Buff Brain Rupture, Please

[IGN_Vera]

So, why buff Brain Rupture? Let’s refer to upvoted community feedback to answer that:

Community Feedback

@aroth68

It would need quite a big speed increase or some kind of CC utility to make me consider using it in Auric…

@harlekein

My idea is to make charge time dependent on target health, up to a limit, but with the result that it will kill every human sized enemy in one charge.

@Gideon404

For that reason, I would also be open to ogryns dying in one (long) charge too.

@BFCInsomnia

been saying this since day 1, with the only difference that even ogryns should be one shot, if it takes like 4 to 6 seconds.

A popular consensus appears to be Brain Rupture needs an increase in default charging time, but Ogryns should still be noticeably more resistant than human sized Elites and the Perilous Combustion-Flayer loop needs to be nerfed. One way Rupture can be buffed without becoming crazy overpowered is by changing how damage is applied with Brain Rupture:

New Brain Rupture:

Brain Rupture: Focus your Psychic Power on one enemy to deal catastrophic damage to that enemy. Effective against Carapace armoured enemies and Monstrosities.

For every 1s spent charging Brain Rupture on an enemy, deal 1000 damage to that enemy. Charge stops when 100% Peril is reached or that enemy dies. 10% Peril generated per second spent charging.

Kinetic Flayer: Melee hits against Elites, Specialists and Monstrosities proc Brain Rupture, dealing 3k damage. 15s Cooldown.

Limiting Flayer to melee hits makes it more targetable and deliberate vs it proccing on DoT stacks like Soulblaze, it also increases risk which makes sense for such a strong attack. Additionally, it removes the very busted Flayer-Perilous Combustion auto kill loop which shouldn’t exist tbh with how exponentially that Talent duo can compound PC stacks when Director spams a ton of human Elite blobs.

Kill Times

Gunner - 1400HP/ 2s /20% Peril

Scab Gunner - 1700HP/ 2s /20% Peril

Scab Shotgunner - 1500HP/ 2s /20% Peril

Shotgunner - 1000HP/ 1s /10% Peril

Plasma Gunner - 1800HP/ 2s /20% Peril

Crusher - 6000HP/ 6s /60% Peril

Bulwark - 4800HP/ 5s /50% Peril

By dealing a fixed amount of damage per second, “charge time” with BB effectively becomes dependent on enemy HP. This means Ogryns could be killed while consuming only one Empowered charge like other Elites; but they would still take noticeably longer to kill, as they should. Each tic of Brain Rupture damage would apply light stagger up to Ogryn types, similar to flinching.

With Warp Unbound, Psykers could deal potentially 10k base damage to Bosses during that 10s duration which sounds like a lot; but that’s provided their Brain Rupture isn’t interupted at all which as we know is impossible because Bosses will shift aggro to whoever is dealing the most damage and Specialists exist.

New Empowered Psionics:

Empowered Psionics: Kills have a 10% chance to Empower your next Blitz. You can hold up to 3 Charges.

Charged up is basically mandatory for Empowered Psionics to be effective, should be integrated into default Empowered Psionics.

Empowered Brain Rupture: -50% Peril Cost. +80% Damage

With this new Brain Rupture, Peril is an important limiting factor. 100% Peril Cost Reduction would be way too much, so it should get reduced to 50%. +80% Damage is the minimum for new breakpoints to be hit against Elites. Any higher than 80% and Damage starts getting too ridiculous against Monstrosities.

Empowered Kill Times

Gunner - 1400HP/ 1s /10% Peril

Scab Gunner - 1700HP/ 1s /10% Peril

Scab Shotgunner - 1500HP/ 1s /10% Peril

Shotgunner - 1000HP/ 1s /10% Peril

Plasma Gunner - 1800HP/ 1s /10% Peril

Crusher - 6000HP/ 4s /40% Peril

Bulwark - 4800HP/ 3s /50% Peril

Bio Lodestone: Guaranteed chance to gain Empowered Psionics on Melee Critical Hit against Monstrosities and Ogryns. 6s Cooldown.

This would allow Psykers to be more effective against Bosses, but obviously there needs to be a cooldown between procs due to Psyker’s high crit chance in melee. There needs to be some risk for such a good reward, hence melee crit instead of ranged.

[Index]

@IGN_Vera

Ogryns should still be noticeably more resistant

small mind be tidy mind

[IGN_Vera]

It’s also worth mentioning Scrier’s Gaze and Venting Shriek should have 45s Cooldowns, especially if a change to a Blitz like this was implemented because of possible back to back Warp Unbound abuse effectively allowing insane amounts of damage.

Also the damage output of both those abilities is pretty strong by themselves so even without this change they should still get 45s cooldowns because of all the crazy AOE damage both those abilities can dish out via Creeping Shriek, Purgatus, Voidblast etc - without fearing Perils of the Warp thanks to Unbound or short Shriek CD from Seer’s + Psykinetic’s Aura.

[Margeret-Dayhoff]

At this stage I’d settle for a flat 20% reduction in cast time, with pre-charged BB having the same cast time as on-target bursting.

Also Empowered psionics base on-kill proc chance should be 25%, and the talent that gives toughness to everyone in coherency should be combined with the talent that increases the base EP proc chance (which should also be increased) because nobody ever takes either talents otherwise as they are clearly both inferior to gaining guarateed EP on elite kill.

[IGN_Vera]

@Margeret-Dayhoff

At this stage I’d settle for a flat 20% reduction in cast time, with pre-charged BB having the same cast time as on-target bursting.

Agreed pre charge BB should have the same cast time, but I just don’t think 20% is going to do it in Auric+.

Crushers would still have the 6s kill time at base, while flimsy enemies like Specialists would be down to 1s. Human Elites would also get down to 1s, but with Empowered Psionics dedication - sacrificing powerful CD through Warp Siphon or overall damage through Disrupt Destiny.

The really irritating part is needing to use two Empowered Psionics charges to kill one Crusher, and that was before their HP buff.

I get that Crushers should have longer kill times than human Elites, but there’s just too many Crushers in Auric+ to be wasting EP charges right along Specialists that also for some reason don’t refund EP charges on kill even with their abhorrent spawn rate.

With all that said, the fact that BB even needs Resonance or Empowered just to be effective at killing Gunners and weak Specialists in the timely manner required for Auric pace is just not acceptable IMO. It’s single target dedication to the maximum, yet ironically running Flayer with Blaze Bolt is the optimal way to use BB for Specialists.

@Margeret-Dayhoff

Also Empowered psionics base on-kill proc chance should be 25%, and the talent that gives toughness to everyone in coherency should be combined with the talent that increases the base EP proc chance (which should also be increased)

That’s an interesting idea I like that.