we couldve gotten a lightning punch (something like a close range brainburst?) but instead got a “girlfriend” ability
assail is great because it lets you regen toughness on gunpsyker, you arent supposed to throw all of them out, but throw it while mixing them in with your melee lolol
brain burst generally shines the most when combined with empowered psionics, but i honestly think it should be slightly reworked to instead of building up peril, you dump it and the more peril you had the more damage it does and charges up faster
Yes basically whenever I actually want to win a round I go Brain Rupture Psyker.
People in this game are to dumb to actually counterfire gunners and / or snipers. They rather run away and /or deal with 2 trashmobs in the meantime than actually doing something about that. (until they run out of toughness and die miserably)
A Brain Rupture Psyker solves this problem.
So people around me can continue dealing with lesser threats and feel good about themselves when they see the sum up of their “performance” on a modded scoreboard.
Brain Rupture with the node that reduces its charge time on ability use, paired with Venting Shriek for the short CD, and Warp Siphon, on an Inferno staff build.
Get warp charges, use ability, spam brain rupture, warp charges gave you about 50% cooldown reduction so by the time the brain rupture buff runs out you can cast the ability again, and spam more brain ruptures getting more warp charges for more brain ruptures.
100%. Brain Burst needs a change, it should ONLY target Bosses, Specialists and Elites. There is no reason - outside of Disrupt Destiny -that a minor enemy should ever be targeted with Brain Burst. It’s wild how a poxwalker can run in front of a psyker during heavy horde moments and steal the Brain Burst that was intended for an Elite or Specialist.
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.
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Depends on how Smite is used. Should it be used 100% of the time? Absolutely not. That said, Psyker operates at maximum efficiency when at critical Peril.
Therefore, Smite is an excellent option to quickly build up Peril safely then either vent at critical peril for horde clear or switch to melee for easy 20% bonus melee damage (until below critical peril). The damage from a Warp Rider buffed Creeping Shriek more than makes up for any Psyker “downtime” the team may have suffered.
Also, it’s worth noting there are faster options at building Peril, Surge can max out Peril in just 6 fully charged secondary attacks for example. But for approaching hordes, Smite is great for getting Warp Rider ready to go.
You can jump and drag your reticle down onto the target in order to have an easier time locking onto tag-ables. Most of them are taller than regular trashmobs.
Aside from that, your problem could be solved by simply making BB prioritize tag-able enemies (or actually tagged enemies).
Why would you want to remove the ability to attack minors in general? That is madness.
No reason to target a minor?
How about ranged units?
Any ranged unit posing a threat high enough to require immediate dispatching is already a tagable unit and would not be impacted by this change.
The only scenario where this becomes an issue is a Psyker using a strong close quarters ranged weapon build that needs BB to handle long ranged threats.
Scab shooters are only dangerous at critical mass around medium range. At that point it’s bad strategy to use BB when the Psyker should be closing the gap using slides and cover or using Purgatus to deal with them.
BB is a high damage, slow to charge, single target ranged weapon. Any Psyker worth their salt should never be using BB to clear groups of Scab/Dreg shooters. That is what Assail is for.
Or… We could just fix the bad game mechanic that allows for a high damage, single target, slow to charge ability that is clearly designed to be used on Elites/Specs to be completely wasted on chaff.
Keep in mind, players only have seconds to react in high intensity engagements, this isn’t malice we’re talking about. This is “the screen is completely full of enemies rushing towards us and there’s a sniper at the other side of the map completely obscured by the poxwalkers about to beat us to death”
There’s nothing wrong with this part of the mechanic. Aim high. Thread the needle. Elites and specials are almost all taller than chaff. Locking the poxxer instead of the sniper in the distance is no different to having a poxxer walk in front of a sniper shot.
There’s many ways to deal with this situation that don’t involve an immediate ez head crack on the sniper.
It’s not realistic to expect anything to be designed such that we can just freely delete any specific enemy we want regardless of whatever else is going on.
I just want to be able to lock onto something that I or the team spotted with brain burst, through terrains.I think it would have extreme social value if that were the case.
I do use BB sometimes because the nearby cooldown for the group is easily the best support skill in the game and I’m locked out of it running memedarts. Its kind of fun sliding around pre charging. But 2s for sighted cast and 3s for pre charge still feels just terrible for their unmodified damage. Empowered brain bursts should definitely do some more interesting effect than prevent peril gain and boost charge time…the stopping peril gain I find to be a hinderance almost 100% of the time myself.
I feel for me, my only real issue with Brain Burst is the fact it can target small enemies.
Kinetic Flayer finally has the effect proper where it will only target specials and above, which has been a god send and made picking brain burst not feel nearly as unresponsive. But I find that besides that, the only main time’s I pull it out is against bulwarks and crushers (with Empowered Pionics).
The absolute worst feeling you can have is trying to be an asset to your team against a marked sniper, pull out your head popping tool with infinite range, and have the one pox walker in front of you just not, get, out of the aFHEA way! And op, now your team had to deal with the wave while the sniper dot harassed them, half of them fell over, and you just want to commit.
Literally on every build that has it I use the poke on the staff of choice over the brain burst because that’s just more reliable unfortunately, if I hit a weakspot the thing dies, and I can just spam it until it does so. Brainburst will often just target things it shouldn’t, and it causes me great pain.
I feel the main change would be making the ‘snap cast’ (left click) only target specials, while the ‘long cast’ (right click) can target anything. That would just immediately shift the ability from ‘I pull this out only in desperation’ to ‘This is a suprise tool that will help us later’. Kinetic Flayer already does it now, I would adore if the ‘fast cast’ could do it to, so that when I’m trying to take down a gunner line with my rapidly dwindling Empowered Psionics + Kineitic Resonance timer, I don’t just get immediately memed on by a single enemy walking a half step in front of me and me just overkilling the absolute crap out of it.
The right-click is the pre-target warm up, right? I use it all the time. Hear a dog or trapper, charge it for the insta-pop the second they’re in view.
I’m with you. There will be people will say you “It’s great”… it’s not, at least imo
Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to have a tool for sniping, specially when you use the flamethrower staff, but the problems are: long charge time and low damage
I think taking a closer look at the talents that surround Brain Burst might alleviate some of your issues with it. With kinetic resonance, venting shriek, and empowered psionics brain burst can be cast every second and with overpowering souls basically lets you keep your empowered psionic stacks. Its great against crushers, maulers, snipers, bosses, and basically anything that isn’t a trash mob though you get the most value out killing elites.
The only change that really needs to be added to Brain Burst is for it to always prioritize elite and specialist enemies instead of honing in on the occasional pox walker. That and maybe a refund on peril for people killing brain burst targets before the burst finishes. I almost feel as if changing the charge to a lock that only targets elites, specialists, and monstrosities could work but then you lose a lot of the safety Brain Burst Provides from pre charging it.
If you’d like to see Brain Burst used in game on a Auric Maelstrom I’d be happy to do that so you can see it in action. If you want to try my build be my guest although I don’t really follow the meta or look at other peoples builds and I’m not very good at psyker either. I do have most of the penances in the game if that means anything though.
Always left click, the moment I learned it saved a full second on the cast time it’s been basically the only way I can use it.
Right click just never seems to have a used case for me, sure as Badwin says you can ‘precharge’ with it, but the thought of ever having 4 full seconds in the difficulty I like to run (damnation/auric and above) is laughable, and ohh good you just popped the first trapper as it rounded the corner, that’s great. You ready for trapper 2 and 3 that just rounded the bend right after them?
Even with the charge up bonuses all lined up, the right click never feels worth it over the Veteran just dropping them in 4 bullets from their Autogun, and in the event such a Veteran isn’t present, a poke with a sword or a few jabs from said aforementioned staff always feel more prevalent, as I don’t have to become a sitting duck while doing those.
This not to say there aren’t used cases (doing a fade away pop while dodging over the edge of a balcony, getting a special within your sights and focusing on dodging while you wind up the pop), but those used cases would feel a LOT more effective and ‘snappy’ if I knew the brain burst could ONLY target the thing of value in front of me, and not a majority of the time need me to start the snap cast 2-3 times over before it finally chooses the thing I want it to.
Unlike you guys I really don’t see any particular redeeming features. I mean sure, no Line of Sight requirement after locking on is handy, but 75% of the time, my teammates kill the thing before I do. The almost infinite range doesn’t often come into play ; Crusher groups etc. are rarely spotted at very long distances. For dealing with big stacks of shotgunners or other elites, my Fire staff + dodge-slide will do the job 3 times faster. For every Bulwark or crusher, I feel like I’m better off whipping out my Dueling sword and delete them from the game in 3 headshots. And if I wanted to take care of gunners quickly then I’m sh*t out of luck 'cause I don’t have Assail.
It SUCKS that it takes Empowered Psionics for BB to be any good. And even then in only very specific situations !
It’s kinda fun, but definitely feels sub-optimal as hell.
