How Does Cleave Work in Warhammer 40K: Darktide? – Answered

Warhammer 40K: Darktide’s weapons have several stats that you have to take into consideration. Fire rate, reload speed, swing speed, and both light and heavy attacks are all stats you have to consider when using your custom loadout. Part of this is the difference between both single-target damage and cleave damage, though some people tend to be tripped up by the latter. Here’s how cleave works in Warhammer 40K: Darktide.

What is Cleave in Darktide?

As you saw earlier, we compared both single-target damage and cleave damage. That’s because they’re two sides of the same coin. Single-target damage obviously refers to damage against a single target enemy, while cleave refers to damage against multiple targets in a single melee swing. Some good examples of weapons that focus on cleave damage include the Devil’s Claw sword, Power Sword, and Battle Maul.

Cleave does house some rather unique properties to consider though. Each weapon’s Cleave Targets and Cleave Damage affect how many targets that weapon can cleave, alongside how much damage the weapon will do beyond the initial target. While Cleave Damage generally isn’t changeable on a weapon beyond stat increases, Cleave Targets does have a select few ways to be modified. One great example is Ogryn’s level 25 feat Knife Through Butter, which removes the maximum targets you can cleave on fully charged heavy attacks.

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Cleave has varying levels of use in different classes. Ogryn can cleave with nearly every melee weapon in his arsenal, while other classes tend to have a few cleave weapons with mostly single-target (think the difference between the Veteran’s Power Sword and the Chainsword). Ideally, you want to bring a melee weapon focused on cleave if your ranged weapon focuses on single-target damage (i.e. low fire rate, high damage per bullet). If you’re running the Boltgun on Zealot, for example, you’ll want a cleave melee weapon while running the Flamer means it would be wasteful. Plus come on, who doesn’t want to run the Thunder Hammer all the way?