Relic Blade Discussion

[xDaunt]

Information is finally coming out on the new weapons, including the Zealot's Relic Blade.

Weapons stats and blessings are available at https://darktide.gameslantern.com/

Reginald released a good video today giving a detailed review of the Relic Blade, including its mechanics, the attack patterns of the two marks, and recommended builds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZErf-B0rToU

Stats-wise, the relic blade looks like a very solid generalist weapon. I think it will be a straight upgrade to eviscerators at a minimum. The finesse scaling is pretty high on the strike down attacks but somewhat lower on the vanguards. There's no +crit blessing available. Most of the blessings are unique. The only "common" blessings are wrath, rampage, and devastating strike.

The powered up mechanic looks really cool. The main thing is that it can be activated mid-combo and provides a mini-block when doing so. What's not entirely clear to me is how much of a damage bonus it provides. My initial inclination is to spec heavily into maximizing the powered attack's uptime. I'll probably go blazing piety first to fully leverage the heatsink blessing. If that doesn't work, then I'd look at momentum builds with cranial grounding. Hell, depending upon how good the powered attack is, I may take both cranial grounding and heatsink on a blazing piety build. That said, and as much as I hate to say it, this may be a weapon where you really want to have martyrdom.

The attack patterns are complicated. The Mk X definitely seems to be the more straightforward weapon. but the elite killing power on the Mk II looks very appealing.

[xDaunt]

I've played around a little bit with the relic blade. It's really strong, albeit it feels a little slower than I thought it would. I'm running a Mk II with carapace/crit chance and cranial grounding/rampage using a standard crit build. My crit rate is generally up around 35-40% over a game, which is good. Carapace seems like a mandatory blessing for killing crushers. And the relic blade is really good at this. I'm considering replacing rampage with wrath. The cleave is fine when the weapon is activated, but it drags a bit without activation.

I suspect that Mk X is going to be the more popular pick over the Mk II because it is "easier," but I find that the Mk II is more intuitive (it handles kinda like a thunderhammer) and is better at sniping elites. When you activate the Mk II, light attacks do a ton of work against most everything until the elites show up. When they do, then you can switch into heavy attacks at will which will generally chain into the big strikedown attacks. All elites simply die when you start chaining the heavy strikedowns. Ragers seem easy to chain stagger using heavy attacks. I haven't had any problem mowing through them in game.

The heavy sweeping vanguards are readily available at the beginning of any combos and can be easily reset indefinitely using the very strong push attack, which another horizontal vanguard (combo is H1 => H2 => PA => H1, etc). It really doesn't take many activated heavy attacks to clear whatever is in front of you other than heavily armored enemies.

Heat management isn't really much of an issue. As a rule, I think you should save the activation for either (1) killing elites, or (2) getting through thick hordes. You won't really need it otherwise.

Mobility with the relic blade is a bit of an issue, so I recommend pairing it with a pistol. I personally prefer the bolt pistol.

The overall damage output seems pretty damned high. Hordes, elites, carapace, and monstrosities all die easily. I don't know how the relic blade could possibly be ranked as anything less than A-tier. It's a straight upgrade to both the heavy sword and the eviscerator.

[Disorganic]

This thing is absolutely erotic and chunks ragers. Relic + Bolt Pistol. Charge attack is sexy, light attack is a stright upgrade from eviscterator. probably never going back if they dont nerf it. Heat management just leading to burnout and slower readiness is whatever

[Rama]

Good weapon. I enjoyed using the Mark 2 more.

As for the blessings, the "perfect block" related blessings seem very weak. 10% attack speed increase for 3 seconds, seriously? It doesn't even stagger or interrupt elites like the mace. As it stands, "Counterattack" needs to increase attack speed by 30-40% to be interesting, I think.

[Disorganic]

agreed on the perfect block blessings being weak - Im almost never blocking as a zealot anyway, Dodge has my heart in too tight a grip

[Low Infra Fold]

Yeah, the lower mobility is very noticeable.

Might want to pair this weapon with a gun that gives good mobility, like the Laspistol, and not run after team-mates or towards enemies with this sword out.

By the way, the Cleave Blessing also imparts its bonus to the activated mode too.

[xDaunt]

I swapped out rampage for wrath. I didn't really notice any drop in performance in killing elites in mixed hordes. However, the anti-horde performance went up big time, especially when using the weapon in its unpowered mode.

I'm doing some absolutely disgusting things with this weapon. In terms of pure offensive performance, it puts every other zealot weapon to shame. Kiting and mobility don't even really matter. I just straight up slaughter everything that comes to me. And using the Mk II, I can do it safely leveraging the huge stagger values on the heavy strikedowns. Crushers, ragers (including the fancy new ones), and maulers are all chump change. This is a top tier weapon.

[Low Infra Fold]

xDaunt님이 먼저 게시:

I swapped out rampage for wrath. I didn't really notice any drop in performance in killing elites in mixed hordes. However, the anti-horde performance went up big time, especially when using the weapon in its unpowered mode.

Good eye there - but I have both Rampage and Wrath so that this sword can go through mook and grunt mobs without a hitch.

There could be other melee weapons that can wipe mooks for the Zealot, but the Greatsword is the only one with wide-swing light attacks that can deal with Poxwalkers, Groaners and Brawlers of both types, can inflict enough stagger to flinch Ragers too, and have enough Cleave to go through thick mobs.

[xDaunt]

Low Infra Fold님이 먼저 게시:

xDaunt님이 먼저 게시:

I swapped out rampage for wrath. I didn't really notice any drop in performance in killing elites in mixed hordes. However, the anti-horde performance went up big time, especially when using the weapon in its unpowered mode.

Good eye there - but I have both Rampage and Wrath so that this sword can go through mook and grunt mobs without a hitch.

There could be other melee weapons that can wipe mooks for the Zealot, but the Greatsword is the only one with wide-swing light attacks that can deal with Poxwalkers, Groaners and Brawlers of both types, can inflict enough stagger to flinch Ragers too, and have enough Cleave to go through thick mobs.

Why rampage over cranial grounding? The weapon isn’t bad unpowered, but the true damage and elite mulching power comes in when it is charged. Why not try to maximize that?

[xDaunt]

I think that I now have a pretty good handle on the relic blade. There's an argument to be made that it is the best zealot weapon. Yes, even better than the dueling sword.

If you consider the deathball-centric high-rank havoc meta, mobility doesn't really count for much anymore. Raw killing power is king. The relic blade is the king of that jungle. Hordes are easily controlled and killed more efficiently than with the dueling sword. But the bigger thing is that the elite killing power of the relic blade is at least on part with, if not better than, the dueling sword. The MK II relic blade can basically mimic, if not outperform, the Mk IV dueling sword's heavy attacks and do them better when activated. The Mk II's chained heavy strikedowns hit like a truck, they cleave, and they stagger pretty much anything -- especially when powered. The relic blade is just a super efficient DPS package.

What I haven't decided yet is whether the relic blade is overpowered/broken in the same way that the dueling sword is or whether it is simply a strong, high skill cap weapon. Part of the problem with the dueling sword is that it is stupid easy to use -- particularly the Mk IV. Just spam light attacks until the elites show up, at which time you swap to heavy attacks. The relic blade has far more going on with its combos, and it also has the heat management system. I haven't yet seen anyone else get the same type of performance out of the relic blade that I have. But I think it's only a matter of time before people really start to figure the weapon out.

[LinkZeppeloyd]

xDaunt님이 먼저 게시:

I think that I now have a pretty good handle on the relic blade. There's an argument to be made that it is the best zealot weapon. Yes, even better than the dueling sword.

If you consider the deathball-centric high-rank havoc meta, mobility doesn't really count for much anymore. Raw killing power is king. The relic blade is the king of that jungle. Hordes are easily controlled and killed more efficiently than with the dueling sword. But the bigger thing is that the elite killing power of the relic blade is at least on part with, if not better than, the dueling sword. The MK II relic blade can basically mimic, if not outperform, the Mk IV dueling sword's heavy attacks and do them better when activated. The Mk II's chained heavy strikedowns hit like a truck, they cleave, and they stagger pretty much anything -- especially when powered. The relic blade is just a super efficient DPS package.

What I haven't decided yet is whether the relic blade is overpowered/broken in the same way that the dueling sword is or whether it is simply a strong, high skill cap weapon. Part of the problem with the dueling sword is that it is stupid easy to use -- particularly the Mk IV. Just spam light attacks until the elites show up, at which time you swap to heavy attacks. The relic blade has far more going on with its combos, and it also has the heat management system. I haven't yet seen anyone else get the same type of performance out of the relic blade that I have. But I think it's only a matter of time before people really start to figure the weapon out.

I think it is very good. The Crusher is the best weapon not just on Zealot, but in the game period. But yeah, Relic blade is fun, effective, stylish, and IMO more fun to play than the dueling sword. I really enjoy playing with it and I MUCH prefer it's power/heat system to the poor Vet's power sword.

[Katou]

xDaunt님이 먼저 게시:

What I haven't decided yet is whether the relic blade is overpowered/broken in the same way that the dueling sword is or whether it is simply a strong, high skill cap weapon. Part of the problem with the dueling sword is that it is stupid easy to use -- particularly the Mk IV. Just spam light attacks until the elites show up, at which time you swap to heavy attacks. The relic blade has far more going on with its combos, and it also has the heat management system. I haven't yet seen anyone else get the same type of performance out of the relic blade that I have. But I think it's only a matter of time before people really start to figure the weapon out.

I can't decide whether or not it's overpowered, but I do know that the heat mechanic isn't that much of a problem and can be easily managed. I do think that if a weapon has a complex move set that it should be rewarding to use as the player improves with it, but the move set isn't really all that complex.

When I use something as powerful as a plasma gun or a psyker ability where it has a similar overheat mechanic, there's always that risk that I'm going to be a liability. That doesn't really exist with the Relic Blade. I'm (usually) still standing and the weapon is still effective even without the special being active. Power sword on the other hand really needs its special to truly shine and is rather weak without it. Assuming you don't have Power Cycler on it, having to charge it up in between hits can leave you vulnerable.

What makes the Dueling Sword so strong is the Agile Blessing, with Riposte, Precognition, or Uncanny Strike combined with the dodge talents of the Zealot and Veteran. This strength wasn't as pronounced or noticeable in gameplay back before Agile was added and back when the Dueling Sword was a Psyker-only weapon. Pyskers didn't have a lot of bonuses to dodging back then and they still don't now.

[Mosey]

Katou님이 먼저 게시:

Pyskers didn't have a lot of bonuses to dodging back then and they still don't now.

I mean, they do get two pretty good dodge abilities in their tree though. The dodge on crit is especially good, but an extra dodge with 50% duration is pretty good too in my opinion.

You aren't wrong that they didn't start with that at launch though, but they do have it now.

I like the mechanics of the relic sword, but I can't say I'm a huge fan of it's attack patterns either. It's a much more difficult sword to use well, at least compared to brain dead weapons like dueling sword, but it's special is pretty strong so it kind of balances out I guess.

I do like the style though, and I like the special ability, and it does wreck things. It's just that it's attack pattern doesn't really mesh for me yet.

[varicose 'vascular' vinny]

the good part is power sword activation rules still apply so if in doubt just power up and mash lights. your strikedowns have like 12 hitmass when powered up same as the vanguards. The Mk2 even lops the 2nd strikedown off the loop when you do L3 and then light attack again. My complaint is mainly that the charge and auto release period for the sprint heavy is so short. It lets you dash faster while doing it, and you can't slide or anything since you're just holding an attack and sprinting...so why not let me run a little more? Zealots leading the charge by the blade.

[xDaunt]

varicose 'vascular' vinny님이 먼저 게시:

the good part is power sword activation rules still apply so if in doubt just power up and mash lights. your strikedowns have like 12 hitmass when powered up same as the vanguards. The Mk2 even lops the 2nd strikedown off the loop when you do L3 and then light attack again. My complaint is mainly that the charge and auto release period for the sprint heavy is so short. It lets you dash faster while doing it, and you can't slide or anything since you're just holding an attack and sprinting...so why not let me run a little more? Zealots leading the charge by the blade.

Yeah, I agree about the charge/sprint attack. It is really finicky. It takes too long to pull the blade up. I also routinely mess up the attack by inadvertently doing a light attack instead of a heavy attack.

[Arc]

its slow so it sucka
knife/dueling sword still best