Bleed damage

[Dreadnaught]

Is it even worth trying to use bleed? Been trying the knife with 12 stacks of bleed per hit and it still takes a *while* for things to die from it. Do bleed stacks ...stack? Or if my dagger does 12 stacks and I hit the target again does it just refresh it to 12? Bleed doesn't make much sense to me. I've hit a bulwark in the back 5-6 times and just waited to see how long it takes and it stops bleeding before dying lol.

Why waste time with that when I can take flat damage instead? I can't think of a situation where bleed is going to be better than just killing something in as much time as it takes to apply the bleeds.

[Ravs]

Zealot has synergy with bleed. There's a talent in the upper right side of the tree that gives 30% crit as long as you keep hitting bleeding enemies. More crits means more damage overall and more damage reduction from the other talent next to it. Crits, bleed and damage reduction are the things that make Zealot strong, other than his oneshot protection from undying talent.

On Ogryn bleed is the main source of their crowd control. Without it, the Ogryn is much weaker against multiple enemies, because only the first few targets get full damage from an attack. Also it has synergy with one of their best Ogryn talents, which is 8% damage reduction per bleeding enemy, stacks 4 times I think? On Havoc I've seen Ogryns reach 2 million damage, most of which can be attributed to bleed stacks.

On Veteran it's kinda useless, the talent that gives bleed stacks on melee hits is severely underpowered. It doesn't bring much to the table.

[Ravs]

Also there's a nice explanation on how bleed stacks work in this thread: https://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/bleed-explained/83424/9

[❛❛Vénttea❜❜]

Originally posted by Ravs:

On Veteran it's kinda useless, the talent that gives bleed stacks on melee hits is severely underpowered. It doesn't bring much to the table.

This couldn't be more wrong. Veteran has the strongest bleed DMG out of all the classes and it is the main reason why it a meta pick for Havoc runs, especially Shredder grenades.

As for serrated blade, it synergizes the best with Knife because of Mercy Killer and free bleed on ANY melee weapon without any conditions is nice, mainly Uncanny Shovel. Optional but nice, so it definitely does bring to the table. As for why it has the strognest bleed, it has 6-7 main sources that buffs it, notably Shredder Grenades. Since you bleed so often, you give bleed benefits to Ogryn and Zealots for free.

[Ravs]

Originally posted by ❛❛Vénttea❜❜:

Originally posted by Ravs:

On Veteran it's kinda useless, the talent that gives bleed stacks on melee hits is severely underpowered. It doesn't bring much to the table.

This couldn't be more wrong. Veteran has the strongest bleed DMG out of all the classes and it is the main reason why it a meta pick for Havoc runs, especially Shredder grenades.

As for serrated blade, it synergizes the best with Knife because of Mercy Killer and free bleed on ANY melee weapon without any conditions is nice, mainly Uncanny Shovel. Optional but nice, so it definitely does bring to the table. As for why it has the strognest bleed, it has 6-7 main sources that buffs it, notably Shredder Grenades. Since you bleed so often, you give bleed benefits to Ogryn and Zealots for free.

I meant the talent when I've said useless. Dunno why I forgot about Shredders, I guess I only thought about talents that work at any time.

You can build around Mercy Killer at the cost of two tax nodes (if you're getting Shredders) and deadicated blessing that only works on weakspot hits on the target that already bleeds, but it's not ideal. The damage difference is negligible.

I've tested this talent in Havoc 40, it barely adds anything to your melee. Marksman, Superioty Complex, Bring it Down and Desperado give way more bang for your buck.

[Gamerzilla]

Weird, because I love melee Veteran with Folding shovel. Despite rarely firing my weapon (Heavy Las for sniping), about half my damage for the run is ranged damage. I can only assume this is bleed from cleaving hordes.

[❛❛Vénttea❜❜]

Originally posted by Ravs:

Originally posted by ❛❛Vénttea❜❜:

This couldn't be more wrong. Veteran has the strongest bleed DMG out of all the classes and it is the main reason why it a meta pick for Havoc runs, especially Shredder grenades.

As for serrated blade, it synergizes the best with Knife because of Mercy Killer and free bleed on ANY melee weapon without any conditions is nice, mainly Uncanny Shovel. Optional but nice, so it definitely does bring to the table. As for why it has the strognest bleed, it has 6-7 main sources that buffs it, notably Shredder Grenades. Since you bleed so often, you give bleed benefits to Ogryn and Zealots for free.

I meant the talent when I've said useless. Dunno why I forgot about Shredders, I guess I only thought about talents that work at any time.

You can build around Mercy Killer at the cost of two tax nodes (if you're getting Shredders) and deadicated blessing that only works on weakspot hits on the target that already bleeds, but it's not ideal. The damage difference is negligible.

I've tested this talent in Havoc 40, it barely adds anything to your melee. Marksman, Superioty Complex, Bring it Down and Desperado give way more bang for your buck.

That's fair. I was skeptical whether you meant the talent or bleed on Vet as a whole. With that clarification we are definitely on the same page except serrated.

As for the talents you mentioned, yes they give way more if your desired build requires them, but Serrated Blade does one thing better than all of them put together and that is saving point costs and being a good compromise with no conditions. The main Veterans that benefit from such point costs are the ones mostly going from the right hand tree and arent exactly going for breakpoints.

I also used serrated on Havoc 40 and it does whats it is intended and as you said, its negligible. Because of that, I saved 3 skills points over 1 to make up the difference from ever going near the bottom left tree. Plus, must breakpoints are weakspots, so its ideal unless you're specifically going for a straight bleed build and not a Hybrid. However this is just knife. Its nice on Shovel and stupid on Duelling Sword/Power Sword if the enemies are inches from Death, Hordes or fighting Monstrosities in general.

[Ravs]

Originally posted by ❛❛Vénttea❜❜:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3468384844

Havoc 40 with melee-focused Veteran. Power Sword/Agripina revolver.

When I've tested Serrated with Power Sword, I barely noticed any difference between running it and not running it. I felt like 20% more damage on weakspot hits talent is actually better talent in most situations, both bosses and horde clear, and it doesn't have tax nodes. Of course you can get both 20% weakspot and bleed but in that case you might lose other valuable universal talents or keystones that work both on ranged and melee.

Even with the bleed talent, buffed orange hordes required the same amount of hits, and on bosses it doesn't add much damage, most of the damage still comes from push attack combo.

I mean, since it requires getting 10% melee damage node, and then you get bleed on top of it, surely it should buff melee more than other talents? Well, not in my personal experience.

[❛❛Vénttea❜❜]

Originally posted by Ravs:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3468384844

Havoc 40 with melee-focused Veteran. Power Sword/Agripina revolver.

When I've tested Serrated with Power Sword, I barely noticed any difference between running it and not running it. I felt like 20% more damage on weakspot hits talent is actually better talent in most situations, both bosses and horde clear, and it doesn't have tax nodes. Of course you can get both 20% weakspot and bleed but in that case you might lose other valuable universal talents or keystones that work both on ranged and melee.

Even with the bleed talent, buffed orange hordes required the same amount of hits, and on bosses it doesn't add much damage, most of the damage still comes from push attack combo.

I mean, since it requires getting 10% melee damage node, and then you get bleed on top of it, surely it should buff melee more than other talents? Well, not in my personal experience.

That is quite fair. Though I will admit, my experience with Power Sword in Havoc is rather limited since I do really hate powering it up after every multiple swings. With Shovel or Knife it is noticeable when I am hard squeezing for points from taking mostly the middle and right tree. Though that is just me or some vets I met that goes into a more supportive role down the middle with weap spec.

[Combine00]

Originally posted by Ravs:

Originally posted by ❛❛Vénttea❜❜:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3468384844

Havoc 40 with melee-focused Veteran. Power Sword/Agripina revolver.

When I've tested Serrated with Power Sword, I barely noticed any difference between running it and not running it. I felt like 20% more damage on weakspot hits talent is actually better talent in most situations, both bosses and horde clear, and it doesn't have tax nodes. Of course you can get both 20% weakspot and bleed but in that case you might lose other valuable universal talents or keystones that work both on ranged and melee.

Even with the bleed talent, buffed orange hordes required the same amount of hits, and on bosses it doesn't add much damage, most of the damage still comes from push attack combo.

I mean, since it requires getting 10% melee damage node, and then you get bleed on top of it, surely it should buff melee more than other talents? Well, not in my personal experience.

i did a terrible melee based vet a while ago on old havoc 40 here: https://youtu.be/-IWTkH8FuYg?si=4eT3H7UnwDOdNYXE&t=2771

the results? serrated is so beyond terrible on power sword, "total bleed damage" accounted for 15.2k damage, out of 885.8k of total damage (1.7% of total damage) and 686.2k melee damage (2.2% of melee damage). the extra points used to get to serrated are better used on literally anything else. so when you say you dont notice a difference? its because there is virtually no difference at all.

for power sword at least, usually you kill the thing before you can bleed stack or let bleed do damage, but you also hit a lot of enemies so you would apply it to a lot of enemies which you might think would be great with reducing subsequent target damage, but its still not even noticeable. what the heck

the build sucks for sure because i wanted base ammo aura to double stack them, but theres no amount of good talents that would be able to support serrated in such a way to make it worth the points getting to and selecting it. but practically my damage is similar to everyone else, and some games i had highest damage. the damage output of the build is almost completely unaffected by serrated, but was definitely gimped by not having shout, attack speed, and a lot of bottom right talents

[Ravs]

Originally posted by Combine00:

i did a terrible melee based vet a while ago on old havoc 40 here: https://youtu.be/-IWTkH8FuYg?si=4eT3H7UnwDOdNYXE&t=2771

the results? serrated is so beyond terrible on power sword, "total bleed damage" accounted for 15.2k damage, out of 885.8k of total damage (1.7% of total damage) and 686.2k melee damage (2.2% of melee damage). the extra points used to get to serrated are better used on literally anything else. so when you say you dont notice a difference? its because there is virtually no difference at all.

the build sucks for sure because i wanted base ammo aura to double stack them, but theres no amount of good talents that would be able to support serrated in such a way to make it worth the points getting to and selecting it. for power sword at least, usually you kill the thing before you can bleed stack or let bleed do damage, but you also hit a lot of enemies so you would apply it to a lot of enemies which you might think would be great with reducing subsequent target damage, but its still not even noticeable. what the heck

Thanks for sharing.

To be fair, I dislike playing melee Veteran, no matter the weapon, but I still do it for variety sake. I think that even PS build which some consider utterly broken (I don't) is like playing discount Zealot or even Ogryn now.

Power Sword is fun in a sense that you can run it on Havoc 40 and use it against the majority of enemies. But it's not fun to spam special activation while you're surrounded, because the weapon is not usable otherwise. You also get punished way more for your mistakes in melee than Ogryn or Zealot.

[Mini]

For Zealot with the Scourge ability and Ogryn with his heavies apply bleed skill; I’d say yeah.

For everyone else… meh.

[MrHugz]

In general, bleeds are pretty weak DoTs in comparison to something like soul blaze and burn, but they're extremely easy to apply. For Vet, two shredder grenades will apply 12 stacks of bleed to everything in radius (not to mention lethal proximity on Bistol buffs shredder radius). Zealot and Ogryn have some synergy with bleed, but from the Vet perspective you'd take bleeds on a weapon if you needed some extra boss damage for sustained DPS, like flesh tearer on knife. You could use precog or riposte, but these won't always proc if the boss isn't focusing you.

Also, serrated blade and mercy killer is not worth the point investment. If you're going to the right size of the tree, you're better off grabbing agile engagement and use Uncanny + FT/Precog/Riposte on the knife for overall better performance.

[minecraftshep]

It's important to use bleed with the uncanny strike blessing if you want to do anything. Make them bleed, then hit them in the head to activate the rending. Bleed damage goes way up, and you can keep attacking while they lose hp per second.

[Vinyltavia]

Originally posted by Ravs:

Zealot has synergy with bleed. There's a talent in the upper right side of the tree that gives 30% crit as long as you keep hitting bleeding enemies. More crits means more damage overall and more damage reduction from the other talent next to it. Crits, bleed and damage reduction are the things that make Zealot strong, other than his oneshot protection from undying talent.

On Ogryn bleed is the main source of their crowd control. Without it, the Ogryn is much weaker against multiple enemies, because only the first few targets get full damage from an attack. Also it has synergy with one of their best Ogryn talents, which is 8% damage reduction per bleeding enemy, stacks 4 times I think? On Havoc I've seen Ogryns reach 2 million damage, most of which can be attributed to bleed stacks.

On Veteran it's kinda useless, the talent that gives bleed stacks on melee hits is severely underpowered. It doesn't bring much to the table.

Mercy killer is a hot pick if you take the bleed talent without needing a bleed blessing on knives giving more room for potential on veterans

[Donut Steel]

Originally posted by Gamerzilla:

Weird, because I love melee Veteran with Folding shovel. Despite rarely firing my weapon (Heavy Las for sniping), about half my damage for the run is ranged damage. I can only assume this is bleed from cleaving hordes.

You are playing the game sub-optimally, which is the intended experience(and is objectively correct philosophically).

Edit: Also OP, Crit-heavy Psyker builds, partly at least because I assume Bleed intervals work the same way as Soulflame does.

1. They stack damage slowly with each stack increment, but it's exponential growth at something like a x1.60 : I don't remember the exact modifier.

2. Critical/Weakspot hits give a double-stack, which synergise backwards and forwards across the efficiency of all stacks.

3. Can trigger either physical or warp damage-based based effects, because most restrictions are based on methods such as melee/ranged or attack-fired/attack-hit. Some of your misses were going to be Crits, so it's okay to not focus on Weakspot; it's just nice when it happens.

4. There has been debate about if DoT instances that Crit contribute a stack of their own type, and I have no idea if it definitively concluded either way, but assume it doesn't: if the strongest enemies in the game appear to take most damage from DoTs due to Crits, it's good enough.