Assail is overtuned (again)

[alwaysoveronepointow]

With the latest patch the Assail became overtuned again. It was never a bad Blitz to begin with, but it has been consistently buffed in an indirect way through Disrupt Destiny, Scrier’s Gaze and other Psyker tree improvements which made it a viable thing to run as a main weapon even in Damnation.

With the latest buff it’s not just viable in Damnation as a main weapon, it is in fact great. It can easily down Gunners and Shotgunners in 3 unaimed hits, 4 for Ragers. With crits involved that is brought down to 2 and 2-3, respectively. One can easily dispatch a group of 8-12 Gunners/Shotgunners/Ragers just by dumping Assail left clicks.

This is not fine, or at least shouldn’t be on difficulty as high as Damnation. There are more powerful options certainly but those are either not as spammable (eg. Rumbler for Ogryn) or require at least a modicum of skill or attention (eg. Plasma Gun, Voidstrike Staff). Unaimed assail dumping has both of those qualities and can be spammed for the entire mission with no repercussions at all.

A bit of personal experience with new players

I feel this is even more so a problem at lower difficulties such as Heresy. And sure enough game shouldn’t be balanced around those as a general rule but this is kind of an outlier that does result in an issue - players won’t feel the pressure to improve themselves when they can get this kind of result with so little skill involved.

I’ve been trying to get a few friends into Darktide over the course of the past year and the Assail has stuck out to me as an actual problem here - when they saw newcomers with similar skill to theirs raking in all the kills easily when they’re struggling to keep up with the pace even at Heresy, they turned their attention to it. Some of them are now glued to Assail and, surely enough, can’t hold their own in Damnation the moment there’s an issue Assail spam doesn’t immediately resolve. And I can’t really blame them - on Damnation Assail isn’t really that common, but on Heresy (where we usually play since they can somewhat keep up the pace there) it’s semi-prevalent and they’re faced with either having to slowly grind their way through the normal weapons and having little fun until that point or just running Assail again which lets them be effective already.

The amount of skill needed for that kind of result is just too low and obviously not healthy for the game in the long run. The aimed shot is fine since it cannot be just spammed mindlessly, (besides I almost never see it used nowadays). Assail’s unaimed attack should be either nerfed or reworked to require more involvement (perhaps allowing better skill expression in the process as well).

[MixedLetters]

Unfortunately, the game is designed around havoc now, so honestly Assail needs another buff tbh as it’s completely useless at havoc 40 so please buff. /s

But yeah, I will say, at Auric Damnation Assail feels ‘perfect’ to me, so I’m a bit unsure how to go about touching it up for lower difficulties. At Auric Damantion, there’s enough enemy spam that you can’t just use assail as a main weapon, and you even mention in the dropdown that even in Damnation by itself if the Psyker isn’t good, they’ll still just drop as soon as Assail doesn’t solve their problems. So it’s hard for me to say it’s broken, and I love the fantasy of it a lot (melting entire waves with lucky Empowered Psionic procs and killing shotgunners/ragers is a satisfaction that I really don’t want to see go away), but it’s a similar design space as smite with more reward, so it’s kinda a tough call.

I feel maybe a way to ‘hit it’ would be to either augment it’s damage based on difficulty (so more ‘unaimed’ shots are needed on lower difficulties, so you get more the same effect you get in Auric Damnation where you ‘blow your load’ then have to actually play the game for a bit as you recharge, verses being able to just click and kill everything). Or, you limit the amount of assails you get based on difficulty. So at Malice and below you get like 3-5, Herasy you get 6 or 7, Damnation you get 8, and finally in Auric+ you get the full 10. Means you ‘hit the floor’ a lot faster, and get that same gameplay loop of it being a tool to pull out like a grenade, and not a ‘always on’ wave melter that completely removes your need to think.

Cause an upgraded Shredder grenade will do similar work to Assail, especially if one tosses two. But a veteran gets those every 60 seconds, a Psyker gets it every few seconds. And sure it takes 3 to drop most things while not aiming, but with Warp Splitting those 3 also killed the whole wave, so best to limit the amount, or scale the damage, both based off difficulty I’d say.

Cause I really don’t want to lose assails viability in Auric Damantion (it just got back to being useful man don’t take this away from me ) but it is one of those ‘smitkr’ things that’s like ‘ohh, I see you have not actaully learned how to play the game, laying there on the floor calling out for assistance in the middle of a mauler horde’.

[Mindgoblin90]

i dont really think its overtuned like you can accomplish the same thing with the inferno staff while also being immune to ranged attacks and being able to kill maulers if anything it gives the force staffs and scriers gaze more of a chance to be good because those things need the help

[alwaysoveronepointow]

It’s a Blitz, it shouldn’t perform the role of a main weapon even on regular Damnation. And the problem is how mindless you can be with it to get the results. All that needs to be done is for the unaimed attack to be tweaked - it has to be either significantly weaker (damage or cleave reduction would suffice) or involve a sensible amount of skill (by eg. having it follow the cursor like missiles from Hurricane in DRG). Aimed shots are just fine the way they are, the damage is alright and it involves a sensible amount of skill.

As it is right now, the thing makes the experience for new players terrible. I witnessed it myself back when it was added, now I have to witness it again as it makes games with my newcomer friends miserable.

[alwaysoveronepointow]

Not even comparable. Staves and Scrier’s Gaze are immensely powerful - in fact, Scrier’s Gaze is likely Psyker’s best Ability at the moment (aside from Havoc perhaps). And they still need more attention/skill to pull off the same thing unaimed Assail spam does.

[MarxistDictator]

Dunno, it is impossible to run with the goof ass psyker coherency and indiscriminate to elite/special cooldown skill. That’s like -50 to even the good builds right side, so skills like that and malefic tune hard. But to get real value from it you need to invest more points in that could be very strong elsewhere on psyker. Like the +1 cleave and peril cleave, which it honestly doesn’t feel very powerful without. I think its just more stars lining up kinda thing where the brutal momentum effect of range attacks cleave-killing things is a bit too much. Because one random crit dart headshot after the other weakened dart glanced like 3 shotgunners will kill them, without EP.

[Horticulture]

people are using it on havoc 40 now which means it’s balanced to where they want it to be. i think it must become public knowledge that fatshark balances around h40 now, so that normal players can tell them this is ruining the rest of the game that isn’t a niche challenge sidemode.
scriers buffs also have been extreme and overpowering the non niche challenge gamemode difficulties hard

[ramrod_ikarus]

Just roll with it, psykers have all the op stuff: infinite flamers/ infinite stun tools/ magical op swords… We got one item of their armoury and it took a huge dump on any other existing melee weapon. Assail was never balanced, this measly number buff does not change a thing, they now need one less chard to do the same as before.