Early Psyker Feedback

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

Brain Burst
Let me start off by saying I think making Brain Burst cost more peril, and not being usable at 97% peril is a great change. I was fearing that Psyker would be ‘Brain Burst: The Class’, and I’m glad it’s not. Brain Burst feels like something you want to do when you have a high-priority target rather than on both medium and high-priority targets, which I think is a great change of pace from the close beta which makes the class more dynamic. It also makes not taking a long-range weapon such as the revolver an actual concession, rather than before when you could take a staff and essentially not care because Brain Burst was your go-to long-range weapon. These changes are all healthy to the game flow of the class in my opinion.

However… It seems like its damage was nerfed, which in my opinion is possibly the opposite of what should have happened. If it now takes only 3 brain bursts to explode, and you can’t spam it on high peril, its damage should remain as high if not made higher than it was in the close beta.

Additionally, it seems like both the extra damage passive and many traits are indirectly nerfed by the number of Brain Bursts you can do now, which needs some tuning. Perhaps reduce max warp stacks while increasing the bonus each provides, etc.

Psykinetic’s Wrath
The description of this ability says it ‘rests’ your peril level, but it only reduces it by 50%. I hope that this is a bug because otherwise, this feeds even further into the problems of Brain Burst which I’ve outlined above, making it less usable.

Force Sword
The Force Sword is not in a good place, which is a shame for such an iconic weapon. I’ve detailed my thoughts on it in this thread.

Overall, I feel like the changes made to the Psyker are in the right direction in terms of gameplay, but he definitely still needs more work to feel more usable and powerful.

7 Likes
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Upvoting this. I originally didn’t like only having 2 brain bursts before needing to chill but i figured its because I was spamming it in the last beta but it certainly feels nerfed, it doesn’t seem to make a big impact especially on bosses where it should be the go to DPS option. Also do not like Force sword changes costing peril makes the lower limit on Brain burst mean you cant use push after dealing with your elites or specials you cleared before the horde.

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Yeah, I find it really frustrating that they took away the full reset on peril from your ult. Beyond even a gameplay stance, it kind of kneecaps the whole ‘forcibly casting the terrors from your mind’ shtick that the ability plays around. Haven’t played with the Force Sword, tho, so I can’t give my two cents on that.

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I don’t think that Fatshark is understanding the term “Rotation” in terms of gameplay.

A rotation is where you can play a class as intended, using their abilities and skills in one or more orders that feed or react with one another to allow for, with proper use, the abilities or skills to be used in relative tandem with gameplay. The name of the game is management and synergy.

Currently the Psyker isn’t a rotation, but a singular choice of which ability to use. There is no synergy other than with maybe talents that you don’t unlock until higher levels. As I’ve seen on other discussions, a class that requires to be higher level and not be functional as intended without those talents as well as passives from specific types of gear is in fact a bad class. (Edit: Honestly the problem can be solved if they increase the manual venting speed from ‘Glacial’ to literally anything faster.)

I really hope they can figure out what they want to do here. It isn’t a difficult problem to solve.