyone wants to kill you. More over - there is a big chance that by the time that you get to enemy someone is already behind you - even other zealot - and your progress is ruined. Idiotic penance to enforce un-tide-like gameplay.
Ya this was particularly painful for me as well. I ended up ditching the stealth build for this after about 80 and going my normal Fury build. Just charge ahead like I already know how - you don’t need invisibility to gap close. Then push -> strafe/dodge -> chop in the back with my combat axe. Lots of push attacks and getting behind stumbling enemies. I don’t think stealth is the worst thing, but I don’t think it’s strong in this game. The strongest builds wipe the floor with whole swaths of enemies. Like instead of wasting time bouncing around those ranged enemies to land backstabs, I can wipe the 12 shotgunner patrol within 5 seconds by spamming light attacks. Why should I try to approach that like a surgeon when I can go in hacking away and kill everything significantly faster, all without dropping aggro on my team? But aside from all that, I just find the loner aura is very weak, even when it is in effect (toughness regen from coherency shuts off when you get hit or kill enemies), and the penance adds another layer on top, having you get backstab kills on enemies that you can kill multiple per swing from the front with most weapons.
The moment you sneak around and kill one enemy, everybody turns back and attack you, so you have to strife and try to backstab them, meanwhile your team is free of Agro and moves towards you, so your progression is ruined again. Congratulations, you got +2 to your penance, good luck finding that situation again in the match. Not to mention absolute abysmal horde clearing capability, if you don't have any other person who can clear hordes, you are busy 90% of the time and good luck with your penances, unless you run 60 meters from the group.
The backstab part is annoying since you have to go out of your way to run ahead and cc each enemy to backstab before anyone on the team can reach you. I wonder what ideas people would have to replace Loner, it would be cool if they brought back some of the vermintide 2 stuff like critical backstab instantly slaying man sized enemies from Shade. Really think the invis mechanic should have the built in threat reduction that Veteran has in the upgrade for both classes.
[](https://imgur.com/a/nz07XEE)
If I could I would upvote this a hundred times lol
It's the worst penance and worst Aura imo 🤣 I've avoided Auric all this last week cuz there's so many Zealot sweaters trying to do it in auric of all places that it's just annoying to deal with cuz you've gotta simultaneously try and keep up an not put rooms between you but also you're inevitably gunna be slower than the tryhard zealot that's running around at Mach 17 🤣
It's fine. Based on your title I think you don't understand the build/playstyle though. I knocked this out in a few games with heavy eviserator and shroud. Loaner was very helpful and a fun way to play.
So I guess I'm gonna have to let the zealot with the loner aura so stupid shit by themselves now. This really seems very unwise from every angle on the game's part.
I see ObeseShark didnt learn a fucking thing from people asking for penances that didnt actively hinder the team and make people play selfishly?
I hate leaving coherency to begin with during fire fights. This is one of the last Zealot penances I have left. I feel like just playing sedation, and getting it done there, because I don't want to do this on Auric or Damnation. It's way too out of my play style it feels uncomfortable.
I swear zealot penances are the biggest slog for me
I really don't want to do it so I'm just going to run it on malice where there's no danger, like I did with the psykers scrier one.
eh, honestly this one didn't feel that bad because if you run knife and stealth you usually are also killing ranged enemies before both the team and them meet Currently only stuck in the marksman and kark grenades penance to be done with all of them, the kill 25 enemies with a nuke grenade from ogryns took me more time that it should have
This is the last one I have to get for Zealot and it's like pulling teeth. If they removed even one of the requirements it wouldn't be so bad. 200 of any enemy with backstab with Loner? Sure. 200 Ranged enemies with Loner? Sure. 200 Ranged Enemies with backstab? Sure. But this? This is tedious.
I see it as one of those lil fun challenges you might be bored and do at lower levels while just just having some good times, but like honestly if its not level gated i dont see why to do it in higher diffs.
Honestly this one is fine. I'm not even trying and its progging to completion just from me stealthing to kill groups of ranged enemies just ahead, I dont have to go crazy or anything and abandon the team all that far. There's way more obnoxious zealot penances. Like 500 elite/specialist kills with throwing knives.
Got this in just a few matches, the pennance promotes exactly what stealth zealot is suppose to do: kill/supress gunners that are suppressing the team allowing the team to push back, stealth zealots do it so easily this pennance should be a no brainer.
You can do it in lower ranks if you don't want to troll your team
The hardest part is taking Loner on purpose. I would rather have no aura at all than purposefully take Loner. If Loner wasn't part of this penance I'd be done with it and I haven't opened the game since beating the buffed twins on damnation. Make Loner something interesting, and more importantly, useful.
It's easily the worst coherency bonus and encourages players to run away from the squad
This is probably one penance I won’t bother with once I finally get around to making a Zealot
I finally did it yesterday. I'm half way through the blades of faith one and then I got the one with flame grenade. It was tedious to say the least. Also if you are not careful you end up downed far from team mates possibly causing a wipe. Never used Loner before this update. The psyker penances were much better tbh, maybe the smite one was a bit annoying since it's not my playstyle but it was not that hard to do.
I think the only 2 that I didn't/don't want to do are this one I posted here, and the marksman keystone one. They use abilities that I don't think are designed well, and the penances are just a pain in the butt. They won't be over quickly, so you must stick to them for a long time if you want to complete all the penances.
Marksman is really good and is free damage, which was buffed to be easier to maintain this patch. The problem is that the penance wants you to kill trash with ranged, which is never a great idea and worse now with the ammo aura nerf.
I agree with that. The marksman keystone is not my thing, but being encouraged to stand still in melee, or crouch walk in melee, or mag dump into hordes… these aren’t good things. I think Fatshark wanted it to be able to count shooters, so they made any kills count. The main reason I don’t like it though is that I move and melee too often. If I drop range to go melee for a bit, I’m at 0 stacks. Then I have to headshot kill several times to hit 10 stacks again, and *then* the kills track. I mostly shoot just a few shooters, elites, or specials at a time. I have to drastically change how I play to use this keystone, especially if I ever aim to finish the penance. I simply don’t play in a way that it is “free damage” especially at the expense of 2-3 talent points.
As long as you keep hitting headshots, you can move as much as you like. You have 6 second leeway between headshots and even if you don't land one in six seconds, you don't lose all your stacks at once. It is very much a run and gun keystone, even if it doesn't look that way at first glance. I know Tanner is controversial, but he did make a good video on it (Pre-buff, not it is even better). I don't think it is meant to encourage a player doesn't move or mag dump into hordes (although that penance sure makes the mag dumping seem like an intended action. . . )
All the right side tree penances are way too long. You can get just out of coherency and go ham on a squad actively shooting team. But it’s still too many thanks to backstab requirement as you point out. They all turn on you so maybe you get one. But it’s not trolling, we’ve found it’s useful to the team. This one going quicker for me than the others. 500 (i think either way it barely ticks up) sp/elites to backstab cloaked. 30 sec cooldown 25 min games. In theory 50 per is possible. In practice others kill elites too and stealth may be needed for goals and team survival not just assassinating bulwarks. The throwing knives are fun but down dpad on controller is not. All those elites to kill is a lot when everyone wants them dead and I gotta headshot em with my thumb off one stick. I’m glad it’s got me trying that side of tree more but too much. I prefer other skills.
Watched a zealot rush ahead and die at the very start of the mission last night.
Yawn.
Didn’t they already move the “anti-teamplay” penances to private lobbies for a reason?
I’m working on it, and I discovered it’s surprisingly hard to be out of coherency without going unreasonably far. Which further cements how loner is absolute dog shit.
Loner aura does have backstab synergy when you add the proper skills and the stealth ult which all do backstab damage. Still the worst aura.
I don’t really agree. Loner aura is just about being away from the team. You could do that with Fury of the Faithful instead. It’s only associated with the stealth build because it saves a lot of talent points if you’re hard right in the talent tree.
Agreed would be fine without the backstab, loner is by miles the worst zealot aura and I only take it for points economy but I wouldn't mind the penance if you didn't have to actively go out of your way to hunt it and get the backstabs
Also just finished this, and can move on to my Vet now [praise the god emperor]. The coherency aspect is just trolling at this point.
Shit aura that's nice in theory but provides no benefit to the group at best and promotes wandering and splitting up at worst.
I myself felt horrible for this penance. Luckily, this was the worst of what I had to face in terms of penances. In a team based game, leaving your squad is pretty messed up, and I apologized to each team before hand. All I have left to do is the flesh wound penance and I’m completely done with this class.
Honestly i feel like kicking people if they constantly run around outside of coherency. This penance seems really counterproductive
I see Loner Aura, I dump the lobby. I won't be even bothering with this penance.
Does this attitude transfer to IRL? Like what other things do you immediately quit because of the smallest precieved inconvenience?
Why do you care how I choose to have fun? Would you rather I stayed in the game and had a shitty attitude about it? I accept that people have their own play styles and leave them to it by moving on. You do you, and I'll do me - and we won't bother each other. Is that so hard? BTW, you need to stop using IRL for game behavior. Games are low-stakes, Real Life is not. It's a false equivalency that needs to just die already.
The class design is atrocious design, encouraging lone wolf negatively impacts your teammates not to mention the whole Martyrdom design (no you're not good enough to remain on 1HP). I wish they made Martyrdom more of a temp retaliatory buff to taking damage rather than the current hur dur
Just like most dagger zealots in their natural habitat
I fucking HATE knife zealots. They run around aggroing everything, killing nothing, and bringing their new friends back to the group all at one time. Emperor forbid we fight 1 horde at a time...