With a skill called brainburst, you’d think that having your grey matter scrambled and ejected forcefully through your skull orifices it would be instantly fatal.
Have your brain explode should be fatal on any difficultly level. I cannot believe that they issue extra tough brains in level 4 & 5.
Make brainburst fatal again. Gate the power in otherways, but don’t make it necessary to explode a mob’s brain multiple times, that’s just silly.
Agree, and I’ll even say that ranged headshots should also still be fatal. Unless they’re carapace or flak armoured, it really doesn’t stand to reason I can shoot a boltgun into someone’s head and they survive.
Brainburst is designed the other way round… it has its intended purpose to oneshot trapper, gunner, sniper and grenadiers on 4/5, meanwhile missing to scale down with lower difficulties, which lasts in that “wrong view” playersided.
It would be broken if BB would oneshot stuff like a crusher / bulwark / mauler etc… those are already is a disadvantage being melee-only enemies. Hounds, mutants and flamers have other disadvantages aswell.
Might be some other thing if you would need to cast like 10+s on a crusher, but even then you could kill them easily with precast on any range.
It´s in a good state right now balancing-wise.
It would kill the whole games balanced and shifting to a 100% range-meta killing everything with a bit of decent aim.
So no, it shouln´t. The balance is actually pretty decent between the player and the enemy, no matter if you use melee or range combat. For those who´ve played Vermintide it´s probably already easier and ofc it is, if you run broken weapons.
If you really want that, then the gunplay needs a complete overhaul and we need more difficulties with like 99% armored enemies.
BB should one shot hounds at any tier and I’d argue even maulers with the amount that appear in 4 and 5. Otherwise I’d say it’s fine for the most part, though it shouldn’t be the only way to generate warp charges without a perk
I’m perfectly fine with it not being as effective on Ogryns, but I agree on that it needs a buff to at least kill Hounds and as above mentioned, maybe even maulers.
Ogryns don’t really have a brain to begin with, it makes sense it won’t kill 'em.
Hounds do nothing else but disabling players and it needs ages to get killed by them. They´ve a bunch of cons aswell…
Yes Trapper do the same, but they can catch multiple players, have some range and disappear mostly.
Getting hounds with 1 BB would make them kinda useless especially together with precast and the ultimate which resets the casttime.
(I guess a lot of players forget that you can precast into normal-cast while hearing a hound anyway.)
Maulers / ragers shouldn´t be oneshot. Again they´re already in a huge disadvantage due to being melee only. Maulers are super slow on top. Ragers might be a bit faster, but they die faster so…
Same here… you could easily kill a whole pack of them if they would be oneshot. It would be too strong and take any threat out of the top difficulties.
If this went live then heresy would be child’s play, the lower difficulties including malice are already fairly easy to complete due in part to BB. Damnation would require a good horde clear and CC character and a psyker to make the runs pathetically easy. BB is balanced, the more you play heresy and damnation the more you realise these sorts of changes would break the game and make psyker more op than vet w/ PS. Horde management is one thing, but what makes the difficulties what they are and also enjoyable and rewarding to complete are the elites and specials. In a sense, they are the difficulty, trivialising them with BB insta-kill would destroy the endgame.
Hounds could use a rework to have the same health as snipers, bombers, and trappers, but a competent team can deal with them as they currently are, if they stayed unchanged i would not care. They only really matter so much during the special condition that spawns a fair amount of them. Psykers already have great CC potential in their ult and surge staff, combine that with kinetic barrage you can single-handedly deal with 2 crushers and 2 bulwarks in seconds, if your peril management and kiting is on point that is, especially with dmg coming from strike team BB is fantastic.
BB has endless resources. Its the grenade slot of that class. If BB would oneshot on damnation, then the other classes would need to have their grenades resupplied constantly on the same time it takes the phsyker to cool off his charges after 4 BBs.
The difference is that the entire class is built around the use of Brain Burst.
But not just the use of it, it requires killing blows to trigger any of its effects for the Psyker.
Toughness sustain is tied directly to Brain Burst, Peril and Warp attacks.
Don’t believe me?
First feat - BB Kill grants toughness regen.
Second feat - Warp attack kill grants toughness.
Third feat - Quelling Peril grants toughness.
Now, without chaining yourself to Force Weapons, Go ahead and sustain your toughness while under attack.
If you don’t enjoy Force Weapons, The only way you’re sustaining toughness is Brain Burst.
A slow, weak pop of single target damage that requires three casts at 2~ seconds each to kill a single Crusher. And thats at Malice!
I can literally run up to the Crusher and hit it 3 times with the Force Sword Special and kill it faster with less peril buildup!
Now, Sure in the training room Brain Burst one shots Pox Hounds and Trappers etc.
But you know who else can reliably kill those things and in less time? Every other class
Get a Brain Burst cast to 90% only for a Vet to snipe it at the last second. Great, Now i have a bunch of Peril and i was literally doing nothing of value to the team for 2+ seconds.
I have had situations where multiple Maulers get a Vet into melee range, only for the Vet to pop his special and kill all 3 Maulers in less time than a single Brain Burst cast.
Psyker also has Brain Burst related feats in every tier. Some more direct than others.
Does any other class rely on their grenade to perform the basic functions of their class? No, they do not.
Do any other Classes have a grenade focus in their feat tiers? No, they do not.
They get a feat here and there to add some side effects to the Grenade and thats all.
And lets not forget that the Veteren can get infinite free grenades on a cooldown if he wants them.
As it stands, the most successful Psyker builds are the ones taking the Feat to allow teammates to generate Warp Charges for you (At a laughable 4% chance per kill) and rarely utilizing Brain Burst.
If the devs wanted Brain Burst to be nothing more than a flavourful grenade for Psykers, why the heck did they tie so much of the Class’ functionality to it?
Oh yeah, And one small mistep while utilizing Brain Burst and you’re dead. So not only is it slow and ineffectual on the things you need it to kill, it also kills you if you make a single mistake in its usage.
As it stands, Psykers feel great to use in the first 2 difficulties because BB is always getting killing blows, which triggers all its effects.
OInce you move up to Malice and engage with players using high level guns with good stat rolls, Psyker falls off hard. Pushing most into Surge or Purgatus spam to try and remain useful while occasionally getting a lucky BB kill in.
Fix Brain Burst. I want to feel like a Psyker, not a discount Zealot.
No it´s not.
That´s not entirely correct.
The first feat will grant regen on gaining a warpcharge, which means it´ll also procc with the different feasts giving you some. Of course BB can be used, but it´s not the only way.
The second one either relies on BB, the ultimate, soulblaze or the different force-weapons and yes, the 3rd is based on your passive, and so far BB and weapons, aswell. But they offer different more passiv and aggressive playstyles.
Also you might forget that you get toughness while killing enemies with melee anyway. And in a sick range-fight against gunners, i´m sure you gonna spam BB and if you´ve a rifle in between. So i seriously don´t see any issue with that.
Others classes have similar more class-related toughness perks. The only one which is imo a little bit broken might be the Vet one with the range-depended toughness regeneration. But even that can be more or less useful based on the situations.
Zealot and Ogryn aren´t even near as good as Psyker to take out one or another special and range-specialist, meanwhile it´s actually Vets job to do so. And since Vet scales with weapons, of course Vet is better especially if they´re broken.
But does Vet can bring lots of CC? Or is a Vet able to kill specialists on any range even behind cover once catched? Does a Vet has unlimited ressources or could do it so easily without the ultimate?
Yeah we all know this and it was probably a bolter right? Weapon-balance isn´t perfect right now, but you´ve other options to deal with them than just “BB”, which are called melee and range. Not to mention that you can use BB on a safe-distance at any time.
Also ppl seem to compare apples and bananas… Vet has an ultimate made to do this, while Psyker has an ultimate for crowd control, which is a super defensive AND aggressive used tool. Yes you can´t kill things unless you knockback enemies out of the map or use soulblaze on it, but you can always change the odds for your team, you can easily rescue someone from hounds etc. without taking out your range weapon, and and and…
Again, there are multiple ways to play Psyker. The most seem to rely on a staff while using the ultimate to spam BB. The perk with the 4% isn´t even used in one or another build there.
Others try to stack warpcharges and call it a day. I play a more melee-related build with the soulblaze-ultimate.
Poeple focus way too hard on BB and maintaining warpcharges with it. Just use BB as opener or to take out those specials and together with atleast one of the “gain warpcharges” - feasts you´ll mostly have more than enough or they maintain more or less automatically.
How? You mean the overload? You know you can cancel it with the ultimate? And even if you sit on 99%, you still can go for one more charge.
Tbh malice is a no-brainer anyway. Every level 30 player should be able to rush it thanks to stats. Of course BB can´t compete with overscaled weapons on a difficulty they´re not meant for. But it´s different on heresy and damnation.
Dunno about your feeling. It´s up to the player i guess, but i feel completely fine with my build and don´t even need a staff.
I just get stacks from BB or with my SMG and the 15s warpcharge feast. Then i normally go into melee, melt a horde down with the soulblaze ultimate, which normally gives me my charges back etc… It doesn´t even feel close to be a zealot just brainlessly running in and spamming LMB or sitting on a broken flamethrower while missing high range-options.
Want to know why people like to focus on BB and its glaring issues?
The answer is because there is a line of Feats you can take that causes a LOT of gameplay synergies that revolve around Brain Burst.
This is the build i actually used for a long time because i love the mechanics of what is happening, despite the difficulty in actually getting it to happen due to the nature of Warp Charge generation in Malice:
In actual practice when stacks are maxed, Killing an Elite with Brain Burst triggers an AoE Soulblaze while granting me a new charge that automatically confers Soulblaze to a nearby Elite. This damage is actually strong enough to kill squishier ones by itself.
If i don’t immediately see an Elite in a horde, popping Dregs and Poxwalkers at random starts lighting things on fire that aren’t elites.
If an Elite happens to get into range, they are immediately lit up like a beacon for a targetted Brain Burst or an ally to kill.
This is a really fun build when it works.
And it really does work in groups that don’t have Veterens or Zealots in it to snipe the Elites out from under my charging Brain Burst.
I’m glad you like your build. I really am. The devs did a pretty decent job at making the Feats in such a way that actualy promotes diverse and effective builds.
But as I just described, It is entirely possible to create a fun and effective build around the regular use of Brain Burst.
Notice how [Mind in Motion] is the only Feat that doesn’t directly interact with Brain Burst?
No other class focuses into one singular aspect quite like the Psyker can with Brain Burst.
The problem with Psyker right now is almost entirely down to Brain Bursts inability to get the killing blows it requires to allow it’s related Feats to function in higher difficulties.
That shouldn’t be the case. And there a simple fix they could apply to remedy the situation.
This allows landing Brain Bursts on thicc Elites to generate Warp Charges and trigger all related Feats instead of relying on lucky killing blows.
And the best part? It doesn’t break balance anywhere.
The change simply allows Brain Burst focused builds to shine into higher difficulties instead of being forced to abandon BB past Malice.
This would be easily abused to generate charges quickly though, maybe reduced the warp charge generation to the stagger event to mitigate the issue.
You realize that hitting a target is different from locking onto it, right?
You’d need to complete the cast and actually deal damage for it to be a hit.
I have 100% viable solution for this problem with Brainburst you people mention:
Rename it to headburst!
Headburst cannot breach helmets.
Be safe: Wearing a helmet decreases the risk and severity of injuries by 72 % and likelihood of death by up to 39
Headburst cannot oneshot mutants tiny head, cos it’s kinda hard to aim!
Headburst cannot oneshot doggy, cos it’s too large and thick!
Headburst cannot oneshot ogryns, cos of doggy reason!
Headburst cannot oneshot things without heads.
Headburst still viable against puny humies.
Changing just one word just for fixing stupidity!
Can somebody do better, faster, smarter (which obviously impossible)?
How on earth does that make it more viable?
Because OP never made a balance argument. They just said it makes no sense that bursting someone’s brain isn’t fatal. Hence that is a perfectly reasonable response to what OP has said.
With a tiny bit of reading between the lines it’s clear they don’t think BB one shotting literally everything on Damnation would be a good balance change.
I’m strongly inclined to agree with them on this. That would be extremely silly.
Ogryns and mutants should take two brainbursts because they are massive, everything else should take one. It should be the same across the board on all difficulties. It should operate like true damage on LoL because it bypasses enemy defences.
Tbf your 2nd post explains your issue way better than the first one and i can agree that such a build, which focus pretty much on BB, relies to much on elite-kills.
I don´t think BB is the issue here, it´s the 2 feats:
Have mentioned it in other threads already, that i see a lot of possibilities through Psyker´s kit and overall the most stuff is fine, but these two need a tweak.
Wrack and Ruin is actually too weak, the range is not that great and that it relies on elite kills on top is hard. But it also would be busted if not.
Kinetic Overload is does a lot with its 4 stacks and 8 stacks will blast any elite away. But it´s useful out of packs of maulers / ragers? Not really… gunners will be oneshot anyway and are too far away mostly, meanwhile the pack of maulers / rager is already so close you could kill them melee… (not to mention that you actually need full charges…)
Where i disagree are your requests… as i´ve said, the issues with those 2 feasts are their drawbacks “on elite-kill” and “max. charges”.
So what i would do to make the 2 feats better to work especially around BB would be following:
Combine both in Kinetic Overload. This could last into something like “If you hit an elite with BB, you´ll also trigger 4 stacks of soulblaze onto them. If you kill an elite you´ll cast soulblaze with 3 stacks around the target. No matter your actual charges.”
Would need some testing to check if the stacks are fine, but this would be more like a chain-combo especially on packs. The 3 stacks aoe are not enough to hit the breakpoint of a horde, but they would stack great onto the 2nd mauler / rager whatever you use BB on.
So in the game it would be like “BB an elite, get assisted by 4 stacks of soulblazes to reach a breakpoint, spread those stacks on another elite and the horde, BB the other elite and he´ll just melt down with 7 stacks.”
I would take also take more care for the oneshot-elites with 3 stacks spreading and it might be huge against monstrosities thanks to the soulblaze-stacking. (Shouldn´t be exeggerated ofc.
Now it´s of course hard to find something to compete with the other feats in the 2nd line. (level 10)
You would probably now take the 2nd perk with peril in your BB build, while wrack and ruin isn´t a thing anymore. So just some ideas:
Killing enemies with melee will grant a stackable damage reduction.
Normal range-weapons will be blessed by the force. Based on the weapons category they could be like "more penetration, reload automatically, little explosion (might suit the revolver)… maybe even focus more on one-hand rangeweapons here.
Increases the duration of the warpcharges by 15s OR you will only lose 1 warpcharge every 20s instead of all within 25s.
There are a lot of possibilities and those level 10 perks could define the way too play or better said, assist the different ways to play better. Imo running normal weapons on Psyker is a nogo for a lot of players. It could change with such a perk for normal range weapons and could take care for those a Vet normally don´t run imo.
Also just a sidenote… while the +X% damage on force-weapons is fine for breakpoints probably, i don´t like such a flat feat-design. I would like to change it in a more weapon-related feat with exclusive traits:
Force-weapons will have additional modifiers like “Lightning staff hits more targets, or the AOE staff has a 50% chance to have a 2nd explosion, charging a force-sword will last for the next 2 hits, etc…”
Would be somehow more interesting than just flat damage, meanwhile still focusing on force-weapons.
Just some brainstorming, but i think it would fix your BB issue without being broken and would offer new possibilities for builds or assists current ones.
It would be too strong. Not to mention that true damage is one of the worst things happened to LoL.
Nah ranged trash is the true endboss in this game.
y brane burst no one shot plague ogryn? bad gaem.
I really can’t even with this sort of logic behind people wanting sweeping changes to the game balance wise.
Brain burst damage is fine, it’s a utility option, not your only option. Stop getting spoiled as hell on malice and below and then being shocked you can’t just faceroll every single special with brain burst in heresy and above.
You might need to… gasp Use other things and interact with the game’s systems like… melee combat! The horror!
If you really want, call it “Big brain hurt time.” Migraines aren’t fun.