Actually, much of it depends on whether you use Purgatus Staff or Surge staff. Voidstrike and Trauma staffs are subpar on Heresy or higher.
Surge Staff
Quietude
Psykinetic’s Wrath
Psychic Communion
Kinetic Deflection/Kinetic Shield
Kinetic Flay
Kinetic Barrage
The reason for the choices are that:
You won’t be getting enough Warp Stacks outside of small engangements that you can reliably proc Essence Harvest, but you can reliably get high peril to quell for Toughness.
Psykinetic’s Wrath should be the stable in all your loadouts - 24% peril resistance sounds great on paper, but you are not going to be having 4 stacks outside of hordes, so it amounts to mostly nothing and to avoid a focus on Brain Bursting (which you really only want to do on select enemies) Psychic Communion gives you a much needed uptime.
Kinetic Deflection or Kinetic Shield is a must have on Heresy difficulties as enemies will break your stamina in a few hits flat and then you’re dead.
Kinetic Flayer let’s you have a reliable 1 stack of Warp Charges going and it provides extra damage and Kinetic Barrage is… Well the only perk that doesn’t remove your much needed Warp Charges you struggle to get in the first place. It’ll also allow you to compete with Veterans for killing Specials.
Purgatus Staff
Essence Harvest
Psykinetic’s Wrath or Inner Tranquility
Cerebral Laceration
Kinetic Deflection/Kinetic Shield
Kinetic Flayer
Ascendant Blaze
Essence Harvest is tied in with Ascendant Blaze and since all your damage be that the direct or the dot from Purgatus staff has a 10% chance to give you a warp charge on a kill. You can easily have this buff running for an entire mission, just by outputting a few flames every now and then. Now, because of Ascendant Blaze you have the option of Inner Tranquility, but during a horde you are likely not going to need to quell as your passive (10% chance to quell 10% peril) fires so often.
Cerebral Laceration, because you do not rely on your team to generate warp charges anymore and every extra bit of damage helps. Kinetic Deflection or Shield is again, a must have to prevent unnecessary deaths. Kinetic Flayer is again, because it is a good extra damage which Purgatus procs guaranteed and Ascendant Blaze makes your entire build work.
I think they might have changed the amount of peril blocking a daemonhost generates, each hit does 40-50% depending on block cost reduction, 2 hits and you go straight into critical + the passive quell nerf if you’re running force sword.
As I said before I definitely don’t solely rely on BB. On the contrary, I use my staff and sword a lot as well. Using the purgatus build cause it’s more fun to me but again I don’t got perfect equipment and Heresy has been close to impossible to me. I struggle even just to survive at max level while other classes are doing just hella fine. I’m playing also Ogryn and I realize just how much more optimized that class is: tanky af, clearly meant to be a frontliner, explosive firepower and killer melee, bullrush is just so useful and multipurpose and I can already see builds in the kit that don’t rely on perfect rng equipment. It’s just a better designed class.
I enjoy psyker better in concept cause it feels more strategic and layered but I still think it needs a heavy redesign.
Man, Ogryn is struggling so much on Heresy and higher it’s not even funny, no one wants Ogryn’s in their party 'cos they have no ways to mitigate damage from ranged (and their shield is a noobie trap)…
If you’re struggling to survive, it is a lack of skill, not the class that’s the problem. If everyone else is fine, they simply have the skill to survive.
Tbh it sounds like you misunderstood how Psyker is designed to work on higher difficulties and it might be some skill-issue aswell. (No insult or elitism.)
BB isn´t designed to oneshot everything, it´s the answer against the ranged-elites and specials on any range meanwhile you can also hide. Even on damnation those important targets like e.g. a sniper or gunner will be oneshotted by just one BB.
On top it does a good job on Ogryns especially Bulwarks, which you can also burst away with the 3rd level 30 feast.
The rest is completely up to you and how do you use your build. I for example play a more melee-related build with the dot-ultimate to either melt hordes or to close the gap between me and the enemy due to the knockback. (1,3,1,2,3,2)
Another player i know plays with a staff and sitting on 3,1,2,1,3,3. He´s able to cc and burn the enemies down and like i said, if there´s something big he just use the ultimate to be able to spam BB. Also he can easily get his toughness back while being in cover and he´s able to rezz easily thanks to the block-feast.
What i want to say is, away from BB which is meant to be a safe range-killer, you can play Psyker in multiple ways and they´re not useless. Just yesterday i´ve been as Zealot together with 3 Psykers in the silo-mission on damnation without any modifier and we did it.
Yes Vets can kill elites better due to weapon scaling with their ultimate. But they´re not that safe while doing it, they need good aim on longer distances and also their ultimate mostly… and they don´t come with the good amount of cc. (Meanwhile BB is unlimited and safe.)
Psyker isn´t useless nor is BB. It´s just not designed how ppl think it is. The class is fine and well balanced across the board. There are only like 2 feasts needing a little buff in my eyes. (Soulblaze while killing an elite with BB and while gaining a warpcharge)
The rest is completely build-depended and works fine. Just find what´s comfortable to you and get used to the higher difficulties with it. Psyker has definately a better skill-ceiling compared to a “brainless” zealot for example.
Well the game touts the ability as something different so that is not surprising.
I love starting my BB cast on an Ogryn for someone else to kill it before I finish. True classic.
Well I can think of exactly one build for Psyker that sets them apart in terms of functionality and that’s it.
Stealth feat likes to disagree with you.
Well aiming is something you can work on. Class abilities being subpar not.
If you kill stuff fast enough, that’s all the cc you need and hello free grenade every minute.
No just severely dysfunctional and mostly a waste of time and peril outside of solo play.
Considering how little a role you yourself attribute to BB, I question how you can make this statement in light of how focused the entire kit is around BB including the passive.
Scrap the build portion and replace it with weapon loadout, which there ain’t many options of.
Dunno, haven´t played the practice, but Psyker across the difficulties seems fine.
Yeah but who cares as long as its dead? And if you´ve like 51% casted, you gain the warpstack.
It´s up to the player i guess. I gave 2 build examples, once which might be meta (dunno), the other one is my own and i´ve finished damnation with it aswell. (And no, i didn´t got carried.)
Looking across the feasts i personally see other possibilities depended on weapon-choice and playstyle.
If you use it and are not alone somewhere yes.
This and the rest… I haven´t said Vet is balanced. There are enough threads telling that it´s the strongest class even with the powersword nerf. Vet is definately too strong since it scales with weapons and has the most toughness on top. The class needs a nerf.
But yes, Psyker is fine for me but that 2 feasts i´ve mentioned. And i´m obviously not alone with this. The warpcharges might should be there for 40s or something on top, but that´s it.
I disagree with the weaponloadout at some point aswell. I´ve played axe + SMG, imo it´s forcesword since i got a good one. Of course the atleast 2 feasts are more force-weapon related, but the rest? It´s mostly about warpcharges and how you want to use them with some more niche feasts to support the grp. (Which is not a bad thing especially in premade-teams.)
And srsly before we´re going the way “rework please” etc… like some already mentioned. How about a new subclass instead?!
Everyone else is not fine, as shown by the many agreeing with me here and in other posts. Seems to me that only some are fine, and way too often they happen to have perfect gear or a tight team to play with. Might be that I need to get better, for sure, but I still think this class needs to be overhauled. It doesn’t perform how it should if you don’t have the right blessings on gear and honestly I don’t see how I could get any of those anytime soon seen how terrible the rng of the shop is.
Also, again, I can only play with randos and when team sinergy is not at his best I become useless at first sign of a horde cause I don’t got none of the previously mentioned blessings nor friends that understand how to play with me to make me do my job at my best.
There are moments when you go: could have done better, that’s on me. There are moments where you just realize that no matter what the tools at your disposal are not sufficient.
This is a case of the second instance I’m afraid, and even if I can get better there’s only so much you can do with blunt tools.
I care, because a single warp stack is not very impactful and it is time spend I could have been using my staff and not spent wasting peril.
While I sincerely doubt the effectiveness of your melee focused Psyker, I cannot outright dismiss it as I have not played it myself. The cc build is the one I a had in mind.
Not sure I’d agree honestly. He seems like a class to me with multiple viable choices on the feat level and weapons that actually round out his kit. The power sword nerf was necessary, because infinite cleave is silly, but other than that - he does what he is supposed to do.
Why though? I just said, that weapon choice is what determines the build for Psyker to a noticably bigger extent than feats. Feats don’t define your playstyle a whole lot. They are mostly numbers tweaking or something you have no agency over.
No please balance existing stuff, before we roll out more classes without a clear vision them.
I don´t have a team nor perfect gear. I´ve a great forcesword with really good basestats, but that´s it. I´m far away from strong blessings and my SMG is decent at best.
Also… the least poeple come to a forum to tell something like “Oh that´s great!”. On top i can tell you from my experience, that the most guys here have been in Vermintide the same. “Buff please” and how dare FS to nerf something broken?!
A lot of broken builds and classes got defended like hell. Same just recently with the powersword a lot have been like “Buff everything else on its level since it´s the only viable choice etc…”. And what happened? It got slightly nerfed, because FS themselves saw that it´s too strong.
So far you shouldn´t rely on “others think the same”. The tide-series offers high skill-differences and there are a lot of players who do nothing else but stuck on meta. (Like in any other game…)
So far a lot even just copy & paste stuff from the internet instead of trying by themselves. Some might even have some understanding, but lack to see the idea of a challenge behind difficulties and prefer stuff to be so strong, that they´re able to clear the highest difficulty.
Yes, sounds like elitism stuff, but such opinions often rely on misunderstandings of the core design and of course missing skill, meanwhile the players don´t be honest to themselves to say “Ok, i should get better at the game / class, whatever…”, instead of relying on stats like some Vets with e.g. Powersword + Bolter did and may still does.
I´ve seen a bunch of good Psykers and would put myself in the box too. Also there seem to be some awesome Psyker streamers. (Just heard it, dunno…)
Of course not everyone have the time or wants to put that much efford in. Some aren´t just basically skilled enough or got old, who knows. But that´s why different difficulties exists tbf. They cater everyone on any class.
Tbf you should have a feeling when to BB and when not after playing Psyker a while. Also again… BB is more related to longe-range specialists / elites and even kills them when they hide. Yes it´s good against Ogryns, but not highly needed.
I´ve played enough Vermintide tbh… Melee is the least issue in this game. I´m able to clear damnation with it and did overall enough runs without getting downed etc… It might be even more effective with the cd reset on the ultimate, but i like the dot. It makes hordeclear easy af and the special from the forcesword does a lot against elites. The SMG assists very well against a pack of ragers.
Try it if you want. It´s fully functional to me. Might be a thing that a waveclear stuff together with BB spam might be more effective at some point or based on spawns, but i really don´t care about it. I play for fun and i can hold my weight.
That´s your pov. Having multiple choices is fine, i see them on Psyker aswell. But you´re as others here, you prefer them to be strong. I prefer them to be balanced across the board around malice to still offer a coop-challenge on heresy and damnation and not something like one-man armies sitting on infinite temp-health or unlimited stagger … or endless burning effects like we´ve in Vermintide on one or another class.
We´ve difficulties that offer a challenge and if a class scales with weapons, it´s going to be super broken if a weapon is broken aswell. So either the weapon, the class, or both need a nerf. Since Vet is super tanky on top, it clearly needs a nerf in my eyes.
You can say it this or the other way tbh… if you pick a staff, you use such feasts, if you use such feasts, you better pick a staff… (just an example)
But there are also possibilities where the weapons doesn´t matter that much since you just pick the weapons and play more around the existing abilities aka BB and the ultimate. But of course the choices are more obvious compared to others.
That´s the question… what is in the need to be balanced? You and others say Psyker… me and others think he´s fine, maybe one or two tweaks. So what?
Sometimes classes are just not made for everyone. Sometimes classes offer a lower skill-floor and ceiling or a higher one. And sometimes poeple just like a concept while other see a bunch of flaws…
In a game like this, the last thing we need is to make chances for no real reason. Again we can take Vet as example, or maybe Zealot. Both are pretty easy to get used to, both do their job. They´re a typical soldier and frontliner you´ve in dozens of games. But then we´ve Psyker and Ogryn which might need a bit more care to play, more input to make the most use of them. And that´s not a bad thing. It´s also not a bad thing if a class is not made for everyone.
I can tell you that i won´t play Vet much in the endgame and i started with Zealot (due to similarity to Vermintide), but got already hard bored of it. They´re too standard, too easy and at some point even too strong. But all what i would asked for in case of Vet for example, is a nerf in it´s toughness right now, that´s it. I wouldn´t change something else, because i know others enjoy it and it´s just not my class, no matter how broken or useless it might be.
Instead of wasting time to recreate something some poeple dislike and others enjoy, FS should focus on more subclasses for more variety. And who knows, i´m sure there will be a warpuser for everyone.
Ok…I can concede that we probably just won’t see eye to eye on most points mentioned above, but I really don’t get how you don’t see the issue in how having your BB cut short is extremely unsatisfying considering your passive depends on it.
Sure the ability is best used against long range threats nobody else can reach, but those simply do not come up often enough to warrant having your passive bound to it.
Let me make two simple suggestions then and tell me if I am being unreasonable here.
Warp Charges are generated based on a certain percentage of peril generated (number up for debate)
→ More organic upkeep of your passive
Brain Burst deals its damage and generates its peril linearly throughout its cast time.
→ Even if someone else pops the target you still did something.
I can tank just fine, I just need to dodge so most shots can’t hit me.
Yeah, no lol. I can tank just fine on Psyker, because I can just waltz into gunfire with my Deflector Force Sword that uses peril instead of stamina and not take any damage whatsoever… No dodging required…
Zealot can tank just fine taking 75% less damage… Heck even a Veteran can tank better with 75% damage reduction to toughness.
Ogryns - and most Ogryn players agree, are at a complete disadvantage, because their feats for damage reduction relies on being in melee against bleeding enemies when the vast majority of enemies you meet in Heresy and above is ranged.
Well I can take a single crusher overhead without issues. At most I get okay chip damage on heresy. Demonhosts can hit me a few times before I need to dodge to refill my stamina/peril. I’d consider that tanking since it doesn’t require much effort.
Sure there’s easier ways like ogryns deployed shield but then again ogryn is basically made of paper when faced with ranged. I never claimed that he wasn’t.
I think this comes down to the ability to position and confidence in kiting. Your build is horde focused so are you having issues with elites and specialists?
Its not that the psyker becomes unplayable, but your ability to maximize the build (for your difficulty) is struggling. I’ve seen plenty psyker with your same setup be just fine on runs. Maybe try a different staff.
I actively avoid playing the Psyker on higher difficulties. Why? Because it’s too easy.
If I could have a teammate play one class of my choice, it would be psyker.
Considering we only have four classes, and we’re at most getting 1 per quarter for money. (and let’s be realistic, there is no way in hell FS will manage this schedule. They are glacial.)
That means 1/4 of the game content has quite a lot of people not feeling it. It’s not like 1 out of 15 like in VT2.
The talent tree is a hot mess. You can build for one staff, that’s it. Nothing else. Build for one staff, or build something generic that doesn’t really do much of anything for your melee or your staff. Or any non-force weapon. They all run on BB and warp charges that do almost nothing. Even if BB was good and worth using, those talents still wouldn’t really do much.
It’s also probably possible to clear damnation on any career with grey weapons if you’re skilled enough. None of the classes are outright broken or completely unusable. That someone’s ‘cleared damnation’ with a career or a build doesn’t mean anything at all. It certainly doesn’t invalidate opinions on the talents and the available force weapons being less than good. It is of course just opinions, but it sure seems like a lot of people share them. Across here, across reddit, across steam.
If a whole lot of people think something is off… maybe it actually is.
Why can I charge my brainburst with RMB, but can CANCEL it with LMB when its not fully charged and STILL get peril?
Im sorry I didnt wait another 0.1 seconds despite the meter being full, guess I have to precharge again.
Can I retain the charge on my brainburst when the initial target I charged on dies before I can release it, so I dont feel like a meme?
Those are the only two things I want fixed.
Well, aside from questionable feats, but every class has that.