Kinetic Flayer is still not worth it and the history of Kinetic Flayer and Brain Rupture

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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The new change to kinetic flayer, which limits its use to elites, specialists and monstrosities, is still not good, because the underlying issues of unreliability and uninteresting use have not been addressed.

It still has no guarantee of giving value, since it is still random and uncontrollable. It cannot be selected to be saved for more important specials elites or monstrosities, for example, it just is randomly used.

It is not worth the 1 point spent on it.

It is mathematically likely to be wasted in some form or fashion, since the 10% trigger chance means that the target has highly likely already been damaged multiple times before it triggers, resulting in overkill. Or the target was just simply unoptimal for the ability. Not to mention that when it triggers it may just save 1 more swing of a melee weapon or 1 more shot, once per every 15-20 seconds since the 10% chance to occur does not guarantee use-on-cooldown.

I would say that the use of 1 point to have a random chance every 15-20 seconds to do an often useless burst of damage is not worth it.

Far better would it be if the players controlled the ability. This can be done easily, for example, the Brain Rupture ability has no use for the Weapon Special input option. It can be programmed so that Kinetic Flayer triggers on next attack once a player wielding Brain Rupture uses Weapon Special. Then once the effect triggers the cooldown starts.

If the trouble of this is that the ability is now too strong, because of the added player control and the higher value that the ability can achieve this way, the cooldown can easily be increased. But one needs to remember that the ability still costs 1 point. So even with this change, the 15 second cooldown seems fair to me.

The original value of Kinetic Flayer, when it was created, was the fact that it was tied with the Warp Charge ability. This was before the class overhaul. Kinetic Flayer allowed you to trigger Brain Rupture without needing to cast it, allowing you to refresh the cooldown of Warp Charge. Since Warp Charge is no longer a universal mechanic, and I dare suspect it is the least picked keystone option, I would say that Kinetic Flayer being as it was (if slightly modified) no longer serves the same purpose it once did, and is a redundant mechanic now, due to it no longer holding the value it was, which was the ability to maintain Warp Charge stacks without casting Brain Rupture.

Furthermore, Kinetic Flayer was stronger before the class overhaul, because Brain Burst was stronger than the current Brain Rupture. Brain Rupture is a nerfed version of pre- class overhaul Brain Burst for 2 reasons:

  1. The amount of damage Brain Rupture does measured in enemy health-% is lesser than the damage Brain Burst did before class overhaul
  2. The removal of “Cerebral Lacerations” as an option for Brain Rupture.

Cerebral Lacerations was an ability that caused a Brain Burst target to receive 25% increased damage from non-warp sources, making it a really useful tool for psyker’s to support their own damage but also their team’s damage.

The addition of the 3rd node to Smite, Charged Strike, begs the question as to why Cerebral Lacerations wasn’t added back.

Furthermore, as a sidecomment, the removal of Counterfire from the Veteran is a similarly baffling decision, limiting player build diversity for no real reason. Especially now, since the Relentless talent node was removed, there is very little reason to not reintroduce it in the space where Relentless was.

Addendum:

As @Mezmorki wrote, another option would be to have Kinetic Flayer work as such:

“Hitting a target you have Marked causes them to be Brain Ruptured. This can only happen once every 15 seconds.”

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Kinetic Flayer reliably proc’ing on elite/specialist kills will (assuming it kills the target) give you warp charges. So that functionality is still there. 15s cooldown on flayer vs. 25s decay on warp charges means you got a buffer in there.

More broadly, I feel like people are overthinking kinetic flayer and wanting it to be it’s own separate mechanic like some of double blitz function or something. Sure it’s random, but saying that it’s useless 75% of the time (or whatever) ignores that 25% of the time you’re likely instantly killing stuff.

Psyker talent tree is such that you can build out a core build and have a few points (usually) left over to pick up some fun additional talents, and Flayer fits this perfectly. I don’t “need it” … but if I have an extra point it’s a totally valid pick IMHO and brings some fun utility. When it pops off a kills a crusher makes it worth it to me.

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I think one simple check could make it solve the problem without needing to add some new mechanic for players to control is to simply have it do a health value check on the target. If the target would take less than X amount of overkill damage have it proc. Or target has above X% percent of it’s remaining health. Either would work.

It should also triggers on bosses though (apparently bugged on captains).

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“likely instantly killing stuff” once per minute or more (15 second cool x 25% usefulness as you said) is not worth 1 point. The ability is poorly designed.

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The “new mechanic” is as new as the primary function of the power sword, I do not think it is overly complex by any stretch.

If we are interested in reducing complexity the ability being toggled as suggested would be far less complex or clunky.

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What default button would it be for Xbox or Play station controllers? PC users with key boards it’s simple but there’s no “toggle talent” or toggle blitz button. I just doubt they would add some other button to only hit in a specific config. It’s probably better to design it around avoiding the extra complexity.

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Here’s a thought:

It can only proc on a target you have marked.

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I think I did mention that the button in use would be the “Weapon Special” button, which is in use by chainswords, power swords, eviscerators, combat shotguns and every other weapon. The button activates some tertiary function when pressed.

As I mentioned beforehand: there is no use for this button for any of the psyker’s blitzes, this would be the perfect button.

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A further point occurred to me whilst discussing this: There is no need for changing Kinetic Flayer for those who prefer its unpredictability and lack of controllability.

The developers could add a new node which is mutually exclusive with Kinetic Flayer, Kinetic Flenser, with the aforementioned mechanics.

This way those who want to control the ability and gain high value with the points they allocate get what they want whilst the everyone else stays happy. This is also balanced due to the mutual exclusivity, being only able to choose one.

Then, again, the Kinetic Flenser can be adjusted to have a longer cooldown to account for its heightened controllability and value.

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I think the issue would be, that would mean I would have to swap to my blitz, use the button, and then swap back. When I use kinetic flayer, I most maps will never even swap to brain rupture.

I wouldn’t want to prevent kinetic flayer from proccing just because I didn’t swap to it to turn it on before delivering it via one of my attacks.

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See above for the suggestion to proc on a target you have marked. It could be as simple as this: “If flayer is off cooldown, your first hit on a target you have marked will proc brain rupture.”

To me, tying it to a marked target gives much more fluid control over when it’s used and on what, than juggling special weapon activations on the blitz.

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I do not think your lack of use of the ability is an argument to rend others who use it void of a better alternative for its use. Do you not agree this is not thoroughly logical.

Sure, I think my new message addresses this also:

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Just proposition!

I rather like this as well.

I will add that to the original post. :smiley:

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Well the issue there is balance. If you’re talking about swapping to your blitz, and using it as a blitz where on command every 15 seconds you can just instantly cast brain rupture via kinetic flayer on command without a percent chance and through a weapon attack, it would probably be over tuned. Why even bother with empowered psionics at that point?

The intent of kinetic flayer, seems to be as a secondary crit, that scales with rapid fire weapons and attacks to give you a boost. It’s less effective for weapons and attacks that chunk health already. So shredder auto pistols, flame staves, etc.

I am not saying there isn’t a “better alternative use” I am saying that the exact use case you want may also be too much.

image

Suddenly I feel like you have a talent that’s competing with a whole keystone^

I think it should remain tied to your weapon attacks and not enhancing your blitz itself and not adding some insta shot.

I think SOME control only on marked, high value targets, targets with enough health, etc. makes sense. But there should be some random component to it and still needing to be delivered through a weapon attack to keep balance in check.

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As I wrote, the cooldown can be addressed if this is an issue.

Mathematically there is some value of cooldown which makes this balanced.

Again, one needs to remind oneself that Kinetic Flayer, as a node, costs 1 Point. That 1 Point can be spent on something else.

Even if you DIDN’T adjust the cooldown from 15 seconds to say 25s or 30s, you would still PAY 1 Point to use it.

It does not compete with anything other than the value 1 Point can give you.

The suggested change is to make it more fun and interesting and interactive to play with (vaunted goals of game design) but also to make it stronger, since currently it is not worth 1 Point.

Now, 15 seconds may be so that it makes the ability worth more than 1 Point, but as I already wrote, this can be addressed in the cooldown.

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But then you’re back to penalizing the people who want to use it as a secondary crit with flame staves and shredder auto pistols and such.

I think you’re just better off asking for a whole new talent at that point instead of modifying Kinetic flayer (as you mentioned).

Empowered psionics also costs one point, AND locks you out of choosing other key stones. Empowered psionics should be more powerful as a blitz enhancement than what a 1 point choice could be without a tax.

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Agreed, a new talent is the best choice, since they allowed themselves to do such with the new class overhaul, this potential is still quite untapped, but it is there.

Although, I must contest: it is no penalization that autopistol/purgatus users have more control over the use of the ability than previously they had.

(It takes no time to switch to Brain Rupture since it’s equip time is close to 0 and it needn’t use any animation time to toggle Flayer on.)

The fact that the current ability “sucks the least” with a certain weapon class does not lead to that it being made controllable is a penalty to those certain weapon classes. This is a non sequitor argument.

Autopistols and flamestaves will function better and with more control with the suggested change, even if they gain the least comparative benefit from the fix.

Nevertheless, to regurgitate that which was agreed: it is indeed best that they use the ability to make new nodes that are mutually exclusive when necessary.

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I disagree with this. Weapon swap speeds, especially if they use a heavier weapon with high weapon swap speed in a hectic situation is a massive cost. Darktide is a game where seconds count. It doesn’t take 0 time, it will take a few seconds or more to swap, button, swap back. Not to mention this affects stamina, dodge counts and such. Your weapons, unlike your blitzes, can be enhancing your defenses during that time. And sometimes weapon swap doesn’t work well or people misclick. There’s a whole myriad of issues here, especially if you’re increasing the cool down to balance it (which, still, just sounds like you should go for empowered brain rupture at this point).

If you want this on demand brain burst delivered through the blitz it’s too different from kinetic flayer and shouldn’t really be touching this. I agree better target prioritization but not something utterly on demand through the blitz.

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Well, even more a reason why autopistols and staves are favored by the new option.

The more this is mulled over, I think the more @Mezmorki’s Marked enemy concept shows its superior ability to make everything work for the most people.

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Well I think it would if you have a flag that says kinetic flayer only triggers on tagged enemies, still delivered through a weapon attack. Not sure if we should remove the 10% chance to trigger on it though.