So, Psyker was given a change or two with this patch: the shove on your force sword no longer builds peril which is nice. The follow up still does which is understandable with how strong the push can be, even if it’s an insanely narrow push.
The patch notes also mentioned “along with additional changes” to pysker… what are these? Why not list them out? Explain please… why have patch notes if you won’t elaborate and tell us what the specifics are?
I did a few tests and nothing really changed. I guess force sword’s special attack feels faster and builds less peril though. Staves all still have the same primary attack save for the flame staff, surge staff has slightly less peril build up it seems. There were literally 0 changes to the feats, despite some of them being completely useless and leaving only 1 real option for each feat line (looking at you Kinetic Deflection).
Despite overwhelming distaste for warp charges, they didn’t update it an any way. It still requires a kill to get one so a lot of your kit isn’t utalized when you’d need it most: against tanky elites and bosses. We’ll still see people who spam BB on random guys rather than elites I guess.
If Fatshark is even reading this: Just make it so you get a warp charge on USE of your brain burst. Then you build it up even if you don’t kill the ogryn or boss. This way you can make use of 2/3 of your level 30 feats as currently they are useless as they REMOVE your warp charges. If the whole gimmick of this class is to be gaining warp charges and spending them, why is it so tedious to gain them? Against hordes I don’t want to use my Brain Burst so I don’t gain any warp charges, against squads of traitor guard Brain Burst might be alright but its still better to just use a staff or melee them down, against squads of elites its actually useful but most of them take 2 brain bursts to actually kill so you’ll pop someone and then a teammate finishes them off and you gain nothing, against bosses you have to spam brain burst cause none of your weapons do any deal damage to them (save for force sword) but now you’re not gaining warp charges.
The only real way you maintain warp charges is by using a brain burst of a minion mob and when you need the warp charge, they decay between that encounter to the next. Its a frustrating mechanic that most of your feats rely on but because of the effort it takes to gain them, its just not worth it. Most of the pysker players in high level are ignoring the feature all together. The only people using the warp charge mechanic are new players in low difficulties.
Just chipping in, they fixed the description of your F-skill. Doubt that’s all they changed. And if it is, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. There’s bound to be a balance patch soon for the stuff that is underperforming, not functioning as it should etc.
I fully expect some changes but without making posts and giving feedback they won’t change things in the way that players are hoping for. I might be coming off harsh to the devs but I understand its in beta, I just want them to make pysker’s core mechanic be an integral part to the class rather than a noob trap.
Yeah absolutely agree, that’s what these forums are intended for!
Playing a Psykker myself and agree I’d rather get a warp charge without having to finish off the target.
Increasing the duration on how long your warp charges last might alleviate that issue somewhat, I feel like they fall off too fast.
Personally, I want the push attack to not build peril at all. It’s not strong enough to warrant the peril cost, mainly due to it interrupting your peril regen, but it’s also not a big deal so I won’t complain too much. Your suggestion that warp charges build up on hit and not kill is also a good idea.
Sounds like an interesting idea, though the problem comes from it becoming too easy to gain charges. It would make you able to gain charges for your force weapons though, but I feel like the game would turn into a loop of casting spells even against nothing and quelling and repeating to maintain them.
It would be a far better feature than what we currently have though.
So I’ve been playing psyker in my off-kilter playstyle that I use with Sienna, which is to say mostly as melee character (I do love the force sword).
Some assorted thoughts about Psyker play style and balance with this in mind:
Warp Charges, IMHO, don’t feel like they are worth even worrying about (I’m level 14 so maybe this changes later). The decay too quickly (loosing 4+ stacks in 25 seconds if you’re not able to find a target) and just don’t provide all that big of a bonus IMHO.
If other sources of attacks (e.g. Force Sword special attack) also gave warp charges, that would be pretty cool.
Brain Burst is too slow to charge up IMHO. You’re a sitting duck while using it. If it stays slow to ramp up like this, it’s best use is for killing elites, but in this case I think Warp Charges should stick around much longer (e.g. maybe one charge charge decays every 20-30 seconds)
I like balancing peril - and keeping the push-attack still costing peril is good because it lets me raise peril in a measured way during melee combat (for example to take advantage of the +damage feat for high peril). I’m good with removing it on the basic shove however.
Most people just slap on the 4% chance for a warp charge on kill and call it a day. They don’t chase the charges cause thats a noob trap. If you struggle to keep up the charges, you’re either going for the penance OR you are being useless to the team in fights by killing 1 non-elite every 3 seconds 1 by 1.
Just let the charges come and go, thats how I do it because right now the CORE FEATURE of psyker feels like it wants you to do the opposite of what pysker is meant to do: killing elites and damaging bosses with brain burst while being an AoE monster with your staves. The problem is nothing of warp charges really meshes with those play styles like i mentioned above. If you’re using a staff or sword to fight hordes, you’re not gaining charges. If you’re using head pop on elites you’ll gain some here and there but the real dangerous guys take 2-3 pops to take down and usually they get killed by a teammate before you can pop em again. If you’re using head pop on bosses, you’re not gaining charges at all.
It just seems to be trying to reward pyskers for playing counter to what they should be doing.
I wrote a topic about warp charges a few days ago:
I really hope the reason we didn’t see any substantial changes to the Psyker in this patch is because they are working on the general mechanics of the class.
the damage bonus is kind of meh, yeah. It doesn’t really help you meet breakpoints at all, however it does help with melee.
The real benefit of warp charges CURRENTLY is the peril resistance and the level 30 feats. I’d say the soulblaze feat would be the best of the 3 if you can get 4 stacks decently quickly. It deals a solid amount of burn damage which is obviously better than just around 50% cd on the ult or faster head popping.
I mean you can argue whether or not the charges are useful, but before that’s even an argument worth having we need to get to a point where gaining and spending them is actually viable. Right now it’s a huge pain that requires you to play in a suboptimal way, screws you on higher difficulties and puts you in competition for kills with your team. That needs to be fixed above all else.
Introducing an execution threshold both turns the competition into cooperation and allows you to gain stacks quickly on trash or focus specials and elites with your team.
I saw your post about that awhile ago, was an interesting idea. But there is also the fact that fatshark doesnt want people to spam brain burst. They say that they don’t at least, but it seems like they want you to with how the feats work and how you gain charges so… they say one thing and do the opposite. Its confusing.
The idea is to make it so you gain charges easier so that you don’t have to become a brain burst turret.
I don’t get the hate towards brain burst as a core ability ; on the contrary I quite like it.
It is fitting, unique, powerful, and looks cool. It has its high burst damage niche, stacking buff mechanic ; the only thing is that it is not healthy for the game as it is.
The class talents that are built around the stacks are lame, but that is not a brain burst problem. The BB problem is that gaining stacks sets you in competition with your team for trash kills AND actually prevents you from doing your job (being picking specials and elites, instead of trying to kill trash for stacks which your build heavily revolves around).
Make BB a coop tool, make it easier to gain stacks ; and then fix the talents, which are, again, not a BB issue. Psyker as a whole is schyzophrenic in his mechanics, but BB being an integral part of the kit is something I do like.
A class that uses its full kit? Brain burst should the Psykinetik’s grenade, not a weapon they are constantly forced to use even when it makes no sense if they want to actually have any interactions with half of their talent tree.