Psyker is in desperate needs of a Rework

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
22

So basically Brain Burst needs to be better, or keep its single cast/kill utility. That’s fine, imo. It’s slow enough as a cast and leaves you vulnerable long enough to warrant the payoff, and T4/5 there is way more elites that executing one doesn’t strike me as being obscenely OP.

I don’t think Psyker doing poorly in T4/5 is all that unique, though. Ogryn does pretty bad, as well. I feel like Veteran and Psyker might shine a lot more in those difficulties because eliminating dangerous targets from a distance become a priority. Zealot might be a better tanker than Ogryn, not quite sure. From what I’ve heard/read, they are pretty good, but I haven’t played one myself.

23

I think Fatshark had a “vision” for Psyker and suddenly at the last minute realized it wouldn’t work for whatever reason(s) and what we have now is the bandaid result. No group identity, a talent tree that lacks cohesion and a selection of weapons that are useless and/or boring to use because they don’t play off our class fantasy.

Psyker feels like it was designed by a group of people who didn’t actually talk to each other and instead just read each others notes before continuing their own work on the class. The class aura, Brain Burst, Wrath, weapons, staffs, and talent tree are disjointed ideas that if built upon as a class identity would work but mashed all together don’t feel well to play at all.

24

Psyker’s central mechanics should be peril and warp charges.

Brain burst should be tweaked to be useful when necessary, not needed to power the whole class.

Brain burst should be another way to get warp charges, not the primary way.

In my opinion the ideal psyker is using his staff or a gun or sword on regular enemies and pulls out brain burst to kill that heavy gunner or sniper pinning the team down, they can also choose to be risky and use their force sword on big scary enemies up close to kill them surprisingly fast with the very real risk of taking damage.

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25

I’d be willing to bet that the original intention for the class was that brain burst is extremely powerful but can’t be used all the time - just like a grenade.

Then they realized that by allowing the Psyker to equip mundane weapons that don’t generate peril they needed to put in some kind of default psyker power, otherwise you can build a character that simply doesn’t interact with their core mechanics, and then they had to give you a reason to actually use brain burst all the time so they made it create warp charges that fuel a huge number of talents.

What I’m thinking is, what they should have done instead is give Psykers a class passive like “Infused Ammunition” or something like that where when you aim down sights while firing a gun the weapon has way more knockback/stagger, but you also generate 2% peril every second or so while you aim.

That way your character always has a way to generate peril even if they aren’t equipped with a staff or force sword. It would also make gun based psykers sufficiently different from other characters with the same gun that it actually creates an interesting build. You could then also create a whole line of talents around the idea of enhancing mundane weapons further.

It would then free up brain burst to be powerful but limited, instead of being in this awkward position it’s in right now where it has to be simultaneously usable all the time so that the psyker has a default peril generating ability, but it should also be part of your toolkit that is actually useful to deal with specific situations.

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26

The 10% to head pop is too low should be 15% even with auto las it hardly comes out. Also increase the right click range of surge staff a bit. Another they could also change is the cool down of auto head pop from 15secs to 10.

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27

Brain Burst at Heresy+ becomes niche, it’s useful for Bullwarks and such enemies, unfortunately not even really to kill them, but to open them up for your team to kill them instead
It’s also useful to catch more evasive elites… When they die in one hit (like bombers)

My main source of warp stacks is Psychic Communion with a bit of Kinetic Flayer backup
Contrary to the general opinion, i don’t think warp stacks are difficult to maintain
At Heresy+ there are so many enemies you will quickly accrue max stacks at 4% proc

But Brain Burst drops off extremely to the point i barely use it anymore after Malice

The dedicated elite killer at that difficulty level is in fact the Veteran, you’re only support

I think that’s Fatshark’s intent

Problem is, what’s the Psyker’s role then ?
Shooting your staff all game isn’t particularly exciting
Using a range weapon instead, why ?
Even after the autopistol buff i don’t see the point, i’m not going to compete for ammo resources when i have unlimited ammo on a staff which also goes through friendly hitboxes
If i’m going to use a ranged weapon then i need related feats synergie a bit more than one free brain burst every 15 seconds that will land on some random trash mob anyways so it’s only good to get a free warp stack

Force Sword is kinda nice, but the special is just too slow, and you’re not supposed to be frontlining anyway, you’re too squish
Kinetic Deflection on a deflector sword even with + block curios isn’t an Ogryn shield, it’s situational, most people don’t even use it anyway, i personally prefer Kinetic Shield, lots of players prefer Mind in Motion, and the reason for that is because those are useful at all times
And you don’t have the endurance or the regen to take or trade hits anyways

In any case i agree Brain Burst’s current iteration is problematic once you reach Heresy
I was very surprised when i realised total gear level doesn’t affect its damage output
Even at 6 warp stacks it still can’t one shot a single hound, and now there’s twice as many of them

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28

Psyker role isn’t a threat killer though. It’s a flex pic. Role veteran if you want to play that role

29

I wouldn’t mind this either tbh

30

Could not agree more.

Moving through the levels even at tier 3 play it is painfully apparent that if I were to play another class I would be able to contribute inordinately more to the group.

The biggest issue for me is warp charges and most everything surrounding them. Via feats they provide both damage boosts, possible damage reduction, and allow psykers to regenerate toughness so they’re established as an essential “keep them active” gameplay mechanic for the psyker. The problem then is you are punished in every way by FatShark who seem hell bent on making you do things besides brain burst. And even when you do brain burst the damage becomes so pitiful so quickly, especially when you dont have any warp charges.

The issue of them all falling off together also means the psyker suffers from a very real “feast or famine” setup. All 4 (or 6?) then youve got some extra damage and survivability. They all fall off? Too bad so sad, youre setup is now wrecked. Want to get them back? Great! Youll need to focus exclusively on that to reliably do so in any reasonable amount of time. Even the feat which allows for a kill by a teammate in coherency to give you a 4% chance to get a warp charge on a kill really doesnt seem to be able to help much.

And without a good way to reliably generate warp charges in an efficient manner youre really not getting any benefits from the feats that grant toughness on gaining a charge. Its also laughable with the time required to do a BB because lets say youre in desperate need of some toughness, trying to do a BB leaves you wildly exposed, takes too long, and is probably the worst way to try and recover toughness at all. Youre far better off just grabbing your sword or staff and getting into coherency with the team. But good look using either of those for too long! Because without warp charges you gain peril so much faster, and do so much less damage.

The warp charges, how they are acquired, how they fall off, and how long BB takes to cast all need to be looked at because every other class seems to contribute so much more currently, all also without the risk of literally blowing themselves up while doing so!

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31

Just here to add to the bodycount of the post. Great takes.
Fatshark, please listen to the community! I no longer want to feel like the time I’ve spent levelling my Psyker has been a complete waste of time, and a liability to my group of friends in higher difficulties.

32

I want to add a take I’ve been hearing a fair bit and have been thinking on myself.

It’s possible Psyker at higher levels doesn’t need to be an overall special and elite killer, and only use Brain Burst occasionally to kill things like Crushers, Maulers, Bulwarks, Reapers & Snipers, where it most excels. Of course, this would clash with the design of Warp Charges being dependent solely on BB at the moment, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad place for Brain Burst to be if the design of Warp Charges is fixed. It would also mean you spam BB less overall, which to be honest, is a pretty boring ability anyway.

All this is to say the solution isn’t necessarily to buff Brain Burst, but to decouple the Psyker’s passives and talents away from it by letting him generate Warp Charges without it.

33

Veteran outperforms Psyker in the threat kill job. Brain burst is absolutely pointless when veterans can kill 4-5 elites and specialists by the time the first brain burst has charged.
Psyker seems pointless in a team right now imo.

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34

Great post, totally agree.

If warp charges are going to be tied to everything the psyker does, there needs to be more ways to get them. The most obvious choice would be through staff (and force sword) usage, as those are the classes’ unique weapons.

IMO the best way for staffs to generate warp charges would be through Peril generated. This would allow psykers to gain charges without needed kills. Several of the staffs provide CC and not damage, so peril generated would allow the psyker to play the support role without losing their main class mechanic. It could be a large amount of peril (50-80) and would still be a better mechanic that allows psykers flexibility in playstyle.

The only other option is to buff BB until it can reliably 1-shot every non-ogryn special on any difficulty. While that would make the class more viable, it still doesn’t do anything to address the fact that psyker’s talents all revolve around warp stacks and thus BB usage, which severely limits playstyle options.

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35

imo, Psyker’s good for Crowd Control. Flame staff or Palpatine staff and you’ve got an enemy frontline or a bunch of elites or even a special on lockdown for the team to delete. Sure you won’t be doing much else, but what else can we do? FatShark have our hands tied behind our backs.

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36

In low difficulty, Psyker is a monster. However when the other classes start getting bolters which do about as much damage as your brain burst in a fraction of the time in a single shot… brain burst becomes something thats just not useful. Met a guy who claimed brain burst is op and he uses it on evertying, pretty much uses it exclusively in high difficulty which just really means: “I killed 1 guy every 3 seconds while my team did all the actual work for me.”

Psyker’s kit screams out “I’m a damage dealer, I am meant to deal with the high hp/high armor targets!” But in practice it feels like the opposite. You are not the damage dealer, you are a crowd control specialist. At high difficulty, all of your staves are pretty much useless unless its against generic horde mobs. The only staff that performs decently is Surge staff because of how much stagger it can inflict. So your whole gameplay becomes spamming surge staff to shock enemies in place while your team finishes them off because it takes around 3-4 fully charged casts to kill stuff like berserkers and gunners. Flame staff is also good if you want more damage but it just doesn’t feel reliable with it’s stagger so I’d say stick with Surge.

Its hard going from the most damaging elite killer to a low damage crowd control squish through the process of leveling up. You feel like you actively get weaker as you get to higher levels and higher difficulties simply because everyone else (save for maybe ogryn) gets a lot more strength to them while you’re kind of at your base strength throughout all difficulties. You are slow, deal very moderate damage, have the lowest hp pool, but you inflict massive stagger if you use surge staff.

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37

Exactly my experience with the Psyker, I started out having a blast, and the more I leveled up and my allies got stronger (especially getting stronger ranged weapons, such as the Boltgun), I felt weaker and weaker and began to enjoy the class less and less.

I’ve gotten to the point that after ~40 hours with Psyker, I think I’m going to stop playing it until serious changes are made.

2 Likes
38

Hello , sorry for my english it’s not my native language.

I am near 40 hours on psyker , I am psyker lvl 30 , fan of force sword and voidstrike staff.

I am mostly a solo player , I don’t have a team.

From what I read from previous post is mostly what I feel.

Brain Burst has a good feeling to play , to have team to mark enemy and pop them out.

And for the moment the psyker’s ability is good for be able to stay longer in fight.

Feat lvl 5:
The fews point, I saw in the psyker feat, is mostly , difficulty to keep toughness , the first talen lvl 5 are far too hard to proc, on elite and specialist at difficult 4 and more.

Making the quill one of the best if you can afford to do it .

Warp charge :
Just hard to maintain or create. It’s a core mechanic who is an horror to play. I think it should be adapt to allow the player to at least gain one charge on BB even if it doesn’t kill or at least refresh your current stack. I also think , that some warp weapon , like staff or force sword , should be able to give warp charge.

Peraps it’s only me, but I hope you will remove % of chance to proc : Psychic communion.
4 % is too random, and frustrating for managing your ressource. I could take another feat and i am thinking about it. But I want to play around the core mechanic of my class. I think it could be better to make it like every 25 - 30 kills by you or your ally in coherency , you gain a warp charge.

Feat 25 :
Kinetic frayer feat level 25, is for me awesome, and I enjoy it alot. Hope this one will stay.

SoulBlaze:
Then the last part , I think I repeat a bit what has already been said , but I did some test with ascendant blaze. Stacking 4 warp charge before using the push. 4 stack of burn is not enought for kill minion of a horde in difficulty 4. So I keep using it , but only for highlight enemies.

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39

There are very few psykers in the games I play, maybe those metrics will speak to them.

Stop playing the class until it is fixed from the bottom up.

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40

Yep, I hit 30 on psyker and immediately made a new character while I wait for a rework or atleast some major fixes to the classes innately terrible design. Heresy and Damnation feel horrible to play on the class.

41

Yeah the biggest problems going for the Psyker are:

  1. No damage scaling on BB
  2. No damage scaling on Soulblaze + the vase damage of it is abysmally bad
  3. The talent tree and class passives focus around brain burst and kind of penalize playing anything else

Regardless of number 3, you basically hit peak performance at lvl 20 if you find a good staff and use it with Mind in Motion.

IMO they should do some changes to the talent tree and replace the staff special attacks with an extra skill instead of the redundant and slow non-cleave melee animation. I would suggest doing this to Psyker:

Some values are obviously drawn from hat but with slight changes to the talent tree you can actually use any weapon you want, which should be the way the talent tree is built. Why have a game full of interesting and cool weapons if the class mechanics only give incentive for not using them at all?

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