Assail troubles

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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So, I don’t “main” any particular class, I haven’t gotten to Zealot yet but have the other 3 classes geared and kitted at 30. I haven’t gotten into Auric yet but routinely play Damnation.

Between playing Psyker myself (and running Assail) and playing with others running Assail, it’s hard to argue with a straight face that it’s not overpowered. Either I’m just way better at playing Psyker lately than other classes, or something is off.

If all you do is spam Assail, you’ll suck at higher difficulties. But that’s true of many broken things, they don’t exist in a vacuum.

If you pair Assail with a Voidstrike staff and a decent Force sword, well, you can rapidly clear groups of anything that isn’t an Ogryn in seconds at close to medium ranges by just spamming left click and looking around the room, you can dodge forever and block like a pro and one or two shot most things in melee, and you can smack things for huge numbers through heavy armor and shields with great accuracy at long range (or spam close range blasts for anti-horde clear if your Assail is recharging). Playing as the Psyker, it’s glorious, I get to top the scoreboard every time, and feel like a god of war. But when I hop on my Ogryn or Veteran, I can’t routinely pull anything like the same performance or carry as hard. Looking at Scoreboard for my last 10 Psyker games, I was top offensive performer in 7 of them, second only to another Assail Psyker and gun-build Ogryn in the others.

That said, I’d agree that it’s less of an issue the higher difficulty you’re playing. At lower difficulty levels Assail trivializes much of the game and leaves little for other players to do when wielded competently. Just played a Malice game a bit ago on my 30 Vet (rolling a Kantrael XII sniper build) helping a friend level their Zealot, and the lvl16 Assail psyker outdamaged me by almost 20%, killed the 2nd most elites and specials, and the most lesser enemies, with more than double the weakspot hits. All just with Assail. At higher levels just spamming Assail like that wouldn’t have worked but you can absolutely just left-click your way through the easier difficulties with it.

When running my own Psyker, I feel like Brain Burst is just way less useful, Assail can deal with many enemies much more efficiently, works way better with most keystone abilities, and is far more responsive. Now, Brain Burst does deal with bosses and Crushers and the like better…but that’s what a Voidstrike staff and Force Sword are for if you’re running Assail. You’re going to get way more utility out of Assail and the numbers don’t lie.

So yeah, Assail needs some reworking, my gut instinct would be to hike the recharge time and dramatically limit it to “oh crap” range so you can clear some space around yourself but can’t obliterate a column of dudes at the end of a hallway with regularity. In the meantime however I’m going to continue running it on my psyker because its tons of fun :rofl:

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I think I’d mentioned it in another Assail thread, but I think that adding a short delay (for argument’s sake, let’s say 1.5sec) after firing before recharge can begin is all that’d really be needed to reign in Assail. I haven’t played with it in the last few days, but I remain of the opinion that the damage is fine, numbers of shards is fine. You could tweak the cooldown per shard, but I think plenty of people have already made the point that cooldown changes could make it impractical and unwieldy to use.

If you want to dump 10 shards at once, you can still do so, but it’ll take an extra 1.5sec before you can throw again. If you want to continuously throw shards as soon as they’re available, you’d have to eat that 1.5sec on every throw - better to wait for a couple of shards (and eat the cost once) before throwing a volley again.

For RMB throwing, between the fire rate and increased peril costs, the 1.5sec would be negligible since you’d be quelling after 4 - 5 shards anyway.

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When I posted a screenshot showing that the Assail Psyker did less than me with BB and Surge and less than the Vet on elite/specialist kills, I was told the screenshot didn’t offer the context of player skill level.

Yet, people like you say it requires no skill and it’s busted on Auric Maelstrom.

Assail requires no skill while also requiring skill when people are shown it is not OP at all.

It’s impossible to win this argument one way or another. If you think Assail is OP in Auric Maelstrom there are issues with the non-Assail players.

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Just won another Auric Maelstrom with Assail. At one point a Mutant threw me out of my bubble into scab gunners, shooters, reapers, and two snipers. So I just spammed Assail at them while dodging and taking zero damage of course, as you do. Oh, and killed everything except the reapers with Assail.

I blew up and died at the midmap event and then my sounds were completely muffled thereafter. Couldn’t hear any enemies, just the whooshes of them aiming at me. Didn’t matter though, spammed Assail.

I play every class about equally. I seriously question anyone’s experience, who can pick up this skill (or Voidstrike for that matter) and not immediately realize how overly strong it is.

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My good Lasgun brother in spirit, the Helbore gun is not a good measure for comparison. It operates in a very specific niche, that Darktide doesn’t give much room to shine in (sniping). It’s one of the weaker options in your arsenal right now when talking Horde and Special deletion, mainly because of it’s slow operational speed with limited cleave / penetration.

All the following options perform better when talking raw killing power / TTK:
→ Any type of Axe (very strong and slow, or high crit and fast)
→ Any type of two-handed weapon
→ Assail
→ Power Sword still
→ Claw Sword
→ Heavy Sword
→ Any type of Chain weapon
→ Twin-linked Stubber
→ Ordinary Lasgun
→ Recon Lasgun
→ Trauma Staff
→ Voidstrike Staff
→ Purgatus Staff
→ That snubnosed Revolver

Honestly, I could list a good 70% of Darktide’s arsenal and be factually correct in this category. Helbore Lasgun is just not that great. It’s like you accidentally picked the most niche build to play with the weakest output.
Earlier I had a Zealot with a Power Hammer in my team, who topped the scoreboard and killed almost everything with a single charged hit. And that included Ogryn and Muties.
Way better than Assail and more robust, too. He never went down.

I stick by my argument that people don’t like Assail because it has irritating throwing arcs. But it definitely is not the godmode it’s made out to be. It’s an above average way of engaging most close to mid range enemies. And you can prime it to take on 2-3 specials in the distance, then you cap out your Peril.

Using Assail in a sensible manner definitely takes some skill. It’s not totally no-skill, but there is also harder things to master. I’d put it at a 2/5 or 4/10 in terms of use difficulty. See plenty of newbs blowing themselves up with it.

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Just the fact that this person with no skill was able to preform well enough kinda shows, don’t you think?
In the hands of psykers that knows what he is doing, and uses the voidstrike/force sword loadout it becomes a tool of mass destruction.

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Most abilities and weapons in this game are “tools of mass destruction”.
And they have to be.
Have you seen what the game now slings at you in Auric?

Here is what any encounter looks like:
→ Two hordes, one coming front, one back
→ Multiple Crushers and Ragers
→ About 4-8 Disablers active at the same time, usually 1-3 trappers and a few dogs
→ About 2-3 snipers in the distance taking pot shots at you
→ Always at least 3 bombers turning the game into “the ground is lava”
→ 2-4 Flamers of the currently active faction
→ Ocasionally, these all start to spawn in the middle of a boss fight
→ Plus the usual ambient shooter crowd making you dodge-dance everywhere

This all is homing in on you simultanously. All the time. Why shouldn’t we have the ability to “delete” a few specials or a single crusher quickly? There’s a whole army encircling us.

And serious, if it was all that easy, people would be rushing through the missions now.
Yet…
I see bad positioning. I see rushing ahead and dying. I see staying behind and dying. I see people running past every single Plasteel node. I see people being downed by pox walkers.

In short: I have never seen this many easily preventable deaths before, all by people wielding these “godly” loadouts you talk about.
If there is somewhere an Assail Psyker raiding party turning the entirety of Nurgle’s Rot Garden to mush, I’m clearly not invited. Because I just don’t see it.

What I see is scrubs getting their sorry, hapless bums handed to them and then ragequitting mid mission. Yet on these forums everyone acts like this game just became a walking simulator. Something isn’t matching up and I believe it’s your narrative.

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They (mostly) are a tool of mass destruction.
Main difference being that you can’t spam other abilities constantly.
As i said before. It is fine for being able to delete couple of elites with some trash on the side.
It’s not fine to have it up again for the next major wave at no cost to you or the team.
Let’s compare it to other classes major “delete” buttons, shall we?
Vet frag.
Dosen’t do nearly as much damage. Requires some aiming and some forward thinking because it has a delay for the explosion. Limited in number, but basically all vets run the talent that gives you one grenade per 60 seconds.
Vet krak.
Deals tons of damage, basically deletes any enemy in the game other than bosses, and something very close to them. Same as for frag applies, but mostly with aim, and not as much forward thinking, because of the ability to stick to enemies.
Ogryn box.
Same as for vet frag. But even more limited and no ability to restock them for free other than pickups. On the upside deals more damage than the vet frag, and clears slightly larger area.
Ogryn frag bomb.
Same as for box. But even more limited. In turn clears a huge area.
Zealot flame nade.
Requires more forward-thinking than the frag, but if deployed properly has the ability to cut off one of the sides for enemies for some time. On the downside less immideate effect as with frag.
And assail.
Requires no aiming at all. Requires no forward-thinking at all. You see a squad, you pull out assail, press lmb couple of times, squad is dead. Has the upside of being able to target specific enemies also, not just whatever ability decides.
Costs no team resources to replenish. Has insane uptime, you get full 10 spikes back after only 20 seconds at a rate ~2 seconds per shard. (even sooner, because cooldown starts from the first spike shot, not when you finish shooting) And full 10 spikes can kill groups as big as the ogryn box can.

I’m fine with the latter. If you spend your entire blitz ability, you should be able to delete a huge group of enemies. The problem is how quickly you can get it back. Imagine ogryn spamming his box every 20 seconds, while requiring no pickups from the map at all.

And on the topic of “scrubs getting their sorry, hapless bums handed to them”, i can say this dosent apply only to psykers. I’ve seen this happen on every class. And that’s because there was an influx of new people who are still learning the game and making basic mistakes. Thankfully assail isnt so braindead it can carry even such people. This dosen’t change the fact that the ability is clearly way stronger than anything avaliable to other classes.

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69

You could just say you don’t play Veteran. Helbores have been a mainstay since their very first buff–I should know, having played hundreds of Damnation games of all calibers and winning quite easily with them. The Mk III is the best all-rounder for Monstrous Specials on Vet, period.

Besides, I only brought up the Helbore because it’s a skill intensive weapon. You need to make space for yourself. You need to aim carefully. Assail is the opposite of that.

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Yep. This gets to the crux of the issue. People defending assail in its current state are saying “it’s not that strong” while comparing it to primary weapons like voidstaff or a vet tearing things apart with a recon las. Assail would be 100% fine in its current state if it was an ASSAIL STAFF. Except it’s not an assail staff. It’s a blitz ability and no other blitz ability in the game has remotely that kind of sustained firepower.

While everyone else gets a niche tool for specific situations, pysker is getting a virtual extra staff to carry around at all times.

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This.
Literally just had auric malestorm game with meleegaze build.
I’ve used my laspistol like… 3 times? For other situations switching to assail was more preferable. It’s always up, and has insane both horde clear and single target.

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I usually agree with you, @Mayson, but not this time. Helbore is the best ranged weapon in the game in my humble opinion.

I prefer the Helbore MK II. Others may prefer the MK III, but I find the MK II to be the easier gun to use for me personally.

It’s a weapon with a decent learning curve that, once you start using it well, can clear everything from shooters to crushers with ease. Has incredible ammo economy, the MK II, and can hit all weakspots easily even in third person view (I’m a third person view enjoyer).

I combine it with a Power Sword, which isn’t the best combination, but the rhythm of dodge to the left, charge, and three heavy attacks is so ingrained in my spine that I can’t play with any other melee weapon on the Veteran.

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People need to stop pointing fingers at the Psykers for making good builds, then maybe even people should point fingers at the Vets for not playing the game properly for one and secondly the other (and easily the most potent) problem is that Vets were also nerfed a bit too much. Seriously, with Krak Grenades, Plasma Guns, Helbore Lasguns and the works the Vets should be clearing out the elites and specials before the Assail shards even reach them. Don’t nerf Assail, re-buff the Vets a bit.

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Even if the Krak grenade attaches, Assail will probably kill the target before before the grenade detonates :joy:

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Unless it’s crusher. Then change assail for voidstrike.

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Problem isn’t just the vets. Assail/voidstrike removes entire groups before any class can get to them.
You wasted your chastise on zealot to get to that group of shooters, and already holding your h1 to kill a couple of them? Too bad, they’re already dead.
You’ve spent your time on gunlugger to brace your weapon? Your fault, while you were doing that, funny shard man removed the entire group.

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:rofl:

Playing Auric STG and running out of ammo in 2 rooms while dealing less damage than Revolver.

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Yes, you can. Psyker’s Smite and Brainburst have only Peril as a restriction, you can quell that.
Ogryn and Zealot have talents refunding their ultimate ability cooldown, allowing spammability if played right.
Veteran can stay in sharpshooting stance indefinitely, as long as you find victims to gib. As you mention later, he also can regen grenades and make them spawn for his team on elite kill with 5% chance.
Are we playing the same game? Right now with new talents every class can make an ability spam tree. And this, by the way, is fine. You usually sacrifice something else to make it work.

If you want your Assail tree to work, you also need to go deep, sacrificing some survivability of the upper toughness regen talents.

It doesn’t have no cost. It costs 10 peril per shard fired or 25 when aimed. Without aiming it’s range is limited, it is unreliable in which targets it hits where and that’s it’s tradeoff.
In an extreme clutch situation it’s not going to save you, whereas a well-played grenade might.

Vet frag deals more damage, does it in a centered radius you have full control over and requires just as little aiming as the Assail shards.
Not that it matters, because you’re comparing very differently designed abilities now that serve completely different purposes.
Grenades from the other three classes are “get out of jail” cards for the most part. The Psyker Blitzes are functionally different. All three of them have more uptime and can be spammed to a degree. They’re mainline abilities that make the Psyker unique and allow him to specialize:

  • Brainburst makes him a specialist / elite / boss killer
  • Smite a team utility stunlocker
  • Assail a Horde / sniper killer.

None of these three abilities have the same level of “Get out of jail” utility as the grenades of the classes do. You cannot cast smite and the same time revive someone. And casting a few Assail shards won’t do you any good when the team is going down like flies. It won’t save your run.

It requires aiming if you want to hit anything beyond 20 meters. The shards don’t have infinite auto-aim, it drops off in accuracy.
It does require some forward thinking: Having the shards out you cannot block and dodging is shoddy. It makes you vulnerable wielding this ability. Same as the Psyker staves.

It’s a Psyker ability for a class that otherwise doesn’t exactly excel at melee and is super squishy by default, unless you specifically go out of your way to build a niche melee-psyker. But it still stays a less survivable class due to the hidden stats, Psyker reacts much worse to things like suppression and has no ways to mitigate that if he doesn’t bring shield or a Force Sword with Deflector.
Ogryn doesn’t need that level of constant damage output, because he is a walking tank with monstrous staggerpower.
Zealot is speedy and does have comparable, circumstancially even higher DPS.
Veteran is currently a bit left in the dust when it comes to his DPS role, but he still has amazing team utility that goes undervalued and as you alluded to, you can build him into a grenadier.

They’re different classes. Psyker is the glass canon wizard in design. Of course he has good damage with more uptime for that damage. He also eats :poop: faster than anyone and has the peril mini-game to manage.

In fact I just tried the Helbore Lasgun, MKIII. You can build it into a true infinite ammo weapon if you get surgical and the Vet talent for crits making Lasgun shots free.
It’s still a meh tier weapon. Sure it has some damage, but it’s unwieldy and you cannot rely on your team to give you the room you need as a sniper. Which is what I hinted at earlier when I said it has a certain niche that Darktide just doesn’t cater to.
The game spawns enemies in your back and constantly finds ways to harrass you, if you play the game sniper style.
Helbore definitely doesn’t have the level of utility or power the Autopistol Shredder had pre-nerf and that’s now with beefed up stats and infinite ammo. Calling it a mainstay is hyperbole. This weapon gets so little use, having it in your inventory slot equipped automatically makes you a walking relic. It’s a weapon for a refined connoissoir.

Now compared against that Assail really is low-skill. But then Assail cannot melt Unyielding or Carapace as effectively and performs horribly at range. Again, completely different items with different purposes.

It’s definitely not. I’m glad you can enjoy it and I’m not opposed to that at all. I use it myself occasionally. But all things considered, with utility and versatility taken into the equation, the Helbore Lasgun is an upper B-Tier weapon. A reliable gun, but one that lacks oomph when you consider what genre we’re playing here. The gun also forces you into a niche / fighting range that is hard defend. The Helbore Lasgun is undertuned in my eyes, because it doesn’t have enough penetretation / cleave, for how unwieldy it is and for how much work it makes you do to get the payoff.

My kindred in spirit.

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And that goes to my point again, they need to buff the Vet, not nerf the Psyker. Psykers are actually useful teammates on Damnation now and I don’t see the reason in taking that away again. Regardless, Assail is virtually useless against Crushers, who are the enemies which Krak Grenades are MEANT to be used on.

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Again, they need to buff the Veteran’s ammo pools instead of nerfing Psykers.

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