If you drifted away from Darktide because it frontloaded all the most fun stuff into its opening hours, Patch 13 might be the one that makes you come back. Fatshark has posted a deep dive into the talent trees in advance of the class overhaul coming on October 4, and they include some pretty neat powers. Each of the classes is getting a tree that branches across three broad archetypes, with plenty of opportunities to bounce between and differentiate within them as you level up.
Ogryns in particular get some dramatic new options. As demonstrated in the video above, one of the ogryn’s blitz abilities lets them “Throw an Ogryn-sized (the only proper kind!) frag grenade with a 16m blast radius, dealing increased Damage at the centre.” Ogryns can also choose the Bombs Away! ability for single-target damage, or the Big Friendly Rock if you don’t think your ogryn should be trusted with explosives.
Psykers are also getting some visually distinct new abilities. While still able to play as the brain-burster if you like, they can also specialize into bio-lightning that spreads between enemies or homing projectiles that look like sharpened chunks of warpstone, and let you play a telekine like Patience Kys from the 40K novels. Those are the three blitz abilities, but there’s an interesting combat ability called Telekine Shield that throws up barriers to block enemy fire, which you and your allies can shoot through freely.
My first love the veteran apparently gets the most flexible talent tree, “where zig-zagging across the different lanes is not just an option but encouraged.” Veterans can hop between support abilities if you want to play a military commander and commando options for more of a stealth/melee flavor. Interestingly, they’re the one class that doesn’t have keystone abilities to cap off the trees, presumably to encourage more of that zigging and zagging. No standing still in the Imperial Guard.
Finally, zealots are no longer pure melee specialists, but can also branch out into buffs and support abilities, waving holy relics while granting allies temporary invulnerability and stun immunity as well as refilling toughness. Melee remains a solid choice, however. “On the other side of the tree we just went full stabbing”, Fatshark explains. “We made a stealth and backstabby talent tree that leans into those tropes, fully equipped with throwing knives you can quickthrow while wielding any weapon”.
After all that tinkering with the crafting systems, it’s great to have a patch that’ll address the class abilities. Maybe we’ll hear about getting some more story missions after this? Fingers crossed.
