Just some thoughts in general on the Psyker class having got it to 20
I quite like the left click head pop - until your target gets killed. Would be nice if it was slightly more obvious to your friends that they shouldn’t attack that. The right click - just doesn’t feel good. You’re rarely sure you’ve targeted what you want to target and it wastes so much peril.
Force sword is… decent? But not amazing. Kind of sucks there’s only one force melee weapon unless I’m missing something. The charge is up is ok for specials but it really feels like the charge is over way too quickly. A force glaive or force axe would be amazing for variety. Also a force melee weapon without a really weird block/shove would be nice… it just feels… odd.
Likewise with variety it suuuuuucks that 3 of the 4 staves have the same primary fire… especially as it’s not particularly satisfying and it’s kind of unreliable (enemies in DT move so much less predictably than in VT yet it feels like the same weapon). It’s great that the fire staff has a different primary fire but it sucks that it’s kind of a duplicate of its secondary fire leaving you hopelessly short ranged (even if it does obliterate hordes).
Generally the selection of other guns is nice… but you do feel a bit like you’re missing out not using a force weapon. A little sad there’s no shotgun option.
So far the feats seem like there’s only one real option (maxing out on warp points). Other options like spreading fire when you pop heads seems really underpowered.
General feedback:
Hit feedback seems very subtle. Very easy to get wailed upon without realising there’s a guy right next to you. Likewise with an enemy sort of sitting in the middle of your party without anyone realising it because he looks a bit too much like one of your own.
Multiple special spawns seem very overtuned at the moment… especially multiple specials spawning from seemingly out of thin air. Bit too easy for a room/area you thought you had pretty cleared to suddenly feel like it’s full of special mobs somehow.
Endless Horde also coming with extra specials seems… odd. Would rather separate modifiers that only affect horde frequency AND another that affects special frequency… and maybe a rare option that increases both.
DPS/kills report at the end of the mission would be amazing… though I can bet it would probably show some pretty skewed results right now.
Psyker feats are weird, I really don’t see many options that actually benefit different playstyles. None of the feats really change how you play your character and very few of them make noticeable differences in your core gameplay. If the Psyker lost access to feats altogether, I probably wouldn’t even notice. The 20/25 feats give some options which are somewhat noticeable, but again, none of them actually make a difference in your gameplay, rather, they subtly change how some skills interact in game.
I was trying to build my psyker playstyle around NOT relying on warp charges or BB since it’s pretty underpowered on higher difficulties and hard to pull off.
I was mostly going for a “high peril” build to get +15% damage on force weapons, using the first talent at Level 10 to get there and the blocking generates peril talent. This is sort of like the pyromancer playstyle from VT2. Getting warp charges from passive 4% chance on kill from allies helps keep the charges up.
However, it really doesn’t feel that impactful. Even at high peril the damage isn’t enough to compensate for the low damage output and long cast times from staves - and the force sword doesn’t seem to have the best cleave for horde management.
I’ve been trying to use the Voidbolt staff (as a long time Sienna Bolt Staff lover) but the damage output relative to the casting charge time is awful. Or maybe my gear is just weak. But on Malice difficulty I can’t head shot elites, wheras in VT2 on Legend the bolt staff can 1-shot headshot stormvermin (for example) and with much faster charge times.
I do like the force sword - and honestly the most impactful thing I feel like I can do as a psyker is use the force sword special attack to help kill tougher enemies quickly. 1-hitting maulers with the force sword is pretty satisfying.
Dunno… scrolling to the feasts and a bit of testing let me think psyker is fine.
You can actually build around BB, go for melee action or skill around staves. You can even assist your group with 15% extra damage on elites like bulwarks or bosses.
Seems like an allrounder-class with the most possibilities in kind of builds and across the board pretty balanced.
Forcesword is pretty strong in my eyes. Waveclear is fine, the special can take out elites (rager, mauler) pretty fast, only the push is something to get used to. But if a weapon is stronger than the forcesword, it´s broken and should get a nerf.
Imo i wouldn´t change anything on Psyker. Just give it time and try out different stuff. Also a lot will depend on the weapons and their bars. Traits have never been so impactful in the tide-series unless they were straight up broken or gave obvious stuff like temporary health. But in case of Psyker you can atleast build around what you like on the class. I personally don´t see “must have” traits since it´s really depending on the playstyle you choose. (No matter if one is stronger statbased or easier to use.)
EDIT: Also extra aoe fire while using melee with the auto-BB? Doesn´t sound that bad, especially if you play with a more single-target related weapon. I really think poeple should try different stuff first.
I’ve played a bit of psyker, but mainly I go Vet or Ogryn and my preference is seeing crowd control psykers using staves to suppress or stun groups. Void can get a lot of kills in, but they’re not kills that need to be focused by a psyker imo. One of the other classes is better off dealing with those while the psyker crowd controls or head pops priority targets.
I have seen a few people on youtube talking about a build revolving around the feat that gives 10% chance to proc a BB with any attack.
And for that, they use the super fast lasgun, (I don’t remember the name, Acceterus or something), so you can be sure to proc a free BB every 15 seconds. I have not tested it yet, but according to some people, it works in heresy.
@Darth_Angeal try psyker on difficulty 5 when you need 4 brainburst casts to kill an elite while a vet can kill it in less than half the time with a bolter or plasma gun.
Try getting soulblaze to kill something on difficulty 3, it will never kill the weakest enemy and on 5 its just a pretty visual bc it could do 10x the damage and still won’t kill on difficulty 5
It has never been said, that Psyker is better at Elite-killing than Vet, it has been said it´s an allrounder with a lot of cc if you want, and that´s makes him actually pretty good.
Also Vet needs his ultimate meanwhile BB is up whenever you want. Not to forget that Bolter and Powersword are busted imo and definately need a nerf, which is not just a reload-animation or something. So it´s not just the Veteran, it´s the weapons being broken combined with an ultimate that assists them.
Soulblaze might not killing enemies, but it´s a huge aoe-dot brining enemies low to finish them either. If it would melt hordes once you BB´d a rager or something, it would be broken af. Don´t underestimate the power of dots especially on difficulties where you definately need longer to finish enemies anyway.
What we really need is more accuracy on BB and being able to use it through railings and grids.
EDIT: Not saying we need some tweaks in the future, but i think the kit from Psyker is fine imo. What we need are nerfs to the broken and buffs for the obvious useless weapons, because they trivialize class abilities anyway.
@darth_angeal I disagree. I would encourage you to give it a go for a few levels. I thought it all looked good on paper too, but practically none of it just ends up panning out that way.
BB is difficult to get off at all and takes more than one on anything above a hound or a specialist. It’s dead in half that to other classes. Or even to just using a strong attack on [generic melee weapon] or a couple rounds from a bolter.
Soulblaze is worthless, single digit DPS on a 3m radius takes 15+ seconds to kill chod, much less doing anything tangible to something more.
The feats generally revolve around BB or are BB adjacent due to warp charges. Objectively more than half my brain bursts aren’t successful because it’s dead by then. Then all you’ve done is wasted peril generation. Damage for it doesn’t even scale, so it’s not even remotely useful above malice.
Best I’ve figured out is to use the staves for crowd control, which have very few feats which even remotely contribute to doing so and that’s only useful up to malice. Anything higher and that’s questionable, too. Takes multiple shots to kill chod at that point.
So how would you play a psyker exactly?
I am nearly 30 and going to go in Heresy difficulty soon, and I would want to be as effective as possible. What weapons/build would you suggest?
Not as extensive experience but mine is from getgo they seem very weak, then second you get staff they turn into a ranged king spamming damage nonstop, and then the skull pop ability is something you reserve for special enemies.
They should start with a staff, being that then the training session with it will help players understand how the unique but standard weapon works with them.
Endgame can be totaly different but inital experience is what allot of people might get and might turn them off thinking this class sucks.
Allrounder ? are you for real? Psyker are made of glass, they are supposed to be a glass cannon. But right now they are glass without the cannon. In high difficulty we are glorified stun stick, totally useless class past lv 3 difficulty. Stunning is LITERALLY the only thing this class does past lv 3 difficulty. We need 6 to 9 second to do the same job of what a sharpshooter or zealot is capable of doing in 2. We need to build our stack to increase our dps which is impossible esp around elevators, do 2 spell which takes us like 10 sec to quell afterward which do less damage than a class that point and left mouse click and have 0 management to do like the peril management of the psyker. With all this resource management, switching of weapons non stop, can 1 shot urself, most squishy class, cant heal urself, and has the less damage of all the classes to maybe the exception of the ogryn, so basically all the danger with no reward at all. Was SUPER exciter and loved my psyker till got to difficulty lv 4 +. They are useless, most group prefer 2 sharpshooter, why bring a useless psyker. BB don’t scale with gear or weapon or level so it become literally useless, you need about 10 sec to kill 1 elite, staff power are garbage, a purgatus staff cant even kill a basic zombie under 5 sec … well maybe if you are lucky. Surge staff you need almost 2 full charge of secondary attack to kill basic zombies, ill stop there i am SO disappointed in this class … allrounder? made of glass so cant tank, cant dps, cc but less than ogryn … why does this class exist then
I have to agree. The class is disappointed thus far, and at least for me, not a good fit compared to the ease of play of the other classes. I want to really like this class, but it needs reworked
I am very sad to read that…I am still in Malice now and enjoying the psyker, especially the head pop, but if it takes 3 or 4 pops to kill someone in higher difficulty, and if I am just gonna be a staggering machine, I may consider to switch main…
The psyker is a fun mid-difficulty horde mulcher and occasional special popper, but as soon as BB doesn’t oneshot elites or specials and staff doesn’t kill even chaff it becomes a chore to play.
And no, higher level gear doesn’t help. You need a fully charged Void Staff hit to kill basic dregs, even with a max damage staff.
The answer is very simple, just reroll as a Vet and use boltgun+power sword !
Without troll on of thebest build is Accatran full auto lasrifle + BB proc on hit, it mean a free BB every 15s but needing to use one specific lasgun kill a bit the psyker fantaisy right now…
If only staff or force sword would have a mean to generate warp charge the class would be at least playable
And pleas give more force weapon variety, like sword for cleave and axe for single target… the power sword we have now is really wonky… stagger on charge push is nice but aving one force option that can ripost like all normal weapon do will be very appreciated…
I would prefer not playing him with a lasgun if possible, or else, better reroll vet lol.
Regarding warp charge, if you think you’re struggling with keeping your full stack, I would suggest to take the lvl 15 feat that gives you 4% chance to gain a warp charge everytime you or an ally kills an enemy.
It was pretty game changer for me, even in lower difficulty, it happens a lot, 4% doesn’t seems much, but I am pretty much constantly at 3 or 4 stacks even without using BB at all for a while.
The issue is not keeping stak up, it’s that they are only tied to BB so that you cannot really make other build interesting. Its wierd how FS say they tweaked the psyker to make use use BB less but just nerf the class to dust when there was an easy fix
And psychic communion can feel as an autopick seeing how good it is (that imo show that class desing is at lackluster) but in higher difficulty (4/5) it block cerebral laceration that are really good since BB don’t OS anything anymore.
So right know at high lvl of play you are kinda stuck beeing a very brittle not so good support roll with your aura/feat/staff CC when everithing in the class description/fantasy lean toward a elite killer glass canon but unfortunatly that not going to happen … And even on the support roll other class outshine us …
Ah ok, my bad, I misunderstood what you meant !
What do you mean it “block” cerebral laceration? How so?
Maybe they will rework him again. Who knows, the game is not even out yet officialy, so I keep hope
