I think this is what the devs were intending the middle keystone for. The problem is, 3 charges for assail is meaningless as assail is a weapon of raw volume, not an individual good hit. Smite literally doesn’t benefit from it outside of bugging the blitz because 30% of garbage is still garbage, and 25% more range is meaningless when it already can smite the world.
Which leads us right on back to brain burst. Which is nice, but mechanically redundant with the class action to make BB cast faster and it’s just not reliable to get more charges back. Well, pending one’s specific build. Having a keystone only really useful on one of the 3 blitzes is, simply, unacceptable when it’s intended to fill the niche of something like Outcast Engineer’s superior gaskets.
Perhaps the discussion should be to request this middle keystone be changed. For example:
Turns all blitzes into a ‘grenade’ system with multiple charges on cooldowns, makes them all much more powerful but limited. Brain Burst could be a 3-10 target simultaneous attack, a lot more damage but with like 2 charges and a moderate cooldown (chance to recover on non-blitz kills.) Smite could tether and stun up to 10 targets for 5-15 seconds, and assail could be a 5-10 projectile waystalker class action.
Just spitballing ideas, but making that middle keystone augment blitz behaviors into a use it and swap system could bring it back to that ‘specialty tool’ playstyle like the other grenades.
This is actually a pretty useful interaction, when you spam assail at groups of shooter elites.
Also, you are forgetting that the direct bonus of the keystone itself might not be that massive, but because you can spam out 3 assails in quick succession, the 15% toughness restored to allies for each cast empowered cast, is pretty good.
tracking seems to break if you turn approx 45 degrees away from the shard’s original trajectory
for the LMB, this may result in 0 hits
for the RMB, you are guaranteed the first hit
which makes it not quite as… versatile(?) as I thought it would be. With Brain Rupture, I can target → charge → shift focus to deal with not getting my ass kicked by whatever is in front of me, which is a luxury I missed when the situation arose. With no upgrades, you one-shot gunners, shotgunners, dogs, trappers and do 1275 damage to flamers (125 damage short of one-shotting, so you need +10% damage from somewhere). I probably hadn’t noticed it before (because there was no alternative), but the ability to just hold LMB and forget that enemy’s existence was definitely missed.
With RMB, you will fairly reliably headshot* on your main target which will kill gunners, shotgunners, and non-Mutant specialists** in 3 hits (again, no upgrades). Empowered Psionics brings that down to 2, with the potential to score 3 kills (from full health, and 0% peril) is a decent return if you opt not to spam. When you don’t have Empowered Psionics up, RMB usage keeps your ammo count steady.
It’s a bit eh against Ragers unless you crit, so you either panic throw a whole bunch or you swap weapons. It works nicely with True Aim to get a steady stream of crits though.
With the weakspot and crit multipliers, Disrupt Destiny could be feasible as well.
*Closer range, it tends to miss headshots; otherwise, I’m not sure if there’s a knack to it. Time will tell
**Since the Poxburster isn’t in the Psykhanium and I don’t have mods installed, I don’t know how many hits they need
Here’s the thing. Would you rather have 3 charges of + 50 base damage and no peril cost (iirc) or would you rather have +24% damage, -30% peril cost, and 45% less cooldown on your class ability?
Assail getting a slight buff on 3 charges is decent, but you can consistently get moderately stronger everything and the ability to use your ult more often. The buff to assail is noticeable, and pointless, compared to warp charges.
Yes it does!
I had exactly the same feeling at first.
After some Testing i was really surprised. I thought Bio Ligthning will wipe the screen, but no; and yes ^^
Assail i thought will wipe screen but no; and yes
Assail complements Surge staff for Hordeclear!
Biolightning Complements Surge Staff/ Voidstrike for CC!
Brainburst Complements Trauma/ Flame Staff for Single Dps attacks?!
Since i mainly use Surge Staff since the Game came out, i find Biolighting and Assail are massive complements to it.
If i wanna go more CC i go Bio Lightning. If i want Hordeclear i go Assail. Both of these Options are perfect weaknesses for the Surge staff as it is now. Surge is ment for Single DPS with some chaining to other enemies. In general you cant hit more than 2 Elites at a time unlike before. Surge was never the best at killing Hordes or Unarmoured enemies. You could get breakpoints but it wasnt really efficient.
Now i have iMO two of the best Combos for it. I choose either one for the mood im in or what hte Team brings to the table.
If you wanna play safe on hard Missions take Biolightning. You see Bodies popp by the second, its great. One Blood Fountain after another!
It doesnt do much dmg but with the aimed attack or right click attack on Biolighting which iMO does a really damn nice cone spread attack in all situations (you can even look around 180 if theres no enemies close and scan for specials) if they are even a bit damaged or the Boys and Girls are in the thick of it and choppiing left and right, you see them popping off really damn fast, its Glorious!
I Understand your Post. YOU need to go Psykhanium sometimes and see whats Good against what and you get the point of it. I heard Assail this and Assailt that. I tried it ingame and didnt like it at first. I went into Psykhanium and tested against which enemies its really about.
Its good against SPecials and Hordes. Also normal shooters of course.
Most elites except the shotgunners it kinda shite. Its not effiecient for the Peril you use up.
But in moments when the horde arrives or even surprises you, like really clutch moment where some of your buddys are down inside a Horde and you need to get the revive, you can just drop bodies(Poxwalkers & Infested) super quick and get the revive. Or just for thinning th horde when they arrive, smae for Patrols without too many Heavies.
I use it for some sitations but not for all.
If there is a mixed Group of elite heavie like crusher, bulwarks, shooters etc. I take out my Surge! Its not worth it to use Assails since it will hit the Heavies and they laugh at the tickle they get from you.
If you go Biolightning, go with the oldschool Peril Quell Ultimate and the Warp charges skills on the bottom. Get the extra Peril reduction per Warp charge. And get the Skill in the middle bottom that lets you get more damage from “all” sources. SO everyone and anything" does more damage. With 6 stacks which you get super fast either with the team, if they stay close enough. Or with your own weapon, which i recommend for at least 4 warpcharges
I rarely use the Ulti for Quelling 50 Peril, except in Clutch moments wher the heat is through the roof. You can shoot so long its fantastic and your Team loves it.
ENjoy the super dope Light show with some smoke. Its that EPIc!
That’s not how the game is balanced for any other class. Psyker is in this bizarre spot where their Blitz is a whole second weapon but they don’t have an equivalent to a grenade that can only be used sometimes.
Yea, it’s almost there with Smite, but I guess it being bugged makes it hard to say if it would be worth it if it worked as intended. If you’re mainly relying on a staff you still get more power out of the left capstone than trying to constantly go back and forth to spend those charges.
Smite has currently a bug with empowered psionics which reduce the cost to 0 and it shouldn’t be. When you don’t have that happen, the peril cost is astronomical.
On top of that, just playing diff4 will show you how little it does beside locking enemies in place.
Psyker‘s blitz always has been like an extra weapon.
Vet and ogryn have grenades that auto recharge every 60seconds, and can 1 shot a bunch of stuff…
Zealot now has knifes, which get refilled by ammo pickups as well as melee killing elites.
The availability of blitz use is probably more equal now, than it has ever been.
Not that it would have needed to be equal in the first place.
It is important to have dfferences between the classes.
All they would have to add is an optional version of Assail that regenerates shards much slower but they are more powerful, or a ball lightning version of smite that travels forward slowly when you hit your grenade button but has a 30 second cooldown or something like that.
It’s not actually difficult to create versions of these abilities that don’t compete with your ranged weapon for uptime.
Bio-Lightning is the most confusing to be. It’s a fun ability, but the damage on it is very, VERY low. You need to channel it for a LONG time to kill anything. So sure, it’s good control while you use it. But what good is control, when nothing dies? What good is control, when Assail would kill as much as you control, in a fraction of the time?
Bio-Lightning should be an instant attack that you can shoot out, that shocks enemies in place, allowing you to switch to a weapon and attack a bit.
Right now trying to play Bio-Lightning means never pulling your weapons out. Why?
Find some way to give it better synergy. At least to the level of the Brain-Burst trigger on attack. Preferably better.
Yeah it says to alternatively do more damage against a single target. Which doesn’t happen. It also seems to never increase in damage while empowered vs normal or with other feats. It just always does very low damage, and nothing I pick seems to up it.
The strength of smite is that it completely paralyzes most enemies. It’s in kind of a busted state right now where it’s simultaneously really powerful but also not particularly fun to use because it’s mostly just a layup for your teammates.
I think if we get other classes added to the tree I would like to see:
Temporal Psyker:
Blitz: Stasis Shell
Throw small spheres that slow or immobilise the smaller enemies
Ability: Warp Speed
Simple speed buff like the Blue pot.
Telepathy:
Blitz: Dominate
Dominate a single enemy. Making it target his old allies
Ability: Hallucinations
Create clones of every player in Coherency, giving them chances of not being targeted