Psyker is in desperate needs of a Rework

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I’m sorry to say, but I have reason to believe that Psyker in its current state is not doing well and cannot find its role in the game, in this thread - feedback I will explain why but before I do I ask the readers not to be emotional in replying and to think carefully and weigh their words.

After reaching level 30 with the Psyker class and having ventured into difficulties 4 and 5 without problems I can say that Psyker in its current state is extremely difficult to fulfill its role as a threat killer, from difficult skills to maintain to its brain burst. that does poor damage the problems are various and evident, it is a class that has many difficulties in various fields and that is outclassed by the others.

Why am I saying that Psyker in its current state is not good for the game?
because the game is a fast paced fps and consequently it will require quick decisions and actions to complete the missions as the enemies are many and fast.

in difficulty 4 and 5 is where Psyker’s problems are most noticeable, the first of which is the damage of the Brain Burst, a skill that is required in most of his Feats and that the Psyker therefore needs to use often.

in difficulty 4 and 5 the Brain Burst will have extreme difficulty in killing almost all types of special units going to require up to 4 or 5 times the use of the skill to take down one.

a simple Rager on difficulty 4 will require 2 Brain Bursts and a Crasher will require 4 Brain Bursts.
As if that were not enough not only the Brain Burst is incredibly slow to cast but these modes spawn a large number of these specials, making the Psyker increasingly miserable being that to cast the Brain Burst you will have to totally rely on the protection of your teammates. being practically a burden.

And again, most talents REQUIRE you to use Brain Burst whether you want to or not. even just staying alive trying to restore Toughness will require Brain Bursts and while there are alternatives here, these are not viable to restore Toughness in these high difficulties.

the Feat Kinetic Barrage becomes almost an absolute necessity for the Psyker of these difficulties that he will be forced to use it constantly to try to fulfill his role as Elite Killer.

and Psykinetic’s Aura (one of the best Psyker Feat) becomes almost useless as you have too much difficulty activating it for the reasons explained above.

Wrack and Ruin has one of the worst DOTs in the game, and if brain burst struggles to do damage, this skill is literally a bait for inexperienced players in the game. (Acendant Blaze suffers from the same problems as well as the others mentioned above)

also if the Psyker was already having trouble maintaining his Warp Charge at lower difficulty due to kill stealing, on difficulty 4 and 5 it will literally be a fervent dream to keep 4 stacks constantly.

the only salvation of the class only the Surge staff, the Purgatus Force staff and the Voidstrike staff (a little more mediocre than the other 2 but that’s okay anyway).
These weapons are the only justifiable reason to bring Psyker, they are able to give a slight support to the team thanks to the crowd control they can exercise on the enemies of the game.

But if the Psyker necessarily needs one of these weapons to justify his presence, being able to ignore most of his feats as in practice they become useless, then it means that the class lacks coherence and is proof of bad design. .

Please fatshark to listen to this feedback and possibly revisit the Psyker whenever possible.

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I tend to agree with you on the technical aspects. Like many games, it’s all about math, and the Psyker’s ability to “add up” is lacking in some areas.

A. Warp charges are difficult to maintain, they deflate too quickly, and even with the feat to replenish based off coherency, it’s ridiculously difficult to keep that cup filled. – Also when the charge drops, why do I lose ALL 4 at the same time?!

B. Brain popping takes way too long - even an Ogryn and a Veteran main I was playing with admitted they had to step in at times for specials because we just needed to move forward.

To be honest, however, I’ve noticed Psyker takes a LOT of team comp to be successful, and in pub games, there is none. People just get click happy and see the blue glow as a target. When a special is around, horde-clearing is thrown out the window and Psyker is literally rendered useless in a matter of 1/4 second.

I’m higher level (not max yet) and have played a good deal of Heresy – only one of which was successful, but it was due to a team that actually seemed like they understood the concepts of crowd control above all things.

Basically, long story short, YES, if we’re maintaining an entirely pub-game mentality then YES Psyker NEEDS some rework to remain ‘competitive’.

For an aware team of competent players who understand teamwork instead of “I want to be the top of the scoreboard” mentality - a rework isn’t really necessary. Maybe just some slight tweaks to the “math” of it all.

I would actually appreciate a return to the “only one of each role per match” to force people into A. trying new stuff and B. learning the ins-and-outs of the team dynamic.

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TBH the only changes psyker needs to be great are these

-Charges should fall off one at a time not all at once.

-Brain Burst needs to either be % based, being able to pop elites and specials in one go on any difficulty, and ogryns in 2. Or the casting speed of it needs to be vastly increased i would say by 50%

-Kills with psyker weapons IE staff or force weapons should provide a bonus to him either through toughness regen or something of the like

-Brain burst should stagger mutants while its being cast on them, to give at least 1 hard counter to mutants.

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Jberns407 all your points are understandable and would make Psyker a lot more viable, good takes!

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Well said.

Special shout out to Battle Meditation for actively and unavoidably screwing some high-peril builds.

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i agree, but im also dissapointed that there is virtually no synergy with traits on the staves

it needs a substantial rethink

i also have a sneaking suspicion that “kinetic flayer” does not trigger on “all” kinds of damage output, but i might be wrong there

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I believe you are correct i think it only works on melee attacks.

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that would be another point against staves, sadly

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it does work on all attacks, the chance needs to be higher or the cd should be removed

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does psychic communion work on all damage types too?

either im just really unlucky or theres some BS going on with DoT fire effects and AoEs

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i actually forgot about Battle Meditation, yes that’s another proof that the Psyker needs a rework because he lack coherence in his kit

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i can confirm it works on the Purgatus force staff (the flamethrower staff) and on the melee attacks. i don’t know about the others

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I agree that the Psyker is not a well designed class right now.

The entire talent tree is over-reliant on warp charges which are obnoxiously difficult to generate even if you like using brain burst, and only get harder to come by as enemies get tougher.

The staves are OK, but a step back from where Sianna was at with her staves, because they had to make their damage against armored enemies kind of lackluster so they don’t completely overshadow brain burst.

Brain burst should be a very powerful single target attack, in fact it should probably be the most powerful single target attack in the game. The issue is that brain burst cannot also be your default psyker power that you get to use all the time without any gear requirement and the source of a secondary class resource that fuels half of your talents.

If I were to redesign the Psykinetic from the ground up I’d make it so that brain burst consumes warp charges rather than creating them, but make it much more powerful so it’s genuinely a limited use but high powered attack. Warp charges would be passively gained and not decay. I’d give the class three main lines of talents:

One would be full of things like Kinetic Deflection so that you can build a character who combines mundane weapons with some psychic spice. For example there could be a talent where you get peril when you ADS to infuse your bullets with telekinetic force or use precognitive aiming, similar to how the Veteran can spend stamina while aiming as they hold their breath.

One would be focused on being a brain bursting assassin, kind of along the same line of thinking as a Sharpshooter grenadier build. This line would generate more warp charges and make brain burst faster and more powerful.

One would be strictly focused on making force weapons and peril management more efficient, and be for people who want to fully commit to staves and force swords.

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There shouldn’t even be a “possibly please” in the end of your post.

Psyker needs a rework. Period. FatShark, quit beating around the bush and fix this nonsense. I’m no longer asking nicely. What you’ve done with Psyker is essentially gone “Do you like working a dead end job? Here, have more of that”. Who’s in charge over there? Premier Doug Ford? Cuz you guys are building things like you’re expecting us to like being told we’re never going to amount to anything.

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Great post! Your rework ideas are exactly what I would want psyker to be!

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I posted in the “bugs” section, because I feel like FatShark is not listening.

Maybe if they see mass protest there, they’ll acknowledge they’re doing the class dirty. It “sounds” rude, but rudeness is not the intent. Displaying that we’re fed up is.

Psyker issues

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I believe that good manners are mandatory always and in any case, no matter what you ask.

I also realize that reworking a class or revisiting it can come to require a frightening amount of work, as you have to consider so many factors such as:

How can I make it viable?
How can I change it but at the same time make it not too different from how it was? as surely there are people who enjoy playing the current Psyker who is forced to spam Brain Burst.
and various others.

I do not expect the Psyker to be reworked immediately with this post, I think an actual rework will arrive perhaps in a few months, but I am confident that Fatshark will, as during this pre-order Beta they are showing that they listen to the community in various ways.

For example a couple of weeks ago i made a post in which I explained how the revive and other interactions in the game need animations and that the fastest way to solve the matter was to add a small switch that leads to the 3rd person when starting these actions.

they listened and today we have the revives and others 3rd person animations instead of the 1st person character totally absent of animations.

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Believe me I understand that reworking an entire class will take work. But they’ve made no effort to acknowledge the class is heavily flawed in the worst ways. A dev could take 30s to say “We’ve read through the feedback. We’re looking into making the Psyker fun and balanced and addressing the flaws and lack of synergy in its perk tree. It may take a couple of months. Stay tuned!” Anything to that effect would quell any concerns most of us have about the class.

I’m not asking for it to be done “tomorrow”. I’m asking for an acknowledgement that they understand it’s borked.

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Yep, fatshark has just been posting incredibly lackluster buffs thinking it’ll placate the psyker playerbase. When really it’s just aggregating us because the root of the problem is that psyker currently is just bad design.

Warp stacks, brain burst m2 isn’t unique, no special cast in blitz mode, there’s just a huge lack of creativity and a degree of low quality , that’s what fatshark struggled with in VT2 as well. With having so little usable abilities and such in a game with classes like this, they need to feel REALLY good to play. If you’re going to make classes simple, they need to be done well.

And no this isn’t an armchair post. I’ve worked both as an engineer and designer in AAA studios for 6 years now mostly in combat design and this is just rough, especially with their track record of terrible communication.

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Psyker is my main and I agree that warp charges should not be tied strictly to brain burst, but the other classes need love too.

psyker has had the most changes from pre order beta start. They will get it right but we need to be patient.

This is still beta.