How to fix the Psyker

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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Large parts of the community voice the opinion, that the psyker is currently the weakest class. Seemingly, it is the only class that people find to be underperforming.

Here are my suggestions regarding how to bring the Psyker in line with the other classes.
Enjoy the read.

How to Fix: Psyker

1) Brainburst
Note: Brainburst has since been buffed directly as well as indirectly through a buff of warp charges and a change to the 1st feat at lvl 10 as well as a buff to Wrack and Ruin.

Is often canceled due to the enemy being killed by allies, and is generally outperformed by guns.

Click here to display full explanation of problems and solution.

Problems:

  • Single target damage and charge time make BB only efficient for use against high value targets: elites/specials, rarely against shooters.
    However, as soon as an enemy head starts to glow blue, other players intuitively focus that enemy and due to the lengthy charge time, enemies are often killed while BB is still charging, leaving the psyker with peril gained for nothing, and 2 sec of wasted time.
  • At higher difficulties, BB damage effectively falls off, making it less useful. Additionally, while elites/specials are more common on higher difficulties, they are often mixed into a horde, making the targeting of BB unreliable (and making it near impossible to tell, which enemy belongs to the glowing head).
  • Overall, BB is generally outperformed by guns.

Solution:

  • BB targeting should prioritize elite/special enemies (at least if they are tagged), instead of targeting fodder enemies that might block the direct line of fire (make the tagged, red glowing enemy, glow blue for the psyker, when the reticle is on the enemy and BB can be locked onto it).
  • A slight buff to charge speed would improve BB dps and make it less likely that a target is killed by other players, while BB is still being charged (alternatively, reduce the charge time by x, and add x as cooldown after a successful cast).
  • Changes/Buffs to the feats that apply soulblaze via BB (discussed in 3.1 and 3.2) would fix the lacking damage on higher difficulties, and allow for a viable BB focused playstyle.

Resulting player experience:
The ability for BB to target elites/specials that are deep inside hordes (hidden behind fodder enemies), would give the Psyker a nieche that other classes do not fill.
In combination with the other two changes, this would enable vigilant players to use BB to soften up (or kill) elites/specials that come running with a horde, before they reach the front line. That way, casting BB would be less likely to be a waste of time.

2) Warp Charges
Note: Warp Charges were changed in Update 1.0.25 on Feb 07th and now decay as described in the “Solution” part of this section, making this section no longer relevant.

They are always stressful and often impossible to maintain.

Click here to display full explanation of problems and solution.

Introduction-Warp Charges: (outdated since Update 1.0.25)

  • Warp Charges (WC) are mostly gained upon kill with Brain Burst (BB).

  • WC have a 25 sec duration and stack 4 times (6 times with talent).

  • WC grant a 3% dmg buff each and can be removed to gain other benefits with two of the lvl 30 talents.

Problems: (outdated since Update 1.0.25)

  • If the duration is not reset by gaining additional WC, all stacks are lost at once. This is especially punishing with the Warp Battery lvl 25 talent, which allows to get 6 WC.

  • To maintain the WC, the player often must use BB to kill ambient fodder enemies, use the Kinetic Flayer lvl 25 talent (chance for brain burst on hit), or rely on low chance rng from other talents (Psychic communion: 4% on kill in coherency/Ascendant Blaze: 10% on kill with Soulblaze) to gain WC via specific talents.

  • In many situations, it is simply impossible to maintain the WC (searching for crafting mats, waiting for teammates, using the elevator, preparing for upcoming event, waiting for a massive door to open).

Solution: (implemented in Update 1.0.25)

  • WC stacks should decay one by one, each time resetting the 25 sec timer.
    This should either be by default, or integrated in the Warp Battery talent that increases max WC to 6 stacks.

Resulting player experience:
WC buildup stays the same and there is no big difference during proper combat.
However, the entire annoying and stressful part of maintaining the WC is eliminated, and players are no longer stressed out and punished by constantly losing all WC without any fault of their own.

3) Feats and Blessings that apply Soulblaze

To understand the following issues, it is important to understand, how Soulblaze works.
TLDR: A small number of stacks deals basically no damage. The Feats and Blessings discussed below (3.1-3.3), apply SB stacks in a way that they are ineffective.

Click here to display basic explanation of soulblaze.

Introduction-Soulblaze:

  • Soulblaze (SB) deals damage via multiple damage ticks over time.

  • The damage per tick scales with number of SB stacks on target.

  • The damage scaling is non linear, meaning that 2 (or x) stacks deal more than 2 (or x) times the damage of one stack.

For example: against enemies that are classified as unarmored: 1/2/3/4/5/6 stacks of SB deal 2/5/10/18/27/37 damage per tick

3.1) Wrack and Ruin (lvl 10 talent)
Killing an Elite or Specialist with Brain Burst applies 2 stacks of Soulblaze to all enemies within 3 metres of the target.

This talent does effectively nothing.

Note: The feat has since been buffed to 4 stacks within 4 meters, triggers on hit and now applies soulblaze to the BB target as well.

Click here to display full explanation of problems and solution.

Problems:

  • 2 stacks of SB deal overall 50 dmg over 7 sec to enemies of the unarmored category (56 dmg with 12% bonus from 4 Warp Charges).

  • The weakest fodder enemy in the game is classified as unarmored.

On difficulties 1/2/3/4/5, that enemy has 65/80/100/150/200 health.

  • The 2 stacks of SB, applied by the talent, can not even kill the weakest enemy in the game on the lowest difficulty.

  • Making the produced SB stacks effective, would require to apply them at least twice.
    → On low diff, this effect can not be stacked with itself, because
    elites/specials are too rare and too far spread.
    → On high diff, this effect can not effectively be stacked, because killing most elites/specials requires multiple casts of BB and the Soulblaze stacks from first application will run out.

Solutions:

  • Apply the effect on any BB kill, so that it can be stacked.

or

  • Increase the effect to 3 or 4 stacks, making it useful without further stacking.
    → 3 stacks: 115 dmg to unarmored (kills weakest fodder enemy on diff 1-3)
    → 4 stacks: 200 dmg to unarmored (kills weakest fodder enemy on diff 1-5)

3.2) Kinetic Overload (lvl 25 talent)
While you have maximum Warp Charges, gaining a Warp Charge instead applies 4 Stacks of Soulblaze to a nearby enemy, prioritizing Elite enemies.

This talent is not particularly effective.

Note: This feat has since been replaced with Wildfire, which would be good if it worked as described ingame.

Click here to display full explanation of problems and solution.

Problems:

  • With 4 active WC (the talent can only trigger while at 4 WC), 4 stacks of SB deal overall 336 dmg over 7 sec to enemies of the flak armour category.

  • The weakest elite enemy in the game (Shotgunners) is classified as flak armour.

On difficulties 1/2/3/4/5, that enemy has 375/375/500/625/750 health.

  • The 4 stacks of SB, applied by the talent, can not even kill the weakest elite enemy in the game on the lowest difficulty.

  • If no elite enemy is within 15m of you, the 4 stacks of SB are instead applied to a single fodder enemy, which may or may not die to that effect within 6 -7 sec. However, since it is usually a fodder enemy inside a horde, that single kill is worthless and the enemy is quite likely to just be killed by something else, before burning to death.

  • Making the produced SB stacks effective, would require to apply them at least twice.
    → On low diff, this talent is not very useful, because there are very few elites.
    Spending 2 sec to kill one enemy with BB in order to have one fodder enemy burn to death over 2 sec is also not very efficient.
    → On high diff, there are plenty elites/specials, which are reasonable targets to kill with BB. However, getting the kill on most of them requires multiple casts of BB (and then there are teammates), which makes the talent not apply very often. Casting BB on fodder, in order to apply 4 stacks of SB to elites, is not efficient.

Solutions:

  • Change it to: While at max WC, hitting a target with BB additionally applies 4 stacks of SB. If BB kills the target, SB applies to the nearest elite enemy instead.

or

  • Increase the effect to 5 or 6 stacks, making it useful against elites without further stacking.

3.3) Blazing Spirit (blessing; staff variant)
Enemy gains +1 Stacks of Soulblaze on Critical Hit.

The Staff version (1 stack) of this blessing does effectively nothing.
(The Blaze Force Sword version with 2-4 stacks is fine.)

Note: Staff variant got buffed to 3 stacks on crit.
Force Sword variant is unchanged, but now mostly pointless. Force Sword damage got buffed and critical hits kill weaker enemies now.

Click here to display full explanation of problems and solution.

Problems:

  • The blessing is only available for Trauma and Voidstrike staff. Both of their charged attacks hit slow and hard, but light attack spam is pointless.
  • The blessing only applies a single stack of SB on crit (1 SB stack effectively does nothing).
  • It is unlikely to even get two stacks of SB on a target with either of the two staffs (even with “Warp Nexus” blessing: Increases your critical hit chance by 2-5% at different increments of Peril up to 4 stacks.), but multiple stacks of SB are needed to make the blessing useful.
  • The blessing is not available for Surge and Purgatus staff, although it would work well with both of them, because they hit at a faster rate.

Solution:

  • Make two different versions of the “Blazing Spirit” Blessing for staffs (like the two versions of the “Infernus” blessing for Lasguns with low and high firerates):
    → for Trauma and Voidstrike staff: applies 3-4 stacks of SB on crit (does not need to be applied multiple times to be effective)
    or: applies 2-3 stacks of SB on hit with fully charged attack
    → for Surge and Purgatus staff: applies 1-2 stacks of SB on crit (has to be applied multiple times to be effective)

Edit: Typo fixes.
Edit 2: I had mistakenly labeled “Kinetic Flayer” as a lvl 20 talent. It is a lvl 25 talent.
Edit 3: (incorrect statement)
Edit 4: Correction of statement from Edit 3: Further testing showed that the “Battle Meditation” passive (10% chance to quell 10% peril on kill) does work on Soulblaze kills (tested with kills via Ascendant Blaze talent in the Meatgrinder).
Edit 5: Added note to Warp Charges section due to Update 1.0.25 (Feb 07th) making that exact change.
Edit 6: Added notes to multiple sections due to various changes having taken place since this was originally posted.

7 Likes
2

You know these threads are usually a wildly unbalanced power trip but pretty much all of this is sensible and well thought through. Kudos. Even as someone who generally thinks Psyker is already good, I wouldn’t be upset by any of these suggestions being implemented.

Nice one.

5 Likes
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Get off the shrooms my dude, there is zero reference to exploits here, just pretty reasonable buffs. I also don’t think Psyker NEEDS buffs but come on, there’s nothing terribly unreasonable in this post.

1 Like
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Please excuse me for reposting my week old post:

Psyker is weak because most of his kit is poorly designed.

  1. Warp charges are weak. No other iconic needs to be actively maintained to be “ON”, for other classes they just work all the time without any additional input. That’s not all: almost half (8 out of 18) of Psyker’s feats are built around Psyker’s iconic. We can’t just ignore Warp Charges because of how important they are for Psyker’s whole kit to work properly. Other classes have ZERO feats that interact with their passives in any way, except for Zealot who has two (and they just make his passives stronger when the Zealot has low health, so it’s just another background passive interaction). And WCs also disappear if you don’t focus on maintaining them.
  2. The only way to actively generate a WC on demand is by killing an enemy with a blitz ability - Brain Burst. Again, that’s nothing like any other class has - their passive bonuses are always online. But Brain Burst is a rather slow cast with a not-so-high damage. This basically means that to reliably gain a WC a Psyker has to channel a BB on some chaff enemy, and you have to do it every 20-ish seconds or you lose your stacks. That is not something that I’d call “dynamic”. By the way, Psyker also has the most feats linked to a Blitz of all classes! On it’s own BB is a good ability but because it’s linked to the WCs people are not satisfied with it.

There are two more unique mechanics: Soulblaze and Perils of the Warp. They are absolutely fine but they lack feats to make them impactful.

If I was to redisign the Psyker, i’d do the following:

remodel Battle Meditation to

10% Chance to generate a Warp Charge on Kill. Each Charge grants X% damage. Warp charges are retained for Y seconds. You can store up to Z Warp Charges.

remodel Warp Siphon to

Gain between X% and Y% damage with force weapon attacks and warp attacks, based on your current Peril.

  • remove all WC related feats, add more Peril and Soulblaze related feats. I’m not entirely sure exactly what could those be, but I’m thinking about low Peril translating to higher toughness regen and damage reduction and high Peril translating to higher damage output and additional Soulblaze stacks.
    That should allow for a higher skill expression, adaptability, and fluidity.

  • Brain Burst no longer generates a Warp Charge on kill (unless a passive procs of course). Disentangling BB and WC would allow for a more tactical approach to BB without unnececery opportunity costs.

4 Likes
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I do not like this idea too much because it makes warp charges entirely reliant on RNG. It also does not help with the problem that warp charges run out when ever there are no enemies around, and even worsens the situation for cases where only a few enemies are around.

This would remove one of the few interesting and unique things about the psyker.

Currently, we have feats that benefit from retaining warp charges, and some that spend the warp charges. They are a resource to manage and you have to decide, which way the charges are more valuable to you.
Overall it seems like you want to make warp charges something entirely passive, that is not being managed by the player in any way and does not have a real impact on gameplay.

I find the idea of warp charges interesting since they are something unique to the psyker and can offer interesting gameplay. Although their current state needs some improvement.

Yes, they are different than what the other classes have, but that is what we have different classes for: diversity, not similarity.

1 Like
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Diversity for it’s own sake is not necessarily a good thing. And despite the similarities between other classes, they all offer diverse gamplay options. Psyker was the only one standing out so much from that design philosophy. Psyker was also the last one to get a class spotlight. My guess is that it was not a throughly thought out class but it had to be released due to approaching deadline.

I do want WCs to rely entirely on RNG, it is thematicaly appropriate. Peril management should provide reliable damage/toughness bonuses, WCs will give some extra on top of that.

10

Agreed.
However, currently, it is more like psykers are forks, vets are spoons, zealots are knifes, and ogryns are ladles.
But while most of the cutlary works just fine, every single fork is bent and twisted.
So let‘s try to straighten the psyker out and make it good, without removing the uniqueness and turning it into an entirely different piece of cutlary.

1 Like
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After mainly playing a zealot (and a sprinkle of vet) since launch I decided to finally level my psyker to see what the fuss is about. Honestly it all feels very undertuned in comparison to what I am used to. My theory is that whoever they have in charge of balancing Psyker only plays malice, whereas those balancing veteran and zealot play damnation. On malice the Psyker feels about as comfortable as the Zealot and Veteran do on damnation.

12

I’d love that, and I’m trying to. However, the class is designed with flaws. It is not easy to fix it without changing something major.

The Psyker has three unique things: Soulblaze, Warp Charges, Peril of the Warp. I think it is fair to expect a similar number of feats and/or passive effect for these mechanics. Let’s try to tackle that maybe?

1 Like
13

But we already have that.
Almost all psyker feats interact with at least one of these three unique things, and it is a similar number of feats for each of them.
It is just that some of them (especially the soulblaze feats mentioned in the op) are undertuned.

1 Like
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Warp Charges: Essence Harvest, Inner Tranquility, Psychic Communion, Kinetic Shield, Warp Battery, Kinetic Overload, Ascending Blaze, Quicken; Total: 8
Perils of the Warp: Quietitude, Inner Tranquility, Psykinetic’s Wrath, Kinetic Deflection, Kinetic Barrage (only affects BB generated peril), Mind In Motion; Total: 6.
Soulblaze: Wrack And Ruin, Kinetic Overload, Ascending Blaze; Total 3.

Soulblaze feats are both undertuned and underrepresented.
Peril feats are actually solid. Psykinetic’s Wrath, Quietitude, Kinetic Deflection introduce new ways to use perils. I want more feats like these.

15

Your analysis of the core issue with Psykers is correct here. The reason Psykers are awkward as a class is because at every level their kit is designed to interact with warp charges and brain burst, which aren’t an enjoyable mechanic to use.

They don’t naturally flow into what you want to do with your weapons, they aren’t particularly powerful, and you have to engage with them so frequently to maintain charges that it’s a constant chore.

16

Kinetic Shield has nothing to do with warp charges.

2 of them make you gain WC : Psychic Communion, Ascending Blaze
2 of them trigger upon gaining a WC: Essence Harvest, Kinetic Overload
2 of them work with the WC you have active: Inner Tranquility, Warp Battery
2 of them allow you to spend WC: Quicken, Ascending Blaze
7 overall, 2 per interaction.

You forgot one.

1 produces peril: Kinetic Deflection
2 reduce peril gained: Inner Tranquility: Kinetic Barrage
2 give bonus based on peril: Psykinetic’s Wrath, Kinetic Shield
2 work with quelling peril: Quietitude, Mind in Motion
7 overall, 1-2 per interaction.

3 apply soulblaze: Wrack And Ruin, Kinetic Overload, Ascending Blaze
1 benefits from soulblaze: Ascending Blaze
3 overall, 1-3 per interaction.

What other interactions with soulblaze should there be?

The feats seem pretty equally distributed to me.

17

I’m not gonna add much to the bunch this time.
I’m a Psyker main and this game literally doesn’t make sense to me if played with other classes (or so has it been for the last 130 hours).
Somebody said something that sums the problem up perfectly in some other post on the argument: “The Psyker is not a cannon, there is no need for all the glass”.
And that, if you think about it, beautifully encompassess all the problems with the class.

1 Like
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I could’ve sworn it’s based on warp charges. My bad.

Something that gives a bonus (tougness regen? passive quelling?) when you’re within certain distance from a blazing enemy would be nice.
Something that spreads Soulblaze on crits.
Something that interacts with Warp Charges.

19

Yes that would be nice.
Although we have something similar to that.
The Battle Meditation passive (10% chance to quell 10% peril on kill).
And not sure if Warp Absorption works with soulblaze kills, but based on the description “replenish 10% toughness when you kill an enemy with a warp attack”, it should.
If the feat works, we have toughness regen and quelling based on soulblaze.

We already have that as blessing for force sword and staffs (as mentioned in the OP, the staff variant is garbage in current state).

2/3 of the feats mentioned do.
One spends them.
One triggers upon gaining one, when already having max WC.

20

We also have stacking +% damage on hit as a blessing, yet there’s a Zealot feat that does that.

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450 hours in, played all classes and psyker was my 2nd level 30 and then not played for weeks.
I came back 3 days ago and tried different builds, staffs ans swords.
People who think Psyker is weak need to play more to get past the skill ceiling or lack skill - and i say that when myself being average to decent at best, i dont even slide all time or cancel any animations, if that is even a thing with Psyker. I did it few times with Thunderhammer, when on Damnation 5 Ogryns wanted me and i had nobody that helped me.
Back to Psyker; i carried a Heresy Mission some days ago, we failed in the end, but i rezzed all the other three in almost every stage except at the end, that was even to me too much and sometimes i also play bad, do mistakes or game just want me dead and sends me a mutie, a hound, a flamer, a bursters and a bomber and i have no idea what happens :sweat_smile:
Spawnmanager sometimes for sure knows what player is more dangerous, i have seen it on others also.
People who rock sometimes get focussed by the plagues of nurgle no end.
And we all have good and bad days.
So please dont nail me, there are better palyers than me for sure, i dont want to brag.
But i want to say Psyker is strong, really i just played a Heresy with Purgatus, that i dont even like that much, Deflector FS and an alternative build with inner tranquility and warp battery and i had zero problems.
Sure other classes are stronger, my Zealot is almost immortal, Ogryn forgives more mistakes, Veteran is still somewhat op imo. Some guns 2 shot a mutie on Damnation, the Powersword is better than an Evis to clear Hordes etc.
atm i realy enjoy Psyker and yes you need to play safe, you cannot rush into enemies and think you will survive that like a zealot can, but i feel really strong in almost every situation. I can deal with Ogryns, i can kill Monstrosities, i take out Snipers, i can deal with Hordes and i can tank gunner fire - not endlessly anymore and that is good, but it is enough to find cover most of the time.
Psyker is my 2nd after Zealot if not becoming my 1st loved class.

1 Like
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I do not see you refute any of the Psyker’s issues that i pointed out.

All i see is that you say how you perform on your psyker relative to how you perform on your other classes.

2 Likes
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Use it more wise and at targets that dont get shot easily if you want to build up Warp Charges. I adapted and have almost no problems with that in most pugs.
That is not a class prolem, but a player problem, both the Psyker player and the player who killsteals the BB enemy.
Good players dont shoot at highlighted heads.
Good Psykers build ther warp charges on enemies that are out of the focus of other palyers or target that wont get oneshotted.

cannot agree, played with inner tranquility and warp battery even and on Damnation i very often have 6 charges and 36% warp resistance, paired with Kinetic barrage and Psykinetic wrath you can kill 2 Bullwarks in a few seconds. What class can do that?

i tried it and yes it does not perform well, but afaik it stacks with other psykers and 4 SB Psykers with Purgatus are a psykinetic hazard. Maybe a build for premade groups only.
Have you tried that?