Psyker Needs Damage Scaling & Remove Interrupt

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

So I decided to take a level 13 Psyker, and a Level 2 Psyker, and stick them in the practice range at Tier 3.

Level 13 Psyker: 825 Brain Burst

Level 13 Tier 3
Level 13 Tier 31920×1080 439 KB

Level 2 Psyker: Also 825 Brain Burst:

Level 2 Tier 3
Level 2 Tier 31920×1080 436 KB

The issue here is that Brain Burst, with 0 damage scaling, becomes useless at higher levels.
Priest: His skill boosts his melee weapon, which, by being a weapon, means it scales.
Ogryn: Just a charge. No damage to scale, but always has knockdown.
Veteran: Based off his ranged weapon, which, by being a weapon, means it scales.

All 3 other classes have skills that stay useful at ANY DIFFICULY.
Brain Burst, by nature of not changing, falls off on higher difficulties; Mobs you used to oneshot now survive to hurt you or your team.
This also means you lose Warp effectiveness; You used to pop, then vent.
Now you pop, pop, then vent for longer.

On top of that:
His staves are…kinda bad. Nothing like charging up, getting tapped by a trash mob, and losing that charge!
No classes randomly lose ammo when hit while shooting, so why does Psyker lose an entire charge?
Being surrounded in a HORDE GAME means the Psyker cannot brain pop, and cannot use his staves, due to horrid damage falloff and horrid charge mechanics.

Please fix Psyker. I’m loving playing him, but it’s NOT FUN to be the anchor for my team because I can’t charge my staves, and Brain Burst becomes absolute garbage at higher difficulties.

My solutions:

  1. Give Brain Burst damage scaling.
    Base it off the power of his ranged weapon. Or just have it base off gear score.
  2. Get rid of the punishing interrupt mechanic.
    The Psyker already has to deal with downtime to lose Peril as the trade-off for having no ammo to keep track of PLUS a charge-up for his staff attacks to be at all effective. The interrupt mechanic is just too much in a game where you expect people to be surrounded and hit.

How would you like it if the Veteran dropped his gun if hit while shooting? Or the Ogryn could drop his melee weapon on his foot? The interrupt mechanic is too punishing when you require BOTH a charge-up AND cool-down time on the Psyker’s staff attacks.

Please take these two points to heart, Fatshark.

21 Likes
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I agree that brain popping should scale in some way or another (maybe with total gear rating?), as it doesn’t make a lot of sense than for newly created psyker to pop brains as a high level one (technically there is some sort of scaling with gear, since better gear grants faster venting, but I don’t think that’s enough).

Regaring the staffs, I’m not outraged by the interruptions. There is a blessing that does what you want, though (image cropped from: Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff - Darktide WH40k - Games Lantern):
image

6 Likes
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Looks like I’ll have to build for that Blessing.
But yeah; Brain Burst needs damage scaling. Having to Burst 3-4 times to kill something you use to kill in 1-2 Bursts, when you can ONLY Burst 3 times before requiring a venting, just turns Brain Burst into a joke.

“I’ll Brain Burst that Ogryn bashing your face in as soon as I vent from Brain Bursting twice already…In 30 seconds or so! Just hang in there!”
-A Psyker moments before he was ‘tragically killed’ by his teammates for being dead weight.

3 Likes
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Brain burst should just do % damage depending on target.

Man sized target of any kind-100% hp

Ogryn of any kind-50% hp

Mutant-33.33333333% hp

Bosses- 5-10%? I’m just trying to avoid a team of 4 psykers being cheezy.

4 Likes
5

I see what you’re going for, but I have to disagree.
Damage should just scale with gear, IMO. Keep up on gear & a Psyker can oneshot the same mobs it always oneshots.

Because nothing says ‘Horribly useless’ than requiring 3-4 Brain Bursts on mobs you used to 1-2-shot, and the game just threw 5 at your group.

1 Like
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@Eguzky

We have never been able to one shot ogryn or mutant, if you did then your team did a lot more damage than you thought. Try it in the psykanium so you don’t have teammates adding damage.

Oneshotting an ogryn would be way too strong for how relatively safe brainburst is.

I don’t want a team of 4 psykers to be able to breeze through a map bc each psyker targeted a different ogryn and killed the biggest threat in the room before it even got close enough to swing its weapon.

7

That was an example for comedic value.

The point was that the Psyker should be able to, in concept, oneshot everything it always oneshots.
Nothing like going from BBing a dog to needing two recharges to BB it on higher levels.

If a Psyker keeps their gear up; their BB should stay strong.
Same as Veteran getting his gun up or Zealot and Ogryn keeping their melee weapon strong.

3 Likes
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The main issue is that the BB itself does not scale in any way (execpt warp charges but in this instance that doesnt really count) from lower diffs to higher. I can and will oneshot the flamer enemies and the grenadiers on Malice (3rd diff) but as soon as i go to Heresy then i can no longer do what i was able/am suppose to do on lower diffs such as kill high priority targets like the flamer and grenadier. There are more chances your BB gets canceled as well from the increase in enemies and therefore attacks, so your odds of getting a warp charge is worse (as it just isnt going to kill things because they have more hp) which leads to your whole kit being less effective as well. And yes the sharpshooter has a similar task/priorities but when such a large part of Psyker’s kit is related to BBs -which keep in mind dont scale- leaves you out to dry when you want to be effective on higher diffs like Heresy or Damnation. Whereas the Sharpshooter has their kit scaling because it is based of the weapon you use so it can be more effective at the higher diffs. This leaves Psyker in a spot where from what i understand is it cant do its job like it is suppose to and so you become an “anchor” weighing down your team so to speak. I dont think that BB should just be free to instakill every special and elite in the game but when a core part of the character just doesnt shape up when you go to the higher diffs then it feels bad to play and unrewarding.

TLDR: BB needs a little love/scaling for the higher difficulties

I did test the bit about the flamer enemies comparing diffs 3 and 4 but i didnt test on diff 5.
As well as not testing the Grenadier at all really, that was to use as an example of a special enemy that you would be trying to BB. And im not going to be testing that myself as im not playing (or launching) the game after the recent responses from Fatshark.
V

1 Like
9

It 100% should not be based on gear. This isn’t an MMO.

What next, Vet frag grenade should be based on gearscore? Damage taken based on gear score?

It just needs a buff/rework. I still think it should consume charges instead of generating them to cast faster and deal significantly more damage.

That way it can be a boss nuker or a way to quickly dispatch several high priority targets in quick succession.

They’ve nerfed the heck out of it because they dont like BB being spammed, so they need to either rework it or just buff it and accept that Psyker is BB spam: the class.

1 Like
10

They could use the suggestion ive seen floated around a few times and give the ability a set amount of charges that recharge over time, just change that to have it so you can use multiple charges then to do more damage or something. With warp charges still being a separate resource.

11

It either needs some Difficulty-specific scaling or needs to do % damage depending on Enemy Type.
And also needs not to be affected by Armor at all because how and why.

1 Like
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Just wait until you hit max level and max gear, and realize that the staves themselves also scale horribly, and even fully charged can’t compete with a single bullet from a gun. Take a look at the Psyker talent tree, and notice how you can’t increase any staff damage beyond the talent that buffs damage ever so slightly based on peril. Oh, and of course, the tiny miniscule increase from those god-awful warp charges that you’re better off pretending don’t exist.

6 Likes
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i had similar thoughts. The Tox and regular Flamers both have around 1150 i think when i was testing on Heresy in the psykahnium and not being able to oneshot them with BB leaves a real bad taste in my mouth. And after you have BBed them down to 150, they will likely be shot by your team which means you might not get a warp charge from it. So you spent peril to not be able to get a warp charge which means you are losing value, and yes it probably led to a much faster kill but now you are missing something that you would use to enable yourself.

14

But literally every other damage-dealing skill (Vet, Zealot) is based on gear.
Vet gets more out of his with a better gun.
Zealot gets better damage out of his with a better melee weapon.

So why should Psyker be the odd man out for his skill?
Yes; I know his ‘skill’ is technically the knockdown, but let’s face it: No it’s not.
The Brain Burst is his damage dealing skill. And it needs SOME form of scaling. Basing it on gear, like Vet and Zealot, is just the easier way to do it.

3 Likes
15

Probably not gonna happen but what about making it so deals damage at a certain rate and once that change hits the remaining max HP it does the brain burst or hits the damage cap.
So if you want to deal 1000 damage with BB you charge for a full 5 seconds but if you want to kill a guy with 200 hp you charge for 1 second.
If you are aiming at a mauler and your channeling it if some one shoots them down to 200hp and you have had it channeling for 1 second already it instantly fires off.
Basically channels 200 hp per second and peril is based on HP removed on trigger.
Can rapid fire pop walkers with 150 hp but have to channel for a while to kill a rager or dog.

2 Likes
16

Honestly, my other idea would be:
For every Brain Burst kill, Psyker gains a stack of Warp Charge.
Every stack of Warp Charge increases the damage pool for Psykinetic Wrath. Like, +50 damage per Warp Charge or something.
When Psykinetic Wrath is used, it takes that damage pool and applies it first to trash mobs, then stronger mobs, then uniques. It does not harm mini-bosses (Like the beast of Nurgle) or bosses.

IE: When Psykinetic Wrath is used, the game sees who is hit by it in an expanding ring from the Psyker. The first mobs damaged are the weakest & closest. Then the next strongest, then the next strongest, etc, radiating out from the Psyker, until the damage pool is spent.
This can kill trash mobs and the armored mobs, but nothing stronger.

It would prioritize melting trash mobs instead of being a boss killer. And it plays into his Warp Peril mechanic by getting high Peril bursting strong mobs, then melting weak mobs when using Psykinetic Wrath.
This would ALSO give it more flavor. Seriously, why do THREE of the four classes have generic knockdown abilities?
I’d also argue the Ogryn’s charge should grab the first enemy hit to use them as a battering ram, dealing damage to everyone it hits, and possibly killing the held enemy if the Ogryn hits a wall.

1 Like
17

Honestly, I wouldn’t be sad if the removed BB and warp charges entirely. The only fun part of BB is the sound it makes. Even when it does one shot something at lower levels, it’s not an enjoyable mechanic and the warp charge mini game isn’t worth the effort. MAYBE if they fell off one at a time, but on higher levels any WC I have are almost entirely from the talent that procs them on hit. They’re a nice little bonus that I sometimes have that I don’t even notice because I’m too busy fighting the mobs that are spawning behind me.

4 Likes
18

I really like the Brain burst mechanic. Warp charges are really easy to maintain at the moment as all enemies give them (but poxwalkers ?)
Some adjustments have to be made and some nerfs slightly reversed from the closed beta.

Targeting has to be partially reversed too.
Quelling should happen with all melee weapons and quelling speed should be an overall stat so we don’t have to switch to staff just for that.

Most of all, switching to brain burst should be way more reactive as it too often gets blocked by the end of a weapon animation which is VERY bothersome at the moment.

19

Non-force weapons already have increased passive quelling speed with the advantage that you can do other things while it’s quelling.

I feel like warp charges should be granted on perils gained, like one charge every 20% generated but not dependent on how high your total peril is. That way you still have to manage perils if you want to maintain charges, you aren’t dependent on kills via a long charging ability and you can maintain your stack when fighting bosses.

I noticed the staff bolt firing animation does lock you from switching weapons a little too long for it to the comfortable.

2 Likes
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Imma do it the easy my man looky looky:
1 BB for Man-sized enemies
2 BB for Ogryn
16 BB for Plague Ogryn
22 BB for Beast
30 BB for Map Boss

easy no gearscore needed