Bolt pistol vs revolver

[Dovahbear]

I've been testing in the psykhanium with several different bolt pistols with different stats weights and blessings and I have to say, I don't see a compelling reason to use the bolt pistol over the revolver. Like 8-9% more base damage on the bolt pistol that in practice I don't really notice at the cost of far worse stability.

I like the idea of the lethal proximity blessing but the stagger is so tiny it feels...meh? If it was more significant I'd understand it and I'd love it but as it is it feels pretty underwhelming to me. Maybe paired with execution for bonus damage on subsequent shots, but that seems like a bad return on investment for taking up both blessing slots.

So tell me what I'm missing here, give me a reason to use the bolt pistol over the revolver. I'm not bashing the bolt pistol, I'm saying I don't get it, so help me get it. What niche is it serving that I might bring it for instead of a revolver?

[Deadrifler]

If you are arguing purely optimal, revolver wins out given better accuracy, recoil, and piercing

[azamba89]

Dont waste your time with Boltpistol. Everything it tries to do the Revolver does way better. Really disappointing. The only thing boltpistol has going for it is the larger ammo clip and reserves. Which doesnt change anything.
Same goes for the other weapons. Antax Axe > shockmauls, by far. New shotgun, cool play style, but falls short overall. Not a weapon I would bring to an Auric or Maelstorm mission, trust me. Pickaxes didn't test them all, but i figure its a good option in a very limited selection for Ogryn, so whatever.

[Grumpy Sunshine]

Originally posted by azamba89:

Dont waste your time with Boltpistol. Everything it tries to do the Revolver does way better. Really disappointing. The only thing boltpistol has going for it is the larger ammo clip and reserves. Which doesnt change anything.
Same goes for the other weapons. Antax Axe > shockmauls, by far. New shotgun, cool play style, but falls short overall. Not a weapon I would bring to an Auric or Maelstorm mission, trust me. Pickaxes didn't test them all, but i figure its a good option in a very limited selection for Ogryn, so whatever.

it took them over a month to reskin ♥♥♥♥ and make it worse

[evolgenius]

Originally posted by Dovahbear:

I've been testing in the psykhanium with several different bolt pistols with different stats weights and blessings and I have to say, I don't see a compelling reason to use the bolt pistol over the revolver. Like 8-9% more base damage on the bolt pistol that in practice I don't really notice at the cost of far worse stability.

I like the idea of the lethal proximity blessing but the stagger is so tiny it feels...meh? If it was more significant I'd understand it and I'd love it but as it is it feels pretty underwhelming to me. Maybe paired with execution for bonus damage on subsequent shots, but that seems like a bad return on investment for taking up both blessing slots.

So tell me what I'm missing here, give me a reason to use the bolt pistol over the revolver. I'm not bashing the bolt pistol, I'm saying I don't get it, so help me get it. What niche is it serving that I might bring it for instead of a revolver?

They need to buff the bolt pistol with either more splash damage, some kind of stagger or stopping effect, or more penatration.

Case 1: A mutant took me 5 rounds to down and that was with a bolt pistol with 75% damage rolled, 25%+ Unarmored 20% Maniacs. A revolver would have taken me 1-2 shots to drop that mutant.

Case 2: I can fire a revolver into a horde of walkers and mobeans, and depending on how I am lined up, I can take out most of the horde with 5 rounds if they're packed in there because of the penetration damage. MMM does that feel nice! However... the Bolt Pistol being fired into a crowd does like almost nothing except for explode the one weak walker enemy it hits. I don't think a 75mm/ .998 calibre round should be that weak. It should have cut the dudes in half, penetrated and got the guys behind them even do splash damage. I mean i can mow down an entire horde with one braced autogun clip.... a bolt gun should really ruin their day but it doesn't - you're lucky to kill 5 of em... that ain't right at all.

Also my zealot aint' crit'n like it usually crits.

[Raynn von Valancius]

Originally posted by Dovahbear:

I've been testing in the psykhanium with several different bolt pistols with different stats weights and blessings and I have to say, I don't see a compelling reason to use the bolt pistol over the revolver. Like 8-9% more base damage on the bolt pistol that in practice I don't really notice at the cost of far worse stability.

I like the idea of the lethal proximity blessing but the stagger is so tiny it feels...meh? If it was more significant I'd understand it and I'd love it but as it is it feels pretty underwhelming to me. Maybe paired with execution for bonus damage on subsequent shots, but that seems like a bad return on investment for taking up both blessing slots.

So tell me what I'm missing here, give me a reason to use the bolt pistol over the revolver. I'm not bashing the bolt pistol, I'm saying I don't get it, so help me get it. What niche is it serving that I might bring it for instead of a revolver?

I came to the same conclusion. Rather use the heavy las pistol to stack debuffs or the revolver for one shots.

Should be used to it by now, but another disappointing offering from Fatshark.

[Lucius]

The compelling reason is that it's a bolt weapon in warhammer 40k and iconic weapons of the setting are rare in this game for some unfathomable reason.

[Dumb_bune]

i simply do not understand why FS hates bolters
normal bolter's damage is okayish, but still too low with all the downside
bolt pistol is a worst out of every pistol ,it got

big kick,
slow firerate,
♥♥♥♥♥ Armour pen compare to revolver,
somehow deals less damage compare to revolver,

even laspistol is better than this ass of a weapon

[evolgenius]

Originally posted by Kremling:

Its useless,

you cannot build it into quickdraw melee crit with Point blank and a crit build, the crit dmg is too low.

You cannot use it for subsequent stagger shots, since the stagger is too low and recoil is too high while fire rate is too low.


The bolt pistol could have filled a nice niche if it was:
- high impact to open up Bulwark shields, this would be a really cool niche. Having a quickdraw pistol to just open up shields and finish with melee

or

-having full auto, emptying the clip for a quick damage and stagger burst into a mixed horde (kind of similar to agripinaa hammer fan Revolver, but less precise, more stagger/splash


But somehow FS ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up :D

Oh well, the sound, feel and visuals are really nice. It feels like a giant handcannon, but when you actually hit that Poxwalker, its like you threw a peanut.

What's funny is the blessing I got on my bolt gun is for crit damage at close range triggered after a successful melee attack. (Much like how I use my revolver up close). That blessing tells me they intended for us to drop out of melee to pop a rager or a mauler in the dome, and go back to a melee frenzy. But this gun is so clumsy it can't be played like that. How did they mess that up, by building a weapon made for that but then making it not possible to play like that?

[=][=Alduran=][=]

The Stub Revolver is overpowered and not very lore accurate. A Bolt weapon should work like the Revolver does. A Stub weapon never has the penetration it has in Darktide. Yeah, there is special ammo but Stubs are for unarmored enemies.
Bolt weapons should cleave and penetrate unarmored in close range because the explosive charge needs time to arm itself and Bolt weapons should get more rending the farther away a target is but then the bullet should explode and not penetrate as it is now.

[Dundo]

Boltpistol and Bolter have the same issue, they are ♥♥♥♥. Boltpistol might be slightly worse than the Bolter since you can't auto fire it.

I still don't get the hype behind the Revolver though, it's a worse Plasma and Plasma is bad imo since its a single target weapon, makes sense on Zealot, not on Veteran imo. All of these weapons sort of gimp you out of doing your job which is clearing every shooter and special in the match. Having like a handful of shots in your mag/cylinder just sorts of prevents you from doing that.

Though I will say the Boltpistol might pair well with Powerswors in Weapon Specialist loadouts since the mobility is alright, pop it into a horde, get you WS stack and move onto melee. The damage is not really good on the thing, i tried various perk combos and I can still get nearly as good damage on a Headhunter which is far more versatile.

[Arani]

Originally posted by Dovahbear:

...
I'm not bashing the bolt pistol, I'm saying I don't get it, so help me get it. What niche is it serving that I might bring it for instead of a revolver?

I barely had time yesterday to check the blessings and test the new weapons in the grinder, and this is Darktide so there's bound to be tons of hidden / emergent properties I don't yet have the slightest clue of. But here's some of what I picked up so far:

(Zarona) Revolver vs. Bolt Pistol

* WS = weakspot, C = crit, CWS = critical weakspot
* Note, some dmg tables may vary by type or stats

• Base dmg is virtually identical as a whole, Rev is stronger vs. some types, BP in others
  
• Finesse dmg bonuses (WS / C / CWS):
  
  • Rev: +90% / +135% / +210% (~50% more CWS dmg than BP)
    
  • BP: +60% / +60% / +100%
• Ammo (clip / reserves):
  
  • Rev: 5/52 = 57
    
  • BP: 8/80 = 88 (~54% more than Rev)
• Other stuff:
  
  • Reload speed: Rev full reload is ~50% slower than BP, but it's 0.74s/bullet where BP needs the full ~2.5s every time
    
  • Crit %: Rev gets +21% crit base from stat, idk what the BP crit rate is but it has no stat.
    
  • Aiming: Rev is MUCH more accurate, BP is downright horrible. But it might just be me and BP takes getting used to. It seems to have the same effect as the full Bolter gun where the gun doesn't hit where the weapon's sights or crosshair is pointing at for a while after each shot.
    
  • BP shots have the bolter explosion, meaning it does light AoE & stagger around the target
    
  • Blessings:
    Revolver has Surgical & Hand-Cannon. It's way better vs. armor, and with its insane crit rate & finesse dmg bonus makes for a far better finesse weapon as a whole.
    
    BP has Puncture (4 bleed per hit), Lethal Proximity (point-blank explosions +25% AoE), Surgical & Deadly Accurate (+100% dmg on critWS)

All of which is to say that while they are similar, they're not at all the same.

Revolvers role hasn't changed or been beaten, so nothing more needs to be said about that. The BP however brings something different. With Surgical & Deadly Accurate the BP will do roughly the same CWS dmg as the Rev except with more ammo and that AoE when it counts (iirc only Headhunters had Surgical & DA before). But with its worse aim, worse base crit & longer reload it will require more skill & compromises to use this way compared to the Rev.

What I'm really excited for are the new blessings. Puncture lets the BP stack bleed quickly and at range, making it completely unique. That ofc. means extreme ammo economy, way more dmg as a whole, and with bleed talents & melee makes for completely new kinds of bleed builds that can cap the DoT faster & more frequently than ever. Lethal Proximity with the new bolt explosion changes meanwhile lets the BP act as a precision high dmg pistol and an AoE & stagger cleaver, both at the same time and regardless of range.

All in all the BP seems like an advanced weapon that's hard to learn and use, but enables some really interesting builds & gameplay that weren't possible before.

[=M.D= Lion]

They may just NERF the revolver, rather than improving the bolt pistol

[Arani]

Originally posted by =M.D= Lion:

They may just NERF the revolver, rather than improving the bolt pistol

As they should. Not by much mind, but it has been overperforming for a long time now.

[=M.D= Lion]

Better to have two weapons that many players think is meh than just one

[watch out theres RATS]

Originally posted by =M.D= Lion:

They may just NERF the revolver, rather than improving the bolt pistol

This is what I'm always worried about. Game devs have a nasty tendency to start trashing good weapons so that they don't out compete poorly performing ones. I'd much prefer to see underwhelming weapons get a boost to be more in line with strong weapons.

I like the Zarona, but I've never felt that it was excessively overpowered, just a solid A-tier weapon. The reload speed and reliance on weakspot hits means that it's good and deleting small mobs of elites, but lacks the sustain to operate as a reliable primary weapon, the way something like the columnus IAG or Plasma Gun can on a Vet. If we assume that the Bolt Pistol was intended to be a competitor for the same role as the Zarona, it seems inferior in nearly every way that matters. It's possible that Fatshark saw people doing things with the Bolt Pistol that didn't really relate to single target crit/WS burst damage, and the community just hasn't discovered it yet.