u/xMoonlightxx

Story time......

I was playing vet yesterday after beeing inspired by a fatmangus support vet build that was posted yesterday. The build used a schock maul which i have only played a bit on skitari or arby, honestly can't remember. So i went to the armoury rolled me a good one, slapped some consecrations on my 320 rating maul and started quickplaying into damnation and later switching to auric.

Ive been playing mostly mid havocs lately and auric maelstroms, had a bit of a burnout situation after my climb to H40. So ive just been having fun with all kinds of builds and weapons. The games went fine tried out both marks and decided i like the MkIII better then the Ia. I liked the fact that the heavy started with a sweep attack and that u can get a loop of continuous top down heavies as well.

After a full night of playing i had completed my leveling of the maul and decided to maybe play a single auric maelstrom before i went to bed. It its a weekday after all and its already 23.30.

The mission that was on the board was an excise vault spireside-13, the one with the vaults at the end where u need to slot in 3 canisters. Not my favorite mission but its not like i get to choose anyway. It had a bunch of modifiers, but honestly i dont remember all of em.

Now auric maelstroms are funny, sometimes they are complete cakewalks and sometimes....well....

I load in to the pre-mission screen i notice 2 other people are also full H40's with full i mean their assignment rank and clear is both at 40. This usually means that these players have actively played the difficulty for some time and did not get carried. I was about to make a comment about it but decided against it.

The mission starts, the opening of the first doors goes super quick everything dies within seconds and im thinking that this is going to be a breeze. We make our way down the sloped hallway that leads to a tunnel of sorts. This is where the mission gives its first hint that it will not go as breezy as i originally thought. The tunnel itself was pretty densely packed but im using a plasma gun. So i get my dopamine tickled shooting through a long hallway. But something is wrong, they just keep coming, at this point i have already used an entire clip of my plasma, which if u use the plasma gun, is an insane amount of shots. Specials just keep running out the side doors even when we make our way down to the open area that follows.

The fighting is intense a boss spawns as well. One of the 40 guys has already gone down, he must of thought screw this because he gets replaced by a bot seconds later. Somebody else joined, we are now 2 psykers a scum and me the supportiest of support vets. One of our psykers is putting in work, it is a flame staff psyker so hes having a grand old time. We are making progress but at this point i wanted a chill game before going to sleep, now im sitting here sweating my ass off in this build i only started playing today.

We make our way down the platform, it is chaos, people are going down left and right and we are kinda spread out. Another boss spawns. Smoke grenades rule btw, u can just throw them on people who are downed so an ally can get them up without beeing lasered down. If i get close enough i can just shout em up, which i did more in this game i feel then my entire night combined.

We make our way to the part where u need to drop down into the tunnel that takes u to a medicae. Things go bad here i get netted and people are unable to get me, misplay by me, should of realized i was too far off. Another goes down and then another. Only the flame psyker left. I am preparing myself for the end but the psyker isnt gonna let it go he fights for a good 10 minutes until he is able to get to us and clutches succesfully.

Everybody is back and we are proceeding down the tunnel again. Constant special spawns from both sides. We push outside another beast of nurgle spawns behind us and we are fighting, the beast dies as quickly as it spawned in but a constant stream of crushers and maulers is coming from the next area. There is a decent choke there but they spill out regardless, i am trying to help one of the psykers whos beeing herded into a corner by 3 crushers while the rest is having their own personal battle. The other psyker is now full dead and we proceed with 3. The next are is pretty open which can be a trap, if u get split up u will probably die. But first there is an intense fight in the corridor leading up to the area to begin with.

As expected, we split up too much, the hive scum pushed forward to get into melee range and a bomber cut us off from him. We are still fighting in the corridor but the clutching psyker from before finally gets brought down by a big spawn of ragers behind us. I am now alone with a bunch of ragers a small horde and a never ending stream of specials it seems. I kite as best i can but in my mind i was clutching. I had already forgot what happened to the scum, he was as far as i knew dead and i needed all my attention to not die. Have i told u smokes are awesome btw, I get driven into a corner but i manage to take down the ragers and horde without taking too much damage. The smokes are just so handy to not get netted or targeted by flamers who are behind them. They just wander into melee range looking for u.

After what feels like an eternity i look down expecting to have to pick everybody up at the totem but to my suprise everybody is up. The scum managed to survive and was living his best life out in the wilderness. I am now very far away still needing to enter the open area while they have already pushed the button to lower the walkway. The fighting is intense as it has been all game but something has changed. We are now glued togheter, we move as one and fight as one. Everybody is afraid for their lives at this point. Beeing on 1 wound or close to 1 hp.

We arrive at the mid point event the big skull pile. Everybody heals up, feels good to have a reset. Back to full strenght......I get blasted in the back by a sniper...... back to half hp.

The event was crazy people are going down left and right, but we hang in there and complete the event. Right before we go up in the elevator i make my way to the room next to it to pick up some ammo, i hear the clicking and howling of specials in the spawn door. I hear the flame whoosh of a flamer that is firing, i jump to the elevator as i see the fire coming up from underneath me. The scum instantly presses the button as i land in the elevator.

We all stand there in the elevator and this feels like the first time the foot has been off the pedal. I look at the scoreboard for a second, the flamepsyker already has 1.2 million damage i am around 700k, with our 2 other ones around 300k. For a maelstrom these are some crazy numbers.

I feel a wave of good feels wash over me like only a good match can. When u have been fighting the entire time and are hanging on by a sliver.

"Whatever happens, GG"

I type in chat, the flame psyker instantly responds with "likewise :)" and the other 2 say gg as well as we stand there looking at eachother.

The elevator opens, we rush to the medicae but instantly fire is upon us, we get split only by a few meters but its enough, i make a stupid decision to push into a horde to unnet a guy that i shouldnt have. Everybody is down except for the scum. He makes a mad push over all the enemies towards the next totem. But we all see it, he isnt coming there to rescue us he is coming there to die. He starts picking up one of the psykers while he is surrounded by crushers and maulers. By some miracle he gets him up but instantly dies. The psyker jumps a few times, flames spilling out between a mass of crushers before is see the health bar turn red.

I sit back looking at the defeat screen and think of a game well played. I type gg one more time as does the rest and go to sleep beeing happy i could give my life in service of the emperor.

- Fen
Just a pleb

I find myself playing alot of auric maelstroms lately after having a climb to Havoc 40 and trying some other weapons and classes just to change things up. Now yesterday there was a warren mission, the one with the giant container at the end u need to smash with a bunch of modifiers, pox gas, alot of bosses etc,etc,..

It was hilarious, i must say this had around the same density as some 40's do, i got to play it twice and there were 4 bosses before we even got past the first area and everybody got destroyed. Myself included.

Usually people just speed through a maelstrom with little to no effort, but it did really emphasize that there is a significant gap in playstyle between the two modes.

People will just not slow down no matter whats happening, teammate goes down? Try to push through. Gas is up, hold in this safe area? No just try to push through. The twins and a chaos spawn? Let me just go to the next area, sounds like my teammates problem.

I think people dont realize that u can actually hold an area untill the worst of the spawns are over and then u can just proceed? There are even timers if u get alot of boss spawns that will force the AI director to chill for about 10 min. There is a video about this from J_SAT that explains this. The triggers are probably not the same as havoc and the video is pretty old but i can only assume they are similar.

Thats is all, please feel free to teach me if auric maelstroms have different timers. I almost never encounter a truly hard maelstrom, so this was suprising to say the least.

For those who are interested in part 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTide/comments/1vf4i4c/tales_from_havocpart_2/

Im not even sure if i should be writing this today, it started out as a way to write an inspiring story and the responses that i got from the first encouraged me to make another. But i am constantly worried that it would come off as some self-aggrandising elitist. While i dont think that i am its also hard to write a compelling story where i downplay everything i guess. The truth is that is that i feel that im not good enough. I get this nagging feeling when things go bad that maybe i shouldnt be here and that i just got carried by my teammates. The scoreboard doesnt help in this regard, i know i have a support build and some games i do manage to be 3rd on damage but usually i am dead last with the first guy almost doubling my numbers.

I feel like i am constantly hanging on by a silver thread, until death really emphasises this because it seems i manage to lose all my health in the first 5 min and then hang on for the next 20 min with 1 hp.

Anyway i should start telling how it went i suppose.

Sycorax rank 32, the in my mind "easy" one turned out to be my first demotion. I had only 2 tries left when i started it yesterday and the chandelier area turned out to be the run ender every time. Even when i warned everybody, told em to run back at the first sight of danger before we get swarmed it happened again and again. Next time ill take the walkway up top and not go down the center. I wasnt planning to, but i accepted a rank 40 clear and assignment psyker and he just ran down the middle. I figured he knew what was up. Maybe he overestimated what we could deal with as a team.

I demoted right back into a warren with with pox gas, i could see myself getting demoted all the way back to below 30. But thats the game i guess, thats the thing about havoc u do well enough to make it to 40 or u get demoted and hover somewhere in the middle. Unless u got carried i guess.

The guy from yesterday showed up in the party finder on my last attempt at sycorax. I think for a second if im not violating my own rules by accepting him again, but if i was gonna deny every player that i played with before and had succes with. I wouldnt make it to 40 i guess. Since u kinda see the same names over and over. He was a rank above me when we first met now we are the same after my demotion.

Ogryns, it seems u have 2 types of these guys. The fun loveable rp guys that seem to say sah after every sentence or the dude that just runs in and gets himself killed because he thinks he is invincible. At this difficulty i havent seen a sah behind a sentence in a while. The warren starts chaotic, the first few fights the ogryn is just dancing in the pox gas down in the courtyard keeping his thoughness up by constantly hitting stuff. The only problem is that we are now missing our frontliner when we are getting swarmed as multiple bosses spawn and we try to hold our ground. He comes back starts fighting togheter with us, at some point i am using chorus because i see its up and we could really use it right now. I try to use chorus as often as i can, the build im using doesnt have alot of damage potential but does give a nice damage boost if i can get all the pulses to go off. Making it one of the strongest team buffs in the game. The Ogryn talks for the first time in game and yells at me to stop riposting and start attacking. Ok buddy.

We make it to the part with the multiple levels right before u enter the production hallway where u need to hit the canister spread around the edges. We go down on the left side into the hole and chaos unfolds the twins spawn and i think there was a third boss, or four? I dont even remember. We are holding in the hallway while the ogryn is just ogrynnin in the area where u drop down. At some point he gets trapped, i make the call activate chorus and we go to get him back up. We are all fighting there now, the twins are twinning, fire everywhere, i have a moment where i am standing for a solid 10 seconds in the corner of the room. Trapped by fire in my own time out zone just watching it all happen. The ogryn gets trapped again, the fire goes away i rush over to get him, get knocked back by the boss right before i am able to get him and instantly go for him again. The ogryn lets out a high pitched shriek on the mic "GET ME UP"

The rest of the mission goes smooth, we make it to the end. The ogryn does blow up a burster in my face when nothing was going on. Judging from his past actions i assume it was intentional.

The ogryn left when we got back into the mourningstar, saves me the trouble from explaing why i want him to leave i guess. The next mission is a rank 32 smelter no gas luckily. I start party finder. Im talking to my teammate that im thinking of not accepting ogryns for a while because we seem to have alot of bad luck with them.

Im looking through the join requests and then he pops up, a lvl 2400+ ogryn with a H40 clear across the board......I press accept.

I say hi, comment on the fact that his one char has more levels than all of my chars combined. He starts his own mission, a level 40 something. I look at it (almost get tempted), i tell the ogryn that i am gratefull for his offer but that i kinda am doing a challenge and want to climb naturally. A moment of silence where i expect him to leave....."sure lets do yours then".

Now i would like to say that that my man Goro was the perfect teammate, pinged all the places where we needed to stand and paced himself according to team synergy and current events. But i should have known by the drip, the reason why Goro had a big tire on his back is because this man was on wheels and he had places to be. This man ran straight through gas and back again like he forgot something that didnt matter and went right back. His health would almost never go down and he just kept on trucking while we held on for dear life. We completed the mission. GG's were said, Goro types "next".

We did one more, this was another roller coaster ride of Goro just needing us for the few times he got trapped or dogged. Goro typed "gtg" and just like that he was off. The last mission i did i dont even know anymore, we made it though.

So where are we after all this, lvl 34 cleared with a rank 35 assignment.

I was talking to the guy from yesterday that found my post on reddit that i appreciate that he continues to play with me. He says that its no problem and that he finally found a good player to climb with. Me? Good? This dude must not have any mods. I decide to play some rounds on my Hive scum to wind down.

Hive scum runs went well, i unlocked heresy now, some people went down, they do insta leave alot, i notice. I failed a twins though, couldnt carry it. I told myself i would not stay up late this time, oh i unlocked damnation. Did a decent clutch, was happy. Maxed out the shiv and the autopistols. I look at the clock 2.30 AM, fuuuuck...

See u out there rejects

- Fen

Liking the new map, but nighttime is a bit overboard, i was playing some dibble and was thinking that it might be ok that u have this difference between carni and others but after spending 2 nights just hiding with the homies for 27 minutes until day started again feels very momentum breaking. It was full on black screen, couldnt see anything, tried lumen on and off, didnt do much.

Then i tried some dilo, it was basically the same( i was standing 10 m from some trikes couldnt even see them). The combo nighttime + bad weather is what seems to make it superdark.

Since i am kinda a numbers guy, on a normal server 1 hour = 3 min but if its x growth take that into account so if u are on a x1.3 its 2,3 min.

Night is from 18 to 6, but dilo night for venom is from 20.30 to 4.30

Should be darkest around ~19-20 because sun is gone but moon isnt up yet.

If this is not the case on officials, let me know pls.

Edit: Someone said to change cloud settings, we tested some things and holy cow.

https://preview.redd.it/hqg8ba0l7lbh1.png?width=432&format=png&auto=webp&s=344e90bd3c6cf44bba98a3c44a06d01d94cb9630

That is all

At the moment only a few dinos have this ability, troodon, hipsy and maybe dryo (dont know)?

As a player who nests alot this hits hard, the short window u have of beeing at max stats is pretty short and to not be able to nest after you reach elder hurts the game. Meeting up with people at the right time is already hard enough for someone like me who plays in organized groups, i can not imagine the luck u have to have of meeting up with another person at the right time in their growth to be able to make a nest.

This is such a good feature allowing people to get spawned on top of a usually experienced player to help them through a confusing game or to get a group going at your location it brings such good moments. Then to make this feature harder is just a mistake imo.

Remove the infertile debuff of elder dinos please, it takes away the only natural grouping mechanic we have.

edit: Beipi goes infertile at 100%, some disagreements about this in comments. It does remain fertile.