Psyker assail is too much

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

i main psyker in this game and assail is so strong and plenty it totally replaces the point of most of its weaponry.
you can go start to finish with assail no problem and thats not okay.

personally i would like either
assail recharge rate to be way down from what it is now
or even better
assail projectiles recharge from warp kills rather than over time, let say for example 5% chance for regular enemies and 25% chance for special enemies so unless you are actively using a psykers kit you cant just spam the mind bees like a goon.

5 Likes
2

It’s a fun ability. It’s definitely too strong as it is, but I like that it can be used as a primary damage source.

Maybe they need to tone down the auto-aim on it. The targeted mode seems more reasonable. It’s the “no brain, no aim, shard main” thing that’s causing the problems here, IMO. The effort/skill involved in completely clearing a room is miniscule when you can just spam left click in the general direction of enemies and have the ability do all the work for you.

3 Likes
3

If this is how terrible you want it to be, you might just as well remove it from the game entirely.
If you think that you would use it in that state, you might just as well not use a blitz ability to get the same experience.

Edit:
I just did a few tests regarding the time it takes to kill all of those specials+elites in the psykanium.

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I did not use a proper timer, but used the overall dps on the mutant as reference.
I hit the mutant once (to start the dps count on the mutant), then cleared everything else and finished off, killing the mutant last (to end the dps count on the mutant).

In this test, the dps of Assail + 4 stacks of SB on special/elite kill (~400 dps) was pretty much identical to a veteran using volley fire with an infantry lasgun (~400 dps) WITHOUT maniac dmg, and got beaten by a nerfed autopistol (500-600 dps depending on reloads) WITHOUT maniac dmg.

If i had maniac dmg on my guns, the veteran dps would have been quite a bit higher.

On top of that, the number of the psyker dps test is massively inflated, since all of these enemies are packed very closely together, allowing for all assail casts to hit 3 enemies, and for all of the soulblaze on kill effects to de some work.

In realistic scenarios, assail will often miss due to range (or require you to do the much slower right click cast). It will often hit trashmobs or not chain to anything. The soulblaze stacks would have basically no effect (on specials/elites) most of the time.
On top of that, if you use assail for trash clear, you will not have enough charges ready, in order to spam away at specials/elites.

Although assail will quickly kill small groups of trashmobs throughout the mission, those are not dangerous enemies and they could easily be dispatched in other ways.
While Assail probably offers more trash clear across the entire mission, than some (maybe even most) ammo using ranged weapons do, it is much weaker at clearing specials/elites, even within optimal range.
When it comes to taking down specials and elites, it is definitely not overpowered at all.

An other thing that people like to ignore, is that assail requires you to keep los and keep aiming at the target, until the shards arrive (which makes it pretty bad at longer ranges and if you are under pressure).
Guns do not have this issue, since they have incredibly fast projectiles (or might even use hitscan).
A good veteran can kill most specials, before the first assail shard even reaches the target.

8 Likes
4

I don’t even think it’s that good

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5

On damnation it really is not that good. It works well for tight packs of medium sized units. If there are ogres mixed in, or a horde of pox walkers, or if the enemies just spread out a bit it really doesn’t do much. I find myself using it less and less as the novelty wears off. I could see how it might be overpowered in lower difficulties though.

4 Likes
6

It’s basically wigglemancy 2.0. It’s strong enough that people can mindlessly spam the gimmick 24/7 and it will work well enough most of the time. This is letting a lot of players who haven’t mastered the fundamentals faceroll their way into harder difficulties. Which is a problem the very instant that they run into a situation where spamming the gimmick no longer works, and then they fold since they don’t know what else to do.

Personally I like the idea of keeping the knives individually this strong but reducing the ammo supply and regeneration rate.

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7

But the only reason for their strength is, that you can spam them.
The individual shards are terribly weak.

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8

I strongly disagree. They’re absolutely great for shredding groups of loosely scattered soft targets. Like a squad of shooters that have dug into cover, or an approaching pack of hounds. Many elites and specials die in one or two knives as well. You only really need to toss out about four or so knives to clear a room comparably to tossing one of Vet’s frag grenades. The fact that you have ten knives that rapidly regenerate is completely over the top and is reminiscent of vermintide’s old wigglemancy exploit.

5 Likes
9

i see big damages in the scoreboard at the end of the game, but efficency wise i didn’t feel like those psykers are doing any good for the team, i tried it, exploded a cuple times, then went back to my brain burst to be able to deal with bosses and distant gunners and specials

maybe i missed it in the skill tree, but i very much miss old cerebral laceration, it felt much better than those empowered warp attacks that we get now

1 Like
10

They are good for that indeed.
But that is something that pretty much any gun can do, too. Or the primary fire of 3/4 staffs. Or the secondary fire of 2/4 staffs.
If these enemies are not cleared from range, they will easily be dispatched in melee, a few seconds later. They pose absolutely no threat and there is no high value in killing them from range.

With the exception of shooters, being able to kill a few trash mobs from range is not really of high value (although it allows you to rack up damage and kills throughout the mission).

Unless you mean zealot knifes, the vast majority of those enemies definitely do not die in 1 hit.
Some of them might die to one shard, if it is empowered+crit+headshot.

2 Likes
11

The ability to clear out a group of entrenched shooters or the softer specials quick can be pretty massive. Take for example flamestaff psykers. They can be pretty effective up close, but historically they falter a bit against groups of shooters or specials like snipers/bombers that are outside of the range of their flames. 4 or 5 knives tossed out real quick can clear a pack of shooters or knock out a sniper/bomber/trapper/etc in the distance. That’s pretty potent, and you only need to be able to toss out a few knives every couple of minutes to achieve that. That’s kind of the opposite of a “terribly weak attack that only is good because you can spam it”. That’s huge, especially since it was almost free. Just cost you a little bit of peril that can be cleared in a moment and it doesn’t even need to fully exhaust the current stockpile of 10 banked knives, much less rely upon the knife regeneration rate.

Flamestaff is just one example. There are plenty of weapon that are good at knocking down big targets or falter at dealing distant or scattered groups of lesser enemies. Assail knives complement those sorts of weapons greatly. It’s why I scoff at the notion that pysker doesn’t have any blitzes that complement his staves.

2 Likes
12

Its not bad

At lower difficulties is 100% overtuned.

At higher difficulties its weaknesses really take some work around, skill and creative gameplay to counter.

  • Slow travel rate makes it not super efficient for taking out distant enemies like snipers
  • More enemies = more chance of peril hitting 100% and blowing yourself up
  • Completely worthless against carapace ogryns and monsters (which in harder difficulties there are a ton of)

No way a good player is going to only be spamming this ability in harder difficulties 100% becasue of the above 3 things.

3 Likes
13

They are doing that right now. It’s wigglemancy 2.0. Constant spam works well enough to carry inexperienced players through higher difficulties right up until they bump into something that throws a wrench into their plan, and then they’re way out of their depth and deadweight for their team. Now the effectively undermanned team needs to try to pick up the slack, which is often made harder since the wigglemancer also aggroed everything within the tri-state area.

edit:
Well, inexperienced players are doing that and sandbagging a lot of matches. Good players will bring tools to handle what the assail knives can’t and will know how to use them.

1 Like
14

Just a few thoughts on this - When I’m using assail I’m speccing heavily into crit, you can get a huge buff to crit chance, and the the shards are frequently 2-4 shotting any non-mauler/ogryn elites, and penetrating 2-3 targets. Your testing revealed that it’s about as good, or a little less, as a primary ranged weapon (lasgun or autopistol in this case).

To me that’s the main issue, assail is essentially a third primary ranged weapon, where its supposed to be a blitz skill that is situationally useful. Combine it with your choice of staff/gun and melee, and you’re just too well equipped for everything.

This is actually the mechanic that pushes it over the edge IMOP. If you slowly pan cross a group of targets while firing assail, you redirect all the shards that penetrate or that initially locked a target that dies before they arrive. You get 100% efficiency very easily out of the whole volley this way. You can clear the entire set of ragers, shotgunners and specials in the meatgrinder with a single volley if you pan over them while you’re firing. I’ve gotten huge value out of it in regular missions, as elites and gunners almost always come in groups.

With the 30% cooldown talent, you regenerate from 0-12 shards in about 15 seconds. That’s just too much uptime and too much utility for a blitz in my opinion.

3 Likes
15

Brainburst always had basically 100% uptime. That never was a problem.
The psyker blitz never was like the other classes in that regard. It was always like a 3rd weapon.

BB is like a plasma gun.
Assail is like an auto gun.
Smite is like an old surge staff.

3 Likes
16

I don’t see how the 2 are comparable. If you wanted to brain-burst 11 elite targets (the special/elite group in the meatgrinder) you need to focus brainburst 11 times. IDK exactly what the timing is, say 3 seconds without the reduced charge time talent. That’s 33 seconds vs 4 - 5 seconds with assail. Obviously brain burst can deal with targets assail can’t, but that’s only ogryn and bosses. I’m finding way more overall value using assail then I ever did with brainburst, and that’s without touching my actual weapons that can more than cover its few deficiencies.

1 Like
17

Correct. But aside from gunners (which zealot and ogryn can simply rush into), elites do not usually come in such groups.

And when they do, it is either a large group of maulers or a large group of ogryn. Assail is not doing anything much to those. But BB does.

That is completely fine.
But assail only really does well against enemies that are pretty easy to kill anyway.
To me it is mostly a tool that allows you to kill shooters and to go though the mission a bit faster, while BB allows you to do a bunch of things that nobody else in the group might be capable of, and is great for clutches.

18

I hear you, and I am perhaps biased as I only play high-int shock missions (this isn’t a “look at me i’m so cool” comment, I’ve just played an unhealthy amount of the Tide games over the years, and its the only difficulty I still find fun). On high-int shock, you’re very regularly getting groups of 3-6 shotgunners, ragers and gunners. Though I do concede that those spawn levels are likely not indicative of the rest of the game. But I do think potential is what needs to be managed with regards to balance. You may not ever get large groups of elites on regular difficulties, but equally you won’t notice a slight nerf to assail their either, as much of it’s potential is unused in those situations.

I agree, and I think your comparison to an autogun was a good one. My issue is this, what other blitz ability on any class brings the same level of utility as a primary weapon? My only thought is the zealot knives, but they’re single target with 0 penetration. That said, I think pysker blitz’s should be better than other classes, they’re really cool and amplify the fun mage-style gameplay. But I think brain-burst is a great template for the correct utility level they should bring. Situationally useful.

3 Likes
19

I do not think that this is a comparison that should be made at all.
This was never a comparison that could reasonably be made between the classes.
Different classes, different rules.

All classes except psyker have at least one blitz ability that brings something unique, which can not be compared to having an additional weapon slot.
You could argue that the zealot stun grenade for example brings much more utility than an additional weapon would.
Or the ogryn grenade, which can just kill everything around.
Earlier this week, i killed about 20 elites (mostly ogryn and mauers) with a single ogryn grenade earlier this week (auric maelstrom: scab only, melee only; i pulled the entire final bridge on enclavum baross).

20

Brainburst couldn’t be instantly cast. it was bound by a lengthy casting animation. If we completely removed your entire knife supply and it took the same length of time to throw one knife as it does to do one brainburst, then things would be equivalent.

1 Like