“Lingering Influence” Psyker talent, that increases Disrupt Destiny stack duration to 10s, is either broken altogether, or not displaying stacks properly in the buff tracker.
I tried out the updated Disrupt Destiny talent this evening and watched the buff tracker as I fought a couple missions. First I tried the 25 max stacks talent choice, but I was never able to get the stacks much higher than 4 or 5 in context of normal damnation difficulty gameplay. The stacks seemed to fall off quite quickly, possibly even faster than 4s. But at this point I assumed that it was perhaps just working as designed.
Afterwards, I tried switching the talents to give stacks a 10s duration… but I wasn’t able to see any indication of stacks remaining for 10s. The DIsrupt Destiny buff icon would appear after a destiny target kill, but then fall off just as quickly as when I was running the 4s build version.
Perhaps this is a display bug, and the stacks were actually accruing, or perhaps the Disrupt Destiny icon appearing was representing the “precision bonus” only? Is the precision bonus a player gets now considered a different buff altogether now from the “Disrupt Destiny” stacks?
The way the talent reads - “Increase the duration of Disrupt Destiny from 4s to 10s”, seems to imply the stack duration and precision bonus are the same thing, but if so this talent appears completely non-functional at the moment.
Several additional thoughts on Disrupt Destiny →
This keystone talent tree has always been generally poor, in my opinion, compared to the other options.
It tends to pick enemies that are disadvantageous to target from a normal gameplay perspective, either in difficult to reach locations, or above/below the player on stairwells, or distant enemies when the player is stuck in a melee situation. The selection of targets said it was improved in the patch notes, but I did not notice it being significantly better in this version. It was still picking enemies that were inconvenient and a detriment to normal target prioritization.
While I appreciate that ‘random target kill prioritization’ can be treated as simply an added challenge to using this talent… I don’t think it’s particularly fun to chase those kills. It’s just a nuisance. Perhaps if there was a rewarding sound design notification upon getting a stack, it might at least feel more satisfying? Or if the target prioritization applied to multiple enemies at once, perhaps. Perhaps 2 enemies could be marked, and one mark would always select the nearest elite/specialist?
If multiple players attack the same targets, and another player gets the killing blow on the enemy, the Psyker is deprived of the opportunity for the stack. Personally I feel that if a Psyker hits the target and it dies, or at least does some % of damage to the target, they ought to get credit for the stack.
It is quite frustrating that this keystone talent cannot be tested in Sefoni’s Meatgrinder testing range. It would be greatly appreciated if it could be made functional there.
I was initially excited to try this new version where stacks degrade one at a time, but since it seems broken I can’t say much in favor of the change thus far.
Steps to Reproduce (Required):
Load Psyker character with full talent tree available.
Select Disrupt Destiny keystone talent, and also the Lingering Influence (10s) talent.
Enter a mission and kill enemies.
Note that the Disrupt Destiny icon that appears in the buff trackers after a destiny target kill does not last for 10s.
I went back into the game and was actually unable to reproduce this.
Upon loading back in and entering a new game, the Disrupt Destiny stacks WERE showing, and were indeed falling off one at a time per 10s.
Not sure how to explain it… I definitely didn’t see any stacks accumulating before. The bug is either intermittent, related to changing talents before jumping into a mission, or some kind of display bug only.
It’s related to the UI issue right now. I used to also have this issue with inconsistent appearance rates. However even if its showing up weird I’m 80% sure its still working correctly, as since I have a mod to fix the buff bar I have never noticed the issue again.
I just noticed this in play today. As you say, with the extended 10 sec duration the icon shows up and then quickly disappears. I figured it was probably in about 1 second and wondered if there wasn’t a decimal placement error involved with the talent. In any case, I don’t believe I accrued any stacks. I sure never noticed any.
But upon finishing the level I see that I apparently spent 111 seconds with 15 or more stacks, so, I too, wonder if it isn’t a purely visual bug.
I’ve been playing assail disrupt destiny psyker for a while, and have also found it broken since the update. I estimate I can visibly see stacks in maybe 1/10 games, and I KNOW I should be building them. I’m able to knock out 2-3 highlighted enemies in a few seconds sometimes and all that appears is a single stack.
Just completed a game and had this issue. Thankfully I was doing this just to go for the penance, so I can confirm the effect still works even though you can’t see the number of stacks you’re at. For me I joined an in progress mission and it would display the buff when I got a stack but not the number of stacks themselves. But when I finished the mission the Penance did progress from 0 to 379 seconds, so I did get to max stacks and keep them there at least as far as the Penance was concerned. Felt like I had the damage and everything too, but couldn’t quite tell you there.
(also would say, if the kill prioritization picked enemies close to you UP to 25 meters away, but not at random, that would make the talent feel so much better. as it stands, even with the decaying stack change as you point out in here, it still feels ‘too much for to little’, I don’t want to have to look past the enemies swarming me to shot/otherwise hit an enemy the full 25 meters away that just spawned and are running away from the fight. It feels bad, and makes lingering like the only viable option verses if the blue outline always prioritized ‘the next closest target’ to the Psyker. I’m supposed to be disrupting destiny/my death here, not shooting a random guy not even targeted onto me yet.)
After having played more with the updated Disrupt Destiny, I’d like to amend my previous feedback.
I think a lot of my assumptions about how quickly stacks were falling off, and how hard it was to maintain them… was due to the visual bug.
Since playing more with it, I HAVE found the target selection to be better than it used to be, and stacks to be easier to maintain… at least when it is displaying properly and I can tell how many stacks I have.
Doesn’t mean that it can’t still be improved, for all the same reasons mentioned in this thread… but it’s not as terrible as that first night led me to believe.
I think what’s happening is that the actual disrupt destiny buff is hidden due to a current UI bug. Disrupt Destiny has two seperate buff icons: one for the 2.5s movement speed bonus and one for the actual stacking precision bonus.
Due to an UI bug, the precision bonus will often be hidden in the UI (but stacking as intended). I think this is the issue you’re having. You’re seeing the 2.5s movespeed bonus and nothing else most of the time. This is not however the actual stacking part of disrupt destiny, that one is hidden most of the time (depending on your build and how many buffs you have on the bar)