Darktide has many random stats with no real explanation, and the Impact Stat is causing bother. The Darktide Impact stat is simply a rule that means stagger, which is the word used in the other Tide games. All that means is that Impact boosts the potential stagger that enemies can take.

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Here is a closer look at what the Darktide Impact stat means. Background image via Fatshark, weapon roll via Darktide Discord.

What is Impact in Darktide?¶

Throughout the game, players will notice that certain enemies when it hits an enemy, can cause a stagger to some enemies and not to some others. For example, one of the weapons with the highest stagger chances are maces, which hit hard, and can knock enemies off balance. Other high-impact weapons are the Battle Maul and Slab Shield, while the flamethrowers, when using heavy amounts of it can force enemies, back similar to the flame throw used by the maniac flamer enemies.

Moreso, there are ways to modify the amount of impact your weapons can do. There are currently three known Blessings we have managed to source through the community Discord, which include the following Blessings:

• Thunderstrike: Target receives 1-4 stack of +5% impact if already staggered. Lasts 5 seconds. (CC chaining enemies)
• Trauma: 5-10% impact bonus for 2 seconds on repeated Hit. Stacks 5 times. (knockdown momentum builder)
• Hammerblow: Percentage impact bonus for 1.5 seconds on hit. Stacks 5 times. (For building attacks to eventually knockdown sturdy enemies.)

The biggest indicator this Impact affects the quality of your staggering is via the Thunderstrike blessing. The impact stat directly correlates with the already staggered enemies, meaning that this will likely amplify those chain CC moments, unless an enemy becomes uninterruptable, another stat in the game that resists stagger, and therefore impact.

Another great synergy with this is the Skullcrusher blessing, which increases damage, stacking three times, if you hit enemies already staggered. The idea is to get weapons with high stagger, increase it with impact, and then continuously apply damage stacks based on your amplifying CC tools. Zealots also get increased impact on three target cleave through a potential feat choice they can select. This combination appear on the Ogryn’s shield, for example. Meanwhile, the Zealot can find this on their Thunder Hammer blessings too.

In addition, Impact is much more valuable in fighting enemies that are bigger. For example, Maniacs and Unyielding-themed enemies are much tougher to stagger, compared to your Scab, Dreg and Infested enemies, which topple over really easy. Getting the chance to stagger one of those enemies with your increased impact stat is very viable for crowd-controlling even the toughest enemies in the game. It’s something you way want to consider if you’re running into mission in higher difficulties, along with the missions with the higher specialist frequency as the condition modifier.

There’s some numbers we need to run before we can properly go into detail on formula, but for now, this is general rundown on what you can expect with the Impact stat and its synergies in the game.