I agree with the sentiment stated by OP that Perilous Combustion (killing an elite or specialist spreads 3 soulblaze stacks to nearby enemies) and Psykineticâs Aura (Coherency-wide 4% cd reduction on elite/specialist kills) are too strong for their placement. Builds that donât pick these talents are simply not competitive in terms of overall strength or utility, so the talent tree layout should be altered so these talents are more accessible to all builds.
I donât agree with the sentiment they should be nerfed, at least not without psyker recieving compensatory buffs to survivability and utility in other ways. And not just in terms of buffing alternative talents like mind in motion ormalefic momentum. Talents elsewhere should then be buffed, or weapon blessings added or buffed to a host of weapons, to compensate for the loss of power these talents brings to the class. This actually seems a viable alternative now that a I think about it, that would make these talents less obligatory.
Speaking mostly of my experience with Havoc +30 games, what I consistently see ignored in threads like these where some claim psyker is overpowered because of their damage potential with venting shriek and inferno staff, is that psyker play has a substantially smaller margin for error, so it simply puts a larger demand on the player to keep up that damage while having great situational awareness and movement, to avoid getting trapped in gunner killboxes, or destroyed by massing melee enemies.
First of all venting shriek play excludes taking bubble, so at higher difficulties you might not even get invited for a lot of Havoc games, and it is substantially harder to stay alive at Havoc +30 without bubble than without shriek.
It is as if these people define class performance entirely by the damage number on the scoreboard and do not consider what it takes in terms of player effort, and the frequency of player deaths by players who try to run with these builds at these difficulties.
On another note, Voidblast and Voidstrike staves are abysmal at Havoc +30. Itâs not just that they are not doing on-par damage with inferno, which I donât see why they necessarily should do, since again the game is about more than just pure damage potential. But they certainly lack in the sort of utility they should have to be competitive alternatives to inferno.
Both of them charge way too slowly. And I mean something perhaps up to 50% faster charge is required to bring them up in viability at the highest difficulties. They only do enough damage and stagger to be somewhat useful at max charge level, but it takes waaay too long to charge them to that level, so you are in risk of getting slaughtered by massing enemies in between every charged 2ndary fire.
Even worse for voidblast in particular is how it interacts with terrain. Terrain floor architecture is way too detailed and uneven in many places, so you can often find yourself making blasts that disappear into small crevices in the terrain, doing no damage to enemies where you attempt to aim the circle. There just isnât the sort of time on high difficulties you need to sit there and try to make small adjustments to aim to make sure the blast isnât disappearing under the ground.
Since changing this would either require a total redesign of level architechture, or the mechanics of how the staff interacts with terrain in the first place, my guess is this will NEVER get fixed, and Voidblast is consigned to being this pathetic item of curiosity you can pull off on an auric level here or there for the lulz if youâre a total sweatlord.