While the stagger can definitely be an inconvenience to players, it’s also a pleasant alternative to the possibility - however small - of eating an overhead.
After the suggestions in this thread, I’ve been using a lot more M1 and BB with this Trauma build and now I mostly save charged secondaries for armored patrols.
The Brittleness debuff balances out the inconvenient stagger, IMO. Faster TTK with a slight readjustment to aim.
As for breathing room, BB attacks can be hard to pull off during heavy horde attacks at times, but by taking Dueling Sword V, repositioning to a safe area becomes much easier.
Here’s the build, credit to Elodie for giving me the build:
Haha, don’t you just love when that one Reaper goes unnoticed and he’s dumping permastagger on ya? Only takes a second or two and full health is gone! Poof!
Well, personally, I don’t have many issues with Psykers using the Trauma Staff when I play Zealot. I feel the big thing is to be aware of your surroundings. What I mean is that being careful of Poxbursters in mixed hordes. I’ve seen this a lot where they explode when they’re too near to the team & then most people go down to it or straight up just die. This seems very obvious… This has happened to me in games a few times because of this. Just 2-days-ago was in a Havoc-40 with a Trauma Pskyer & we died because he blew it up on us. I was just a bit surprised by this is all. Just seems like common sense to me not to do that.
This is ofc just my opinion as a psyker main of 2 (tho the zelly is my third-most played character), and assuming T5+ games only. But please, stop doing this right now.
All melee classes rely on hits, kills, headshots, crits, stagger, etc etc. to keep their talents proccing. A few random explosions here and there messing up your aim isn’t going to matter ofc, but if someone started spamming Trauma on me as a rule? That would just be gameplay sabotage (even if their intent was to help, it would be highly disruptive).
Melees are expected to know what they’re getting themselves into. Most times you can assume whatever they’re fighting against is under control. If they can’t handle it, they’ll back away.
So a vast majority of the time, your Trauma is far more useful literally anywhere else except on top of that zelly. If they get swarmed by 10+ crushers etc then absolutely, help them out, but those situations tend to be both pretty obvious, and fairly rare.
Ofc you shouldn’t actively avoid the zelly either, at least I don’t. The first priority is always to deal with the enemy asap. So if there’s a single chokepoint or the only enemies left are around the zelly, then blow them up all you like. I felt it was important to bring up this distinction, since there are people who actually think about stuff like kill stealing and other ego nonsense (imo).
Dodge buffs are good but a better thing is applying the “death” status effect to enemies. That said, I agree with the general sentiment in the thread that if your Zealot doesn’t need help, find somewhere else to kill things.
Particularly large groups of heavy armor should be Trauma’d so I don’t inevitably eat an overhead and die instantly. Keep an eye on your other teammates that may not necessarily be frontlining.
The same rules apply to Smite, although that tool should ideally be reserved for emergencies - it’s just not fun to see it used all the time.
I’d rather Psyker spam trauma staff so that enemies don’t get up from the ground than worry about maintaining slaughterer stacks or restoring 15% toughness. If they’re hit by Trauma, they’ll die faster anyway, so you don’t need to worry about weakspots and stacking talents.
One of the worst feelings you can have in DT is waiting for your teammates do absolutely ANYTHING worthwhile while you’re the one sweating your ass off every encounter at 10% HP left, controlling all the elites as Zealot/Ogryn or shooters/specials as Veteran. So I’ll never complain about my teammates performing their role well.
Unless you’re playing in a premade where you know teammates don’t need help with whatever they do, it’s always better to support them in any way you can. Using your abilities, killing stuff, covering them. Crushers and Maulers can easily sneak hits through their own, so controlling the whole pack with Trauma is great. If Zealots are good, I’m sure they can lower their camera a bit to finish knocked enemies off, since Trauma doesn’t oneshot enemies outside of the blast’s epicenter, so there will always be enemies left.
Of course, there’s helping and there’s griefing. But I’m pretty sure you’re doing more good than bad.
Definitely a valid concern, it’s easy to blow up bursters hidden in hordes with Trauma. Yeah soon as that ticking sound starts it’s a good time to reposition (if there’s a Crusher/Mauler pack) or switch to melee in preparation for “the pox push”.
