Update: Darktide got a major update on Feb 24th that updated weapon stats and finally finished the crafting system, making it WAY easier to get strong and useful blessings on any weapon. The weapons I listed in this video are still my top choices for the Sharpshooter, with the addition that the Boltgun with Pinning Fire blessing (and Shattering Impact if you can get both) can handle Damnation very well. But also several other weapons are very decent now and I want to give them a shout out: Lucian Mk II Helbore Lasgun: This can hit most damage breakpoints and handle everything but hordes very effectively. It has a slightly higher skill floor than the weapons listed in the video since you have to manage and aim your charged shots. The Headhunter Autoguns got a boost and perform almost as well as the Agripinaa Mk VIII, especially the Vraks Mk III. The Columnus Mk V Infantry Autogun also performs well. The Plasma Gun can be S-tier with the other weapons in this video but has an incredibly high skill floor to be effective. If you love this gun and are good with it, if performs along with the best. Honorable mention goes to the Ius Mk III Shredder Autopistol, which is very fun and decently effective (A-B tier) with the Pinning Fire and Blaze Away blessings.
@@vgameface I spend at least ten minutes every time I play Darktide just build crafting, experimenting, and seeing what I can do. This one update alone has expanded the games lifespan by at least a few years.
@@jager477 Oh, definitely! There are ridiculously more build options now, and so many more strong weapon and blessing combos to pair with them. It's a ton of fun to tinker with everything! Theory crafters are going to be busy for a while.
@@vgameface I just love how an update was able to bring a game on the verge of death back into the spotlight. Darktide really is following in the footsteps of its predecessor Vermintide II.
Tier1: Weakspot is not the same as Headshot. It's a little bit complicated - in general it is head, but it can also be (in some cases) body or tights. But it is just a clarification. Tier one talent that gives instant recovery and % recovery over time is best in this slot. Mind that, if you play with random players you can get team composition that will compete for elites kill -> this will cripple your recovery. Also, this talent can feel underpowered in lower difficulties because of much lower count of elites.
Thanks I was definitely very stoked to roll it (from a green no less)! One day I can hopefully replace Rampage with Power Cycler, but that blessing is so rare I've never even seen it. So yeah I doubt I'll see a better roll!
On a side point, the thing is that not everyone likes running one or two hit weapons. I play with an ogryn and a psyker that duo flame staff and slab shield. The combo is designed to make up for the range issue that flame staff has in open areas as it allows the psyker to keep flaming into the crowd while staying in cover. When this is the case, the ogryn can't maximize his damage but with bleed on grenades 1 simple swing with his shields maul plus the bleed keeps the hordlings down. I can't tell you as the stand in gaurdsman how many red X marks I get because the ogryn charges a horde I toss 2 bleed nades while the psyker he pops crusher maulers and bulwarks.
One thing to add - the recent patch has made the Headhunter Autoguns, particularly the two Vraks models, are now very competitive and imo on par with the kantrael and braced. The 3 shot burst Mark III is the perfect hybrid between the rapid fire high dps meatwall removing of the Braced combined with the ability to precisely take out distant targets. The Mark VII feels similar to the Kantrael with less damage per shot (still fine for headshotting most basic mobs) but with higher stagger and a better spamfire option for panic burst. I'd definitely suggest giving both a try as they're very competitive with the patch provided you get high stability on them. Just don't use the Agripinaa Headhunter, the 2 shot burst, that's still horrible.
So, I’ve really been enjoying the Lucius pattern hellebore lasgun. The iron sights are a bit of a downer but the decent base damage and charge option are nice and the bayonet can stagger most things that get in your face. What do you think about the Lucius pattern?
Tbh I never really got into the Helbores. I know they perform decently well and a lot of Vets like using them on Damnation, so they are certainly viable. The Mk II seems to be the most popular as the well-rounded version, while the Mk III is slow but has massive penetration. But personally they have never really been my favor.
Someone once suggested to me to use the Blue Krieg rifle over the braced and the brown lasgun, I honestly consider it the best, fast firerate and the charge up actually lets it 1 shot normal shooters in the chest and definitly head, I dont have a particulary great one right now mind you but the charge up also lets you shoot armor for nice damage and since its a lasgun type it actually has decent ammo. Tried all 3 krieg rifles after and green is slower on the charge but it does more damage and the brown krieg rifle eats your ammo but it does tons of damage on the charge even while its slow.
You're talking about Helbore Lasguns yeah? They can definitely be decent and the charged shot is solid damage, but I've found them to be way more spotty than the other choices. The non-charged shots are just worse than the XII shots, and the charged shots are too slow to make up the difference. You can get 1 charged shot off or 2-3 XII shots off in the same time for similar damage. And you need to never miss a charged shot to keep up consistent damage output, which I'm just not good enough to do in the chaos of a horde. The XII just feels way more forgiving and consistent. That said the Helbores do offer some niche benefits against the big meaty mobs, and a more engaging playstyle since you have multiple attack styles to manage.
Tier3: Designation is best in slot, no discussion. Each player can mark only 1 target, with this - every target of given type is marked. For everyone near you (and you want to stay near!). As I said before - granades chance is not consistent enough to perform better then marking targets. Covering fire can be tempting, but ogryns and zealots do just fine when fighting in melee. Theoreticly this talent can help less melee oriented characters when they need help, but still - it is situational and will not perform that good (seems to have internal cooldown of sort)
As for ranged weapon: XII lasgun is best, second pick would be one of the autoguns (don't remember the name) - recent patch gave it some love (more ammo). And it is better if you are not skilled enough to hit weakpoints on a regular basis.
Tier4: Camo is nice only in one case. Getting penances done. In other cases? You don't move, you spend less time watching your back (this WILL bite you when you change characters or remove this talent), you stay behind or in different place then your team (goodbye coherency bonus) and - finally - your agro goes to other teammates, like... psyker. Fun fact: some mobs can knock you back or push. This is movement. You instantly gain agro. On higher difficulty this is death. As for sprinting, dashing and dodging talent... do you like playing piano? Ok, go with it. Try. But - in the end - best one is this slot i dmg reduction which has a lot of synergies on the whole tree.
I actually don't agree. Vgameface mentioned the other reason. Data Interrogation. When you data interrogate you... stand still. When you stand still you rarely get attacked. If you don't need to do data interrogation or your team is good at protecting the person interrogating, yeah Camo Expert isn't that great, but I've found it useful for that very reason.
Camo expert does have a bit more subtlety to it though. Yes mob attacks will go to your team mates but in a lot of cases this just means they die faster because you can just take them all out without worrying about suppression or being interrupted. Just being able to stand there and gun-turret perfectly accurate shots to clear out a room of shooters without having to stop and melee or duck behind cover or similar can somtimes result in a faster clearance than being the "ranged tank". Whether this speed/ease of clearing beats out the issue of your teammates needing to be more careful is up for debate of course, but it shouldnt be discounted. The melee thing is huge - if you have a friendly ogryn or zealot nearby you can just ignore all melee mobs and concentrate on the ranged whilst they run past you to your better equipped melee fighters. Without Camo expert your positioning needs to be much more precise and you'll find yourself having to stop firing to defend yourself more often. Even 1-2 stray mobs from a huge pack can have a massive impact in stopping you being able to just turret damage into a large pack of shooters. Finally Camo Expert is available all the time. Yes good sharpshooters with Counterfire will have very high uptime of their Ability but in situations where it's down, or you're running a bolter build that uses one of the other two Tier 6 traits, you get very limited use out of the toughness tanking. I do agree Camo Expert teaches bad habits, but I feel it's viewed too much as a noob trap and does have some good use as long as the sharpshooter understands its nuances. I'll never argue its BETTER than the Toughness/Counterfire build for general use, and I don't generally disagree with your points, but I feel Camo Expert is looked down on and definitely has its place as long as the Sharpshooter understands how it works, doesnt ignore their surroundings and knows how to fight when it's deactivated. Camo expert can also do lots of cool things like stand in a corner as a beast of nurgle walks right past you towards distant teammates giving you a free unlimited tunnelling of damage into its weak spot. One final point - Currently Unwavering Focus works on both melee AND ranged... but this seems to be an unintended bug as it clearly mentions ranged in the tooltip. It may stay that way, but I would expect it to be nerfed to ranged-only at some point in the future which might lower its value, so no harm having learned how to use the alternative.
@@Ultragravy Thanks for this great input! I resisted taking Unwavering Focus over Camo Expert for a long time due to what you said; I felt like being unbothered let me be a better counter-sniper to pick off elites and riflemen, which let my team take less damage when things died faster. And the other benefits of Camo you mentioned are also very cool and useful. I think it's a great talent that has a place in the meta with someone who understands all its strengths and weaknesses and knows how to offset the weaknesses. But as a generalization across a large pool of players I think more people will see success with Unwavering Focus, especially during their beginning and intermediate excursions into Damnation. That might change if they ever do as you say and take away the unlisted melee damage reduction, as that does seem like a bug since it's unmentioned in the talent, and it is HUGE since it does end up letting you ignore some melee poke and just be a turret of death. Overall it may be a situation where Camo Expert is really good at low level but teaches bad habits, so it hinders you as you get up to Damnation (noob trap as you say), but then returns again to usefulness as your skill progresses even further and you learn how to play Damnation and extract maximum use out of your Camo. I'm glad this tier has 2 great options as it opens up the meta to some real choice and playstyle adjustment, and keeps things from becoming too samey and stale!
@@vgameface Wholeheartedly agree with all of that! My main thought was just to try and ensure people don't just dismiss Camo Expert as "that thing only noobs use" as it does have viability and use in certain cases. What I feel about Darktide Feat and Weapon loadouts is often they're more based on what your other team members have so you need to be flexible to change entire builds and weapons around to fit with the playstyle of whatever team you're with. And for Sharpshooter, you generally pick the main weapon first and build feats around the weapon choice. Camo expert is just one option that you gets weaker or stronger depending on the gun you use, Tier 6 talent you use, and who else is in your team and what THEY use. It's not that black and white "unwavering focus is better always" that a lot of the community have tended to push for.
The Mark 5 combat axe does much better if you get a roll of 50% or higher to cleave targets because that's the point where it doubles the amount of targets hit then add in Brutal Momentum to prevent it from getting stuck on chunkier targets and it becomes a great all around weapon. Cant wait to get a good rolled Mark 7 HeadHunter to try out post buffs, it seems like the MG 12 Lasgun will finally have some competition for long ranged fire support. And if you haven't tried it the Plasma Gun can be quite fun with the reload talents and The Bigger they Are... because you can destroy Ogryn packs, its worse than the Bolter at everything else so its a fairly Meme heavy build but it can be fun to do.
Great insight on the Combat Axe, I wasn't aware that Cleave Targets had such a huge breakpoint. Hopefully more and more weapons will become useful as the game gets some TLC!
Am I misunderstanding? For perk 1, Confirmed Kill, thought Elites were specifically the big chunky dudes, reaper bulwark mauler and uh, whatever the big armored ogryn was called, while the other specials were called Specialists?
Elites are the Ogryns, Gunners, Shotgunners, Maulers, and Ragers, yeah. Specialists are the rest. But despite its description Confirmed Kill actually activates on both groups. So does One After Another, the reload feat. So they are both stronger feats than they seem.
I pinned a comment mentioning some post-patch weapon info. The headhunters especially the Vraks Mk III are very decent now, but the Combat Shotgun is still mid-low tier in my opinion. I'd much rather just take a Bolter if I want a cannon.
You forgot the much higher DPS on the Accatran MK VI, in my experience you can kill several shooters faster by aiming for their heads than with the MG XII. I also don't like the cooldown of MG XII, can't get this thing working for me personally.
Tier5: Granades upgrade is meh. DoT damage in Vermintide / Darktide is good, but when used by enemies. In case of players... it's just meh. Remember that talent from Tier 2 that helps you reload? Here you get bigger boost under condition you chase for most of the time: Elites kill. In this tier we have another good talent - for sniping fanatics. Makes you more glass-canon like. For price of defence you get more dmg. I agree with your opinion that Reload is better. It synergises well with our picks and playstyle, work when our skill is unavilable and works very well with our defensive talen from tier1.
The Recon a meme gun… heck I have done way better with that rifle than with anything else. I have been able to clear rooms full of rifle men and elites with just one magazine while keeping the hordes at bay. As a veteran you DONT want to be in the front, Ogryn players usually tend to rush in and get swarmed so you will always be killing the hordes around them. Having camo expert is a way better alternative, taking the high ground and being ignored by the hordes gives your team super support as you are literally keeping the hordes at bay. Psykers will do the most damage to elites, Zealots with the flames can keep a whole area under control, Veterans are the horde tamers and riflemen hunter, Ogryn… are a meme but can work as your tanks. Creating a Veteran around defense would be like giving an Ogryn a stealth mission. It’s not meant for that play style.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to weigh in! Just so we're talking apples to apples, are you playing on Damnation/Auric/Maelstrom difficulty? YMMV and just about anything is viable on Damnation+ with good skill, but I have to say as a general rule I disagree with most of this. 1 mag on the recon is like 20% of your ammo, you do that a few times and you’re dry or an ammo hog. Ogryn are incredible at crowd control and destroying hordes, so you should let them (or a flamer Zealot/Pskyer) do that job while you focus on killing specials to keep them safe; on a balanced team you should be killing specials or riflemen 90% of the time. And you should definitely not waste ammo killing horde chaff, if you need to get involved in chaff clear that’s what your melee/grenades are for. Camo gets your team absolutely shredded by riflemen while you’re picking them off, and if your team gets pressed a few yards away from you by a horde (or if a mutant/dog/bomber/flamer/anything forces you to move) then your camo stops working and you get shredded instead. Compare all that to just taking Unwavering Focus, you can literally absorb ALL the fire from a room of 50 riflemen and a dozen Gunners as long as you steadily take out said Gunners to keep your toughness regen up. Unwavering Focus applies its 75% DR to melee hits as well, so you won’t even take anything from stray melee blows. The Counterfire/Unwavering Focus/Confirmed Kill combo is so strong that with a Braced Autogun or a Shredder pistol you can just wade straight through the middle of a room full of bad and Terminator-style mow everything down, it’s insane.
I wonder what happens when a team of 4 Vets take Camo Expert. Do the enemies completely ignore everyone, or does the aggro completely reset back to default?
The enemies only ignore the Vet under camo if there are other targets to aggro nearby. If all 4 vets are under camo, I'm not sure exactly how it would work but the enemies would certainly aggro to someone; probably the closest target.
I've revised my opinion post-patch, the Plasma can perform up there with the best provided you know what you're doing. It takes practice and skill but it is S-tier strong!
@@vgameface yeah I was just thinking about your original response yesterday, been playing with plasma again and was thinking ‘damn this is great’, thanks for the second response!
Tier2: Granades. 100% chance for a granade each minute (in a 15+ minute game) is nice. If you traing yourself to keep granades count between 1 and 3, you will get all the juice from it. Sniper can be tempting, but it encourage you to stay behind - this can be dangeroes + you lower coherency bonuses for whole team. Reload speed is meh. Experienced player know when it is good time to reload. Also: there are better talents that boost your reload speed.
I agree grenades is definitely the best choice, however I have a point towards Sniper. For the Kantrael lasgun or Boltgun, its worthless. Bolter doesnt need it, Lasgun gets increasing damage as your range increases anyway so sniper just adds on top of that and doesnt really help. However the new Headhunter Autoguns since the buff are very competitive and imo on par as a choice with the Kantrael (positives/negatives in various areas, but they're certainly good). The issue with the Autoguns is they have damage drop off starting at 15m and ending at 35m, so if you do try to hit things over 15m away (which is very very likely when sniping at distant rooms, its not THAT far) then your headhunter bullets start to drop lower damage and may not do enough dmage to kill. Sniper starts increasing the damage from the point the Autogun damage drops off and keeps it consistant so you can continue to perform at max damage across all the ranges. It's not about doing increased damage at range, its about ensuring when you DO need to take out a distant target you can still do it swiftly.
Depends! If the other vets are taking care of shooters you can build a bolter or plasma or something else to chunk ogryns and monstrosities. Or if they are all running ammo hungry builds, you can build something efficient (like the XII) so you aren't taking their ammo. Or if it's other random sharpshooters and you don't know what they are built to do, run the Agripinaa Mk VIII with counterfire since it's a great general-purpose build. One thing to note if they are randoms, 1-3 of them could be running Camo which means you'll be taking more or WAY more heat. The Mk VIII will let you keep counterfire and volley fire up for damage reduction and chunk through big piles of mobs.
Plasma is definitely fun and a decent weapon, but in my experience it starts losing effectiveness above Malice difficulty. It can do huge chunk damage and clear hordes but so can most classes; it doesn't let you take out snipers and shooters very well so unless someone else is doing it your team can get pinned and shredded. What's your experience been like with it?
Tier6: For playstyle of dynamic team-focused, elites-killer there is only one pick - counterfire. You use ultimate skill not to help you in a pinch. You use it for carnage. Dead enemies guarantee safety. And remember - from tier1 we recover and recover over time toughness for elite kills. It is 25% recovery + stacking 25% recovery over time for every elite killed (while using skill or not) vs 60% once in a while (which stacks with tier 1 talent, but you can't "over-recover", so...).
Update: Darktide got a major update on Feb 24th that updated weapon stats and finally finished the crafting system, making it WAY easier to get strong and useful blessings on any weapon. The weapons I listed in this video are still my top choices for the Sharpshooter, with the addition that the Boltgun with Pinning Fire blessing (and Shattering Impact if you can get both) can handle Damnation very well. But also several other weapons are very decent now and I want to give them a shout out:
Lucian Mk II Helbore Lasgun: This can hit most damage breakpoints and handle everything but hordes very effectively. It has a slightly higher skill floor than the weapons listed in the video since you have to manage and aim your charged shots.
The Headhunter Autoguns got a boost and perform almost as well as the Agripinaa Mk VIII, especially the Vraks Mk III. The Columnus Mk V Infantry Autogun also performs well.
The Plasma Gun can be S-tier with the other weapons in this video but has an incredibly high skill floor to be effective. If you love this gun and are good with it, if performs along with the best.
Honorable mention goes to the Ius Mk III Shredder Autopistol, which is very fun and decently effective (A-B tier) with the Pinning Fire and Blaze Away blessings.
this guide has been completely flipped on its head sense the last update and I think that that's absolutely amazing.
It's great! There's so much more to each class now, big W for the game.
@@vgameface I spend at least ten minutes every time I play Darktide just build crafting, experimenting, and seeing what I can do. This one update alone has expanded the games lifespan by at least a few years.
@@jager477 Oh, definitely! There are ridiculously more build options now, and so many more strong weapon and blessing combos to pair with them. It's a ton of fun to tinker with everything! Theory crafters are going to be busy for a while.
@@vgameface I just love how an update was able to bring a game on the verge of death back into the spotlight. Darktide really is following in the footsteps of its predecessor Vermintide II.
Great guide!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!
Wow this is so freaken handy and informative and only 300 subs!!! Thank you for really explaining everythink so well ❤
Thank you, I'm so glad you found it helpful!
Tier1: Weakspot is not the same as Headshot. It's a little bit complicated - in general it is head, but it can also be (in some cases) body or tights. But it is just a clarification. Tier one talent that gives instant recovery and % recovery over time is best in this slot. Mind that, if you play with random players you can get team composition that will compete for elites kill -> this will cripple your recovery. Also, this talent can feel underpowered in lower difficulties because of much lower count of elites.
holy shiii the power sword you got is insane!! god tier stats AND possibly the best blessings you can get on a cleave weapon! thats wild
Thanks I was definitely very stoked to roll it (from a green no less)! One day I can hopefully replace Rampage with Power Cycler, but that blessing is so rare I've never even seen it. So yeah I doubt I'll see a better roll!
On a side point, the thing is that not everyone likes running one or two hit weapons. I play with an ogryn and a psyker that duo flame staff and slab shield. The combo is designed to make up for the range issue that flame staff has in open areas as it allows the psyker to keep flaming into the crowd while staying in cover. When this is the case, the ogryn can't maximize his damage but with bleed on grenades 1 simple swing with his shields maul plus the bleed keeps the hordlings down. I can't tell you as the stand in gaurdsman how many red X marks I get because the ogryn charges a horde I toss 2 bleed nades while the psyker he pops crusher maulers and bulwarks.
Same w my build, its a good solid all rounder, better with bolter aggresive slide shoot playstyle. On t5 damnation, kantrael is still king. Good vid!
One thing to add - the recent patch has made the Headhunter Autoguns, particularly the two Vraks models, are now very competitive and imo on par with the kantrael and braced. The 3 shot burst Mark III is the perfect hybrid between the rapid fire high dps meatwall removing of the Braced combined with the ability to precisely take out distant targets. The Mark VII feels similar to the Kantrael with less damage per shot (still fine for headshotting most basic mobs) but with higher stagger and a better spamfire option for panic burst. I'd definitely suggest giving both a try as they're very competitive with the patch provided you get high stability on them. Just don't use the Agripinaa Headhunter, the 2 shot burst, that's still horrible.
As a Vet main I appreciate the outlook ideas and suggestions.
So, I’ve really been enjoying the Lucius pattern hellebore lasgun. The iron sights are a bit of a downer but the decent base damage and charge option are nice and the bayonet can stagger most things that get in your face. What do you think about the Lucius pattern?
Tbh I never really got into the Helbores. I know they perform decently well and a lot of Vets like using them on Damnation, so they are certainly viable. The Mk II seems to be the most popular as the well-rounded version, while the Mk III is slow but has massive penetration. But personally they have never really been my favor.
If you have Counterfire with Bio-Optic Targeting, do you mark all shooters for your teammates too, or only the non-Ogryn Elites like base Volley Fire?
Yes, your teammates get the upgraded targeting, too!
Someone once suggested to me to use the Blue Krieg rifle over the braced and the brown lasgun, I honestly consider it the best, fast firerate and the charge up actually lets it 1 shot normal shooters in the chest and definitly head, I dont have a particulary great one right now mind you but the charge up also lets you shoot armor for nice damage and since its a lasgun type it actually has decent ammo. Tried all 3 krieg rifles after and green is slower on the charge but it does more damage and the brown krieg rifle eats your ammo but it does tons of damage on the charge even while its slow.
You're talking about Helbore Lasguns yeah? They can definitely be decent and the charged shot is solid damage, but I've found them to be way more spotty than the other choices. The non-charged shots are just worse than the XII shots, and the charged shots are too slow to make up the difference. You can get 1 charged shot off or 2-3 XII shots off in the same time for similar damage. And you need to never miss a charged shot to keep up consistent damage output, which I'm just not good enough to do in the chaos of a horde. The XII just feels way more forgiving and consistent. That said the Helbores do offer some niche benefits against the big meaty mobs, and a more engaging playstyle since you have multiple attack styles to manage.
Great tips. It really is a different game at 4+ challenge games.
It definitely is. Glad you enjoyed it!
Tier3: Designation is best in slot, no discussion. Each player can mark only 1 target, with this - every target of given type is marked. For everyone near you (and you want to stay near!). As I said before - granades chance is not consistent enough to perform better then marking targets. Covering fire can be tempting, but ogryns and zealots do just fine when fighting in melee. Theoreticly this talent can help less melee oriented characters when they need help, but still - it is situational and will not perform that good (seems to have internal cooldown of sort)
As for ranged weapon: XII lasgun is best, second pick would be one of the autoguns (don't remember the name) - recent patch gave it some love (more ammo). And it is better if you are not skilled enough to hit weakpoints on a regular basis.
Probably the 11:07 Agripinaa Mk VIII Braced Autogun 😋
Tier4: Camo is nice only in one case. Getting penances done. In other cases? You don't move, you spend less time watching your back (this WILL bite you when you change characters or remove this talent), you stay behind or in different place then your team (goodbye coherency bonus) and - finally - your agro goes to other teammates, like... psyker. Fun fact: some mobs can knock you back or push. This is movement. You instantly gain agro. On higher difficulty this is death. As for sprinting, dashing and dodging talent... do you like playing piano? Ok, go with it. Try. But - in the end - best one is this slot i dmg reduction which has a lot of synergies on the whole tree.
It would appear that we agree on just about all points. Thanks for your input!
I actually don't agree. Vgameface mentioned the other reason. Data Interrogation. When you data interrogate you... stand still. When you stand still you rarely get attacked.
If you don't need to do data interrogation or your team is good at protecting the person interrogating, yeah Camo Expert isn't that great, but I've found it useful for that very reason.
Camo expert does have a bit more subtlety to it though. Yes mob attacks will go to your team mates but in a lot of cases this just means they die faster because you can just take them all out without worrying about suppression or being interrupted. Just being able to stand there and gun-turret perfectly accurate shots to clear out a room of shooters without having to stop and melee or duck behind cover or similar can somtimes result in a faster clearance than being the "ranged tank". Whether this speed/ease of clearing beats out the issue of your teammates needing to be more careful is up for debate of course, but it shouldnt be discounted. The melee thing is huge - if you have a friendly ogryn or zealot nearby you can just ignore all melee mobs and concentrate on the ranged whilst they run past you to your better equipped melee fighters. Without Camo expert your positioning needs to be much more precise and you'll find yourself having to stop firing to defend yourself more often. Even 1-2 stray mobs from a huge pack can have a massive impact in stopping you being able to just turret damage into a large pack of shooters.
Finally Camo Expert is available all the time. Yes good sharpshooters with Counterfire will have very high uptime of their Ability but in situations where it's down, or you're running a bolter build that uses one of the other two Tier 6 traits, you get very limited use out of the toughness tanking.
I do agree Camo Expert teaches bad habits, but I feel it's viewed too much as a noob trap and does have some good use as long as the sharpshooter understands its nuances. I'll never argue its BETTER than the Toughness/Counterfire build for general use, and I don't generally disagree with your points, but I feel Camo Expert is looked down on and definitely has its place as long as the Sharpshooter understands how it works, doesnt ignore their surroundings and knows how to fight when it's deactivated.
Camo expert can also do lots of cool things like stand in a corner as a beast of nurgle walks right past you towards distant teammates giving you a free unlimited tunnelling of damage into its weak spot.
One final point - Currently Unwavering Focus works on both melee AND ranged... but this seems to be an unintended bug as it clearly mentions ranged in the tooltip. It may stay that way, but I would expect it to be nerfed to ranged-only at some point in the future which might lower its value, so no harm having learned how to use the alternative.
@@Ultragravy Thanks for this great input! I resisted taking Unwavering Focus over Camo Expert for a long time due to what you said; I felt like being unbothered let me be a better counter-sniper to pick off elites and riflemen, which let my team take less damage when things died faster. And the other benefits of Camo you mentioned are also very cool and useful. I think it's a great talent that has a place in the meta with someone who understands all its strengths and weaknesses and knows how to offset the weaknesses. But as a generalization across a large pool of players I think more people will see success with Unwavering Focus, especially during their beginning and intermediate excursions into Damnation. That might change if they ever do as you say and take away the unlisted melee damage reduction, as that does seem like a bug since it's unmentioned in the talent, and it is HUGE since it does end up letting you ignore some melee poke and just be a turret of death.
Overall it may be a situation where Camo Expert is really good at low level but teaches bad habits, so it hinders you as you get up to Damnation (noob trap as you say), but then returns again to usefulness as your skill progresses even further and you learn how to play Damnation and extract maximum use out of your Camo.
I'm glad this tier has 2 great options as it opens up the meta to some real choice and playstyle adjustment, and keeps things from becoming too samey and stale!
@@vgameface Wholeheartedly agree with all of that! My main thought was just to try and ensure people don't just dismiss Camo Expert as "that thing only noobs use" as it does have viability and use in certain cases. What I feel about Darktide Feat and Weapon loadouts is often they're more based on what your other team members have so you need to be flexible to change entire builds and weapons around to fit with the playstyle of whatever team you're with. And for Sharpshooter, you generally pick the main weapon first and build feats around the weapon choice. Camo expert is just one option that you gets weaker or stronger depending on the gun you use, Tier 6 talent you use, and who else is in your team and what THEY use. It's not that black and white "unwavering focus is better always" that a lot of the community have tended to push for.
The Mark 5 combat axe does much better if you get a roll of 50% or higher to cleave targets because that's the point where it doubles the amount of targets hit then add in Brutal Momentum to prevent it from getting stuck on chunkier targets and it becomes a great all around weapon.
Cant wait to get a good rolled Mark 7 HeadHunter to try out post buffs, it seems like the MG 12 Lasgun will finally have some competition for long ranged fire support.
And if you haven't tried it the Plasma Gun can be quite fun with the reload talents and The Bigger they Are... because you can destroy Ogryn packs, its worse than the Bolter at everything else so its a fairly Meme heavy build but it can be fun to do.
Great insight on the Combat Axe, I wasn't aware that Cleave Targets had such a huge breakpoint. Hopefully more and more weapons will become useful as the game gets some TLC!
Am I misunderstanding? For perk 1, Confirmed Kill, thought Elites were specifically the big chunky dudes, reaper bulwark mauler and uh, whatever the big armored ogryn was called, while the other specials were called Specialists?
Elites are the Ogryns, Gunners, Shotgunners, Maulers, and Ragers, yeah. Specialists are the rest. But despite its description Confirmed Kill actually activates on both groups. So does One After Another, the reload feat. So they are both stronger feats than they seem.
Thoughts on the combat shotgun or the headhunter autoguns after the latest patch?
I haven't gotten around to trying them out post-patch yet, I'll update once I have more info!
I pinned a comment mentioning some post-patch weapon info. The headhunters especially the Vraks Mk III are very decent now, but the Combat Shotgun is still mid-low tier in my opinion. I'd much rather just take a Bolter if I want a cannon.
You forgot the much higher DPS on the Accatran MK VI, in my experience you can kill several shooters faster by aiming for their heads than with the MG XII. I also don't like the cooldown of MG XII, can't get this thing working for me personally.
Tier5: Granades upgrade is meh. DoT damage in Vermintide / Darktide is good, but when used by enemies. In case of players... it's just meh. Remember that talent from Tier 2 that helps you reload? Here you get bigger boost under condition you chase for most of the time: Elites kill. In this tier we have another good talent - for sniping fanatics. Makes you more glass-canon like. For price of defence you get more dmg. I agree with your opinion that Reload is better. It synergises well with our picks and playstyle, work when our skill is unavilable and works very well with our defensive talen from tier1.
The Recon a meme gun… heck I have done way better with that rifle than with anything else. I have been able to clear rooms full of rifle men and elites with just one magazine while keeping the hordes at bay. As a veteran you DONT want to be in the front, Ogryn players usually tend to rush in and get swarmed so you will always be killing the hordes around them. Having camo expert is a way better alternative, taking the high ground and being ignored by the hordes gives your team super support as you are literally keeping the hordes at bay. Psykers will do the most damage to elites, Zealots with the flames can keep a whole area under control, Veterans are the horde tamers and riflemen hunter, Ogryn… are a meme but can work as your tanks. Creating a Veteran around defense would be like giving an Ogryn a stealth mission. It’s not meant for that play style.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to weigh in! Just so we're talking apples to apples, are you playing on Damnation/Auric/Maelstrom difficulty? YMMV and just about anything is viable on Damnation+ with good skill, but I have to say as a general rule I disagree with most of this. 1 mag on the recon is like 20% of your ammo, you do that a few times and you’re dry or an ammo hog. Ogryn are incredible at crowd control and destroying hordes, so you should let them (or a flamer Zealot/Pskyer) do that job while you focus on killing specials to keep them safe; on a balanced team you should be killing specials or riflemen 90% of the time. And you should definitely not waste ammo killing horde chaff, if you need to get involved in chaff clear that’s what your melee/grenades are for. Camo gets your team absolutely shredded by riflemen while you’re picking them off, and if your team gets pressed a few yards away from you by a horde (or if a mutant/dog/bomber/flamer/anything forces you to move) then your camo stops working and you get shredded instead. Compare all that to just taking Unwavering Focus, you can literally absorb ALL the fire from a room of 50 riflemen and a dozen Gunners as long as you steadily take out said Gunners to keep your toughness regen up. Unwavering Focus applies its 75% DR to melee hits as well, so you won’t even take anything from stray melee blows. The Counterfire/Unwavering Focus/Confirmed Kill combo is so strong that with a Braced Autogun or a Shredder pistol you can just wade straight through the middle of a room full of bad and Terminator-style mow everything down, it’s insane.
I wonder what happens when a team of 4 Vets take Camo Expert. Do the enemies completely ignore everyone, or does the aggro completely reset back to default?
The enemies only ignore the Vet under camo if there are other targets to aggro nearby. If all 4 vets are under camo, I'm not sure exactly how it would work but the enemies would certainly aggro to someone; probably the closest target.
@@vgameface *enemies start attacking each other*
Interesting though.
Is plasma gun any good? It's my favorite
I'd say it's fairly mid-tier at the moment and there are better choices, but if you're enjoying it then rock on! It's definitely a fun weapon.
@@vgameface alright sweet thank you!
I've revised my opinion post-patch, the Plasma can perform up there with the best provided you know what you're doing. It takes practice and skill but it is S-tier strong!
@@vgameface yeah I was just thinking about your original response yesterday, been playing with plasma again and was thinking ‘damn this is great’, thanks for the second response!
Tier2: Granades. 100% chance for a granade each minute (in a 15+ minute game) is nice. If you traing yourself to keep granades count between 1 and 3, you will get all the juice from it. Sniper can be tempting, but it encourage you to stay behind - this can be dangeroes + you lower coherency bonuses for whole team. Reload speed is meh. Experienced player know when it is good time to reload. Also: there are better talents that boost your reload speed.
I agree grenades is definitely the best choice, however I have a point towards Sniper. For the Kantrael lasgun or Boltgun, its worthless. Bolter doesnt need it, Lasgun gets increasing damage as your range increases anyway so sniper just adds on top of that and doesnt really help. However the new Headhunter Autoguns since the buff are very competitive and imo on par as a choice with the Kantrael (positives/negatives in various areas, but they're certainly good). The issue with the Autoguns is they have damage drop off starting at 15m and ending at 35m, so if you do try to hit things over 15m away (which is very very likely when sniping at distant rooms, its not THAT far) then your headhunter bullets start to drop lower damage and may not do enough dmage to kill. Sniper starts increasing the damage from the point the Autogun damage drops off and keeps it consistant so you can continue to perform at max damage across all the ranges. It's not about doing increased damage at range, its about ensuring when you DO need to take out a distant target you can still do it swiftly.
I find camouflage to be highly effective with the boltgun as it allows you to get much better sightlines on special enemies so you can 1 tap them.
Ok, but what if you are on an all-Veteran party?
Depends! If the other vets are taking care of shooters you can build a bolter or plasma or something else to chunk ogryns and monstrosities. Or if they are all running ammo hungry builds, you can build something efficient (like the XII) so you aren't taking their ammo. Or if it's other random sharpshooters and you don't know what they are built to do, run the Agripinaa Mk VIII with counterfire since it's a great general-purpose build. One thing to note if they are randoms, 1-3 of them could be running Camo which means you'll be taking more or WAY more heat. The Mk VIII will let you keep counterfire and volley fire up for damage reduction and chunk through big piles of mobs.
No Plasma!? I am constantly carrying all games i play with it.
Plasma is definitely fun and a decent weapon, but in my experience it starts losing effectiveness above Malice difficulty. It can do huge chunk damage and clear hordes but so can most classes; it doesn't let you take out snipers and shooters very well so unless someone else is doing it your team can get pinned and shredded. What's your experience been like with it?
I've revised my opinion post-patch; the Plasma is great provided you have the skill to use it!
well the bolt gun is normaly used by a space marine
Tier6: For playstyle of dynamic team-focused, elites-killer there is only one pick - counterfire. You use ultimate skill not to help you in a pinch. You use it for carnage. Dead enemies guarantee safety. And remember - from tier1 we recover and recover over time toughness for elite kills. It is 25% recovery + stacking 25% recovery over time for every elite killed (while using skill or not) vs 60% once in a while (which stacks with tier 1 talent, but you can't "over-recover", so...).
It's "Heresy", not "hearsay"
Whoops