Psyker rework ideas

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
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I heard psyker is or will be on the design table again, so here you are some ideas.

SMITE
Many seems to hate it, but this ability clearly raises my success rate. Many times I use psyker and the smite build after some lost matches, and everything is easier with a smiter in the team. How can we find a compromise? Lowering its range can be a solution. The range to the first target might remain or be reduced a little bit. For example from 15 to 10 meters. More important is the case of the further branches that chain from our first targets. Currently we can stun the whole screen and beyond, but that isn’t very good for the gameplay. When I play next to a smiter I won’t go after enemies far away. I think the ability shouldn’t stop distant enemies to come closer. This can be achieved if the secondary brances that start from the first targets don’t have that much range. Maybe 5 meters only. Numbers are a bit random, they require tests. This would make it a bit similar to the arbitor’s lightning tool. Nobody complains about that tool.

Many times I would use my voidblast staff instead, but my team mates don’t hold a line, so I can’t. When enemies come one by one to me I get bored to kill the sporadic trash mob slowly and switch to smite instead. But if smite could make me space, and could kill the trash mobs quickly all around me, I wouldn’t rely on it as a general tool. So changing its rules can be a viable alternative.

It would be cool having different smite styles. One would allow more targets (Lightning Storm talent), the other +100% damage (yes), but we couldn’t have both at the same time. Or it could give +10% damage per tick with max 10 stacks, and all stacks disappearing when the smite ends.
The damage talent would compensate for the shorter distance mentioned earlier. The extra damage talent might increase the peril generation. Enfeeble is the talent that could be replaced with this damage talent.

BRAIN RUPTURE
The base ability is too slow. Many times my teammates kill my highlighted targets and steal my kills so I’m just wasting my time.
I’d like to see the base charge rate to be shorter, but the base time + kinetic resonance + empowered psionics together don’t need to be quicker.
The additional targets perk was cool in Mortis trials, there might be a toned down version for the regular tree as a talent. I think 4-5 additional targets are enough, and the secondary targets might suffer less damage. This would give the blitz some CC capability by stunning the additional targets.

ELECTRO STAFF
I’d like to have the lightning to be an useful tool in general, because lightning is cool! Using the lightning constantly is a real possibility up to heresy. But the number of enemies grow after that and only the less cool left click spam can be used in denser situations. The inferno or the voidblast can affect dozens of enemies while the electro staff is limited even with the light spam.
I would increase the number of targets of the lightning to make it a longer chain. But these additional targets should work only when they are in close proximity to each other. I could see using the staff in the crowd affecting 7-10 of them with a single use. But it wouldn’t work on scattered crowd. For example the range can be only 1.5 or 2 meters after the third target. This way the charged attack can be as good as the light spam against hordes and other crowded situations, thus the light attack will be reserved more for long range sniping and around demonhosts.

KINETIC PRESENCE
It should provide +10% damage.

WILDFIRE
Could you buff this one? Or at least reword it, because it’s description is a lie. It doesn’t give soulblaze to each enemy but distributes the stacks the killed opponent had.

EMPYRIC RESOLVE
Unlike others, I don’t think it’s bad. It is good for the electric staff charged attack spam. Maybe the toughness penalty is a bit harsh.

UNKNOWN TALENTS

Some talents refer to abilities that don’t exist in the game. Brain Rupture refers to Brain Burst, Seer’s Presence refers to The Quickening, Venting Shriek refers to Psykinetic’s Wrath. If the original abilities exists, but invisible for us, we don’t need names for them.

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This is an interesting idea. I still think the ability should have charges that are consumed when Smite is used with charges regenerating over time, but a very limited range would certify it as a panic button, and any noob psyker who relies on it too much won’t be able to stun enough enemies in time and get struck for it.

As an aside, yes I’m being an annoying elitist, but stop using Smite so much! I know you said Voidblast doesn’t work as well for you because your teammates don’t hold a line, but it’s not their job to escort you. You’ll need to fend for yourself.

Agree, but I think the reduction could be small. Maybe a quarter of a second to base.

Explosive headshots in MVM rings faintly familiar. I would be careful with a power like this.

No comments on Surge Staff - don’t use it.

The reason Empyric Resolve is bad is because it’s a negative feedback loop - not only are you generating and quelling less peril, reducing your toughness generation, but it is also applying a direct multiplier to your toughness generation, making you significantly squishier overall. With how fast Peril can be quelled in various ways (especially with an 80% quell speed staff), it’s just not worth the tradeoff.

These are the base versions of the abilities. You can see them on the left if you have no talents allocated.

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From who?

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From a reddit user

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my idea for smite was changing it into a quick cast ability for single target stagger like smiting one target as you melee it for either more damage or more stagger.

for brainburst i think its fine maybe adding a special that lowers one hand and makes it do less damage but charge faster for say dogs/chaff

staves should have a more meaningful special though the staff bash is not needed on the class with the highest weapon swap speed, maybe give electro staff a high peril aoe stagger centering around the player that works on disablers mainly anything smaller than a mauler

for voidstrike maybe a rapid fire chargeless mode? the other two idk im out of ideas

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Posted without comment:

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Maybe that could be done through a Blessing - that wpuld require sacrificing Flurry or Nexus in the process for more CC, but that should not be a change to the base stats of the staff.

As someone who uses Electrokinetic almost exclusively in Damnation/Auric, it’s an excellent anti Specialist sniper, Bulwark opener, and momentary Rager/Mauler stagger tool - when the secondary fire actually targets the enemy your aiming at.

Where Electrokinetic struggles is against Crushers and Monstrosities. Now, if Fatshark toned down the amount of Ogryn enemies that could spawn simultaneously by using other methods to make them more dangerous Electrokinetic would be fine as is but the clown cars of Crushers really highlight where Electrokinetic falls short.

Giving Electrokinetic Armourbane or High Voltage wouldn’t be bad. Also open to the idea of tweaking the Carapace numbers up a bit, with the condition that they recieve progressive stagger resistance to consecutive secondary attacks for a period of time.

TL;DR, Electrokinetic should unequivocally be the the single target damage king of staves.

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My idea for smite would be a casted ability with 3 charges that regenerate 1 per minute.

Left click is a channeled single target nuke.

Right click is a lightning burst that propagates through enemies, stuns them for a couple (2 or 3?) seconds, and does the electrocute debuff dealing damage. The damage should be enough to kill chaff, but not enough to kill anything else. No need to channel the right click once it is fired.

This would turn it into shredder grenades in function, quick stagger while clearing chaff

As for elektrokinetic, it’s my staff of choice, mostly because it’s the only new staff since vermintide. The voidstaff is too arcady for me, in vt2 the fireball staff shot with an arc, making it feel more weighty. Inferno staff is a bit boring and even in vt2 I didnt like the trauma staff

Elektrokinetic only needs a buff to carapice armor. I’m not sure this should be done through blessings as this would immediately nerf it in other aspects.

As for blessings, blessings like double the targets for half the damage, or double the damage on half the targets would be far more interesting stuff if you ask me. Turn it into a cc staff with less damage, or turn it into a damage staff with less cc. But to make blessings like that even worth it, the base damage needs to go up, and straight damage boosting blessings should not be an option. I guess it’s too late for a change like that.

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Half a second. Both for the simple and the charged versions.

I do. I smite.

Actually this is the talent that makes smite far longer, so you should hate it instead of a mere disliking.

Voidblast is much better.

I don’t like this. I often use 2 sec smites just to make enemies fall behind us.

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I never said Electrokinetic was the best pick for high intensity, it certainly is hard to compete with an infinite ammo grenade launcher that gives the entire team valuable Brittleness on priority targets.

Electrokinetic is still better at zapping Specs on the fly but yeah if one is going for peak efficiency in high intensity they should roll with Voidblast.

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A quick flick of the Trauma staff would do the trick, no? ‘S what I do.

That sort of ties into the negative feedback loop of less toughness since Smite already doesn’t generate Peril very quickly compared to other methods. Smite already lasts obnoxiously long as is so it doesn’t really make too much of a difference.

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“As for blessings, blessings like double the targets for half the damage, or double the damage on half the targets would be far more interesting stuff if you ask me.”

Excellent.

“The damage should be enough to kill chaff, but not enough to kill anything else. No need to channel the right click once it is fired.”

With Empowered Psionics, but base Smite should just stagger. It would be great if the initial blast was like a linear projectile like throwing knife, that could stagger bosses momentarily, offer some breathing room in a clutch situation or give players an opportunity to close the gap on a distant Gunner group during a high intensity mission.

The Initial projectile hits the first target for considerable stagger, then immediately arcs out in a wide radius around them, stunning other enemies for less stagger but offering quick cleanup to teammates with Enfeeble debuff equipped.

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Those cases don’t worth to mention.

I don’t think so. When I smite around fallen teammates, people need 4-5 sec just to realize they can bring bring back them to their feet or to do objectives instead of killing trash one by one. Without Empyric Resolve the occasion is already lost at that point.