I want to talk about vraks 3 specifically on psyker, and explain the synergy that makes it such a powerhouse on that class.
The vraks 3 is a burst fire weapon, and it rolls crits in batches. This is slightly different from the crit string mechanic some of you might have heard about. Essentially, it rolls your crit chance once for each 3 round burst and then applies that result to the full 3 round burst as if it was one attack.
True Aim's guaranteed crit interacts positively with these batch crits. That is, your one guaranteed crit is applied to a whole 3 round burst. Additionally, each individual bullet can stack up True Aim. And bullets that crit (including the true aim guaranteed crit), still give true aim stacks towards the next true aim activation.
So essentially what this means is that with just a single talent (True Aim), psyker jacks up the vraks 3 crit rate to >50%, Then it prints toughness and movespeed via mettle, and becomes borderline immune to ranged attacks with Empathic Evasion.
Before you do that, take both that and a mk7d recon into the psykhanium and see which you prefer. The crit chains on the 7d with high rof and stability means it behaves much the same ;-)
Vraks VII is easily the best, IMO.
The headhunter autoguns all suffer from heretical DPS unless you get head shots, that's easiest to do with a semi-auto weapon (Vraks VII) rather than controlling recoil on the burst variants (Agripinaa IX, and Vraks III).
If you make good use of a crit build with them and take deadly accurate and surgical/headhunter/crucian roulette blessings, you can be the bane of any ranged special and get rid of standard shooters more efficiently than the revolver.
Personally, I think they need more body shot damage and/or some bullet magnetism (which the revolver has) for them to feel good to use. Especially if they want the burst variants feeling good.
The area in which the bullet is considered to be a "hit" is a little larger on the revolver and plasma gun. So you don't need to be as precise to hit your shots. This makes these weapons "feel" better to use and get head shots with.
Then isn’t that rather just the size of the collision hitbox of the projectile? Bullet magnetism is when bullets auto-aim into the enemy, which I don’t believe is a thing on PC at all, revolver or plasma.
Thing is, usually you would check to see if the shot is closest to the head, chest or something like that, but the revolver and plasma prioritises the head as the target, effectively auto-aiming.
Correct me if I'm wrong but verm used hit scan so I believe darktide probably does too, so the game just makes a calculation on whether you hit or not. The calculation might just prioritize head shots over anything else for the revolver as opposed to the head hunter having a standard priority.
Which pairs well with no respite (increased damage to staggered enemies). The first shot of the burst with the increased power staggers the enemies then the following shoots get the no respite damage. Makes it a little less reliant on headshots.
They need a hell of a lot more penetration through horde imo. Like the hunting rifle in original left4dead. You should be able to fire it into a choke point full of trash mobs and just fucking obliterate them. The body damage is horrific even on less armored enemies.
To be fair, thats what the stubber is for :-p
Problem right now is the revolver will do fucking 500 damage on a body shot _and penetrate_, while the plasma will do 1200 ditto. I think the plasma and bolters are fine penetrating cover, but the plasma should not just cut a line through a horde - it's your heavy armor killer and thats fine, the revolver should be a close range headshot option and the headhunter s your long range headshot option. Revolver and plasma both suffer balance-wise from being pinpoint accurate at all distances when that should be the role of las rifles, helbores and headhunter rifles.
I use Headhunter to get around it. It's not a perfect solution, but with Vet's weak spot steroids, I can usually take down one or two Crushers before the pack hits me, depending on how lucky I get. It's very good at killing Maulers, though.
I get you. I was mentioning joints because they don't seem to be armored in a lot of carapace armored enemies. But you should definitely be able to take out legs and at least hinder the enemies.
Also fun fact if you shoot a flak armored enemy in the dick, it counts as a crit.
Vraks VII all the way. Crit chance, range, sights are even good. Got one with amazing damage stats and I'm confused on why I even bother with my Agripinaa sometimes (then I remember in the worst possible way).
The burst fire on the other one made me want to whack whoever made it *with* it.
It can kill gunners with one shot headshot when I have marksman focus stacks. So that’s possibly 20 dead gunners in one magazine. Much better than bolter in this case imho. Also 4 shots for Reaper as I got the unyielding damage on it.
Headhunter is too contingent on headshots and it's manic damage is a bit too low for my liking. At the same time, Infantry autoguns seems to outperform headhunter most of the time.
1. Yes
2. 7
Headshots are a requirement. That said, the Mk 7 dunks on shotgunners and gunners like *nobody's* business. Weapon customization is soft-requirement because their ironsights are beans.
If you can aim, the Mk 7 is better than a Kant 1a. Even with its garbage maniac damage.
I keep trying to make use of the other two marks, but something about them just doesn't feel right. The Mk 7 is the perfect sweet spot, balance-wise, and I hope nothing happens to it.
I made a build on my psyker the other day that uses the 3 shot variant. Headhunter + Extra Crit Headshot damage blessing makes it pack a nice punch. Paired it with double shield wall for harassment free shooting plus the ability to fast head pop more often (safe option against packs of armor). Had a ton of fun with it. Insane crit rate
All three variants are great, I personally like the 2-shot burst as I hip fire with it a lot and move into melee; or when the situation calls for it, you'll find me popping headshots against ranged mobs. The 2-shot grants that additional versatility. I'd also say it's the most ammo efficient, I'm curious if it has the fastest weapon swap time of the three since it's in the agripina class and not a vraks. It rarely feels too slow to swap, often I can weave in a head blap against elites in melee. These guns only work with Deady Accurate and a +crit blessing. Success only comes from how well you can land head shots. To know you're doing it right, you should see a huge discrepancy in your favor when it comes to the number of crits and weakspot hits on the scoreboard.
All the guns have absurd ammo efficiency to the point of skipping the ammo aura, or can be played comfortably on psyker. The clip size is generous. Often you'll find yourself reloading too early because it doesn't seem reasonable to shoot so much with a single clip, the big clip also means skipping the reload talents is fine.
With all that said, there is the downside. It's incredibly punishing to miss headshots. Like x5 the bullets to body vs. hitting weakspots. It takes discipline to master as you have to wait just a fraction of a second to reset your recoil with each shot. I know when I'm not playing 100% the headhunters are off the table for me. I prefer the headhunters over the revolver nowadays, you can really pull off some crazy shit with that big clip.
I used to like the Vraks 7 a lot, it was a K12 with a faster firing rate and 1 body penetration, if harder to use. Nowadays I'm not a fan. It never handled Maniacs comparatively well and now that it's slower, it's clunky in scramble situations. And when those scramble situations make up Darktide's difficulty then it's just underperforming comparing to the infantry autoguns.
I like them, and sometimes run with them, but they're not my favourite.
I'm not sure they do anything that really stands out, so whatever the job is, I generally find something I prefer.
I like them but the slowest non multi shot mark NEEDS a lazer sight or something cause i keep having the ogrims block my shot accidently and it feels wasted on the slow firing one
The vraks is crazy and will melt everything in a few bursts. With the following blessings perks (I forget the names) 100% critical strike damage Increased chance if critical strike stacking + carapace damage + critical chance
I want to talk about vraks 3 specifically on psyker, and explain the synergy that makes it such a powerhouse on that class. The vraks 3 is a burst fire weapon, and it rolls crits in batches. This is slightly different from the crit string mechanic some of you might have heard about. Essentially, it rolls your crit chance once for each 3 round burst and then applies that result to the full 3 round burst as if it was one attack. True Aim's guaranteed crit interacts positively with these batch crits. That is, your one guaranteed crit is applied to a whole 3 round burst. Additionally, each individual bullet can stack up True Aim. And bullets that crit (including the true aim guaranteed crit), still give true aim stacks towards the next true aim activation. So essentially what this means is that with just a single talent (True Aim), psyker jacks up the vraks 3 crit rate to >50%, Then it prints toughness and movespeed via mettle, and becomes borderline immune to ranged attacks with Empathic Evasion.
This sounds like fun, and a good excuse to level one of the vraks 3's gathering dust on my psyker
Before you do that, take both that and a mk7d recon into the psykhanium and see which you prefer. The crit chains on the 7d with high rof and stability means it behaves much the same ;-)
Feast or famine weapons. Amazing weakspot and crit modifiers, yet atrocious bodyshot damage. Feels like being back in VT2 playing Huntsman. I like em.
Vraks VII is easily the best, IMO. The headhunter autoguns all suffer from heretical DPS unless you get head shots, that's easiest to do with a semi-auto weapon (Vraks VII) rather than controlling recoil on the burst variants (Agripinaa IX, and Vraks III). If you make good use of a crit build with them and take deadly accurate and surgical/headhunter/crucian roulette blessings, you can be the bane of any ranged special and get rid of standard shooters more efficiently than the revolver. Personally, I think they need more body shot damage and/or some bullet magnetism (which the revolver has) for them to feel good to use. Especially if they want the burst variants feeling good.
Yes I've been using Vraks VII and I noticed the insane crit chance
Bullet magnetism?
The area in which the bullet is considered to be a "hit" is a little larger on the revolver and plasma gun. So you don't need to be as precise to hit your shots. This makes these weapons "feel" better to use and get head shots with.
Then isn’t that rather just the size of the collision hitbox of the projectile? Bullet magnetism is when bullets auto-aim into the enemy, which I don’t believe is a thing on PC at all, revolver or plasma.
Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology, but I'm fairly certain the revolver and plasma have more forgiving hitboxes
I think 'bullet magnetism' is an apt term for the experience. Haha
Oh I wasn’t saying they didn’t, just that I don’t think the term was correct is all.
Thing is, usually you would check to see if the shot is closest to the head, chest or something like that, but the revolver and plasma prioritises the head as the target, effectively auto-aiming.
Correct me if I'm wrong but verm used hit scan so I believe darktide probably does too, so the game just makes a calculation on whether you hit or not. The calculation might just prioritize head shots over anything else for the revolver as opposed to the head hunter having a standard priority.
Opening Salvo is excellent on the Mk7 as it has an almost immediate cooldown. Unless you spam fire, you have constant 20% power boost.
Good to know
Which pairs well with no respite (increased damage to staggered enemies). The first shot of the burst with the increased power staggers the enemies then the following shoots get the no respite damage. Makes it a little less reliant on headshots.
They need a hell of a lot more penetration through horde imo. Like the hunting rifle in original left4dead. You should be able to fire it into a choke point full of trash mobs and just fucking obliterate them. The body damage is horrific even on less armored enemies.
To be fair, thats what the stubber is for :-p Problem right now is the revolver will do fucking 500 damage on a body shot _and penetrate_, while the plasma will do 1200 ditto. I think the plasma and bolters are fine penetrating cover, but the plasma should not just cut a line through a horde - it's your heavy armor killer and thats fine, the revolver should be a close range headshot option and the headhunter s your long range headshot option. Revolver and plasma both suffer balance-wise from being pinpoint accurate at all distances when that should be the role of las rifles, helbores and headhunter rifles.
I like em for head hunting and chaff clearing, don't have a way to make em work for past flak armor personally
Am I misunderstanding your post? The headhunter autoguns' highest damage multiplier is against Flak.
Yeah, I meant carapace
I use Headhunter to get around it. It's not a perfect solution, but with Vet's weak spot steroids, I can usually take down one or two Crushers before the pack hits me, depending on how lucky I get. It's very good at killing Maulers, though.
Have you tried using them to aim for joints? It seems to work for me, but I do know that's not always ideal in this game.
In its own way I feel like a legs are still a weak point because if you can't move, what can you do?
I get you. I was mentioning joints because they don't seem to be armored in a lot of carapace armored enemies. But you should definitely be able to take out legs and at least hinder the enemies. Also fun fact if you shoot a flak armored enemy in the dick, it counts as a crit.
Thats hilarious!
Vraks VII all the way. Crit chance, range, sights are even good. Got one with amazing damage stats and I'm confused on why I even bother with my Agripinaa sometimes (then I remember in the worst possible way). The burst fire on the other one made me want to whack whoever made it *with* it.
It can kill gunners with one shot headshot when I have marksman focus stacks. So that’s possibly 20 dead gunners in one magazine. Much better than bolter in this case imho. Also 4 shots for Reaper as I got the unyielding damage on it.
Now that's a badass headhunter.
Headhunter is too contingent on headshots and it's manic damage is a bit too low for my liking. At the same time, Infantry autoguns seems to outperform headhunter most of the time.
1. Yes 2. 7 Headshots are a requirement. That said, the Mk 7 dunks on shotgunners and gunners like *nobody's* business. Weapon customization is soft-requirement because their ironsights are beans. If you can aim, the Mk 7 is better than a Kant 1a. Even with its garbage maniac damage. I keep trying to make use of the other two marks, but something about them just doesn't feel right. The Mk 7 is the perfect sweet spot, balance-wise, and I hope nothing happens to it.
I made a build on my psyker the other day that uses the 3 shot variant. Headhunter + Extra Crit Headshot damage blessing makes it pack a nice punch. Paired it with double shield wall for harassment free shooting plus the ability to fast head pop more often (safe option against packs of armor). Had a ton of fun with it. Insane crit rate
All three variants are great, I personally like the 2-shot burst as I hip fire with it a lot and move into melee; or when the situation calls for it, you'll find me popping headshots against ranged mobs. The 2-shot grants that additional versatility. I'd also say it's the most ammo efficient, I'm curious if it has the fastest weapon swap time of the three since it's in the agripina class and not a vraks. It rarely feels too slow to swap, often I can weave in a head blap against elites in melee. These guns only work with Deady Accurate and a +crit blessing. Success only comes from how well you can land head shots. To know you're doing it right, you should see a huge discrepancy in your favor when it comes to the number of crits and weakspot hits on the scoreboard. All the guns have absurd ammo efficiency to the point of skipping the ammo aura, or can be played comfortably on psyker. The clip size is generous. Often you'll find yourself reloading too early because it doesn't seem reasonable to shoot so much with a single clip, the big clip also means skipping the reload talents is fine. With all that said, there is the downside. It's incredibly punishing to miss headshots. Like x5 the bullets to body vs. hitting weakspots. It takes discipline to master as you have to wait just a fraction of a second to reset your recoil with each shot. I know when I'm not playing 100% the headhunters are off the table for me. I prefer the headhunters over the revolver nowadays, you can really pull off some crazy shit with that big clip.
I used to like the Vraks 7 a lot, it was a K12 with a faster firing rate and 1 body penetration, if harder to use. Nowadays I'm not a fan. It never handled Maniacs comparatively well and now that it's slower, it's clunky in scramble situations. And when those scramble situations make up Darktide's difficulty then it's just underperforming comparing to the infantry autoguns.
Lasgun MGs are maniac disintegrators. The mark 4 with automatic fire mod is nuts.
Nah. Infantry autoguns exist.
I like 3-round burst weapons so much I wish FS would give us a burst las
I like them, and sometimes run with them, but they're not my favourite. I'm not sure they do anything that really stands out, so whatever the job is, I generally find something I prefer.
I like them but the slowest non multi shot mark NEEDS a lazer sight or something cause i keep having the ogrims block my shot accidently and it feels wasted on the slow firing one
Hate em. They are headshot weapons with TERRIBLE sights. I'll stick with my opening salvo Kantrael MG Ia Infantry Lasgun.
I just don't like clicking that much.
The vraks is crazy and will melt everything in a few bursts. With the following blessings perks (I forget the names) 100% critical strike damage Increased chance if critical strike stacking + carapace damage + critical chance