Brain burst is laughably bad. It’s laughably bad even when empowered. It needs a much faster charging time, and/or significantly boosted damage.
All these talks make me wonder if Psykers should not have a customizable collars that would allow them to configure their power.
Won’t happen but being able to tweak a bit your BB according to your preferences, along with drawbacks, would be cool.
As it is, it just falls off in Auric damnation with the sheer amount of enemies as @alsozara wrote already.
And you are always dependent on your teammates not being brain-dead brutes actually targeting the mob with a BB halo on their head.
I could swear the effect actually makes some people aim at your target.
And yet, that’s exactly what everyone does. In this very thread, people compare BB to Revolver. Basically every comparison people make with BB is either to a gun or to Assail. People never consider it as a tool to be combined with a primary weapon.
With your ranged/melee weapon, everyone understands that you’re supposed to pair appropriate weapons together. So you pair a good horde-clear with a good anti-armour. Taking 2 anti-armour weapons is a waste.
Its the same with your Blitz. If you already have Revolver, sure, BB is superfluous. But if you have a Trauma staff, Smite is superfluous, however BB is massive value-add. You can’t put together two mis-matched tools and then complain that one of them is superfluous. By this logic, Smite is “not viable” because Trauma already covers CC. The obvious flaw in this logic is what if you are not using a Trauma staff?
Directly comparing BB to secondary weapon.
I also note that you did not address the claim that BB is “not viable as you crank up the difficulty, leading to high failure rates”, so I assume you are standing by this claim, despite the video evidence previously posted in this thread? This is the position you are maintaining?
My opinion is that BB when fully spec’d into with Kinetic Resonance + EP is fine. The problem is that the baseline BB without those buffs feels really really bad. So make the EP charge-time be the baseline charge-time, and find a different buff for EP to grant to BB, either the old Cerebral Lacerations or the old WrackNRuin. Again, I’m not saying that BB is 100% perfect as is, it could use some tweaks, but I’m pushing back on the claims that it is “not viable” and “laughably bad”.
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Trauma or surge? Because while I love the CC offered by a trauma staff, it sounds like you mean a surge staff.
No, I mean Trauma. Other than Mutants, there’s no good reason to use Smite when you have a Trauma. And Surge is not the CC monster it used to be.
But as I said, it doesn’t mean Smite’s bad, it just means you have to think about what you’re pairing it with, and you shouldn’t try to assess it’s worth on the basis of a bad pairing.
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Not speaking about anyone in this thread, but I recall comparisons along the lines of “Someone with a revolver will kill 3+ enemies in the time it takes to brain burst 1”; as of right now, Assail and Brain Burst are the only Blitz choices that could conceivably be seen as weapon-like (if you squint really hard), mainly because ammo is not a concern IMO, but that doesn’t mean they’re meant to be up there doing the same heavy lifting that your ranged/melee weapons do.
I don’t think anyone compares other Blitz’es to regular weaponry; I don’t think BB/Assail should be compared as such either (and their effects should reflect that)
More speed on regular BB would be nice, just for making it feel nicer; waiting for a lengthy charge is just tedious, I don’t think there’s any significant disagreement there - Kinetic Resonance/EP solve that, but some people don’t like the fact that the baseline ability needs upgrades to be solved. If base speed were to go up, I think the speed bonuses would have to be toned down (or removed/replaced) - otherwise, it’d eat into Assail’s quick fire territory. If you get rid of the speed bonuses, what do you do instead? I think plain ol’ “more damage” would be both unnecessary and rather boring. Given it can do quite a bit of overkill, maybe there’s something in that to explore
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There’s no such thing as ‘free.’ The opportunity cost of running assail is substantial and it doesn’t do anything that you can’t just do with a decent gun. BB and even bloody smite let you pick better, more useful talents while also freeing up talents you would otherwise be spending to improve assail.
Again I reiterate, what is the purpose of assail on a gun psyker build? So you don’t have to reload? Unless you have the worlds worst revolver or just happen to somehow have a bolter on your psyker then please, spare me. So you can build peril without needing scriers for some mad reason? So you can pick a manual quelling talent on a build that should rarely need to waste time manually quelling? What is the actual logic here?
The only reason to take assail with a gun is if your build is both: a) not using the gun as the primary weapon and b) not using scrier’s gaze. But then you aren’t really running a ‘gun psyker.’ Instead you’re playing an assail psyker who happens to have a gun.
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TBH, I make the comparison because Psyker, as a class, seems to be built around blitzes more than the other three. Everyone else takes a grenade as a supplementary tool, but only psyker is granted blitzes that are peril-based and designed to be used as a main damage/cc tool overall rather than a supplement or panic button.
And even in comparison to the other blitzes, psyker brain burst comes off poorly. For the low price of a node on the most powerful skilltree path in their set, Vet can get regenerating krak nades that one-shot an entire crusher mob with how tightly packed spawns are these days. Ogryn is more balanced with the singular ‘Ogrynheimer’ frag bomb, since he can’t regenerate it, but he gets an instant-kill rock against most elites and specials that does regenerate, again along the best tree for his class (heavy attacks and toughness regen).
Brain burst, by contrast, is slow, clunky, and can’t one-shot most of the targets it’d be worth using on on Damnation.
I run it on mine because I have a powerful revolver, reloading is a PITA, I hate using Scrier’s, and hordes need something to kill them all.
As I said, if you aren’t using scrier’s then you aren’t running a full gun psyker build. You’re either playing assail psyker with a gun or some hybrid.
With a full blown gunker build assail is useless. You’re missing good talents and spending time and peril that could be better spent just shooting valuable targets with scrier’s massive damage buffs. Any trash mobs that survive all of the warpfire you spread around from killing elites by the dozen can be mopped up with your melee.
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Brain burst should be instant with a small cool down or a peril cost that is prohibitive to spamming it.
Guns are instant. Revolver is instant. Revolver serves essentially the same function of brain burst, it’s just better in almost every way.
Ryshek, have you considered the possibility that some people don’t use Revolver? Yes, if you have Revolver equipped, BB is superfluous. But what if, and I know this is mind-blowing, what if you don’t have a Revolver equipped?
One time I tried, but then I didn’t.
But really the purpose of brain burst seems to be a way for psykers to take out specials, elites and bosses. It’s nightmarish trying to run brain burst versus a veteran with a precision gun. You end up generating peril without actually killing anything.
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Directly comparing BB to secondary weapon.
You’re misrepresenting my claim. You that stated Blitz is not a replacement for a primary weapon, maybe you meant to say secondary. My comparison is pointing out that the 10 seconds of Kinetic Resonance don’t compensate the charge time well enough, compared to some secondary weapons. I wasn’t comparing Brainburst to a seocndary weapon at all. Here I’m only focusing on the damage output during the 10 seconds Kinetic Resonance. You’ve misunderstood.
also note that you did not address the claim that BB is “not viable as you crank up the difficulty, leading to high failure rates”, so I assume you are standing by this claim, despite the video evidence previously posted in this thread? This is the position you are maintaining?
I can only speak from personal experience, which again, as I stated in another response, I humbly admit. I think you should read the other responses and then rejoin the conversation. This seems to be going in circles, and I’m not here to argue with you while getting increasingly off topic, especially when these questions have already been addressed. If you are only here to call ‘skill issue,’ then go right ahead. I’m no expert by any means. I’m just some guy who made a post.
To catch you up briefly though, I do now believe my initial claim that it was “not viable” was 100% an overstatement. Personally however, I have a lot more failures with BB/Soulblaze compared to other builds I’ve tried on the higher difficulties, and I still think Assail is the better ability, which takes the spotlight away from the very satisfying BB/soulblaze strategy I enjoy.
My opinion is that BB when fully spec’d into with Kinetic Resonance + EP is fine. The problem is that the baseline BB without those buffs feels really really bad. So make the EP charge-time be the baseline charge-time, and find a different buff for EP to grant to BB, either the old Cerebral Lacerations or the old WrackNRuin. Again, I’m not saying that BB is 100% perfect as is, it could use some tweaks, but I’m pushing back on the claims that it is “not viable” and “laughably bad”
I never said laughably bad, maybe someone else did. I still use mostly BB despite its perceived flaws, because simply, it’s a lot of fun, and its the style I enjoy most. But it seems like once you get passed the semantics of my saying its"not viable," we are pretty much advocating the same thing, it needs an adjustment.
I have that build. I pull out the laser pistol because I can run faster then with just the assail, and I don’t want to give up a force sword. I don’t take it over malice, but it’s a thing.
Primary, secondary, whatever, either way you’re comparing a Blitz to a weapon. It doesn’t change the argument. A flamer kills more in 10 seconds than throwing-knife, a shovel kills more than Rock, therefore they’re automatically bad? The power of BB is not in raw damage output, it is in utility, and in how it can cover gaps in your build which your selected weapons do not.
Also, re-reading this, it doesn’t even make sense. “My comparison is pointing out that the 10 seconds of Kinetic Resonance don’t compensate the charge time well enough, compared to some secondary weapons. I wasn’t comparing Brainburst to a seocndary weapon at all.” These two sentences are directly contradictory.
That being so, when there are multiple people in this thread, and an endless supply of videos and streams available, that prove that your personal experience is not universal, would it not be wise to re-evaluate? I do note that you have moderated how much change you think is required, but you are still fundamentally arguing that BB is bad because it can’t out-DPS a weapon.
Not going to dignify that with a response.
I’m not calling that. I’m calling ‘bad argument issue’. People can be whatever skill they are, and play whatever level they’re comfortable at. It doesn’t justify assessing a blitz by comparing it to a weapon.
i ThInK yOu ShOuLd ReAd ThE oThEr ReSpOnSeS
There’s a world of difference between “not viable”, “needs a rework badly” and “adjustment”. But don’t take it personally, I’m as much addressing the rest of the community who have pretty much since launch been unable to grasp the concept that a blitz is not a weapon and so comparing it to a revolver/lasgun/autogun is simply dumb.
I feel like the design of Psyker Blitz abilities overall (as a Peril-based tool) is more in keeping with the theme of a Psyker; giving the “Space Wizard” grenades would be a wasted opportunity, and constraining it to ammo mechanics of the other classes would make very little sense - the game doesn’t have to make sense, but having your Warp powers limited by the presence of grenade or ammo pickups would be a stretch.
Prior to patch 13, I don’t think Brain Burst has been considered remotely close to melee/ranged weapon territory - trying to use Brain Burst like you would any other weapon has never been effective, to my knowledge (before or after the class overhaul); I think Assail kind of pushed that concept of Blitz-as-a-main-weapon a bit, but Brain Burst was never in that space. It may be closer to that classification than many other Blitz abilities, but I wouldn’t say it is close to being classified as such.
Smite sits rather neatly in the utility grouping IMO; you’ve got a lot of CC on demand… but you can’t do a whole lot during it; it enables things that a Stunstorm Grenade doesn’t (stunning mutants, dealing with new threats) but is unable to do other things that a Stunstorm can (act freely, stun in all directions simultaneously). I wouldn’t say that makes Smite anything more than what you’d kind of expect from a Blitz - utility that you keep in your back pocket for handling specific situations.
Plenty of people will pull out Smite at every opportunity, simply because they can, but that strikes me as being along the lines of “If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” (despite having more than just a hammer at their disposal)
To the people using primary/secondary weapon terminology, can you clarify exactly what you mean here? Are you saying primary = ranged, secondary = melee (or vice versa, depending on class), or something else? Given the importance of both weapon types in DT, I personally can’t really say which one should be classified as primary/secondary (and the potential difference depending on class/build), I’m finding it a little hard to follow some points being made.
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These threads get terrible small brain takes like this all day long. Lol, mobility is the most important stat in the game, there are better nodes relevant around the top where assail locks your choices. The same argument you are using for this entire loadout being ‘shot’ (losing the cooldown aura) is made up for by literally holding the ult up for 30s+ regularly with GASP player skill and manually venting. Oh no, the damage numbers I MUST be losing not dumping ammo every encounter like you. Or not engaging with suppression at all in the times it piles on, as the gun psyker who has no suppression counters available without burning valuable blessing slots for that damage you’re clamoring about. In the current Darktide where you are getting hitstunned by regular gun trash while you still have toughness up.
Some people have a ridiculously small take on the game and try to hamfist it into every argument. Literally. Try it. Then be hostile co cheese. The blitz action is something that is actually useful, so yes being able to routinely dunk a bunch of enemies for free while the gaze is up and still use the gun tons without siphoning as many ammo pick ups is definitely ‘a load out’. And a strong one. Stop with the hostilely bad takes like this, and actually experiment and play the game. I would gladly link you if you’d get off your high horse.
No, the other blitzes are completely awful and psykinetics isn’t worth it to me. My AG1 on Psyker routinely gets the most range enemies total, most specialists and a good chunk of the melee elites. And this isn’t veteran, you can totally spend points on making the assails ridiculously powerful in all game modes. You get wasted by the lack of sideways movement with nodes unless you run smite which is actual barf outside pre made.
Strictly speaking the game considers your melee to be your primary.
I was using primary in the looser sense of “the weapon you primarily use”. I should’ve been more specific.
But in either case, it’s irrelevant. Primary, secondary, they’re all weapons, comparing a blitz to either primary or secondary is invalid.
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Your responses are becoming increasingly ignorant and derailing. Unfortunately you dont seem to be able to wrap your head around the fact that Kinetic Resonance isnt a Blitz. Its a talent. You’re taking what I said completely out of context, which is why I suggested you read the other responses…wasn’t trying to offend you.
Again, you are getting increasingly off topic, and now engaging only in silly semantics you can’t seem to let go of. I wont indulge this tedious ranting any further. If you are looking for a keyboard warrior fight, go to reddit. Otherwise, please move on…the goal of this discussion is to give constructive feedback to the devs, not get caught up in ‘no he said, no i said.’ Its cringey and non-helpful.
This is where you started, remember?
You’re telling me that this statement is NOT a comment on the strength of BB, and is only a comment on the talent? And you’re telling me that it is NOT a comparison to secondary weapons? It’s plain to see for anyone else here reading, that it quite clearly is a comment on BB and is a comparison to a weapon.
There is nothing off-topic about addressing the arguments for why BB supposedly is inadequate. You cannot give constructive feedback from a faulty premise, no constructive feedback can come from a starting point of “BB is bad because my ranged weapon kills stuff faster”, so if you are genuinely concerned about constructive feedback, you should be taking my posts seriously, not throwing your toys out of the pram.
And my feedback is not to try and make BB into a primary/secondary weapon. I don’t want BB to turn into slight variation of Assail. But sure, dismiss feedback that doesn’t agree with your position.
If you don’t want to engage, your choice, I am speaking to the forum, not exclusively to you.