I want to start by stating that I have enjoyed this game for a while now! 456 hours of playtime and going. The new talent/skill tree is phenomenal and has brought much needed life back into the game!
I wanted to offer my thoughts on possible changes specifically surrounding Psyker as I think the skill tree is a good start, but could use a few tweaks.
Brain Burst: Let’s get this one out of the way. I think brain burst is not super useful in it’s current state. I believe that it’s better to provide ideas for improvement rather than complain so here are a few things that could make the skill more useful.
- Either add priority targeting to brain burst so you can target elites/specials in a crowd or remove targeting for trash mobs.
- Remove the movement speed reduction while charging either LMB or RMB. It’s just not necessary and it prevents people from using it when we really should be.
- This is multi-part in which one of a few improvements could be made:
- Give brain burst 3-5 charges and remove the cast time. The charges would accumulate over time. Keep the dmg as is to accommodate for having immediate access; or
- Keep the charge time, but allow for the ability to highlight multiple targets (maybe 2-4 depending on a chosen trait); or
- Allow brain burst to do AOE dmg.
*The biggest issue when running brain burse, or anything in this current meta, is that Psyker hasn’t previously had a great way to deal with a lot of shooters/gunners. The purgatus staff was awesome for horde, but ranged was way too difficult. Having a way to utilize brain burst against multiple targets would give us a reason to choose it over something like assail. Assail is so predominant because it helps to fix a major gap in psyker gameplay.
Kinetic Flayer (Talent) This just needs to be reworked. 15 seconds is too long and not being able to use it at critical peril really just makes less useful. I still think it’s useful, but not often. Most of our kit is around us balancing high peril for increased power/crit/dmg. If we are managing correctly then this will never proc (or only as the initial cast when starting an interaction). Also, if we are using the talent “Kinetic Deflection” then this just makes using this ability even less likely. I think the CD should sit closer to 10 seconds due to it’s strength, but it should be able to be used at critical peril as well.
Smite (Blitz Ability) / Surge (Staff) I like the idea of this, but in practice I think most groups agree that it’s useless. The thought process is “Why would I want these things CC’d (and my Psyker now be unable to do anything else) when they could just kill the things in the way”. I think the surge staff is at a decent place with dmg and balance, and we should give increased chaining back to it. In turn, remove smite as a blitz ability and change it out for something else. One thing we don’t have is area denial or something that allows us to rez up teammates easier. What if we instead built around the soul blaze traits/mechanics and made a targeted area/ability where you can set the ground ablaze with soul fire? Hell, you could re-use the fire animation from Zealot’s grenade. This could have minor or major stagger mechanics (maybe at least to stagger the horde), and would play into damage over time.
Finally, my last change/improvement idea would be around the shape of the talent tree. Most of the talent trees for other classes allow you to move laterally which increases build diversity; however, psyker’s tree has a lot of diagonal movement which prevents you from moving laterally. Example, I would love to get the crit Aura, and move to venting shriek, but due to how the pathing is diagonal I am unable to do so. I think we would see increased build diversity if the minor nodes would allow more lateral movement.
I hope someone from the Dev team reads this. This was thrown together last minute, but I really enjoy this game and I would love to see my class get some additional improvements! I think we have lot of build potential if we could see some changes.
