Yet an other thing where they are different.
Yet an other difference between smite and surge staff, that would NOT be removed by simply having an additional blessing on your surge staff.
I don’t see the other staffs getting neutered to make way for a blitz, do you?
Both Brain Rupture and assail are totally unique and independent from all the staffs, why not make the final one too?
You can’t have the explosive damage unless you use the staffs they are tied to, it’s what makes them unique and interesting. So why not keep surge unique too… Wonna use elec use the staff, simple.
If you wanted crowd control powers, you could have gone gravity, ice, binding, levitate and whole host of other possibilities that could have brought really new and interesting game mechanics.
You could have the souls lost in the warp still immensely loyalty to emperor, called in by the psyker to help out… and ghostly vestiges of hands rise out the floor grabbing the heretics, tripping them, knocking them off balance, and in a small % of a chance they get pulled into the psychic void screaming.
But no.
You have your opinions and I have mine.
This (above) was my original argument.
I state the fact that smite and Surge staff are not completely overlapping.
And this (below) is what i said later.
Aside from the functional differences, they reside in different slots and therefor allow for different combinations with other weapons and blitzes, so even IF the two were made to be otherwise functionally identical, there would still be an argument for having both exist at the same time.
To which i then referred when saying this:
It should be quite obvious that i initially forgot the „NOT“ in the second sentence (i fixed that mistake now).
Because a staff obviously does not get moved into the blitz slot by applying a different blessing to it.
So no. I was quite consistent with my argument (although i misspoke once).
I fixed it now.
Sadly, you were so overwhelmed by finding one inconsistency in my argumentation, that instead of making a logical conclusion and assuming that i must have misspoken, you instantly jumped to the conclusion that i must have noticed i was wrong.
Because in your mind, a staff will apparently become a blitz ability and free up the ranged weapon slot, if it has the right blessing…
It would not be a bad thing to change ones conviction btw, when figuring out that it is wrong.
You should try it some time.
I really, really disagree with this, and imo it was one of the best anti shooter tools in the game that neither current Surge nor Smite does as well. I had amazing games with it.
I still use current Surge staff. I don’t hate it. But I think they should’ve kept the old Surge staff as is, and just added the new one as a mark variant. It’s not like its the only blitz that crosses over with a weapon, and Smite and old Surge were different enough I don’t think there would be a problem having both of them in the game.
Still think Smite needs changing and Surge could use some damage. New Surge was always a bit on the weaker side, they fixed the limb targeting awhile ago.
1 Like
The amount of toxicity in this thread is too damn high.
Instead of changing smite, why don’t we change surge? A lightning bolt staff that (you charge it up) and (like other staves) releases all the energy at once! And you’ve effectively made a lightning bolt that instantly jumps between targets doing bigger damage! No stun! Just huge dmg!
Potential Blessings for the “new” surge staff:
Primary fire: a damaging shockwave pushback blast.
Secondary Fire: a released arc of lightning that jumps between four targets, prioritizing Highest health doing X damage.
Conduction I-IV: Your Surge bounces to four additional targets.
Lightning Rod I-IV: Instead, you call the powers of the warp upon you, Your surge is now an AOE with you at the center for 4/6/10/16m with a 45/40/35/30% damage falloff beyond 2/3/5/8m
2 Likes
Been trying a smite builds all evening… It’s absolute dog s***e.
Utterly hate it.
They need to do both of them as they are both awful.
I did a thread a couple of days ago, for a new blessing called AC/DC, works similar to the void blessing that strikes twice.
2 Likes
Is it really an issue, if you do not like every blitz ability of every class?
To me, it seems completely fine, when blitzes are not objectively bad.
Smite is not bad. Most people are just bad at using it. Just like most zealot players are bad at using a stun grenade.
If i do not like them all, i simply use the ones that i do like.
As long as there is one blitz and one class ability per class, that i really like, everything is fine.
And if there is a class that does not offer that, i might just not play that class.
It still does not mean, that the things that i personally do not like, are bad and NEED to be reworked.
Different people like different things. It is impossible to cater to everybody.
So it is to be expected, that there are a few options that any individual player does not really like.
3 Likes
Good for you.
I hate it.
2 Likes
Then use a blitz that you do not hate.
Problem solved.
Your personal emotional response to a blitz ability, is not a valid reason for or against changing it.
3 Likes
I appreciate and somewhat agree with the idea of what you’re trying to say. But as a main psyker since release, likewise on T5+, it’s plenty obvious to me that there is a problem with BB.
It’s not that it can’t be useful, some builds can make great use out of it. Mostly its issues come from the game’s meta and psyker weapons. The meta is all about massive numbers of enemies, and needing to take them down with abundant AoE, CC and dmg asap. But BB is slow, not particularly powerful, costs a ton of peril, and only hits a single target every 2s without buffs.
Void & Surge do far more dmg for less peril than BB, and have AoE / cleave (well at least Void does). Trauma only loses against biggies but its massive CC and AoE more than makes up for it. That leaves purge and most of the guns, but even with them assail is usually a far better pick for dmg, being fantastic for groups of anything but oggies while adding ridiculous ammo efficiency for gunpsykers. The only thing assail can’t handle are oggies, but even if your team fails in that, any experienced psyker can easily use their melee for that job. And if the oggy groups are too large for Deimos, DSIV or knife? Yeah, BB isn’t going to do any better there.
Kinetic Resonance and EP help a LOT yes, but at what cost? EP exclusively buffs BB and nothing else. Warp Siphon buffs everything and by a lot, but barely matters for BB aside from maybe a few breakpoints. Disrupt Destiny meanwhile adds a huge bonus to all of your finesse hits, yet does nothing for BB at all. Even with Kinetic Flayer you’re going to have to weigh between burning an ult early for a faster BB vs. saving the ult and spamming your staff or whatever else instead (which, overwhelmingly, would be the better option).
So if you build into BB, you will weaken your build in everything else. Yet without those talents BB is so slow and weak that it’s rarely worth using at all, outside of flavour to mix up the game and do anything else rather than just spam your primary / melee. Meanwhile smite and assail need no extra talents at all to be ridiculously valuable, and both of them address the game’s meta exactly either way. On top of that, Warp Siphon is fantastic for both of them, and DD makes assail just crazy (assail also makes stacking DD or WS super easy).
To address some of your specific points:
Smite isn’t at all as vulnerable as you say since you can freely dodge & slide while charging & channeling it. Sure you can do that with everything including BB, but BB doesn’t near-instantly disable everything in front of you.
Assail and Vent address very different needs. Assail brings AoE burst DPS, mixes fantastically between your melee in moderate doses, gives you ranged sniping, and an easy & fast way to ramp up peril for Warp Rider and Vent’s Creeping Flames. It’s not a great match for something like Void outside of the melee thing, but works great with everything else. But assail really isn’t anywhere near enough for those large horde spawns that are everywhere on T5+, and spending it there outside of emergencies just makes sure you won’t have your ammo when you need it for the special+ groups instead. Vent then besides well, venting, brings its massive through-the-map horde clear, adds to Perilous Combustion & Soulblaze in general for some insane SB DoT stacks, and of course CC. Staves depend but usually they’re your focused anti-elite tool.
So with Trauma, assail deals with groups of specials+ or ranged much faster than Trauma would, Vent burn hordes & brings instant CC, and Trauma deals with heavy CC & AoE against large groups / oggies / when assail is on CD. With Surge assail brings more peril efficient instant AoE, Vent again adds to that with horde clear, and Surge deals with heavies or mixed horde backup. With Purge, Assail brings far superior burst and range and is invaluable against specials+, purge brings CC and DoT, and Vent again helps with hordes but now also massively buffs that DoT.
There are so many things I’d like to add but this is already too long.
My point is that BB isn’t useless, there absolutely are ways to build into it and times where it can shine. But it’s just not as frequently useful as the other blitzes and not worth the sacrifice of investing into. I’m thankful to Fatshark for their latest buffs (and fixes, like finally stacking KR & EP) which have definitely improved it a lot, but at the end of the day the problem is still the same. This is a horde shooter. BB doesn’t address that, nor is it strong enough even against the few big enemies to be worth its cast time and cost in general.
Basically, to make BB work I need to make the entire build around BB specifically and think everything else around that, leaving me with few options if I want something actually powerful. But to make smite or assail work? I can just pick up any random idea I like, and at least one of them will fit in there just fine. … Well, less assail and more smite tbh. I can’t stand losing Psykinetic’s Aura, nvm being forced to pick the useless complete waste of a talent that is Mind in Motion. 
3 Likes
I mean, this is more about the voidstrike. The BB is literally for the “oh ****” moment when you need more damage than your staff can output. It’s a Psyker sprint basically. Once you do it, you can’t do it again until cooldown resets/EPSI comes back up. The build (with staff and sword included) benefits from the build on all fronts. Even the sword does. You should try this build, I think you’ll like it.
1 Like
This just isn’t accurate man. It oneshots every single special with a crit or two shots them in every other case (except mutant which you oneshot in melee), 3 to 4 shots crushers safely and the bit about not being able to kill hordes very well is irrelevant as that’s not what it’s supposed to do…
I don’t know what to tell you other than “fix your build / gear”. Mine does exactly what I said it does so if yours doesn’t, that’s on you (gacha system willing).
Wrong.
Obviously, that’s the only thing it used to do.
This used to be true and is not anymore.
Eh, sorta not exactly. I really liked the version of it which consistantly 2 shot crushers. That was neat. That’d be something it could have over other staves but it’s fine now and that used to be dumb.
That’s true and usually it leave it at that too. This time it’s just, mine is factual and yours isn’t really.
The more I see of you writing about this topic, the more it’s “give me the thing back which I was used to” for no real logical reason. Which you have all but admitted to, btw.
Either that or use less peril for how much damage it does.
2 Likes
I switch and tweak my builds all the time, it’s the only way I don’t get bored. Yours isn’t bad, but imo actually works as a good example of the things I tried to say earlier.
In your build BB adds huge burst that the Void there doesn’t have that’s true. But what if you got True Aim and tracked it (Custom Hud & Buff Hud Improvements lets you move any buff you like anywhere, so I have True Aim and some others right next to my crosshair to never miss them), then got Warp Siphon or DD?
Now your Void would do nearly the same burst DPS on heavies all the time instead of conditionally. Outside of heavies however, since TA stacks multiple times per shot - including the same shot that procs Surge (itself producing 2 shots so 2 stacks to TA) and resets TA itself -, you’ll often be doing those double shots on every shot against groups as long as you can hit the heads. In practice most of the time you’re dealing with mixed hordes and heavies here and there however. With a build like this then, your first 1-2 shots will stack TA on cleaving mixed horde, and after that you’ll unload the Surge to delete an oggie or two or a full line of other elites and anything else, rinse repeat every few shots.
This ofc leaves you with tons of extra talent points compared to that BB that benefit you everywhere. Warp Siphon massively buffs your ult recharge and adds huge peril efficiency and dmg to your Void. DD likewise buffs your Void and makes your DSIV into a monster. As for the blitz, vanilla smite there would give space in emergencies, or guarantee disabling the trapper, burster, dog etc. that was about to hit you from behind a wall of enemies (something nothing else could do) when your shield was down or not enough.
So tldr; Ditching BB and going for something else makes your build almost as strong against biggies but all the time instead of only when stacked on talents, and way stronger against everything else.
Also… sorry but find your choice of curios peculiar. You stack hp almost exclusively on a psyker, yet you went for the extra toughness talent up top? You also don’t have Kinetic Deflection (or the 5% crit next to it despite the crit void, it’s just 2 talents for both). I feel like 1x hp, 1-2x toughness, or due to the DSIV maybe 1x stamina (and maybe sprint efficiency) would do better here. 
Toughness does little against melee but adds immensely to ranged so it’s usually a fantastic investment for a psyker, especially if you invest talents into extra base toughness anyway.
Edit: To be clear here, I’m not trying to offend you or pick an argument. We all have different ways to play the game and one of the best things about Darktide is how you can build and play in so, so many different ways to match your style! This is just my PoV from my style. 
2 Likes
Yeah, that’s just not true.
It does struggle with some specials, I have even seen it fail to take out a sniper in a single shot.
It’s damage output isn’t consistent, it’s random as F. I have failed to take out lowly infested fully charged…
It’s awful, and the extra damage buff, for taking away the stun aspect? No where near enough. And you only have 3 f-ing buffs to choose from.
It’s peril cost is high, for the pathetic amount of damage it does… It only generally takes out one target despite hit 4 or 5, even if they are lowly grunts, some times it may take two out.
Every gun in the game is far more efficient at taking down enemies than the surge staff.
It’s garbage.
Yet the Surge staff is my fav, I love the idea of it, it’s just weak and useless.
2 Likes
I literally opened up the game for the first time in months just to check if what I remembered was correct for the information I typed out above.
My information is correct and you saying it’s not, doesn’t change that.
There’s nothing left but to tell you that your build / gear likely isn’t optimal.
That you’ve not been objective about this was clear from the start but your blatent BS is actually starting to p!ss me off.
Nah, My build is very strong for the staff. It just that Surge is well underpowered for what it is supposed to do.
A void strike can kill 10-20 on hit, especially in a massive horde… Surge staff fully charged? one or two. Yet a void strike is more efficient with the peril.
Sub-optimal?
They are in a way. I don’t think fat shark has come out and said it, so it would be nice to hear, but for vermintide 2 I remember them saying that they balance their game around champion, which is our t3…
Now that I think about it I’m curious where their balance goals lie for darktide.
@FatsharkCatfish can we possibly get an answer on this?
I ask because blitz’s like assail clearly decimate lower difficulties but seem to be perfect right around damnation.
2 Likes
This is true.
I remember something like that, too.
But in darktide, you can play diff 3 high int and have 2 ogryn hold down their LMB throoughout the entire mission, which seems a bit strange as a baseline for balance.
And which is why i could not care less if assail decimates on low diff.
Because guns effectively have infinite ammo there. And guns with unlimited ammo outshine assail quite a lot.
2 Likes
If we’re being honest, this also applies to regular damnation. The spawn density in Malice and Heresy is abyssmal in comparison. Almost like an entirely different game.