Psyker Psykinectic needs some buffs

[Sollaire]

Having played since proper launch, and done nearly all of the penances in every class, i can say with 200 hours of playtime in between launch and this patch, Pskyer is the weakest class in the game as it stands.

that does not mean that he is completely useless, as the class does not need ammo when using staffs, meaning in any team composition only 1 psyker is a boon. As well as having good utility with his tools.

theres quite a few things i will point out that make psykinectic annoyingly worse compared to the other classes to make my case.

-Slowest Projectiles in the game
The primary attack.
Makes it difficult to deal with ranged units without commiting to a secondary attack that will build much more peril, this also means you will miss many more shots due to the janky nature of the mobs in the game, specifically their lack of inertia.
To add to this, the purgator staff does not have this projectile, but still suffers because you give up your ability to deal with ranged threats altogether (the purgator staff is super short ranged especially when compared to the flamer) and lets be honest here BB is not a good tool for dealing with random assortments of ranged units because of how slow it is for that.

-Too much slow-down / Mind in Motion should be default on the class
Psyker is the class that is slowed down the most in order to charge/shoot/cooldown peril/Use BB.
This would not be as bad if 2/3rds of the feats that help you get back your toughness din’t require you to spend and or cooldown. It makes psyker very vunerable far too often for no reason, since most other classes arent slowed down for let’s say reloading or aiming a bolter (save for the flamer aim, still you don’t have to charge it, or the ogryn MG) as well as the fact that psyker does not outdo other classes in terms of damage or range so this seems unfair to be slowed down so often and so much.

-The class is too squishy
You can either rely on RNG to regen you slowly, regen VERY slowly on cooldown or regen very quickly by killing with magic; With feats. Personally i’m between killing or RNG for health regen, but that depends on what i’m using. However, Compared to all of the other classes, psyker has the most finnicky, slow and risky toughness management.
Compared to the other classes it just feels unfair, it looks almost like if it’s getting a glass cannon treatment while doing the same or less damage with less versatility. Just why ?

-Staffs have glaring weaknesses
Knowing all this, why do the staffs have such glaring weaknesses ? Really, purgatus is worthless against ranged, surge is weak against hordes, trauma somewhat weak in range and also slow as hell to setup. Come on, the zealot has a charge for when he uses flamer if he has to close distance, the ogryn does as well, if his ranged isn’t good enough. Wth does the psyker do, use brain burst 20 times over an hour or just lose health as he charges ?
Of course there is the void staff which is a good all rounder, but still.

-Peril buildup and cooldown should never have been an RNG stat / Some perks are REQUIRED to play with both staffs and psyker’s melee
Out of all classes the psyker struggles the most with the RNG shop, since you have to find a good staff before the real gameplay starts, there is no other way, some staffs are stupidly fast to build peril because of their stats, for god sakes some of my emperors gift void staffs could not get 3 half charged shots before going to 90% peril, what the hell ?
To sum up, it struggles the most out of any class to get viable weapons, AND THIS IS IN NO SMALL PART DUE THE FACT THAT 80% OF THE SHOP IS GUNS. WHYYYYY WHAT PSYKER USES GUNS FATSHARK.

These are my biggest gripes with the class really. Btw i don’t care about brain burst being weak as hell, yeah it sucks past malice because it can’t scale, but it can still kill some specialists one shot as a sniper as well as stagger so whatever.

TL:DR
Psyker deserves some varied buffs here and there, thats all.
Also please get the guns out of the psykers shop for gods sake, or just ajust it to make staffs make up 90% of the shop and emperors gifts.

[Grave]

I did not read your wall of text but yes psyker is weak
staffs are weak
brain burst is fine
melee is fine
guns are fine

[Cheshire]

I agree that psyker shouldn’t be squishy when their damage is comparable or less than other classes. Basic attack from staffs should be buffed in either damage or projectile speed. Many talents need to be buffed and overall peril buildup feels way too balanced around inner tranquility + warp battery to not be painfully limiting. Being near deafened from being high peril is also extremely detrimental on high difficulty when audio cues can mean life or death.

[Amerikanovich]

I actually decided to ditch force weapons on my psyker when I got a really nice recon lasgun & chainsword as emperor’s gifts, and it’s actually a lot of fun. The psykers biggest weakness are coincidentally the most dangerous enemies in the game: shooters. The lasgun has a blessing making me immune to ranged damage as long as I’m killing up close, making it a very effective and safe horde clearing weapon that can also take out troublesome distant targets.
The chainsword has the benefit of a faster passive peril cooldown than the force sword, which coupled with the blocking with peril feat lets me tank demonhosts on heresy without ever even reaching 50%.
That means peril only ever comes into play when blocking melee or brainbursting, which lets you skill your feats very differently.
I wondered a couple times what exactly my role still is with this setup, but being able to tank dangerous enemies while strategically taking out the disablers running around in the background already brings a lot to the table, it’s a pretty flexible and tough build for a psyker, and it’s working pretty well.

[brandter]

Brain burst is not fine on damnation.

[Zoralink]

It’s perfectly fine.

It’s just no longer an iWin button like it is on malice and below. It’s a utility ability, not your primary damage source, nor should you always default to it every single time in every situation where there’s elites/specials involved.

[Cheturnadcatii]

I see my first post here is flagget. And what in the name of him on terra u think inappropriate?

Let me explain. My main is only damnation psyker. I KNOW what i talking about. Psyker not weak, its HARD to play.

I start to play zealot after psyker (mostly because cant get better weapon), and u know what? I love zealot, its pure massacre, really fun. But what i can tell u now is - when zealot get into massacre and kill tons of mobs payker just delete every threat already.

Psyker is ultimate glass cannon. Hard to play because u dont have resists or damage buffs, and u NEED to know MAP, MOBS, ELITES, SPECIALISTS. Every corner of u knowledge is good for psyker.

In the end u will become ultimate, not because class. BECAUSE OF U.

Just understand already that psyker is 3 in 1 class. And it essential to know ALL aspects of the game to rule the run.

[CommanderJ]

What a load of rubbish. Psyker has mediocre horde-clearing and the absolute worst-in-game single target DPS (this includes worst-in-game boss DPS).

Psyker is glass, has to juggle more mechanics and is harder to play than other classes, while performing worse than other classes. If you put in the same amount of effort and skill on other classes, you will do far, far better.

The fact that gun-psykers even exist is pretty telling to how atrociously bad even the ‘good’ staves are, when people are running builds that would be orders of magnitude more effective on Vet or Zeal.

[1Cake]

Psyker is weak. It is not a skill issue, it is a balance issue.
Psyker is not hard to play, you just have to try harder to get the same result as other classes. Probably because other classes have great tools to do what they are supposed to do and psyker doesn’t?

The Psyker’s skill tree is built around warp charges, peril management, and soulblaze. Sounds ok on paper, right? Well let’s see: each warp charge gives me +3% damage, I can stack up to 6 charges if I pick a lv25 feat, I also must pay attention to maintain my stacks or I lose the bonus damage instantly. And I also lose all stacks if I vent peril with my ultimate. All right, that gives me +18% damage plus +10% damage to elites if I’m affected by my own aura. So far so good. But it seems that soulblaze and brain burst are not affected by that bonus? Huh.

The Zealot gets +25% ranged damage by picking one feat, and it is always active, and if he uses his ultimate it becomes even better. The Zealot has everything to be a tough frontline fighter. Look at his kit! There’s so much synergy with weapons (both melee and ranged!) and between the feats. And on top of that, a hidden feature that gives him armor piercing bullets on Chastise The Wicked cast.

Playing a Psyker to his maximum potential is not hard but a chore, and the results are not stellar. I mean, imagine if warp charges disappeared gradually, not all at once. Imagine if your bonus damage actually worked. Imagine if soulblaze feats (Wrack and Ruin, Kinetic Overload) were not a total joke. Imagine if cerebral lacerations lasted for longer than 5 seconds.

Or better yet, imagine if it could be stacked.

Can you beat damnation on Psyker? Yes. Can you have fun playing Psyker? Absolutely. And Psyker also could use some QoL adjustments, maybe even a rehaul. Maybe even some base stat buffs (because 33% less ranged Toughness damage is not as good as it seems when you only have 100 Toughness, just saying).

[brandter]

A utility that brings no utility on damnation. If they bring guns, they are weaker than a sharpshooter, if they bring melee they are weaker than zealot and ogryn, if they bring staffs they might be able to control hordes, but they are still slower and not even close to as good as sharpshooter or zealot. It’s the typical “why would we bring that?” problem that a lot of games have when designing classes. You could bring a psycher, and they will do fine, but why would we? They don’t add any utility worthwhile.

[brandter]

They are not glass canons, they are just glass pistols.

[Grave]

I will take your word for it since I usually cannot get in to a game with human players on damnation.

[Grave]

I use guns as psyker because I have some guns which do really good damage and every staff I have tried so far is weak. The class obviously needs a buff. I struggle on difficulties higher than 3 with psyker, but not as the other classes. I can 4’s and 5’s fine with the others (when I can find players, which is not often).

[Zoralink]

If you can’t find a use for a guaranteed lock on ability that does a hefty chunk of damage as long as you get vision of them for a thousandth of a second then I don’t know what to tell you. Sounds like you’re complaining to complain. Or frankly just need to get better.

If they bring guns, they are weaker than a sharpshooter,

Said nothing about bringing guns. That would be stupid.

if they bring melee they are weaker than zealot and ogryn,

Dueling swords are fantastic general use weapons. Force sword if you want more anti elite capabilities.

if they bring staffs they might be able to control hordes, but they are still slower and not even close to as good as sharpshooter or zealot.

*In your opinion. I absolutely love having a good psyker on my side, surge staff or trauma staff being used intelligently saves lives.

It’s the typical “why would we bring that?” problem that a lot of games have when designing classes. You could bring a psycher, and they will do fine, but why would we? They don’t add any utility worthwhile.

*In your opinion.

Do I think psyker needs some tweaks? Yes. Do I think every class needs tweaks? Also yes. Psykers are jack of all trades but also need work to do it well. No, they’re not going to out melee the dedicated melee classes. No, they’re not going to out shoot the veteran. But they have no glaring weaknesses when played well and can adapt to pretty much any situation.

[CommanderJ]

@Zoralink

If you can’t find a use for a guaranteed lock on ability that does a hefty chunk of damage as long as you get vision of them for a thousandth of a second then I don’t know what to tell you. Sounds like you’re complaining to complain. Or frankly just need to get better.

It’s not a hefty chunk of damage. The cast time is absurd for how little damage it does. Its only use is to open up Bulwarks (if your team can’t surround them because of other chaff), and catch elites that are running away. That’s it. If you find yourself using it to soften crushers, for example, this just means your team brought the wrong weapons/comp, because you are the slowest bar none in killing stuff like that.

@Zoralink

Said nothing about bringing guns. That would be stupid.

You should say that certain people who claim Psyker is super good, yet is running gun-psyker. Though fair enough, you’re not making that claim.

@Zoralink

Dueling swords are fantastic general use weapons. Force sword if you want more anti elite capabilities.

Dueling swords are… OK. Axes are better IMO. Force Sword is just plain trash. The only good thing about it is a chance to get deflector. The special stops doing enough damage to be at all meaningful on higher difficulties, especially considering the animation-lock cost of it.

@Zoralink

*In your opinion. I absolutely love having a good psyker on my side, surge staff or trauma staff being used intelligently saves lives.

The staffs are crap. For Trauma and Void the charge time is absurd for how little damage they do. Trauma being single target instead of AoE just makes that one even worse. The flight time of Void is very bad, the primary is full trash, and the charged infinte cleave secondary will trigger limb damage (50% damage) most of the time. The only exceptions are perfectly level areas where you can headshot.

All of the compounds with the class having bad sprint, bad health and bad toughness, and a talent tree from hell. None of the toughness regen talents are good. Toughness on warp doesn’t even stack, and you stop getting kills with BB at 4 & 5, meaning it’s only working if you run purge and get it randomly, and/or you’re gimping your contribution by BBing trash to get it to proc. Toughness on quelling is also increasingly bad as the difficulty goes up, since you need to go all the way up to 100% and quell down twice in order to refill your thoughness once.

Toughness on warp kill only works meaningfully on Void, and works on zero melee. This again scales horribly because Voidstrike has bad damage, meaning you’re killing less and less per charged shot as difficulties rise.

And this is before we even get into how bad warp charges are, how bad they are to maintain, and how the talent tree does very little, if anything at all. Soulblaze is terrible, doubly so because it stacks with absolutely nothing but another Psyker. No running bleed to help the team, here.

[brandter]

@Zoralink

If you can’t find a use for a guaranteed lock on ability that does a hefty chunk of damage as long as you get vision of them for a thousandth of a second then I don’t know what to tell you. Sounds like you’re complaining to complain. Or frankly just need to get better.

Damage on damnation is a joke, an elite needs three brain bursts to bring down, or any other class can just kill them from range quicker and easier. It has no real use on damnation.
You can clearly see that it used to be stronger, they used to have a clear role in the group, just look at the Malleus Monstronum penance, we did that with our psyker, he had to use brain burst over 20 times to kill a demonhost. That’s not viable, all other classes do more damage on their normal attacks than the brain burst do on damnation.

@Zoralink

Said nothing about bringing guns. That would be stupid.

Didn’t say you did, just making a point. Most psykers I run into do use guns because their staff’s utility is just not worth it, and not needed currently. If you actually needed the utility, the crowd control, I would agree that the staffs are good, but that’s the problem with the design, you can’t design the game to “need” a psyker in the group. And I would replace the psyker with anything currently because of how bad the scale on heresy and above. Can you play them? Of course. Are they weak? Not if you look in a vacuum, but compared to all other classes, yes they are weak.

[Zoralink]

@CommanderJ

It’s not a hefty chunk of damage.

In what way is 800+ damage not a hefty chunk of damage? Is it a crazy high amount? No. Is it respectable? Very much so.

Its only use is to open up Bulwarks (if your team can’t surround them because of other chaff), and catch elites that are running away.

Or, you know, completely safely kill any ranged enemy. Or stun any enemy of your choice short of bosses, if it doesn’t just flat out kill them. (Stun applying partway through the cast on many smaller enemies as well) Kinetic barrage is also very underrated from what I’ve seen.

If you find yourself using it to soften crushers, for example, this just means your team brought the wrong weapons/comp, because you are the slowest bar none in killing stuff like that.

Turns out not every run is in 100% ideal circumstances.

You should say that certain people who claim Psyker is super good, yet is running gun-psyker. Though fair enough, you’re not making that claim.

I mean, good for them, I also watched people claim shields were necessary for ogryn on heresy+ when I’d been running without one since the beta. People are foolish a lot of times. Straw manning that into the post to try to make a point just undermines it.

Dueling swords are… OK.

A huge benefit of dueling swords I never see get brought up is how insanely fast you passively quell while having it out. It’s extremely noticeable and works well for the flexible psyker who doesn’t implode because an enemy dared to get in melee range. (AKA good ones)

Force Sword is just plain trash. The only good thing about it is a chance to get deflector. The special stops doing enough damage to be at all meaningful on higher difficulties, especially considering the animation-lock cost of it.

I don’t think it’s trash by any means, but I definitely don’t like it much myself. Deflector feels like a bit of trap to me as well.

The staffs are crap.

u w0t.

For Trauma and Void the charge time is absurd for how little damage they do.

Stop full charging the trauma then. It’s stupid to do so, it’s just over generating peril. Trauma is about picking and choosing how much to charge it whether you’re prioritizing damage, stumble, AoE, or a mix of the above.

rambling about the void staff

I don’t like the void staff nor did I mention it. Why do you guys insist on bringing up things I never mentioned?

---

Oh here we go.

@brandter

Damage on damnation is a joke, an elite needs three brain bursts to bring down, or any other class can just kill them from range quicker and easier. It has no real use on damnation.

It one shots gunners and shotgunners. Two shots ragers. That’s not three brain bursts. It also leaves the ones it takes three on at a fraction of health that literally anyone else on your team lightly tapping will kill, and in the case of some of them having 4+ warp charges brings it to two brain bursts.

@brandter

You can clearly see that it used to be stronger, they used to have a clear role in the group, just look at the Malleus Monstronum penance, we did that with our psyker, he had to use brain burst over 20 times to kill a demonhost. That’s not viable, all other classes do more damage on their normal attacks than the brain burst do on damnation.

Because it’s not meant to be your main damage source. Why are you expecting to use your utility skill as your main damage. I’m so tired of making this point. I don’t go into a match expecting to chuck grenades at literally everything, I use them when necessary.

Didn’t say you did, just making a point. Most psykers I run into do use guns because their staff’s utility is just not worth it, and not needed currently. If you actually needed the utility, the crowd control, I would agree that the staffs are good, but that’s the problem with the design, you can’t design the game to “need” a psyker in the group. And I would replace the psyker with anything currently because of how bad the scale on heresy and above. Can you play them? Of course. Are they weak? Not if you look in a vacuum, but compared to all other classes, yes they are weak.

Sounds like some terrible psykers then. Do you also think ogryn bring nothing to the table since they’re more utility and CC oriented? No class is needed at all.

[CommanderJ]

I’d agree that surge utility is in fact only good if the group is bad. I.e. surge can carry if the group struggles against packs of elites and specials. In a group that actually does it’s job and plays well, the surge staff becomes more and more pointless. It does crap damage.

[Cheturnadcatii]

I read complains but i dont understant what they all want.

Lets look at psyker core

1. Psyker CAN tank (even a bullets) like an ogryn with shield - yea its worse (just because u cant tank bullets 360 degree), but still - u CAN do it.
2. Psyker CAN do melee without getting a scratch from the horde - yea its worse than zealot can (because need MORE time), but still - u CAN do it
3. Psyker CAN kill specialist and elites - yea its worse because veteran can do it much faster - but still - u CAN do it.
4. Psyker CAN delete horde - yea maybe slightly worse than zealots flamethrower, but u dont need ammo, and U CAN DO IT
5. Psyker can kill enemies in cover
6. Psyker can CC much better than others do WITH ANY STAFF

So…like i said psyker can do anything.

Most broken runs i have - is 4 psykers run. We just run throw the enemies like knife cut butter.

[brandter]

@Zoralink

It one shots gunners and shotgunners. Two shots ragers. That’s not three brain bursts. It also leaves the ones it takes three on at a fraction of health that literally anyone else on your team lightly tapping will kill, and in the case of some of them having 4+ warp charges brings it to two brain bursts.

Which is pointless since the cast is as slow as it is, and sharpshooters destroy 3-4 gunners in the same amount of time it takes the psyker to charge a single brain burst. They bring no useful utility to the group.

@Zoralink

Because it’s not meant to be your main damage source. Why are you expecting to use your utility skill as your main damage. I’m so tired of making this point. I don’t go into a match expecting to chuck grenades at literally everything, I use them when necessary.

Which nullifies everything you say because of Malleus Monstronum.

@Zoralink

Sounds like some terrible psykers then. Do you also think ogryn bring nothing to the table since they’re more utility and CC oriented?

No, because our Ogryn is an actual monster who kills everything that comes close to him, they are not CC oriented if you play them correctly, only idiots run ogryns with shield and think that they will be useful. They are even less useful than a mediocre psyker.