Assail is the squeaky dog toy of Darktide; gonna be annoying for a little bit, but once the novelty has worn off,you’re probably not going to notice it.
(and no, I am not suggesting that Assail users are dogs)
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This is an issue Fatshark game design seems to have in general, at least when it comes to ranged combat, but Assail exemplifies it.
There is a serious lack of balance when it comes to the skill required to use a weapon and its overall efficacy.
If this game had correct difficulty balancing, the best ranged weapons in the hands of a theoretically infinitely skilled player would be the precision weapons, but it’s simply not the case. The game will punish you if you decide to take an MGXII, Laspistol, or single shot Headhunter and land tons of headshots. A lot more damage could be done with a lot less effort, and it’s just nonsensical.
Doing a 180 and doming a a trash mob, scab ranger, or shotgunner with the MGXII while you were previously clearing out a room of gunners so you can get back to doing that without losing your ult is not easy to do consistently. It’s much easier to switch to your melee weapon to deal with most backstabbing threats or just mag dump. The game should not have this random enemy survive a headshot because it was too close and didn’t get the maximum inverted damage drop off buff. Headshots should always do maximum weapon damage. There shouldn’t be any variation.
The funny thing is that this kind of exists already for the Helbores, but it’s not for headshots. Fully charged attacks always get maximum damage from the inverted damage dropoff value table.
But why bother aiming anything when you can take Assail and just zone out and let the game aim for you.
=/
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But that’s the best part of it 
I guess the main problem is that we can use it almost non-stop, something like endless ultimate skill.
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Idk why people say ‘Voidstrike is more OP why use Assail’ when both have their own niche.
Assail is great because you’re literally don’t required to aim, can move at normal speed while using it and generally have bigger killzone than Voidstrike. It can kill/stagger all none Ogryn/Mauler enemy effiently so it’s better for general use, or ‘Oh sh_t’ button when surround by horde.
Voidstrike is great because it do massive damage in straight line and able to kill tankier enemy efficently, but required time to charge up and aim where you’ll be immobile which is a dead sentence if you’re surrounded. it’s also harder to use effectively since it’s non-homing projectile.
I utilize both and it’s pretty much make my Psyker unstoppable.
A little rambling but, Zealot’s blades of faith have limited use and only recover on elite melee kill. It does jack sh_t damage unless you nail headshot, have bullet drop property and can be block by mob. While I really like it, It’s nothing compared to Assail except that it’s quick throw lol
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Assail isn’t nearly as OP as everyone thinks. But the perception is there and it’s going to cause Assail to get nerfed into the ground just like power sword because people complain about it more than other weapons.
I only play Auric these days and no matter how many assail psykers are in the party my mission complete times have stayed the same. In other words overall assail is no more effective than the tactics we already had, even if it looks flashy and is too “easy”.
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That’s what I found too.
Assail is not gear dependent, like Brain Burst. It’s been tuned to be competitive on higher difficulties which makes it strong in lower difficulties.
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It honestly seems like those who claim it is overpowered, are playing on low diff.
Like claiming that it 1shots most specials and elites… wtf.
On damnation it takes like 4-5 hits.
Can`t even 1 shot a regular shooty boi.
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That’s because it isn’t. Not on T5 Auric.
You deal 100 damage with it per hit. Maybe 150 with the other talent to enhance it.
The only thing it has going for it is the built-in semi-aimbot and that it scores many headshots.
I actually tried making an Assail only build and there is surprisingly little to make it stronger once you do a real deep dive on that front.
If you only run Assail, you will eventually run out of juice as enemies close in, since you also have to manage peril.
Being too easy is a problem in and of itself.
If option A is easier than option B, it should not have the same damage potential as option B. Skill needs to be rewarded; simple as that.
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I put easy in quotes there because it really isn’t. You can clickspam into hordes and make a pretty light show, but the moment you try to do anything more precise you’ll run into issues that can only be overcome with skill and experience. Specials mixed into a horde for instance. Or confined terrain that forces you to manually steer the missiles around obstacles. Using RMB to aim the missile at a specific target makes it far more accurate but it also increases peril generation from 10% to 25% and reduces your DPS dramatically. There’s no free lunch, either you accept that your missiles are drunk and out of your control, or you take control directly and reduce your damage output to below psyker staff levels.
I only play on Auric these days and I would only describe assail as “competitive”, it is better than most builds, but hardly the best. Brain Burst + Staff still defeats it easily for horde clear and sniping potential. I think the perception that assail is OP comes from people playing lower difficulties.
Yeah. I just played a heresy mission to try and see what ppl complain about.
On lower diff than damnation, there really are not many ogryn elites around.
On heresy, you usually still need around 4 shards to kill an elite, but there are fewer ambient enemies, so you do not constantly sit on a single shard, if you keep using assail against ambients.
And the low number of ogryn make the massive weakness less apparent.
But on damnation, you can not spam it at all ambient enemies, or you will sit on a single shard the whole time, which means that your ttk on anything special or elite becomes abysmal.
Killing a few specials/elites can easily drain all of shards by itself on damnation.
And then there are the huge numbers of ogryn and maulers, which you do not even tickle.
If someone complains about how good assail is on diff 3 or so, i would definitely understand.
Complaining about how “great” it performs on damnation, is just stupid.
Maybe the solution is, to make it scale assail dmg with mission difficulty.
The dmg it does on damnation could even be slightly increased imo.
But for lower difficulties, it could be tuned down a tad.
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I’ll compare it to the Ogryn’s Point Blank Barrage and Assail will suck in comparison.
There are Blitzes that need boosting, but Assail is middling, it’s not OP.
So you are making a comparison with an ability, more specifically the ability that is made for increasing ranged damage, with a blitz? doesn’t seem like a fair comparison.
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Maybe it’s just my luck, but I had at least 1 and usually 2 assail psykers in each of my games since the update.
In non-STG auric, they just run around murdering everything that isn’t an Ogryn or Mauler, be it shotgun groups, gunners, large shooter groups, bruisers, or specials.
On Auric STG it falls off a bit (although not as much as Melee Vet) and doesn’t seem OP because the game throws so many specials/elites at you that you need more damage than Assail can provide. Even there Assail easily clears 6+ shotgunners and their shooter friends faster you can get into melee with basically no cost or minimal skill required. I wouldn’t say it’s OP there (Auric STG).
It is true, that if there are multiple psykers who use it, they can quite easily clear these soft ambient enemies together.
But a single one can not (due to limited shards and regen).
When 2-3 players are clearing those enemies as a combined effort, i do not really see an issue with that.
I think that those who complain (at least about assail in damnation), are lacking awareness and are moving through the mission too slowly.
Otherwise, they would easily be able to kill a lot of enemies faster than assail could.
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It honestly boggles my mind people think Assail needs to be nerfed, of all things.
They surely haven’t seen the infinite power of a really well-done Void Strike Staff build.
Guaranteed crits.
Guaranteed Surge double shots.
Guaranteed to cleave through entire Hordes.
Guaranteed to melt face.
Beats any Assail Psyker easily.
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Is it really that strong on Malice? I mean it still has 100 to 150 dmg a pop. That’s less damage than Lasgun shot.
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Kinda strong. Yes it is like a weak gun.
If you run ahead with assail on low diff, it is basically the same as if you ran ahead with a low lvl gun.
And because enemies are so few and so weak on low diff, you can actually kill a lot of them with it.
On any diff, many if not most people just move very slowly and if a specialist spawns from behind, they turn around and run towards it, instead of simply moving forward and waiting for it to catch up.
So it is quite easy to rack up a few kills at the front, since teammates are not contending for them.
Except on higher diff, ofc there are too many enemies and they are too tough for you to just clear them with assail.
After not having played any lower diff for weeks or months, it is quite funny to see, how few ambient enemies there are on low diff. And something like 5 ogryn enemies per map, not per room.
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I was talking about Normal/Highint Damnation below Auric-STG damnation. Even on Auric-STG it’s super good with Voidstrike. I can’t even imagine the OPness it is on Malice.
What you don’t get is that with Distrupt Destiny its headshot multi goes through the roof, and it deals way more than 100-150 on a body hit (around 200-250) due to the numerous DMG multipliers Psyker has. Right-click two-shot bombers and one-shot snipers too.
I also have to say that, Normal High-Int T5 is a walk in the park even with melee Vet, but this might just be a skill thing. The gap in difficulty and DPS required between T5 and Auric STG is huge.
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Headshots are unreliable, even if you try to hit them on a single target.
Veteran gets multiple damage bonuses on ranged weapons. Does that make a gun with 100-150 base dmg too strong?
The time it takes to aim, cast a right click and then wait for the shard to arrive, is so long that a player who uses a gun (and has comparable awareness), can easily kill any special before you can shard them to death.
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