Serious concerns about Psyker's identity going forward

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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Hi all,

I’m a longtime contributor over at Steam forums who joined the Darktide community there back in Nov 2022 when the game released. I’ve played 2 psykers and one of each of the other classes exclusively on T5+ (Damnation and Auric / Maelstroms only since they came available) since around Dec / Jan, with well over 1k hours in the game so far. I chose to register here specifically to make this topic. Hopefully I’ll become a part of the community here too, but that’s not why I’m here right now.

I apologize for the long post, but I want to make myself as clear as I can here since to me this is a very important issue. I sincerely hope Fatshark or at least fellow experienced psykers have the time to read this. If required, I can happily elaborate on why psykers were previously strongest and what tricks and tactics and tools they really have, or what I mean by vets’ powerful passives prior to this patch or anything else. But I’m trying to keep this main post as concise as I can.

Ever since I started Darktide, I was instantly taken to psykers. While they had the least passive defenses of all classes, they had by far the best toolset and countless tricks that made them perform on a completely different level. But each of their tools and tricks had to be learned. Each had to be deliberately used for the right thing at the right time. Because a single mistake on T5+ could end your life then and there. Psykers were the tactically deep, challenging, hard to learn and harder to master class with the highest overall potential.

Meanwhile veterans were their opposite. Filled with powerful passives, the veterans were easy to play reasonably well. This resulted in a skewed perception by average players, who would find themselves incredibly weak as psykers, and very strong as veterans. Yet at the same time the good psykers, especially with Trauma staff were so strong that no other class could match their overall clutch / carry potential in T5+. There was no situation in which they did not have a tool to deal with it. Virtually every time you died was because you made a mistake. Not because you got overwhelmed. From Jan to the beginning of Oct I believed this was a deliberate design choice by Fatshark. Most games have the same design: some classes / heroes are easy but have lower overall potential, others are really hard but require an expert to reach that full potential of theirs. This is what made me fall for the psykers as my favorite class in probably any game in a very, very long time.

But the new patch changed things.

While the patch as a whole was absolutely wonderful, bringing tons and tons of new abilities and interactions and needed weapon balance adjustments and blessing changes… I do not like what it did to psykers. Especially given the preliminary future patch notes of what we’re about to get next.

Ever since the gradual buffs psykers got from the start of this year from the Trauma peril efficiency buff, BB buffs, various talent adjustments to vastly better Force Swords, us experienced psykers have been worried. Buffing a class that is already incredibly strong in ways that make it easier and stronger without having to learn to use it has to come at a price. Because otherwise the good players will become overpowered. And the only way to address that, is by nerfing their tactical toolset and remove those difficult to learn expert abilities and tricks instead.

The patch gave us Assail, which is hardly even getting nerfed. It’s far from even strong on T5+ and easily overshadowed by a skilled staff user, yet it is very easy. It gave us Smite, which even without its bugs is 10x easier to use and manage than the old Surge was, on account of having much more AoE and automatically canceling on 100% peril. And it gave us the current Voidstrike, which while already popular and perfectly viable as a ranged horde clear weapon, was for some strange reason now given so much more damage, penetration, CC, charge speed and peril efficiency through the buffed Transfer Perril that it literally outperforms every single other staff on everything they’re supposed to specialize at and more, 2 shotting crushers and knocking down anything else nearby, while killing everything else on the way there with each shot.

Not only does it look like the upcoming patch is not addressing these issues sufficiently enough, but it’s also removing the infinite dodge from Force Swords, and introducing an extra delay to the staff primary fire, thus removing both our infinite dodge as well as at the very least nerfing the fire+quell+fire trick that is immensely useful for all staves. Two expert tactical options down in the same patch. Options we’ve had since the game released. There might be more, these are just what I noticed on the first of the several patch note posts. This is all on top of the various talent reworks including the new Warp Charge keystone which removed a lot of the tactical layer of managing the charges to build up power for those breakpoints, making it an easy RNG version of its former self instead.

This alone won’t ruin psykers of course, but I fear that these are but the first steps. What is next? What other core psyker tools need to be removed to support this new design of an ultra easy and accessible next generation veteran, with its spammable autoaim horde/special/rager killer Assail, infinite ammo cleaving Plasma rifle Voidstrike, near-infinite “CC everything in the screen by holding a button” Smite, and more?

Psykers are the main reason for why I play this game. They are thematically and technically the specialists, the master tacticians, for the players who want to enjoy extremely complex gameplay and challenge, while reaping the benefits it brings. Please, do not destroy our identity and reduce us into the last thing us experienced psykers want to be. I do not want my favorite class to become the new veteran - or even worse. That is not what I want to play.

I mean no disrespect to the countless casual and average people who have every right to enjoy the game as much as everyone else. I have no animosity towards those people, and I have no problems with a class that is easy to play, just like vets used to be. But don’t do this to psykers of all things, please. If such a class is required and it’s not veterans, then make a new class designed around that instead. Don’t ruin the one that until now was the polar opposite of that ideal since the day the game was released.

Thank you for reading.

6 Likes
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The CC in my opinion is the biggest thing that needs to be adressed, it doesnt matter what the game sends at you, if its all bunched up in a tight cooridor perma CCed while it gets hacked to bits.

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I can’t comment much on this, as my Psyker was very much my 4th played class, but I do agree there were some very fun pre patch builds with warp charges that aren’t as fun anymore.

I am fine with this. There was no thematic or real mechanic explanation for them. Why can the psyker with their sword dodge infinitely while the Zealot with a catachan sword can’t? There was no vfx on the dodge to indicate that there was some thematic warp stuff causing that. The force swords were already incredibly strong compared to the rest of the melee weapons (we’ll see after the buffs if they return to their king status.) It doesn’t interact with their class in any unique or interesting way.

Ideally it never should have been in the game in the first place, but I think the band aid should be ripped off sooner rather than later.

However I think that in the future, either a weapon or a blessing that allowed for “infinite” dodging but costing peril would be far more fitting and “healthier,” ideally with some cool warp shift vfx as well. Suddenly the mechanic is far more interesting, having to balance dodges with everything else Psykers have to manage. It is thematically fitting as they are using their powers to augment their melee ability, not just randomly getting it “because.”

2 Likes
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FATSHARK are muppets, they have no clue at all how to balance this game. man what a joke.

with this patch they make sword and pistol/rifle psykers DoA and so the most fun and most challenging option in the game is gone. what a gang of useless muppets.

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it’s necessary becasue you don’t get a quick-shove block with a force sword, you get a slow AoE stagger; without the quick-shove or the constant dodge you’re going to get swarmed easily.

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Well its already too late. Most players play this like mindless idiots, even on t5+, even before controller users started joining. They are clearly balacing the game around that. If already players with mouse and keyboard dont want to, or struggle to maximize their performance using all game mechanics, imagine how crippled you are on a controller. Adding on top of that the even more casual idgaf mindset of console players. They just want some braindead easy spammable bullsht, that gives them that powerfantasy. And thats what fatshark is giving them.

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I’m rather sad about the removal of infinite dodges on force swords, it was a unique characteristics for them.

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Agreed, this game has too many players after patch 13, and all four classes plus most weapons are too powerful. Fatshark really should make more nerfs on everything to make the game more challenging to play for 500+ hours pro gamers.

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Thanks for the replies all <3

Felt like coming back to this after the latest patch. The primary staff nerf ofc. was no nerf at all but actually made it easier to shoot fast with the staff. The fire+quell+fire trick is still faster but only by a bit. The Force Sword nerf is definitely noticeable and takes some getting used to, mostly on account of Daemonhosts since I definitely can’t tank them anymore. But I think that’s reasonable, and I also love that it works as a buff for the Anticipation talent too!

Mostly though I’m a huge fan of the Void nerf! I didn’t like using it before on account of it being so blatantly overpowered, kinda like why I avoid Surge now with its even more ridiculous Empowered Psionics bug. But now post-nerf, Voidstrike’s blessings shine in a way they never have before. Warp Flurry has always been the obvious choice for all staves, and Transfer Peril was always the go-to for Voidstrike. While a void like that is still strong, it now has competition! Because if you want something that will really punch through those specials and elites, you can go for a crit void with Warp Nexus and Surge instead along with a crit build. It’s slower, gets tons more peril, and does worse in a pinch, but my god what power! :>

I still have some of the worries I did when I made this topic, but I’m glad that the nerfs weren’t as severe as I thought. And while I don’t even use assail, I like that both it and Smite were transformed into something that rewards more skill and careful use depending on the situation, instead of just outright spamming or holding a button. As I said, psykers shouldn’t be like that.

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