I’m pretty experienced when it comes to system design (though this is limited to tabletop board games like D&D), so I figured I’d give my two cents.
There’s a lot of anti-synergy in the Psyker’s kit, that makes selecting feats a rather depressing task.
Peril (the entire mechanic)
As it stands Peril builds too fast from most sources. You could honestly ignore everything else I have to say, nerf this single mechanic and Psyker could be brought in line. Though they would still have a bunch of anti-synergy issues.
Brain Burst (no introductions necessary)
Builds far to much Peril while charging. It would prevent some hurt feelings if the bulk of Peril build-up was attached to the execution of this ability.
Warp Siphon (innate Warp Charge passive)
A little dull, if I’m honest. Could benefit from some visual improvements. Bigger/different colored warp abilities would allow a skilled Psyker to show off to their team how well they’re able to juggle this mechanic.
Battle Meditation (innate chance to quell on kill)
Terrible.
Sometimes you don’t want to quell, considering feats that increase damage based on Peril exist. This needs to be something, anything else. Perhaps some way to interact with grenades, such as psychically detonating them?
Wrack and Ruin (Brain-Bursting an Elite inflicts Soul Blaze for 3 meters)
Very poorly tuned. The numbers just don’t add up for anyone to ever want to use this. Not only is it on-kill, it hits almost nobody for almost no damage.
Psychic Communion (4% chance for Warp Charge on allied kill in coherency)
Weak, but people are forced to take this if they want to build around Warp Charges. A small increase to proc chance would make this fell much better.
Warp Battery (maximum Warp Charges is increased to 6)
This is a trap.
Considering how difficult it is to maintain 6 charges, this provides next-to-no benefit to poor unsuspecting players.
Only way I see this being useful is if the feat increased the duration of Warp Charges as well. Even something conditional, like it being based off Peril.
As a preface, I actually do enjoy playing Psyker. That isn’t to say it can’t be refined, but I don’t think it’s in a super bad spot.
That said, I am in general not a fan of an entire class revolving around a single skill (BB). It puts too much pressure on that ability to perform perfectly and really restricts how someone plays said class. If they opened it up so that their talents either worked in tandem with other psyker powers or tweaked how BB actually worked it would go a long way to making the gameplay loop more engaging and, dare I say, fun.
Psyker is the worst class to play. Very unrewarding. Other classes do everything better and don’t die as much if at all on 4+. So there is no point to play the class considering it is hardest to play. It should be a glass cannon but it’s just glass. The weapons are weak - Surge staff is the worst on 4+ difficulty. When a horde hits you are dead using it unless your team can save you. Every match feels like a carry.
Brain bursts need to be faster - usually a veteran kills elite or hard target before you can brain burst. It costs way to much to use and the charge up mechanic is terrible in action. Just not useful and annoying to use. If you want to snipe pick a veteran as it kills so much faster with no annoying mechanic.
The staffs are underpowered. Other classes weapons do everything better. Mostly they are crowd control but there is not point when other classes do crowd control much better. Grenade launcher and zealot flame thrower are way superior. So what’s the point of staffs?
The armoury sells mostly guns and rarely staffs. The weight of the RNG should be the other way around. We haven’t picked this class to buy guns?
I think the whole class need a rework of buff as the amount of comments you get on 4+ difficultly
saying how bad the psyker is and I have to agree. Either make the crowd control the best or buff BB to make it viable.
To this end having a level 30 psyker I have swapped to another character. I guess that’s what Fatshark wants you to do when you pick this class.
The reason why there are so many “psyker rework” threads is because we don’t really know how the current psyker would perform if his class currency (warp charges) actually worked in practice.
We just need 2 changes for start:
Warp charges are removed like they are applied (1 by 1)
You get a warp charge if you charged primary attack brain burst to more than 50% and someone else gets the kill (also lowers the potential for toxicity in the team)
Only after these changes can we take another look at Psyker and say if the current overall state of Psyker is in a good place, needs minor adjustments or needs a substantial rework.
As I started playing Psyker recently (level 20 atm), I’ve noticed quite a lot of issues with talents and such. Played mostly on Malice, and a bit on heresy. Now the fact that you can NOT one shot special/elite enemies with one brain burst should be completely illegal. This is your bread and butter skill at dealing with those kind of threats, even the game itself suggests that this is what this class excels at when you start your character. Make it always 1 tap specials/elites, and 2-3 tap heavy elites such as Reaper, Crusher, Bulwark. Now the way right click of brain burst behaves is interesting, you need to track your target, but you can preemptively cast it before picking the target, which is really nice, except it ramps peril like crazy, and often you can’t rely on special spawn call outs for how far they are actually from you, because all the places differ with their layout so it’s very much impossible to predict when you need to start to ramp it up in order to react and squish that pesky special enemy when you need to. Keep the time it needs to fully cast the thing the same, but make it ramp up peril much less, otherwise this will never see it’s use, I’ve often used this trick during my playthroughs on Malice, and when I correctly predict the time of cast and catch that doggo right before my nose with a Brain Burst, I’m already at 50%+ peril, just for killing one special, that sounds like a whole lot to me, and half of the time you would stop at 80% peril or above before you can pull it off and kill your target, either forcing you to use your ultimate or scrap the idea of relying on right click and just use any Staff that has CC, which is what I did on Heresy runs, since Brain Burst has lost it’s use drastically, and became unreliable, and I kept it mostly to spam trash mobs or heavy elites.
Also, I’ve talked about it during closed beta, and I’ll have to bring up it again, Brain Bursting mechanic as it is currently isn’t really engaging, the amount of time it needs to go off is so ridiculously high that a level 30 Vet will laugh in your face and clean house with his ultimate resetting each time he quickly deposes of any annoying elites/specials. Let’s keep the left click as it is, considering it’s basically aim once and hold = kill. Make the right click more engaging by implementing a skill mechanic, you can free cast it - sure, but if you hover onto an enemy and dependant on how well you track that enemy, the time to pop the head shortens significantly. And make the brain burst cast time dependant on target’s current amount of health, so you don’t waste full 3-4 seconds to finish the job, also it will prevent otherwise spam use of it on bosses, since their hitbox is so large, but set the limit amount of time that you’d need to cast/track it on a boss and maybe doing more damage for the effort.
A lot of the fun psyker play for me is more on their staves. That Voidstrike staff is absolutely amazing. Fires a piercing orb that explodes, does amazing damage, and staggers and with the amount of warp resistance on mine I only get about 5-10% peril per fully charged shot which is pretty nice. (I think its also that talent that gives peril resistance per warp charge, been pretty good with keeping charges up regularly.
Though I do agree some things should be shifted and changed to make the Psyker a bit better and more in line with the other classes.
But unlike others I don’t think its a bad class, just needs some TLC to be a better class!
Psykers are by far the most sought after class on 4+, because it brings much needed utility to control and dispatch dangerous threats that others struggle with. Contrary to your belief.
While I do agree - Brain Burst needs to be faster and it needs to prioritize elites/specials in the scope… It can actually kill a fair amount of specials in one shot. It is hands down the best way to deal with: Ogryns, Snipers & Monstrocities.
Staffs bring a lot of great utility and which one you bring should depend on your teams capability to deal with various threats.
Surge Staff is amazing at locking down high valued targets that can screw you over: Poxbombers in close quarters, Mutants and Hounds charging, Ogryn’s and enemies in cover.
Voidstrike staff is amazing at deleting hordes at a distance… No other class can delete hordes from the distance a psyker can with that staff and it serves to seriously soften up all elites for the vet to murder,
Purgatus staff is amazing at deleting hordes close up if you’re lacking decent cleave and it will also delete all specials/elites that enters the fire stream - safely.
They all have their usage and a good Psyker can make your run insanely easy. If a Psyker is the first to die on 4+ they are bad players… Just like I can tell you that the Vets, Zealots and Ogryn’s I meet in damnation are bad players when the first horde leaves them either incapacitated or at half health. I’m never the first to die (if I do die, it’s because I blew myself up on purpose 'cos there were far too many elites for the Vet/Zealot/Ogryn to handle and I didn’t have my elite skill off CD).
Grenade Launcher is not superior to a Voidstrike Staff I mean… Just lol. What. The orb of a Voidstrike staff explodes as long as it doesn’t meet terrain or armor and will headshot exceptionally easy… Guess how much a horde survives that and then what’s the point of bringing a flamethrower? None. Likewise the Flamethrower and the Purgatus now has the same range and same damage… So really, I don’t see the point in this… Except the Psyker isn’t gimping itself with a long reload time and equip timer on top of low ammo… When I run Purgatus I usually get all the elite and special kills in a horde… So I don’t really know what the point in bringing a Flamethrower is - bless them Zealots I do see them trying and I can’t stop giggling when they do, 'cos I can keep flaming permanently in a horde thanks to the 10% core feature that reduces peril.
To this end I actually play Damnation, you obviously don’t and haven’t played 4+ on a Psyker…
Do I want rework? Yes I want the BB changed to the above and I want our feats to give us more choices than they currently do which is BB or stack maintenance.
All that said, the core idea of the Psyker was for it to be the elite killer with BB and we are not. The rest of our kit works just fine as it is.
Psyker doesn’t really have an identity…
He is not a melee expert.
Not really a crowd control expert (his ranged CC is the stunstaff, the explosion staff just spreads enemies around which is terrible.
Not really a range DPS: brainburst scales badly with difficulty as there isn’t any player power level as in VT (or player lvl affect ing the number of dice throws)
Not a melee character: weaker melee weapons as well as squishy af.
What is he?
A damage buffer? Team buffer?
A few propositions based on other games:
-Enemies affected by brainburst take more damage (already the case)
-Forcepush creates a wall blocking projectiles going one way
-Enemies around the psyker are lifted and paralysed for a few seconds
Psykers are by far the most sought after class on 4+
I’m afraid this sentence alone would make it abundantly clear that you’re not particularly keyed in on the various strengths of the classes in the game, nor what ‘most’ would want in a damnation game. Psyker can shore up weaknesses in other players, to an extent, but the class is so far removed from it’s class description that it’s not even funny. Psykers do work better in a completely static premade where people play around the various strengths and limitations, but psyker was never supposed to be a support class, as far as I know. At the moment, all it does is help the others actually get the work done. I suppose considering the class aura and one of the talent trees only benefit allies, and not the Psykers themselves… I imagine FatShark wrote the class description, and then completely forgot about it and decided to make some super strange support hybrid instead. Just like they clearly wrote lots of the skills to rely on BB, but then went and made BB utterly and completely worthless.
It doesn’t mean that they are not capable of doing what the other classes can do.
Psykers can:
Delete a horde from range and most importantly make sure that the Veteran can snipe Elites and specials within it.
Delete a horde up close - the only thing that’ll get through it are Maulers.
Stun all specials and elites something no other class can do. Not just that. It can stop a horde dead in its track by stunning the first ones in a tight corridor.
They can take out all gunners behind cover - without fail and safely. Something all other classes struggle with and that really matters in Damnation considering how every damn room is full of lasgun mobs.
So, that we don’t have an “identity” is less of an issue, yes, it would be nice to have a defined role and be able to fullfill it, but that doesn’t mean Psykers can’t excel as much as the rest. We’re not as good at Specials and Elites, no, but we can do hordes far better than Zealots, Ogryns and Vets so there’s that… Doesn’t matter that a Zealot has flamers or Ogryn’s have Nade Launcher when Psykers have Voidstrike and can blow up the horde before it gets to you - and a decent Voidstrike will kill most everything inside the explosion and if you’re lacking some more elite killing, bring a Purgatus and no elite other than Bulwarks/Maulers gets past it.
And when necessary you have a BB to deal with stuff that is out of range, too dangerous up close and/or move too erratic to kill with a gun.
Should it come to the point where we HAVE to go into melee we have a force sword that blows up every elite in one fell powered heavy attack - whilst being able to dodge backwards into safety. We can have permanent blocking thanks to peril instead of stamina and we can block all bullets - essentially making us a meatshield.
A psyker can just walk straight into a room full of lasgun mobs and not give a damn heck. That let’s your entire team take them out.
The only point that you can really complain about is that we don’t have a defined role and it would be lovely to have one. I’d love to be the elite killer on the team with BB… Give it increased damage for just elites to oneshot on damnation/two shot ogryns and have itprioritize elites and bring the charge to 1.5s.
Problem solved
There are a lot of bad players and they include all classes… I can’t tell you how frustrating it is as a Psyker to see a Vet not care about elites/specials but melee a horde… because… reasons apparently.
I think you’re forgetting a couple of weapon options for those classes, which means hordes are never a problem, ranged or melee.
The problem is that this is incredibly sitational. You may want to use BB once per two missions. Most of the time bringing up the hands is the wrong move, because a railing will get in the way, it will take too long, someone else kills it first, it wasn’t one pop deal after all, etc etc etc. It’s sometimes useful for cleaning up a bomber or similar that’s running away. Can’t even deal with doggos (those erratic enemies you were talking about.)
The special doesn’t one shot every elite/special in the game. You’re also handily leaving out the insane long buildup, and the even more insane animation you’re locked into once you actually hit a target. Using the special is extreeme sport of the most fatal kind. The deflector is indeed good. It is in fact the only good thing about force sword, because you’re of course leaving out the fact that the base damage of lights and heavies, and the moveset itself on force sword, is one of the worst in the entire game. Basically if it isn’t doing it’s special, it’s trash tier melee.
This is true, especially when you’ve played several of the classes, it becomes even more glaringly obvious when someone isn’t “doing their job.”
I’m not saying Psyker is unplayable. It just doesn’t feel efficient or fun. If we’re going to be a CC bot we shouldn’t have to juggle peril, stacks, lowest HP+Toughness combo, and have talents that synergize with nothing, least of all themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, I would take a vastly improved BB. I just think that Psyker needs a fundamental rework, because it’s all over the place and it’s incredibly difficult to feel like you’ve unlocked synergies anywhere.
The only thing that springs to mind is honestly Nade Launchers on Ogryn’s … They’re alright, but by the time you’ve launched one and it detonates - my Voidstrike has already kill that bunch and unlike the Ogryn which has a very long and very annoying reload… I can fire half charge balls of doom which oneshots all dregs, scabs and poxwalkers every 0.8s. The flamer on the Zealot doesn’t even remotely compare to a Voidstrike… Before it’s in range, the Voidstrike has taken out the bulk of a horde.
I’m saying this as Ogryn’s and Zealots frantically runs about on Damnation when I whip out my Voidstrike staff (I mean, it is a 380 80% damage, 80% charge, 80% aoe and some 60’ish warp and quell speed). I do see Vets using lasguns and firing into a horde and they’re usually the horrible Vets that then don’t deal with Elites, when I do see a good Vet - he realizes that I’m dealing with the horde, so he tends to deal with the elites I expose for easy killing. If I’m extra lucky I have an ogryn and zealot, ogryn/ogryn or zealot/zealot that watch the flank and front for rare survivors.
I’m not saying BB is not situational, I’m saying those are the situations in which it is practical to use. It can deal with a doggo, it just can’t one shot it, but the hit will stun it long enough for you to do an instant right click attack and/or pin it down long enough for a Vet to do it. Either way it tends to work though as for erratic I really was thinking of Bombers/Trappers.
No, it doesn’t one shot Maulers and Ragers. Although two quick light attack taps usually will and you can animation cancel the powering part with light taps. You can also murder flak armoured ragers in a single light tap. So there’s that - of course we’re not talking about Ogryn’s… No one oneshots those…
As I said, it’s something you want to use if you have no other options, your Vet or Zealot ain’t paying attention or you’re just bored… All three works. Rarely if ever do I actually see the entire charge up animation… Then it’s because I’m doing it in anticipation of a dog or mutant coming my way and I know I need to dodge and hit them.
I enjoy Psyker, but I wish it was more consistent in terms of it’s class defining role and feats to support it, currently it is not, but you can still shine as bright as all the other classes.
I’d rather run 2 Psykers and 2 Zealots and have the fastest clear speeds.
But hey! If you really want to bring a Vet, be my guest. That extra power sword wielding maniac whom doesn’t swap to guns is going to be so useful on Damnation when you bump into 8+ gunners/shotgunners, 3 Reapers, 4 bulwarks and 10+ rager/mauler/flak armor ragers covered by the absurd amount of Dreg Gunners and Scab Gunners…
As you can probably guess, yes, I’ve seen a lot of those Vets and I would hands down rather have an Ogryn with a shield than… That.
Vet would be better for the situation you described than Psyker. Clearly you haven’t played with anyone competent using Counterfire. Or just a competent Vet period. Power sword is incredible for mixed hordes. Their TTK is better than everyone elses.
Zealot is ok, just needs to dial back the power from crit build and improve the other builds(lower crit dr and increase base tough), along with improve some of their lesser used weapons.
