Darktide’s Bound by Duty update reworks three of its playable oddballs

Veteran, Psyker, and Zealot get regrown endowment trees successful today’s large patch

Bound by Duty, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’s archetypal large update successful months, has conscionable gone live. On apical of expanding the Mortis Trials arena mode and adding a enactment of caller heretic mincing tools, it makes important accomplishment histrion changes to 3 of Darktide’s 5 playable classes – the Veteran, Psyker, and Zealot – aimed astatine "increased flexibility and subordinate agency". Including, it seems, the flexibility to stroke up your ain caput much effectively.

Here beryllium spot notes, and a much wide (i.e. little stat-soaked) overview. I’ve conscionable had a speedy look astatine the caller trees in-game and they bash look to beryllium structured much openly, astatine slightest astatine the little levels, truthful you whitethorn not request to perpetrate to a playstyle – tanky berserker versus swift dagger stabbist connected Zealot, for illustration – rather truthful aboriginal on.

As for circumstantial accomplishment buffs, I can’t justice yet who the large winners and losers of this spot are, but by acold the funniest endowment rework has to spell to the Psyker’s Crystalline Will. It inactive prevents you from downing yourself if you overload connected psychic sauce, but a monolithic buff to the accompanying warp eruption sounds similar it could marque for a superior violative tool. Expect mic’d up Psykers to alteration their tune from "Oh no, I’m exploding" to "Oh yes, I’m exploding".

Less fortunate are the abstraction rozzers of the Adeptus Arbites, who’ve been made squishier pursuing their accomplishment (accompanied by packs of EMP dogbombs) earlier this year. They and the 3 reworked classes person each had afloat accomplishment constituent refunds, truthful marque definite to reinvest them earlier deploying.

Mortis Trials, meanwhile, gets a frigid caller arena, positive a fistful of caller perks to unlock arsenic you past successive waves of Nurgle’s lads. Veterans, those fortunate devils, besides get a class-exclusive Power Falchion sword, and those who spec arsenic ranged specialists should get adjacent much of a footwear retired of the caller Boltgun and Bolt Pistol variants. These, the Bolt Pistol Mk VI Godwyn‑Branx and Boltgun Mk III Locke, are tuned to marque their exploding bullets much explodey – evidently, betwixt these, that tweaked Psyker skill, and the Arbites’ remote-detonated pets, idiosyncratic astatine Fatshark conscionable truly likes seeing things spell boom.

As a portion of Imperium cannon fodder who typically prefers the travel of accepted missions to the much static defence play of Mortis Trials, I’m somewhat saddened that Bound by Duty doesn’t connection a caller sensation of the former. Not slightest due to the fact that astir each of the post-launch missions person been excellent, with much ambitious set-pieces and much intriguing, lore-massaging vox banter. But then, I hardly played anyone too Ogryn aft his ain rework successful March, truthful possibly different circular of accomplishment touch-ups tin person a likewise rejuvenating effect. I’ll beryllium playing this week to find out.