First off I want to preface that I think the core mechanics of Psyker are really fun once you get the hang of the nuance of each staff and the feats that compliment its playstyle. There are a few areas where according to tooltips certain effects should be triggering but aren’t and just in case it hasn’t been brought up I wanted to do so here. I’ve tested the below points with a premade group in efforts to make accurate and fair declarations. My findings:
Purgatus Force staff
Kills do not trigger warp absorption(lvl5 feat). If this is by design then perhaps some clarification as to what exactly counts as a “warp attack”. As it is now both the raw damage of the fire as well as the DamageOverTime effects would at first glance be assumed as warp attacks what with all the blue/green warpy fire and all.
Psykinetic’s wrath applies its peril boosting damage only to the raw output and not the DOT. This may be for more consistent stacking of damage and I assume this is because in a large encounter there would be thousands of computations to factor in depending if any specific enemy is hit more than once, killed, just getting hit the first time and so on. Minor gripe but overall not a big deal IMO.
Psychic communion(lvl15 feat) is difficult to test in a vacuum. If there was some point of Coherency in the meat grinder this would be more convenient to understand without having to go into matches with accommodating teammates.
Kinetic overload, psychic communion, and ascendant blaze as well are difficult to verify synergy but could hypothetically create an infinite loop even if the chance is extremely small so long as there are enemies nearby.
If tooltips are to be believed the following is possible.
Enemy is killed by a strike team member.
4% chance on psychic communion procs granting the psyker a warp charge while already at 4 stacks.
Kinetic overload triggers putting 4 stacks of soulblaze on an enemy.
said enemy dies to the soulblaze.
this kill should be able to proc EITHER psychic communion again(while in coherence) OR ascendant blaze 10% on kill from any source of soulblaze.
either one grants another warp charge triggering another kinetic overload.
repeats until an enemy survives the flames, both the 4% of psychic communion or 10% ascendant blaze fail to proc, or no enemy is close enough to get the kinetic overload (roughly 30 feet or so).
This combination could be extremely powerful in settings where large number of enemies can be burned at once. It has low % to loop but even if there are only 1 or 2 instances where these events trigger it still gives the Purgatus staff a comfortable niche to fill in a team. As an indiscriminate crowd damage staff it would be good to have some sort of baked in method to deal damage to the more dangerous threats in a mob with kinetic overload’s elite prioritizing.
Cool class, cool staff, cool feats. Just need some tightening up on how specific talents work together.
A shame, as I had theorycrafted a build for the staff very similar to yours. Hopefully all of this gets ironed out, as I think it’s silly to have a force-based DoT that only Psykers can apply, yet it doesn’t gain bonuses from Force-modifying feats.
The main complaint I have is the lvl 5 row. Our options for sustaining Toughness are either to to run essence harvest which DOES work with the rest of the build or use force sword special or brain burst. I’m running 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2 for feats right now and it still melts pretty well. I just wish the warp fire we are shooting from our hands counted as a warp attack when the force swords special attack does. I came up with a build for each staff but it feels bad to have to pick between specific options on any of them. From what I could tell though the Surge staff does properly trigger the warp absorption effect so I think it’s simply an oversight.
As with the Flamestorm staff in V2 even with some great Talent synergies the bonuses are not worth the trade off of no range, low damage against mixed hordes, low mobility, low visibility. In a quick queue scenario where you could be paired with other builds with the same weaknesses it can end up being really detrimental. If you exclusively play with a premade group and fill that specific role the staff is decent. You can make it work as your team is actively communicating, playing off your strengths and making up for your weaknesses.
The talents to support a Fire based DoT build don’t have enough synergy with each other imo. If the “loop” you’re talking about has happened for me I haven’t noticed it as the sheer amount of flames I’m shooting out blocks most other effects that are going on. The only way to really know if you were popping the loop you describe would be to watch your little charge icon at the bottom of the screen constantly refresh itself. If it does you now know that somewhere out there something is getting pelted with stacks of Soulblaze and will eventually die. The dmg from Psyker dot effects take a ton of stacks to start making a noticeable chunk per tick. In the Psykarium on Damnation it takes way too long to see a noticeable move in health bars.
I dont know, ive had times i hit a group of enemies (like 15 maybe thou it mightve been less) with the middle lvl 30 feat at 6 stacks of warp charges and gotten back to 6 charges after but other times ill hit 30 enemies and ill be at charges afterwords (with the max of 6 stacks).
apparently its misleading. using the purgatus staff will not get you stacks even though it applies soulblaze dot and it does soulblaze damage. so in reality that 10% really only applies to the stacks you put on a horde with the ultimate.
It seems the purgatus staff doesn’t count as a “warp attack” or “soulblaze” for any of the talents.
yeah go try it in meatgrinder. Remove the other two feats that grant warp charges if you have them equipped. then start blasting the horde guys, you can hit them directly or have them die to the dot, i did it for 5 minutes and never got one charge. Honestly the psyker is too situational or bugged in half his feats. Why be a psyker when you can be a vet or a ogryn and just clear house without managing warp stacks and peril.
that is what it seemed like but i wasnt sure, holy heck does that drop half the reason to use the weapon. its still solid at horde stagger/clear at lower diffs but that makes me sad. It makes no sense to not work with the right lvl 30 feat. The psyker does have one of the only ways to stagger the mutie and that is the surge staff charge fire but even then its buggy and sometimes doesnt even stagger lol. this game is in such a bad spot