I would love to see them in, and it would sure add flavor to the Chaos faction, but how would they be implemented? IF they were implemented how would they work? Personally it would be cool to see them as a class on their own. Fragile jack of all trades with the ability to sacrifice themselves in a kamikaze attack, or heal all allies around him. They wouldn't have a respawn timer to compensate for their very high fragility. They could equip a wide variety of weapons such as auto guns, grenade launchers, and an assortment of melee weapons.
I would expect them to be a lot shorter than everyone else, in addition they probably wouldn't have a downed state as pretty much every weapon we're packing would gib them. I'd love to see cultists too, I'd guess they'd be an 'insignificant' class that can cap points, move around undetected, probably take grenade launchers or shotguns for some flavour? And if fighting alongside a chaos marine within x or so metres they get a teensy damage buff because of their fervour?
they might be added when daemons are added so we can sacrifice them to the Dark Gods to summon daemons.
I've seen this discussed so many times through the course of EC's development. The bottom line is that they want all the players to be playing model-types that are approximately equivalent in power (disregarding the Mary-sue'ing that Space marines get by some writers). A standard military human is like paper tissue when stood next to the existing races. An Imperial guardsman, or equivalent Chaos cultist, does not stand much of a chance against either type of Space Marine, Orks or Eldar. Space marines are vastly superior in physique and equipment, Orks are unaturally tough and regenerative and Eldar are inhumanly fast and agile. A human, even an elite military soldier, requires pretty much blind luck to be able to combat a member of the existing playable factions (especially since Eldar have aspect warriors playable rather than just guardians). For this reason I think we are unlikely to see the majority of the other races as playable. I think they are more likely to appear as PvE enemies, much like gaunts are now, or cannon fodder NPC's in PvP if the client can ever handle that sort of thing. We saw cultists as weaker enemies in Space Marine. I imagine it would be cool to see something similar in EC, but that's definitely years away. Vice versa, I don't think we are likely to see certain sub-factions as base classes. People keep screaming for grey-knights but they have been Mary-sue'd so hard that they are considered "more powerful than even a normal space marine" or whatever. They will have to be an elite choice of some sort. Daemons are a possible. They should be roughly equal in power to the existing playable classes, if I'm not mistaken... At least they used to be when the old maned bloodletters existed. I imagine they would be a limited resource for Chaos.
Who would want to play as a cultist? there squishy and have shit weapons, if they were put in the game they should be controlled by AI and get killed by the dozens by the player.
I'm inanely attracted to playing something underpowered and killing better players with them. Suicide cultists sounds like a blast. But no, it's been talked about with IG, eldar guardians, real ork boyz, gretchins, and the like. We can't do quality over quantity (no it doesn't work with AI), and there's enough balance issues as is. This is a talk for much farther down the road.
They could actually be implemented, as a form of suicide bombing. Allow me to explain. The standard cultist is comparatively very weak to the races we have at our disposal at the moments. They'd be shredded by Eldar weapons, or reduced to a pulp if being hit by Space Marine or Ork weapons. equipped with some form of small arms (Autogun, shotgun, grenade launcher), or one heavy weapon (Well, for a human.) in the form of a rocket launcher, that fires once in a blast that can severely injure a Space Marine or Ork, and an Eldar caught in the blast. They also have a ceremonial knife, though it can't even clash with knives of the four main races. What would be special about them, however, is if they got an ability, where they stabbed themselves with their knives, spread their arms, and cried out to the Dark Gods, float up in the air, and explode, summoning a daemon in their place, which can only exist for a set amount of time before disappearing, as it loses fuel from the cultist's life essence. Type of Daemon is decided by a free Mark every cultist has. Thoughts? (PS: The only guardsmen we could have would be overpowered compared to the four main races. Catachans can solo Ork Warbosses.)
Aside from balance issues , I see no reason not to at least allow someone to play a weaker class. It just adds satisfaction to a kill, kind of like David and Goliath story. If we really need to limit them, instead of having them as a normal class we could always make the dark apostle a living spawn point where players can spawn in as a cultist to quickly support the area. As for their fragility, that is their strength. It gives strong slow hitting character something to worry about as cultists could just swarm the guy and kill him. Melee is also not ideal knowing that the cultists can just explode in your face, probably not killing you but taking a chunk of life. Cultists could arguably take a shot or two since they are fueled by chaos or have mutations that strengthened their body. I can see daemon summing be a viable strategy in this form. A coven of cultists suicide and breach into a room while chaos marines follow behind to clean up. Perhaps they can gain more time by killing enemies. Speaking of guardsmen would love to see their heretic counter parts, especially a heretic commissar, but that's more lost and the damned.
Let's not forget that they'd give diminished kill XP due to their weakness, meaning tearing through a horde of them would take time and energy for little gain. In that way, they'd be performing their primary task-Slowing you down. I don't see autoguns or shotguns doing much damage, but they could certainly whittle you down or prey on people with broken armour.
