For fans of Fatshark’s Warhammer 40K Darktide, the new Hive Scum DLC is another welcome addition to the many customizable classes/kits already available for this game. So far, Darktide has The Veteran: A loyal soldier of the Astra Militarum. The Ogryn: A titan-sized abhuman that towers over other characters with their giant frame. The Zealot: Zealous warriors and fanatic worshipers of the Emperor. The Psyker: Distrusted mutants with the ability to utilize the power of the warp. The Arbites: The space FBI that enforces the laws (Lex Imperialus) of the Imperium throughout all the known worlds. Finally, the Hive Scum: Gangers and low-lifes that lurk among the nooks and crannies of Tertium and other hive cities throughout the Imperium of Man.
Initial Thoughts
Utilizing the Hive Scum class is not for the faint of heart. The class itself can output as much, if not more, damage than the Zealot in small bursts due to the use of personalized stims to yourself, and the new blitzes that it has access to. If you have a full team of Hive Scum that have separate builds that span their skill tree, you will definitely melt any heretics and monstrosities that the game throws at you. However, be warned that even though the Hive Scum can shell out a lot of damage, its toughness and damage negation leave one “found wanting”, as the saying goes. If you’re terrible at dodging, utilizing/understanding movement, and don’t know what curios to equip, you’re going to get downed a lot. You’re a literal glass cannon.
Talent Tree
Ever since Fatshark overhauled the skill trees for their other classes in a previous patch, they’ve learned their lessons in unique playability and applied this to the Hive Scum as well. The tree itself is well done, and the player can create many unique styles of Hive Scum. It’s possible to create a beefy style ganger with a bit of survivability with help from stim upgrades. If you prefer speed, then you can also build towards a more sleek class utilizing shivs and knives. You can also create a long-range “John Woo” style ganger and build towards blasting heretics with the dual-wielded pistols or SMGs unique to this class. As a player, make sure to read each point on the talent tree, so you can maximize the potential of the build you’re making. Access to the Stimm Lab build will also affect your builds; however, I’ll get into that later.
Powerful Blitzes
Currently, compared to the other classes, the blitzes for the Hive Scum are extremely powerful. You originally start off with the Blackout grenade that stuns and knocks back enemies within a small area. If you kill enough foes, the blitz counter will regenerate for the Blackout grenade, allowing you to use it continuously. It’s a great blitz if you don’t want to search for consumables in chests to refill your blitz.
The Hive Scum also has access to a missile launcher, renamed as the Boom Bringer. Mind you, you only have 3 of these rockets; however, you can inflict massive damage with these. I was able to take out a Chaos Spawn monstrosity with these 3 missiles if at least 1-2 of them crit. It’s a great damage payload if you need to get yourself or your team out of a difficult situation immediately. It will melt a group of Crushers and Maulers with one missile, so make sure your shots count.
The final blitz that the Hive Scum has access to is the Chem Grenade. This is one of the most powerful blitzes that have been added to the game. The grenade is an area-of-effect, similar to the Zealot’s Immolation Grenade. However, instead of fire, the Chem Grenade leaves a caustic mixture/chem toxin on the ground that causes enemies to explode if they stay in the pool long enough. I’ve seen entire hordes just explode into green pudding almost immediately once this grenade is used. It’s very effective in those tight moments when you’re about to be overrun by massive hordes.
Abilities and Keystones
Hive Scum are seen as unhinged on WH40K, so the abilities given to this class made sense and were actually really fun to play around with, in my humble opinion at least.
If you’ve got a ranged build, Enhanced Desperado is the ability you’d want to equip. Not only are you immune to long-range attacks during this mode, but sprinting also costs no stamina, and reloading does not deplete your ammo. Coupled with the ability to stay in this mode up to 20 seconds, depending on if you keep killing highlighted enemies, the area basically becomes a one-man shooting gallery for you. I wish the Veteran had this ability instead, though.
The Rampage ability is much more straightforward if you have a melee and survivability build. Much like Enhanced Desperado, the more strikes you make against enemies, the longer you stay in this mode. Also, this ability boosts your damage, speed, and damage negation, up to 30 seconds if you apply the extra talent points to extend it. This is a great ability to proc if you’re about to get downed and want your toughness to recoup asap. I’d say this is a faster version of the Arbites’ Castigation Stance.
The final ability is the Stimm Supply that the Hive Scum drops on the ground like a portable med-pack. This ability is actually pretty impressive. Not only can you heal corruption when this drops on the ground, but you can affect your teammates with whatever Stimm Lab point builds you’ve distributed. If you don’t spend any points in your Stimm Lab, then whatever stims you pick up, you can jab yourself with them first, then drop the Stimm Supply to disperse them to the rest of the team. Imagine sticking a combat stim into yourself, then dropping your Stimm Supply. Now, everyone in your Stimm Supply AoE will get increased damage output for a short time. It’s gimmicky, but it’s also pretty great if you know when and wear to use it.
Set Keystones will help boost the Hive Scum’s chosen abilities if that’s the build that you want. Vulture’s Mark will boost ranged kills, especially of elites and specials. Adrenaline Frenzy assists melee builds with critical hits. Coupled with Rampage, you become a serious damage output ganger with it. Chemical Dependancy allows a better ability cooldown and staying within a stimmed chem state.
Stimm Lab
Unique to the Hive Scum is a Stimm Lab tab for the character. In this lab, the ganger can create a cocktail mixture of passive abilities that they can jab themselves with occasionally in the game. There are 4 trees that you can spend your points on. You can go the Barrage route to increase toughness regeneration. There’s the Wildfire route that increases damage output. The Spur allows for faster attacks for the ganger. And finally, Kalma, which helps reduce cooldown for your abilities.
It’s entirely up to the player on how they want their Stimm Lab to affect their character. As I stated earlier, there’s also the option to not put any points into the Stimm Lab so that you can access the other stims within the level to utilize. Again, that’s all in the way you want to customize it for your gameplay.
Final Reaction
The Hive Scum is an incredibly fun class to play. Not only can you dress your character up to look like one of the War Boys from Mad Max, but you can be just as unhinged as those character tropes due to the build options at your fingertips. I loved the addition of the dual-wielded weapons, as I had been questioning that since Darktide was released initially. I guess in Dungeons and Dragons terms, I’d put the Hive Scum as the equivalent to the “rogue” class, albeit a rogue that constantly gets high on stims.
