Yeah, I’ve looked into this a LOT, as I adore Psyker, but always consider it my ‘for fun’ class despite it also being my main, for this reason and this reason alone.
Pox Bursters for whatever reason still do Non-Standard damage + full spill over. I don’t get why, but they do. This means no amount of toughness will ever stop them, 1 single burster will knock you from full everything to barely breathing if they are not shoved away from you.
The literal ONLY way to combat this in the game, is golden toughness, as it will circumvent the spill over mechanic by having the golden part count as your hp, allowing you to tank 1 poxburster to your toughness.
Other than that? You get absolutely destroyed by them. And they do 100 damage flat, 30-50% of of it as corruption damage depending on how close the game things you where to the explosion.
This, along with their ‘special mechanic’ that will insta kill you if you are I think below half or below your last wound in corruption, means 2 poxbursters to the face, your paste.
And they lovvvvve coming in pairs/triplets half the time. All completely silent until the ‘tick tick BOOM’, and they also do a funny thing where they teleport to area’s outside of your current vision too (a friend caught one doing that at one point recently, turned with the speed only a mouse can muster and saw a pox literally appropriate in front of them).
The only way to prevent this is Corruption Resist, in which the 2 shot becomes 3, and strictly if you have no corruption from anything else. And with Havoc being the way it is…a Psyker gets 1 shot easily from a burster, given the amount of HP lose meaning one easily takes more than half their health in corruption…
It’s just unfortunate, and the amount of missions that I’ve lost to the director just saying ‘woops all pox bursters’ half way through a super dense wave and just wiping the whole team is ridiculous.
I really wish they just didn’t do Non-Standard damage + spill over…like why does a mauler beating my ass have the capability of being tanked with the right set up, but a literally pushed away pox burster that didn’t quite go far enough nukes me from 225 toughness and 165 HP down to 0 toughness, 65 health and 50 corruption. Like wtf…It just feels awful, for Psykers especially since we have no tools against it beyond ‘just know exactly where everything spawns forhead’ in a game with random spawns and teleporting enemies…It just feels awful, and I’d really like if they just, removed one or the other of the effects on their attacks.
I’d be fine if the damage spills over if my toughness breaks, I’d be fine if it nukes my toughness from full but so long as I had more than the damage I’d be left breathing. but having it just f$ck you up from both is just…why, why why why. It’s to the point I actually hate them more than trappers, as at least the trappers have the decency of putting me down, not putting me the f$%^ out…