An alternative to the Psyker Quell Situation

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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TL;DR at the bottom.

It’s no secret by now that the bug fix that corrected non-force weapons quelling at high speed has been met with a mixed response. Most people either want high speed passive quell back or just want people to learn to play around it. Both those arguments have some merit, but I frankly find both of them boring. I’d like to offer an alternative that puts the option into the player’s hands. For reference, I play a psyker using a surge staff and a chainsword for headcanon purposes. A friend plays a force sword and kantrael lasgun build. My proposed option benefits both, as well as the bizarre double-not-force-weapons player.

Simply put, make increased passive quell while wielding non-force weapons a feat. By preference I’d replace Mind In Motion at level 20 as the name already kinda fits and I personally find the effect it has to be not worth considering. If the balance is thrown off too much by having non-force weapons vent at max speed then use a medium speed between max and minimum, but give those oddball psykers that use an axe or an autogun an option to build around that fact. If that decision is taken it means that a force weapon is still the premier method of quelling quickly, and that a slower but still viable approach exists while allowing you to engage enemies with a non-force weapon.

Lastly, yes I was a battle wizard tranquility main.

TL;DR: Replace a feat (preferably Mind In Motion) with one that causes faster venting on non-force weapons so people can choose to play the class that way if they wish.

4 Likes
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i have another suggestion, do not replace anything just buff that psyker passive “battle meditation” to lets say 25-30% and we are good.

P.S. Honestly i am an axe user and dont have much problems playing. Skill issue for all the people who crying.

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Not a bad idea. Or they could just revert the ‘fix’.

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I’m getting really frustrated with a lot of the people who are defending the nerf.

If you thought passive quell was overpowered and warranted a nerf I’m fine with that, but I’ve noticed a lot of users defending it for other reasons. I’ve noticed 3 main schools of thought among those people.

Group 1: Psyker players shouldn’t be using anything but force weapons anyway.

I really don’t agree with this argument. Although I understand that a lot of players choose Psyker for their staff gameplay, Psyker has 1 force sword, and 14 other melee weapons. So even if you only count staff-based builds, this update was a major nerf to 93% of Psyker’s staff-based builds. I think Psyker should be more than just 4 staves and a sword. But I can only conclude that that’s all these players want out of Psyker, and that they’re happy their build got a miniscule buff, even at the expense of every other potential Psyker build.

Group 2: The nerf wasn’t really that bad and anyone unhappy about it is just bad at the game.

These players really grind my gears. Either they’re happy that Psyker was nerfed, in which case their arguments are perfectly valid in my eyes, even though I disagree, or they’re defending the nerf because it lets them claim to be better at the game than those who are unhappy. If you aren’t just
looking for an excuse to gloat, what are you doing on the forums telling others they suck at the game? Do you not also have a reason to be unhappy? If the nerf doesn’t affect you, why are you on the forums arguing when you could be doing literally anything else?

Group 3: The nerf was was not a nerf because it came in the form bug-fix.

Even if it was a bug fix (Which from what I can tell, is what it was supposed to be.), that bug fix resulted in a major reduction in effectiveness for the vast majority of Psyker’s builds. The fact that FatShark thought it reasonable to implement such a bug-fix without first telling players that the mechanic was a bug, nor providing justification for the change, nor implementing an equivalent buff to rectify the dramatic reduction in build variety isn’t something worth defending in my eyes.

Feel free to prove me otherwise, but I’m fed up of people defending the quell nerf without giving a argument other than “Git gud.”

6 Likes
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Anything to give us a reason to run anything but Purg+FS.

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i am from Group 2 i guess :DDD
Anyways, i can just say that: its not a nerf for me. I count something a nerf when its significantly affects my gameplay in a negative way. But in current situation i just cant say that, yes its a bit uncomfortable bcuz u need to switch weapons back and forth more, yes u need to be more careful with your perils but thats it.
Nothing super critical happened, and perils are still absolutely manageable. At least for me…
P.S. i am on forums bcuz its a forums and if i have an opinion about something i pretty sure i have a right to vocalize it…

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I’m really grateful for your tone as well as your ideas.

I think that a lot of players have been taking mine and the complaints of other users as a personal affront, and maybe have been taking the stances they have less because they’re happy with the nerf and more because they want to express the ways in which they enjoy Psyker, and they feel the zeitgeist takes away from that.

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I think that it would be balanced if it had a 100% chance to quell 10% on any melee kill. This would give non-force melee an edge over the FS simply due to their better killing power, without taking too mich away from the force sword, and it would allow the quietude interaction to work without giving Psyker the abolity to regenerate 50% toughness whenever they want.

Edit: 100% chance to quell 10% on any non-warp kill would make for some neat ranged weapon interactions as well.

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that would be a bit too much, i am already suggested it somewhere, but i will repeat myself here if they will buff “battle meditation” passive from 10% to lets say 25-30% that would be more then enough in my opinion.
Also in my mind psyker actually should have an appeal to FS instead of other weapons, bcuz… well he is psyker. :DD
I wish FS had wide light loop combo to shred through hordes instead of its original moveset that would be my favorite beast of a weapon. :slight_smile:

P.S. i still hope that they will add different force weapon types to the psyker kit.

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I’m not sure what part was intended to be directed at me, but for the record:

In my eyes it was a bug fix, Fatshark was fixing a malfunction in their game. It was also a nerf, as knowingly or not Fatshark reduced the efficacy of the psyker when using a wide range of the equipment available to them.

Whether or not this bugfix-nerf was a good thing is up to personal interpretation. I am personally unhappy with it, but understand that its previous state was not intended. As a result I find the third option that puts the choice in the player’s hands the preferable solution.

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My thought was that the 100% chance would apply to the force sword as well. But I understand if you think that would be OP, I was thinking it would be a good way to buff Psyker overall while still providing an incentive for Psykers to run non-force weapons should they so choose.

Edit: Essentially, I’d like for a more reliable version of Battle meditaion that applies to everything but the staves so that non-force weapons become a reliable way to quell peril.

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I’m in the camp that believes it was stupid for non force weapons to passively vent perils near as fast as an 80% Quell Speed staff doing a manual quell.

The best solution is for the Psyker to be able to Quell with whatever weapon is in their hand.

Remove Quell Speed as a stat from weapons and make a basline percentile per second quell rate that BB, Melee, Guns and Staves all have access to.
Alternately, have Quell Speed on Force Weapons only apply to the passive rate that peril vents out.

If using a gun, tapping reload would reload the gun as normal or hold reload to Quell.

Remove the movespeed penalty (No sprinting during Quell though, Same as a reload action) and have Mind in Motion switched to enhance active Quell Speeds.

With the above, Psykers aren’t railroaded into Force Weapons to Quell at a decent rate nor are they railroaded into a non force weapon because the passive quell speed outperforms actively quelling.

We can then use whatever combination of weapons we want and still feel like a Psyker.

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Brainburst counts as non warp damage.
So you would create the small issue of allowing players to brainburst endlessly.
Iirc, soulblaze also does not count as warp damage.

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good point, I suppose “Anything but staves, soulblaze, or brainburst” is the most eloquent way to word that idea.