So. Darktide is a horde shooter, which generally wants you to kill lots of enemies and do so fairly quickly. Brain Burst/Rupture is a single-target ability with a long charge-up time. Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron?
90% of the Psykers I see with it are only using it for Kinetic Flayer (the other 10% seem to be grinding penances), wielding their melee or ranged weapon for 99% of a mission, only really pulling out their blitz to pick off enemies like snipers (for those using a staff), if even that. It feels like an very niche ability in a game where you only have 3 to choose from. It feels out of place. Maybe if Darktide had a deeper gear system similar to the likes of Diablo, where you can get gear that dramatically changes how certain abilities work, this ability would’ve made more sense. All I can think of when using it is “how does this contribute to the team?” Being able to one-shot a Mauler or something like that comes in handy, but I can already do that with my weapons. I spend more time charging up the brain burst than it would’ve taken me to melee the karking thing to death while still being able to block attacks and push enemies away, as well as retain full mobility.
Brain Rupture should at least have a shorter charge up time and be able to hit multiple (preferably manually painted) enemies. Maybe also stun/stagger enemies close to the target.
BR is amazing and can kill enemies no other blitz can (like the hound that just ran around the corner) or more efficiently than any other weapon (like bulwarks). With Empowered Psyonics (sic?) and Kinetic Resonance you can pop heads like a machine gun with perfect aim.
You forgot to add that it can’t actually kill a single target in 1 charge on higher difficulties lol. As if killing a crusher or mauler per 30 minute charge would be OP… Shrug
I firmly believe in a world where Psykinetic’s Aura was located below the Blitz choices, literally no one would use Brain Burst ever, and all choose Assail. It kills far faster, en mass for free, and requires less point investment to be viable.
Brain Burst needs reworked to automatically kill targets from whatever their current health is, scaled in charge time. This means the charge time to kill a Poxwalker would be far faster than BB’ing a Rager, with a Crusher/Bulwark taking the longest. BB should literally always 1-shot the thing you are Brain Bursting. Have BB do damage to bosses based on charge time as desired, limited by total Peril.
This is a great showcase of BR usage. Killing while repositioning to cover, killing enemies who are out of LOS due to geometry, killing specials who are behind other enemies, killing enemies who are just moving too fast, taking out bulwarks quickly alone. All the hits!
Speaking only for myself, that still wouldn’t make assail attractive to me. I run exactly zero builds with assail, and not because I can’t pick up CDR by taking it. Rather, it’s because it doesn’t kill bulwarks and crushers efficiently. BR does. That opens up a lot of space for build crafting.
There are so many tools to handle rager balls and other specials that I just don’t get the appeal of assail, I guess. But hard armor requires special tools or dangerous amounts of time. BR being infinite, always available and predictable in speed/application/damage makes it my security blanket.
If the off chance I play psyker, I use Brain Rupture. Its fun to jump and grab those pesky far away enemies without having to aim, allowing me to just focus on dodging. I have not played it in a while but I think the build I was running has some kind-of ramp up to the charge the more I use it in succession.
It is a solid option on aurics if you’re picking it with empowered psionics + overpowered souls. I run BB on my trauma build as long-range option and it’s basically a peril-free way to deal with gunners since you can just chain it infinitely. It also deals semi-decent damage to monstrosities, unlike other two blitzes.
This is all pub games, mind you. BB is somewhat worse in full premade and I barely use it in those, but in pubs it’s a good pick for compensating short-range staves’ weaknesses imo.
I personally don’t often use BB because the only way to make it good is Empowered Psionics. Losing out on Warp Charges or Disrupt Destiny is just too much of a trade-off…
It’s kinda OK with the Fire Staff and these 2 keystones though, because it gives you a ranged option that pierces Carapace and Bulwarks.
Also, with Warp Charges BB’s got some crazy anti-synergy. You pop your ability to start machine-gunning with BB but then, without the 24% damage bonus, it doesn’t even one-shot ragers…
I pretty much ONLY use BB now. I used to think it was the garbo option, but I came around on it after some changes a while back (can’t remember which ones).
It’s easily one of the most reliable special/elite killers there is.
People often complain about it taking some time to kill things or not being able to kill bigger things in one shot. For me, that’s more than made up for by not having to look at the thing I’m cracking.
I won’t speak for any balancing on BR. But I do use it. It’s a tool, like grenades, or throwing knives. You won’t use it all the time, because that’s not its purpose. And as a tool, it is powerful at what it does. A homing-firing-and-almost-forget-“grenade” which ignores Line-Of-Sight (after lock-on), with the power to 1-shot a lot of enemies.
As Psyker, I play staffs 99% of the time. My melee is for when I feel cheeky, or want to “flex” by doing a cool dodge special attack on a Mutant running past. But I could just as well continue to use my staff to kill it and all other things too. Except for when I run Purgatus, then at times I do melee Crushers for obvious reasons if my teammates aren’t around.
That doesn’t mean my melee is useless, it’s just another tool in the arsenal that I can use in certain situations if I choose to. And like BR, it has limitations. All in all, I think it’s an okay ability. Would I want it to do more? Probably. Can I live with how it is in its current state? Sure.
Brain Burst is very fun and there is a logic behind when to use it
meanwhile smite is just boring gameplay, and many just spam it 24/7 because it disables everything.
assail imo it is also a bit boring as playstyle, you just throw them all and it’s not even that fun.
Brain Burst again, very fun because of the crunchy feedback and has more utility imo at sniping enemies that are very far away. maybe i like BB cause old psyker style when new blitz weren’t a thing.
BB is excellent against far away targets, like snipers, or running trappers / dogs. especially as it works after the initial line of sight is lost. they can run, they’ll just die tired.
it’s just very sitatuational to use, definitely not while you’re getting overrun, or against low value targets. i think many misjudge the cast time. it should one-shot any elite though or kill the chaff around them too.
Brain Rupture is my preferred choice basically 100% of the time. Some builds use Empowered Psionics and lean into it more as a general tool for anti-elites at range. But either way, its utility is just too strong to give up IMHO.
You can easily charge it and kite enemies at close range, and its excellent for dealing with bulwarks (even just stunning them), crushers, elite shooters, ragers, etc. combine with perilous combustion and it’s a major tool for spreading soulblaze. Sniping bombers, snipers, trappers, and dogs is also great especially when they like to duck out of sight.
The other blitzes don’t bring much that’s comparable IMHO.
I dislike smite and and find it irritating to use and often is probably irritating for the rest of the team. It’s okay for controlling a tight situation, but won’t do much if you’re on your own.
Assail I find doesn’t really fill any necessary role that isn’t already covered by my main ranged weapon. Maybe there are some assail synergies I have figured out yet, but it’s just a cumbersome feeling power and I’d rather bring a staff if I’m going to be using assail as a ranged attack.
Psykinetic’s Aura is so good that it makes assail very hard to pick up. And the utility that BB/BR provides as others have pointed out is really good in the situations you need it. Smite can save a bad moment, but if you’re a good player and contributing a significant amount of damage most of the time, then smiting a bunch of enemies essentially removes your damage from the team. It’s just not as useful as it seems when what you need is to kill stuff. And it promotes bad gameplay, blah blah that whole rant.
