As the current iteration of how things work (they may change with the update) Voidstrike is simply outclassed by the plasma gun in every respect. I struggled here to keep up with any damage with these guys and was dragging behind.
This explains why I’ve taken such a liking to gun psyker. Gun Psykers are really good at keeping up. Perhaps I should use surge instead, as that’s a middle ground, and you can sprint while charging it.
Perhaps I did something wrong? Every time I would have my voidstrike fully charged, the target would be dead before I could hit it. If I did semi charges, not only were they impotent, but they didn’t benefit from warp flurry IIRC.
Voidstrike is not supposed to be a plasma gun with infinite ammo. Voidstrike is the closest a staff can be to a gun. Not the greatest gun, just a gun.
If you have problems to charge it fast enough I can recommend three things.
Use the basic attack, it’s pretty powerful and it will be op after the patch.
Use warp flurry and get used to use non charged secondary fire so you’ll be at 3 stacks most of the time.
Use what I do and take BB (with both nodes), empowered psyonics, overpowering souls and charged up. That should let you kill elites and specials very fast. Plus boss damage.
I know what it’ll be post patch. OP? Remains to be seen. I use primary attack as a quick suppression spam, but this staff wasn’t really built for it. Compared to the other guns on field, I still would’ve been under performing.
Warp Flurry was in play. Charging was not able to compete with a Plasma gun that was using LMB to take out everything.
Not reccomended in this instance, was using walls to keep enemies at bay. This was particularly useful as I was the one being left behind most often. This allowed me to cover my advance from behind me.
I personally like voidstrike with DD much more. Warp charges is also good, but that’s for maximizing ultimate CD and not for staff damage (eg: it’s really good for boosting Shriek).
I usually do half-charge (above half) until I get my stacks so full charge can be done faster and use transfer peril as a second blessing for peril management. Edit: Non-charge deals like no damage while half-charge can still one-shot a bunch of stuff if you hit head. Only use non-charge to quickly stack flurry.
That said Voidstrike works with mutliple setups like crit aswell.
IMO you should have no problem keeping up on damage front against a plasma with a proper psyker build if you and the other guy are similarly skilled at the game.
I also like to note that Plasma isn’t even really a competition for Voidstrike since Voidstrike can and should do different things. Like Voidstrike is really good for hordeclear/thinning for example.
So, for my own experience on this count, the Voidstrike isn’t great at competing directly with the Plasma Gun on direct killing power. I didn’t catch if you posted your voidstrike staff build, but I run a Voidstrike with Transfer Peril and Warp Flurry meaning hurling balls of death at vaguely head-height reduces perils (and means I’m not spending time quelling instead of shooting) and charged attacks zip out super fast. Relative to a Plasma Gun, a PG is going to be a better burst damage weapon while the Voidstrike is far more sustainable. In a longer engagement, where the PG might blow away the first wave of enemies, it’ll have to sit there and heat dump afterward, while the staff in that setup can charge shots fast and throw them downrange as long as enemies keep coming pretty much indefinitely (especially with Warp Siphon and Inner Tranquility).
This setup also works great with Assail, as you can dump your shards, generate a bunch of warp charges, and then vent all your peril with the voidstrike staff blapping horde heads.
Also, looking at the video, something I noticed is that the Vets generally appear to be further ahead than you are through most of the video, meaning they often entered areas and engaged targets first.
You can take charge with voidstrike too, so it becomes less of a problem. In general I don’t think any other class should be able to beat you (on ranged damage) when you have voidstrike, it’s super strong.
Here are some matches with surge voidstrike with plasma teammates (I haven’t had a plasma come even close to me on ranged damage playing voidstrike yet).
Shouldnt the video be called “outclassed by PLASMA and cloaks”?
Looks to me like every other person on the team got a better score than you but not by much! The plasma didnt even do the best on the team.
As was also mentioned, the rest of the team spent much of the game ahead of you, so yeah shooting things first and more accurately tends to lead to killing them first.
The post title is misleading as well, the plasma gun didnt dominate the game (they didnt get the best score at all) and the other two arent using a plasma.
Watched the video already, not the 26 minutes mind you I have better things to do, but I’ve seen enough. If you are not satisfied with my options then I’ll go back to my first sentence, you are not going to outgun the gun expert. You are not even supposed to. Plus, as the others are saying, your teammates were ahead of you and I would say you weren’t playing an aggressive build.
I’ll leave you my own build, maybe it will be of help
Sure, they were leaving stuff to clean up, but it looks like they were also getting the pick of juicy targets in terms of just looking at how the damage output shook out. Likewise, the targets typically left behind, dispersed little dudes, are the least effective targets for a PG to engage. Blapping a single Dreg Stalker takes as much time, ammo, and heat as blapping a specialist or clumped group of baddies.
Here’s my Voidstrike build. It’s got less in terms of team utility (stuns, shields) and that has its own downsides, but it’s prioritizing sustained killing power. Instead of trying to hold back a group of poxwalkers with Smite, it just clears them with Assail. Instead of keeping a shield for team defense, it runs Shriek clear personal space and dump Perils. Between the Warp Flurry/Transfer Peril stave and the rest of the build, this has generally been one of my highest damage output builds as it just never really has downtime, and Assail really works great at generating Warp Charges for the Voidstrike to feed off of. I haven’t found myself lacking for raw damage against plasma guns running this.
I was running a build tailored to the modifiers to keep enemies at bay.
If I am understanding you correctly, you are suggesting that I should be playing an aggressive build? That I should be ahead of my teammates?
This isn’t my usual voidstrike build. Normally I use assail and DD with venting shriek and it works really well. The issue was I was running cover for the team with shield and warp siphon and smite while trying to perform for voidstrike.
Watched some more of the video and you are basically playing way back behind, and in several situation concentrate on CC and support, so more aggressive players, or the ones who take charge in the front will do more damage independent of the weapon choice. Seems pretty much balance to me.
Correct! If you think you need more time to kill than a plasma vet, then you need to see the enemies before they do. Either go with them or in front of them. Since most vets use only the primary fire, a good trick is to let them shoot ogryns first and then you land the killing bubble :x
Yup, that’s the problem, you went for a defensive build to fit the modifier while expecting to outdo the special and elite killer. If you want to that, you’ll have to build for it.
Idk I’ve so far watched like 13 minutes of this run and it truthfully just seems like you are playing with people who are just way better than you. Plasma has almost nothing to do with that.
You are also running warp battery in a build where you want to spam walls as much as possible i presume, so that means that you literally never get to be at 6 stacks. The highest so far I’ve seen in the video was 4 so the extra 2 stack talent point is essentially wasted with your play-style here.
I would honestly be shocked if such a supportive setup would consistently out damage players who are constantly pushing forward and being in the thick of things.
It seems to be the more likely consensus is I was trying to push a build too hard beyond what it was designed to do. Going from pure offense (gun psyker) to the sit back and cover for the team (shield battery with smite) was rather jarring. But, thank you for offering your insight.
