Psykers and their Role in a Party

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Gameplay Feedback
1

During the Beta I have spent a somewhat unhealthy amount of hours playing my Psyker in the available content, chasing Penances with the help of my friends, farming upgrades and just playing the game for fun.
After all this time I still struggle to pinpoint what exactly a Psyker’s role is supposed to be in a Party at higher (4-5) difficulty levels.
My observation is that Psykers greatly suffer from hyperspecialisation depending on their Feat or Weapon choices which impairs them in either mixed engagements or in situations where their currently specced trump card isn’t required.

Examples:

  • A Surge Staff Psyker brings excellent CC, stunning and staggering several Elites at a time, stunning and staggering Poxbursters and similar ambush enemies. However this loadout lacks in damage, it’s wave clearing ability is lackluster and apart from Brain Burst your only ranged option is the lackluster M1. Your damage against Bosses will also be rather on the low side.

  • A Voidstrike Staff Psyker brings almost unrivaled wave clearing ability, can engage Elites and Specialists at range, and at full charge the fireball slightly staggers even heavier or armored enemies. It is in my opinion the closest a Psyker gets to an all-rounder, however it trades away all the CC and limits your Boss damage to Brain Burst only - this Staff is completely useless against Bosses.

  • A Purgatus Staff Psyker brings wave and Specialist control, can Suppress most enemies the game throws at you and does substantial damage to everything in the Area of Effect of the Staff’s M2. In this case you trade away ALL your non-Brain Burst long range ability - not even M1 engages at range. This Staff however removes Bosses extremely well and can greatly help with multiple Carapace Armored enemy spawns.

  • An Accetar Recon Lasgun Psyker relies on the Kinetic Flayer Feat, with the weapon’s extreme rate of fire and great accuracy ensuring it procs exactly on cooldown. This way the Psyker avoids most of the Class’ core Perils mechanic, delivers substantial damage to most enemies (especially using a Lasgun with crit perks and the Infernus Blessing) and can swap to Brain Burst without worrying about Perils due to not using this mechanic in most engagements at all. The tradeoff is moderate wave clearing ability and lack of any utility, thus turning the Psyker into a worse Sharpshooter with Brain Burst.

This level of specialisation hurts Psykers in higher difficulty games, as they are often unable to respond to threats not even in an optimal way but at all. In comparison most other Classes can bring robust all-rounder weapons which ensure they’re almost never out of options.
Which brings me back to my main question: What is the Psyker’s role in a Party? Is it Elite/Specialist killing? Boss slaying? Or is it just CC support? Why does the Psyker have to forego all other aspects of his Class to specialise in only one?

It feels like the Psyker lacks a clear niche and just isn’t well rounded enough to find himself useful in at least most situations.

6 Likes
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BB is no use on malice and highter, and if u play with random party - u NEED to play with lightning staff because only with this staff u can defend yourself against nonstop mutants, dogs, and brutes.

I tried to play with flame staff and its terrible.

Voidstaff the best and most intresting, but lacks controlability on malice and highter.

Maybe, just MAYBE we need to choose abilities despite the staff.

3

This is true, however the Surge Staff still kills lighter Elites on Malice difficulty level. For Heresy and Damnation it mostly preps them for someone better suited to kill, which is rather anticlimactic.

4

Currently, the only role a Psyker has is being a CC bot, but it also… incidentally makes them the best class which is a tad hilarious… It, however, all boils down to it enables your entire team… Something no other class do, sure they can CC and then mobs are either all over the place or it isn’t affected by the CC… Psykers locks everything in place. Doesn’t get more enabling than that. The entire room full of ranged hiding behind cover? Surge hit and they’re out of cover.

It is super stale in the long run to just sit and spam lightning and the occasional BB on a sniper.

And I wish our feats and our BB were made in a way that enabled more than just CC Psykers. Knowing Fatshark, that’s never going to happen. This is the Psyker we’ll get and the Psyker that’ll stay with us. Sadly.

5

I’m not so sure about that. Surge or no Surge, when I tried out my Veteran on Heresy difficulty it always felt like having more than one Psyker is detrimental to overall success of the Party. It doesn’t feel this way with any other Class. But getting into a lvl 4 in progress on my Veteran with 2 Psykers already in game it didn’t take more than 2 engagements before I wished we had another Veteran, Zealot or Ogryn instead.

1 Like
6

BB is no use on malice and highter, and if u play with random party - u NEED to play with lightning staff because only with this staff u can defend yourself against nonstop mutants, dogs, and brutes.

I tried to play with flame staff and its terrible.

Voidstaff the best and most intresting, but lacks controlability on malice and highter.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong about everything you said here. I spent ~100 hours on the psyker, most of the time on heresy and with voidstrike. Never ever needed surge to defend myself, BB is more than enough if you can dodge and have at least some situational awareness. Sure, it doesn’t oneshot and damage scaling would be really good, but it’s still a great special killer.

1 Like
7

Same here, same experience.

8

If your party good - yes its true. Most of the times we vipe on first (!) wave because vet or zealot gotta go fast. If u go to cover back of u teammates - u died because no one cover u. And if u die covering them - they will blame u for your incompetence. So i prefer go in the group and control enemies.