Darktide's New Hive Scum Class Can Transform Into A Nigh-on...

"Why do those guns just look like normal earth glocks?" Our Senior Editor, Robin says, as I show him a video of me blasting enemies with my Hive Scum's 'Dual Stub Pistols'. They might not look like the most 40k weapons ever, but they do play to a particular fantasy, i.e. I am John Wick, an unstoppable bullet storm gun-fu-ing my way through Tertium Hive. I'm a stimm-hopped gunslinger sprinting and sliding at 30mph as I splatter the walls with heretic brains.

Let me explain: Darktide's new Hive Scum class is rather good. Or at least, it was rather good. It's still pretty good, but in the preview build I played (before Fatshark understandably nerfed its ranged capabilities) it was hands-down the best ranged class in the game, power-creeping Veterans so hard that Creed was likely spinning in his grave, or whatever mint-condition packaging Trazyn put him in.

Though the Hive Scum gains enhanced dodges, melee immunity while sliding, and complete immunity on ranged critical hits, the real crux of the matter lies with a single ability—Enhanced Desperado. This lets your scum enter a state where they are immune to all ranged attacks, gain faster sprint speed, and don't use ammo when reloading. Your HUD will highlight close ranged targets in blue, and if you blast them, you'll prolong the state, letting you kill your way through corridors and tunnels at turbo speed.

The cooldown for this used to be 30 seconds and you could keep it going for an absurdly long amount of time provided you killed those blue marked enemies. Frankly, even with its cooldown now booped to 45 seconds and your ability to prolong it having been massively nerfed, it's still a very strong ability. I'll certainly mourn for how fun and game-breaking it felt, but I think it's ultimately a good thing Fatshark is at least considering the potential power creep of these new classes, especially after the Arbites felt, well… better than just about everything else.

You can see a full run of pre-nerf gunslinger Hive Scum below, though the only things that have changed here are the duration for Enhanced Desperado, so it gives you a good sense of how the ranged archetype plays anyway:

All of this is not to say that the Hive Scum doesn't power creep a bit in other areas, though. Their Rampage! ability and Adrenaline Frenzy keystone makes them an extremely powerful melee combatant, especially in combination with their enhanced dodges. They also have support potential with their Stimm Supply and ability to in

Source: PC Gamer