Psyker is not weak it is a playstyle/skill issue

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

I expect downvotes even insults,like everyone decide to telling something true would be prepared for
But if you are chill and cool,a constructive discussion would benefit us all
First of all,I would say,from my experience(only play damnation as psyker),psyker in its current status isnt weak at all,but it is hard to learn and being familiar with.Part of this is due to fatsharks hesitation with explicity,which give new players very few information about their class and diferent weapons,so they will end up confused or even missleading into a wrong playstyle
People complaining about how bb is weak in higher dificulty is a typical result of such confusion and misleading,as they mistook this utility spell as some main source of psyker damage output,which from malice and below it is partial true,as it delete everything just in 1 cast except monstrosities or may ogryns,which I cant remember clearly because didnt touched malice once I could advance to heresy anymore…Now,imagine,you think you are the typical caster which constantly casting bb,but suddenly you find you need 2 hits to kill a dog,4 hits to take out a crasher,3 hits to kill a mutant,while bolter users for example delete them in less than 1 mag,you feel underpowered.
But it is just YOUR FAULT,it if because of your ILLUSION that bb is our main dmg source,which it is not.Its utility and it can do things no others can do as good as you can in certain situation------for example,you are under heavy ranged fire presure,some sniper around in a very tricky corner,or some bomber walking here and there,constantly walk behind corner throw a bomb and just move away.It is very hard for your random vets to take them out------you can always talk big on paper but in reality I didnt see many vets are capable of taking those critical specials out in the critical moments I mentioned above,in damnation dificult.The fact that bbs ignoring los and supression,and its dmg is just enough to one shot bombers/snipers/shootgunners(yes,the nemesis of purgatus staff users)/and kill a traper from a far when your team is locked in melee mess/kill gunners slower on paper but much faster and reliable in rl than your average vets on damnation,also,break the shield of a bulwark to let your team nuke it/break the constant fire supression of a reaper so your team can easy shot,is situtionaly valueable.
Then,we will talk about staves.People say staves weak but not at all
Voidstrike can snipe but it snipe not as good as a vet ranged weapon for example kantrael mkXII,sure,but kantrael mkXII can do nothing against a horde or throw overwhelming enemies on ground to gain room for your teammates to breath
Purgatus has lower range than a flammer (16 vs 22),but if you use corner clever and paired with deflector forcesword to push closer,get into next cover/corner charge and fire,the range doesnt really matters such.Purgatus can also slide while charging up without break your charge,purgatus can also go low charge,stagger hordes,low charge,stagger again,stacking up warp flurry then go a bigger charge to melt things.And again,you DONT need to reload and you DONT steal ammo from your teammate,it is 100 times more flexible than your flammer zelote could do,you can spam lmb/small charged rmb to deal with for example small enemy packs and dont need to consider ammo efficiency which if you use a flammer you must have to
Surge staff,like every said already it turn you into the best CCbot,and moreever,you DO have damage on specials which otherwise may cause problem.Imagine,3 ragers charging at you and your teammates are down or tied with other business,insta chain lightning stun,charge chain lightning,and you can kill them by repeat this.Surge actualy do decent damage on specials and armoured guys,it is sad against horde but you can have your duelingsword(I suggest you using a duelingsword instead of a fs,because its passive quell help a lot when you using a surge,and can save your ass against hordes while your staves can deal with armoured specials/elites perfectly already) and it isnt really a problem
And lets also talking about fs with deflector
people said its a trap and overlauded just because ,well,skill issue
YOU DONT USE DEFLECTOR TO TANK DAEMONHOST,YOU ARE NOT A SHIELD ORGRYN,AEGIS BUILD SUCKS ON DAMNATION!
Deflector is a tactic utility stuff not a shield which you just stand idle and tanking things.It is best used pairing with a purgatus staff,reason is that with deflector you can easily cut distance,from one cover into another,under enemy ranged fire and dont worry about you get deleted.It virtualy cant passively quell your peril,but with Purgatus,you have very nice peril efficiency and,with its nice aoe capacity your peril more likely to goes down due to your class passive ability.And there is more synergy beyond this------while purgatus may struggle to take out for example crasher or dogs enough fast,your fs special 1 hit delete dog in damnation,1 hit plus some normal swings kill mutant,and constantly LOCK DOWN crashers while doing massive damage to it!Yes,fs special break ANY enemies,being unyeilding,their attack animation.It is a safe crasher deleter.
So no,psyker IS NOT WEAK it is just doesnt follow the typical rpg mentality(dmg dealer,healer,tank),it is special and with vague information which new players can get from fatshark,it is hard to git gud with it.It takes more effort to become a master,but once you have mastered it,you are not anything less than other class.

Extra tip:Im not familiared with trauma staff,but I feel it is not worthy to play with in its current status.It is basicly a worse conflagration staff with no (oh Im on fire dot) with its charged attack,its dmg fall out hard out of the epicentre and,its peril efficiency is kinda trash.Worse,you throw enemies in your AOE circle but out of epicentre around,prone but ALIVE,so you end up INTENTIONALY made your team being surrounded,made them from have only 1 front into being virtualy circled,make flammer zelote and purgatus psykers less effective,and arguable enemies prone but not dead is much more dangerous than enemies alive and stand up
But it maybe my own skill issue,idk,from my personal opinion I will recommend to avoid use trauma staff

AND PLS DONT USE A GUN,EXCEPT YOU ARE A CRAZY CS PRO AND WANT TO USE A REVOLVER AND KNOW HOW TO SAVE YOUR AMMO!!!(even then,if you go play a vet you can be a lot better)
because if a psyker using recon las or las pistol,they are just a worse vet(now it is real a worse vet),and a pathetic ammo thief while not doing their own job.Most people recommending psykers to use a gun are those who have issue understand how kinetic flayer work.It has 10% chance to tigger but it has a 15s cd and this cd is universal not per enemy.And even ignoring that purgatus and surge staves are just tiggering 100 times better than your las guns.

1 Like
2

Don’t know about the vets you play with, but when i play vet, i kill everything much faster with my gun, than i do as psyker with BB.

So almost as good as a regular grenade for this purpose (which the team has plenty of, if a veteran uses the 5% grenade restore talent).

Then again, purgatus does no boss damage what so ever.

With the exception of the surge staff (which has no equivalent on any other class), sadly, usually you are.

Aside from the surge staff, the psyker does not really do anything special or highly valuable right now, that other classes couldnt do better (or just as well, while also being pretty good at something else, that the psyker is not).

Lets say you have a team of one of each class

  • veteran with ranged enemy focus
  • zealot with flamethrower
  • ogryn with knife/shovel and gauntlet
  • psyker with optimal loadout (probably with surge staff)

You could replace the psyker with a 2nd veteran that uses a bolter and be better off in almost all situations.
You could replace the psyker with a zealot with a bolter and you would be better off in almost all situations.
Not sure about the ogryn, but you could probably also replace the psyker with some ogryn config and be better off than with the psyker.

I like the psyker. I find it very cool and it was my main class.
But in its current state, it is simply not performing as well as the other classes are.

1 Like
4

you dont,except you are top cs semiprofesional,you dont (kill everything much faster with your gun than a psyker with bb in damnation dif).You dont kill a sniper in some tricky corner/behind some cover,or a bomber constantly moving out of los faster than a psyker under ranged fire supression,not even with your ult.I played months of damnation dif,and I see very few vet who are more competent than me at taking out tricky specials in tricky situation,and Im using a soulblaze build,that means I may constantly locked in semimelee range and without psychic barrage.

Your regular grenade is a utility weapon and has limited use,while bb is spammable (yes,just dont precast it like a newbie,you can lock on and cast and without kill yourself even you are at 97% peril.So cast,100%,vet to 97%,cast,rince and repeat)and free.If you are using a grenade just for open a bulwark up,I would say you play it wrong.I am no expert of vet,but I see my vet mates in damnation runs not do such things.They save grenade usually for certain situation which need to make room for breath,for example bunch of crasher/maulers running at you in cqc.Beside,I would tell you that grenade do trash dmg on damnation even with the 8stack bleeding perk which most ppl wont take,and with bb I could kill a bulwark with 3 or 4 hit

NOW HEAVY LIGHT HERE LMAO:YOU CLAIM THAT Purgatus does no boss damage?Well,then you exposed yourself that have zero,ZERO knowledge about purgatus.Our conversion at this situation will not be fruitful,if you dont even know BASIC MECHANIC.In fact,I would bashing a psyker who has purgatus and dont burn the boss instead proceed to bb/fs special.For let you understand why,BURN IS NOT A LINEAL DMG
Maybe usually you see psykers are those who know nothing about their own class,considering that you dont even know purgatus do toon of dmg on boss
Judging without actualy knowing is what most people proceed to do anyway.

About your replacement claim I could easily say that it would be even better just replace flamethrower zelote with a psyker.Flamethrower,as I explained above is massively overrated.I prefer a zelote with bracedautogun or bolter 100 times over one with a flamethrower.
Purgatus,on the other hand is argueable better than flamethrower,because you dont worry about ammo efficiency and can just spam lmb/no charged rmb on small packs of enemy.If you doing so on flamethrower you are wasting your ammo and you are risk being kicked since people are somehow have less patient

And no,you are just ignoring my point about the utility of bb,and how the right play of staves can excel,also comparing everything in a vacuum without considering for example while not boosting your personal kill,ammo-free is a HUGE benefit for the group.
And you dont know how to use purgatus while dismissing purgatus like you are a master of it,xd

I think I have made a point,about,well,your skill,that does need a serious buff

5

This again?

Good lord man there isnt really even a debate about this anymore.

A plurality if not a majority of the player base uderstands Psyker is the class in most need of adjustments/improvements.

Admitting it doesnt mean youre carrying water or any of the other crap Ola people spout on here. 400 + hours and i main psyker. Its not a skill issue its a structrual one.

This feels like a troll, and if it is i guess i fell for it but jfc enough of this “psyker is actually good. Youre bad.” Nonsense.

3 Likes
6

You can not even lock onto an enemy with BB unless you can see their center of mass pretty clearly without any obstruction.
And BB might lock onto something else.
Veteran shoots the guy across the room, in the hand or on the foot and kills it instantly in1 shot.

With ult: 1 shot to the head or 3 bodyshots
Without ult: 1 head 1 body or 4 bodyshots (still much faster than a bb, unless precharged)
Also, vet can throw a grenade near it, which can knock it to the floor so it wont run away anymore (or knock it out of cover).

True. But i have a gun which is spamable and basically free (as long as teammates do not waste ammo against trash hordes). The gun might be bad against hordes, but i also have a melee and unless i am a psyker (pretty sure it is the worst melee class in the game), i have no problem clearing trash hordes with my melee.

Sorry to tell you, but you are wrong.
You have a reserve of 4 grenades.
You get 1 grenade every 60s and have a 5% chance to get a grenade on elite kill in coherency.

It is absolutely safe to use a nade on a bulwark to open it up.
(maybe dont do it if you are sitting on your last grenade)
I use them on bulwarks and other big boys all the time and never run out, so i can still use a few nades when the group is about to get run over by zerkers or something (alternatively, the zealot could use one of theirs).

I know that soulblaze damage increases massively with increasing stacks. Dont worry about that. But it deals pretty much no damage against crushers (carapace armor) even at max stacks.
I might actually be mistaken here, but i am pretty sure that soulblaze also does barely any damage against bosses (dear FS pls add bosses to the psykanium), while i know for certain that the zealot flamethrower does pretty well against them.

Alright. Give the first zealot a boltor then (Although this would result in the same scenario as before, when replacing the psyker with a 2nd zealot. It would also make a 2nd vet with boltor less useful.).

  • veteran with ranged enemy focus
  • zealot with boltor (now we do not need anyone to open up the bulwarks)
  • ogryn with knife/shovel and gauntlet
  • psyker with optimal loadout (probably with surge staff)

Now try to argue for replacing anyone with a 2nd psyker (instead of replacing the psyker with a 2nd of any of the other classes).

Try again.

7

Allow me to quote myself, sir user who joined the forums today to enlighten us all with your skill and knowledge.

Also, learn to write, that’s a wall of text not even worth the time to read it.

2 Likes
8

On crasher ,you either eventualy burn them out(my experience),or you burn maulers/ragers out and proceed with your fs.Thats why a purgatus psyker MUST have a fs.fs special hardlock and delete crasher,dont cry about the animation,you are completely safe if you tried it yourself.
and no,you literally SAID purgatus does no dmg on boss,NOT crasher,xd

About the replacement,I would say I want a psyker on my group,but only one psyker,or I could have a second,one with purgatus one with surge.Actualy purgatus is more versatil choice than surge if your team DOESNT SUCK,surge,again,while being great,IS overrated.Try yourself on damnation and you understand what I mean.You think psyker is bad,but actualy I had much better time running with 3 psykers even,than with 3 zelotes,on damnation dif.I will rank team benefit from high to low like this vet-psyker/orgryn-zelote,but more than 2 vet/more than 1 purgatus 1 surge psyker/more than 1 orgryn is bad

Things are more complicated than you just comparing this or that in a vacuum

And I could try again,I assume you dont have much experience on damnation dif,at least not with psyker

9

Hehe,I will learn to write,but take my advice my friend,you have to learn to play
your quote is equaly to jibberish,because,like your vet doesnt running with a specific build and weapon???then you can drop your bolter/kantrael,and drop your powersword
Same goes with every class,there is always preferible weapon and builds for every class,no matter how hard the balance department tried

10

I did.
Then you claimed that i have no idea how purgatus works and that high stack dot does nutty dmg.
So i said that i know how it works and that the nutty damage on high stacks does not apply to all enemies. I gave the crusher as specific example (which can be tested in the grinder) and said, that i am pretty sure (but not 100% certain) that it also does pretty bad dmg against bosses. I did not suddenly forget what i said about boss damage before.

Not sure where your problem lies or why you think i should not have mentioned crushers as an example of soulblaze dealing low damage at max stacks.

I do not do that.
I gave specific reasons and practical examples for pretty much every single thing i said.

You rate the zealot (which can also use a flamethrower, or a boltor) as lowest importance for a team, when the zealot grenade allows you to revive/unshackle someone in pretty much any situation and also allows you to stun ALL enemies except bosses in a massive area for quite a long time?
Lower than the psyker using a flamethrower staff?
Are you okay?

Again: unless you use a surge staff, everything a psyker can do, is already covered (and often done better) by the other 3 classes, if they are played properly (additionally to the other things they do, that a psyker can not do, no matter the loadout).

12

Well i said this:

Which is not true if taken literally. I thought it was clear that i meant “bad damage” and not “actually 0 dmg”.

Not sure if you are trying to get at least one point on a technicality here, or if you are seriously thinking that i meant “it literally does 0 dmg to bosses”.

But if you are going there, so can i.

This is demonstrably not true, if taken literally. lol

Zealot has it more readily available (than ogryn with 1 charge on ult), can yeet it anywhere without moving into the position that is to be controlled (unlike the ogryn) and the cc lasts longer without yeeting the enemies around and making them harder to clean up after.

Good luck using your psyker to revive one or more people, while you are in the middle of a horde. You can kinda do it when you have 6 warp charges and use your ult (not if the enemies are spread out in more than one direction), but you can certainly not spam that.

Staff can stagger bulwarks if you get to hit them in the back, but does nothing when hitting the shield (not only to the bulwark itself, but also to anything else standing behind the shield).
The ult might slightly stagger the bulwark, but does not knock the shield to the side, so it doesn’t help too much with killing bulwarks (soulblaze from ult does go through shield though which is nice).

Not really, no.

13

If most people who play psyker do worse than when these same people play guardsman or zealot, then psyker is tuned so it requires more skill to play than those other classes. That would seem to suggest psyker needs adjustments even if it is strictly still playable effectively by people who are very skilled.

This is related to an old starcraft concept that has to do with some races requiring high Actions Per Minute to play effectively. The old Zerg-Terran-Protoss issue. Some classes are very micro intensive, some are more macro intensive. All the races have all the tools, but microing lots of casters around in the middle of a large battle is comparatively more difficult skill-wise than simply attack-moving a large deathball of strong ranged units.

The class/race might have all the tools required to get the job done, but it puts a larger strain on the player who has to keep up a very high sustained APM type of play to do effectively. Thus the amount of skill required to play the class/race at a high level of difficulty is higher, than to play another class/race at a similar level of difficulty.

The question is, is that a deliberate design decision by Fatshark, or an unintended consequence? Should it be harder to play psyker than zealot, guardsman, or ogryn, so that comparatively fewer players achieve success at high difficulties?

1 Like
14

Brain burst is faster if charged first. So, it can be useful but takes skill. That’s the problem with psyker and a major point, it requires so much skill and timing. It’s not a forgiving class.

I do agree with adjusting it so more people can play it and enjoy being a psyker. The main point being made here is that a lots of people don’t understand the class. The tips and tricks that make a big difference are not explained well. It’s not a very accessible class. Psyker almost requires a mentor to play her well

15

What is this thread?

16

I already said that.

Problem is, if you precharge, you slowly walk (or dodge) around, while not doing anything else, hoping that your timing was right and that you are not wasting time until the enemy comes out so you can lock onto it.
Vet or any other class with a gun can preaim and shoot other things until the enemy comes around the corner (or kill the enemy while the foot sticks out of the cover).

Not sure if you were just saying that precharging is an option, or if you were trying to argue that the option of precharging makes a huge difference in how useful the psyker is in general, or makes bb overall a better option than a vet with a gun.

17

The staffs are weak, guns do more damage as psyker even with no gun buffs. Skill isn’t going to magically make them do more damage.

18

Precharge is still terrible. It also has a new bug where you can’t unleash it at full perils without incurring a perils explosion if you don’t have F. And if you did have F you’d have the low cost 1.5s cast slightly stronger brain burst that is almost not a waste of time to use. Yet another psyker bug fix attempt that makes the already useless brain burst worse.

I think I used it like twice, farming low difficulties it’s easier to just one shot the dog with it than hit it with your staff and melee it. That is literally it. But nothing is going on low difficulty anyway so you usually have that free brain burst on damage ready to drop anyway, so its still useless.

19

There´s nothing wrong with it to have classes which needs less input and some with more. It caters more kinds of players.

Also i personally have seen a lot of groups with 2-3 psykers clearing damnation and i´ve cleared those runs by myself sitting on them. In one run i´ve played zealot with axe + SMG instead of flamethrower or another “suggested” weapon by the “majority” and i had 3 random psyker in my team.

Of course at some point you can say, it´s up to the skill. But on another you can also say that especially Vet is overtuned thx to the weapon-scaling and toughness meanwhile zealot is just highly forgivable due to its tankyness and self-sustain.
And if a lot of poeple are able to beat heresy/damnation pretty comfortable with Psyker, then i would say that the other classes are just overscaled to some point or even made to keep the “entrance” low and much as those “low intensity” missions are.

So again… there is nothing wrong with it to have easier or harder classes to cater more players. Any Psyker buff would make the game way easier than it already is.

And tbh… a lot of poeple are so used to meta-classes and builds, they don´t want to get out of their comfortzone or getting better. They just want to finish their runs as “effective as possible” for some shiny rewards.
That´s more of a thing i see in any “buff please” or “XY is too weak” threads then actual needs to do so. If anything, some stuff should get nerfed, Vet included.

1 Like
21

About trauma staff - im suprised but its not that bad as i think.

Yea it need buff (+ damage and peril cost), but still it can be good in some situation.

22

ok

Why do you choose to ignore specific bits of information from two posts of mine, to which you replied, in which i said that i am not 100% sure about the bad boss damage?

Yes. I clearly have never played psyker.
(this is sarcasm. i specifically say this, because you apparently take anything 100% literally if it fits your narrative, or ignore something completely if it does not fit your narrative.).

23

Well it is like lets say,a situation similar to warlock affliction spec in wotlk 3.3.5,which it is hard,it requires perfect lag,skill and raid awareness,and reach certain soft/hard cap,but once you have all these,it is argueable one of the best singel target dps and also excel at cleaving.Meanwhile you have some braindead easy to play spec for example shadowpriest,which generic scrubs will do decent with it even they dont play well at all.
And nobody ever said affliction warlock need a buff,that affliction warlock is weak simple because it need more skill and raid awareness to actualy make it excel.
I think it is the same situation about psykers here.You do need more skill and awareness to make psyker work because it is less forgiving and less tanky(but,again,not less survivable),it isnt fit into any traditional triangle role as dd/tank/healer,it isnt just sienna in warhammer 40k.So you have to work harder and to adopt a diferent mentality which when playing other classes you wont have to face such problem.But no,it doesnt make psyker less effective once you mastered it,I mean,a bad player can play zelote for example but not psyker,a good player though they are equal good playing as psyker or as zelote(with the real CS pro can shine above all other 3 classes in veteran with a fixed paterns of weapons).So no,no buff need here imo,because with buff psyker will be easier for random scrub and OVERPOWERED for real good ppl.And it makes the game boring and less challenging imo.
But it does need a REWORK with CERTAIN PERKS because they are useless and will never be considered taken over some others because they synergy very bad with soulblaze and warpcharge.It doesnt make psyker weak but it does make it locked into certain builds(again,same problem with any other classes.Diversity is a big problem here for DT because of bad perk design).Dont get me wrong though,I think psykers need not,again,a buff