“Why do these weapons simply seem like regular earth glocks?” Our Senior Editor, Robin says, as I present him a video of me blasting enemies with my Hive Scum’s ‘Twin Stub Pistols’. They may not seem like essentially the most 40k weapons ever, however they do play to a selected fantasy, i.e. I’m John Wick, an unstoppable bullet storm gun-fu-ing my approach by way of Tertium Hive. I am a stimm-hopped gunslinger sprinting and sliding at 30mph as I splatter the partitions with heretic brains.
Let me clarify: Darktide’s new Hive Scum class is fairly good. Or at the very least, it was fairly good. It is nonetheless fairly good, however within the preview construct I performed (earlier than Fatshark understandably nerfed its ranged capabilities) it was hands-down the most effective ranged class within the sport, power-creeping Veterans so arduous that Creed was doubtless spinning in his grave, or no matter mint-condition packaging Trazyn put him in.
Although the Hive Scum features enhanced dodges, melee immunity whereas sliding, and full immunity on ranged essential hits, the true crux of the matter lies with a single skill—Enhanced Desperado. This lets your scum enter a state the place they’re proof against all ranged assaults, acquire quicker dash pace, and do not use ammo when reloading. Your HUD will spotlight shut ranged targets in blue, and for those who blast them, you may lengthen the state, letting you kill your approach by way of corridors and tunnels at turbo pace.
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The cooldown for this was 30 seconds and you may hold it going for an absurdly lengthy period of time supplied you killed these blue marked enemies. Frankly, even with its cooldown now booped to 45 seconds and your skill to lengthen it having been massively nerfed, it is nonetheless a really robust skill. I am going to actually mourn for the way enjoyable and game-breaking it felt, however I feel it is finally a great factor Fatshark is at the very least contemplating the potential energy creep of those new courses, particularly after the Arbites felt, effectively… higher than simply about all the pieces else.
All of this isn’t to say that the Hive Scum would not energy creep a bit in different areas, although. Their Rampage! skill and Adrenaline Frenzy keystone makes them an especially highly effective melee combatant, particularly together with their enhanced dodges. In addition they have assist potential with their Stimm Provide and skill to contaminate enemies with Chem Toxin.
Every Hive Scum’s devoted ‘Stimm Lab’ tree provides them a limiteless stimm on cooldown which might grant some extraordinarily highly effective results at max degree when it is energetic. A few of your stimm choices embody:
Kalma: +50% cooldown regenerationSpur: +20% assault pace, +50% weapon swap pace, -50% stamina value, grants stun and slowdown immunityBarrage: -16% injury taken, +100% toughness regeneration, replenish 25% toughness
At max improve degree, these usually have a cooldown of 44 seconds, however past that, you should use this stimm as a lot as you need. With the Stimm Provide skill, you possibly can drop a Medicrate that replicates your geared up Stimm Lab results for the entire staff, making for a powerful and customisable assist skill, albeit considerably missing in injury discount versus the Arbites Nuncio Aquila or Psyker Power Dome.
As talked about, the Hive Scum additionally has entry to a enjoyable DoT impact referred to as Chem Toxin. If you happen to take the Coated Weaponry passive on the underside righthand tree, your melee assaults will stack this impact. If you happen to additionally take Focused Toxin, you possibly can cut back contaminated enemy injury by 15% and monsters by 30% (this was 50% however was additionally nerfed).
For a quicker technique to stack this DoT, you may as well take the Bone Noticed weapon—a chirurgeon’s instrument coated in Chem Toxin—or the Needle Pistol, which additionally applies a particular toxin that explodes enemies on demise. Like most AdMech followers I used to be initially disillusioned by the homicide hobo reveal, however seeing the expertise tree and skills in motion has introduced me round to the Hive Scum—I nonetheless would’ve most popular one thing a bit of glitzier, nevertheless it’s acquired much more construct potential than I anticipated.
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Hive Scum additionally comes with a choice of new hairstyles, full physique tattoos, face paint, and you may as well select which Tertium gang you need to be part of, both: The Water Cartel, Tread Lightlies, Iron Riders, or The Present, every of which is linked to a special area of the hive and has its personal color scheme. That is represented in all the Hive Scum cosmetics, letting you characterize your chosen gang, or simply put on no matter. Although I have to admit, the Hive Scum cosmetics are, for lack of a greater phrase, a bit primary.
All of them sort of simply make you seem like a generic Fallout raider, which is disappointing contemplating every gang has its personal model and backstory. The Present, for instance, comes from the Carnival, so that you’d count on one thing a bit showier. The Iron Riders are a gang about hopping mag-lev trains, so maybe one thing extra industrial would’ve labored there. It simply looks as if a wasted alternative when Fatshark clearly desires us to roleplay our chosen gang in-game, to not give them every distinctive cosmetics and even touches of beauty aptitude that emphasize their id.
I actually hope the intention is not to promote these extra attention-grabbing gang-linked cosmetics within the retailer later, however I suppose we’ll see on that entrance, contemplating the Arbites nonetheless hasn’t obtained extra skins. On the entire, although, I am pleasantly shocked by the Hive Scum class. Do I feel it is as robust aesthetically or thematically because the Arbites? No approach in hell.
Nonetheless, if you would like extra enjoyable construct potential within the sport, together with a highly-mobile gunslinger archetype, Hive Scum is not fairly the doom and gloom dreg class many have been anticipating.
