Beamstaff BW still has flamesword for hordes and the beamstaff shotgun as well.
True it is a general Darktide problem, but I blieve I even phrased it that way:
Anywho - you are spot on with classes being shoehorned into one type and I think this is not particularly conducive to either build diversity or varied class expression. I get that classes need to have specialties. What I am proposing is to create the specialisation through the class and talent design and not necessarily weapon selection. Though even within talent design it is possible to have meaningful gameplay variations, which is something that imho doesnāt require sublclasses but creativity.
1 Like
Yeah from all the complaing about BB I heard is sharpshooter just does BB pick off job better.
Just give him some fancy utility and you got a unique tool that is not just bad Lasrifle you donāt aim.
The reason I state a shorter cast time is because it is often much faster for someone else to deal with it in less time. In Malice difficulty, killing an Ogryn special/elite takes 2 casts. If we keep that with mass I suppose BB can stay where it is, I just think it is somewhat tedious and boring to use, thus lower cast time and the ability to keep/expand supporting talents like increasing the damage that target takes from allies. Your idea could still work if applied along the duration of BB cast, but if that were the case then perils and damage would have to be generated linearly instead of how it is now with a large burst of perils when it finishes casting - because if it is not, then the general idea would be to āfanā your BB, which could make that talent OP and make playing a meta Psyker very boring if that were the case. I do like your idea, I just think in order for it to be powerful against Ogryns/Monstrosities it might either be too strong or too weak against other targets.
Edit: I wasnāt trying to override your ideas. My suggestions I thought would be more focused and less potentially disruptive to the class roles imo. The BB you suggested I would expect to be stronger than what I was proposing, what with the equal utility vs elite and special plus very forgiving with incremental damage so you donāt waste perils on trash. I thought maybe my suggestions would be easier to tweak BB to be good at what the devs would what.
I mean that was kinda the point of writing continously, but yeah that is how I envision it.
Reducing the cast time is kinda redundant to me. One way or the other you need to make sure the ability is not too spamable. If we were to also shorten the cast time next to everything else I propose, weād have to tone down the damge scaling again. Having fixed damage percentages creates a situation where the ability is always live in terms of usability, but it is also balanced around its Time to Kill - in this case damage per second - and its spamability. Shorten the cast time and you need to reduce the damage. Itās a case of pick your poison in my book.
Giving fixed damage percentages based on enemy type does not necessarily make the ability weaker against other enemy types. If the devs were to go along with my suggestion, then BB would be exactly as strong against certain enemy types as the percentage theyāve choosen for it.
For instance they could say:
BB deals 33% health damage against Ogryn type enemies.
BB deals 100% health damage against Snipers.
BB deals 5% damage against monsters (maybe they donāt want you to cheese them/might be too strong)
This is merely a framework for balancing that acutally works consistently.
1 Like
Thanks for the clarification. Then if BB was just a ālaserā of damage to the target with flat incremental damage and perils generation, wouldnāt that make it either exceptionally easy to overheat or just allow you to hold down at 100% until something stops you or the target dies? Plus thereās the Sienna problem of being interrupted while holding down and immediately recasting and exploding.
Edit: I think that would make it very exploitable and annoying to use. Thereād be a lot of loops the devs would have to do to make that work well without having a high risk of killing the player.
The way I see it if you continue to BB in this scenario and manage to exceed your peril meter in the process - you explode. I donāt see how that would make that any more dangerous than before. You just hold the ability and as long as you are under 100% peril you are good. Sure that might take a bit more conentration, but that is something I am willing to trade for. I think the staves might have to still use the current cap/soft cap, because they get spammed more and using them with linear peril generation is easily a safety hazard same goes for melee force weapon special.
Edit* Honestly now that I think about it, you might even be abel to keep the same cap/soft cap for BB as now with the only exception being that when start casting below 100%, exceed that and are still below the soft cap, but then recast you explode. Wouldnāt change much as I see it.
1 Like
I wouldnāt like Psyker with that implementation. If BB worked that way then Iād want Perils to do damage to health (or gaining corruption) at 100%, exploding when you reach 0 hp.
Edit to your Edit: I can see some work around to making it more user friendly when reaching 100% with that now, but itād then be a matter of making it different from a weapon. If you can just target something and start damaging then Psyker basically just has an automatic 2nd gun as a grenade which I donāt think feels fitting and is likely against the devās vision. But regardless, it is far better than what it is now. I wouldnāt love the feel of that implementation (maybe a ramping up of damage as you hold it could aid in that?) but I wouldnāt be avoiding my level 30 psyker anymore.
I believe going without explosion there would be to little risk involved. As my edit says I donāt think having linear damage and peril generation changes much if the game keeps track of when you start the cast, which means in terms of lineancy it could be treated the same as now. Also remeber you still have your āultā (lul) that clears some peril and is therefore a ā'Get out of Jail free Cardā.
These suggestions only serve to lock Psykers further into picking only staffs and force sword
This is not what we need
We need feats promoting the use of the hundreds of autoguns, lasguns and axes we get in the shop
Right now the only reason youād play anything other than Force Sword is due to an oversight in normal melee weapons passive quelling, and its interaction with Kinetic Deflection
Psyker needs feats synergies that are generalised to any weapons, ranged or melee, and reliable Brain Burst kill rate for the feats that depend on it
1 Like
BB already does a 33% of the health of an Ogryn (any Ogryn) - itās more like 40%. It scales according to the enemy type, itās basically just the mutant that takesā¦ 4 charges or 5ā¦ I forget, everything else is 1 and 2 charges. Again, I think it is the wrong path to take. No other class relies on their ability and neither should Psykers, it should be a tool we can use in certain instances - just like a stumm nade, a box of nades and a regular nade.
We should have a Psyker that has feats which compliments its weapons - like all the other classesā¦ Currently we do not, itās either Brain Burst or itās Warp Charge managementā¦ We need stuff that makes sets our weapons apart whilst allowing us to maintain Warp Charges without having to BB every single poxwalker we come across (not that anyone really cares about Warp Charges, theyāre simply too much effort for too little effect).
- And some weapons like Trauma and Voidstrike needs a serious buff in terms of their damage, in fact I would maybe just do away with damage scaling with charge and just start out with max damage. Charging should only affect stuff like AoE size, Stun length and flame duration.
1 Like
My suggestions for BB - 1. linear damage and peril gen thoughout cast; 2. damage scaling with mass increase through damage based on max health of specific minion - do not discourage the use of other weapons beside force weapons.
The only change, where you argue that, would be my suggestion towards Warp Stack generation being coupled to Peril generation, which naturally is bound to work better on Force Weapons. If you have a suggestion for how to better achieve an organic upkeep of Stacks through normal gameplay instead of heavy-handed micromanagement - thatās how it is now - then Iād be glad to hear it.
Generally speaking - with only my BB changes you are still entirely free to do what you want the rest of the talent tree, as my changes serve to make the ability baseline functional without further talents and therefore even support your goal for feat diversity.
If Iām being perfectly honest though - Iād much rather Fatshark scrapped all non-Force Weapons for Psyker and expanded on the arsenal of Force Weapons. I believe that there is just way more potential for interesting and differentiating gameplay with weapons, that not every other class can carry around.
Greatly disagree there. I want to use the heavy laspistol and rapier as the psyker while having builds that make it feel like my own.
2 Likes
I get where you are coming from.
In this case Iād rather they release a Force Rapier, that in general is somewhat different in terms of moveset and offers a weapon special - consuming peril - which fills a different niche than the Force Sword Special.
It is entirely possible to have both talents and feats for either Force or Vanilla Weapons in the talent tree. I Just do not believe you can make those for vanilla weapons reasonably powerful nor distinctive enough as that is the Veteranās metier. Having all talent slots available for Force Weapons would unleash a greater variety of playstyles within that category and actually set the class meaningfully apart from the otherās.
Still I am open for FS or anybody else for that matter to prove me wrong here. Maybe I lack the creativity to imagine how Psykerās talents for Vanilla weapons could look like, so that the class does not feel like a worse version of either veteren or Zealot.
Iām not so sure subclasses are gonna be a thing 
Everything theyāve said so far hints towards unique and separate classes, thatās why we have things like character slots in the main menu.
I hope they change their minds, weāll seeā¦
Not sure if I am too stoked about that, considering how grindy and boring leveling a character feels like.