The blanket nerf to burning damage over time effects has disproportionally affected Psykers compared to Zealots.
As well as the Purgatus force staff, Psykers have several core feats that involve the soulblaze damage over time effect. These now all do a whopping 50% (!!!) less damage against Flak, the most common type of armor in the game. Soulblaze already did less damage and ticked more slowly compared to the standard burn effect, and the Purgatus force staff was overall effectively a Flamer Lite with less damage and less range, but which was useful because it synergized well with the soulblaze feats, making it a popular and effective build. I’ve seen loads of people complain about the Zealot Flamer, but people rarely mention the Purgatus Force Staff, so to see this targetted damage over time nerf glance the Zealot and absolutely crush one of the more synergistic Psyker builds seems very puzzling and makes one wonder if this was an accident or whether it was purposely intended to affect Psykers on such a level.
Thus is the way of the Fatshark nerf, nerf other things that wasn’t the target of the nerf.
Remember when:
They nerfed repeater pistol because it was overinteracting with Bounty Hunter passives and just made it near-unusable on the other classes?
They nerfed a bunch of traits, specifically any of the the ammo return ones because it was too strong on Bounty Hunter?
They nerfed the ability charge on crit trait because it was too strong on Pyromancer with a beam staff and now it practically does nothing on any of Sienna’s other classes?
They really need someone to have a big overview of things so that when a change is suggested, they can look and see if it affects anything else, because it either feels like they aren’t doing that by accident, or they know and don’t care.
I don`t know why you guys are suprised, Psyker gets nerfed in 4 out of 5 patches intendet or not.
The sadest part is that psyker builds are already very limited and with that nerf a lot of talent choices are no-brainer here… All blaze talents are now even worse then before. Wildfire for instance is even weaker and ascendent blaze its now kinda meh as clearing rooms full of shooters is now pain in the…
Purg was already a weaker flamer and that nerf also hit it for no reason.
They were on good road to change this whole situation adding new talent option. But like allways: one step forward, two steps backwards.
If you don`t have staff that plays the game at least listen to the community.
But this is exactly what they’re doing. They do listen to the community.
Flamer and Powersword nerfs were entirely community demanded.
As were many other changes in this game’s lifecycle thus far - Some good, some bad.
A short list:
Summary
→ “Need to seriously consider nerfing flamer” Views: 2400 Responses: 221
Thread with many players arguing for the Flamer to be nerfed. Quite the heated debate.
Link: Need to seriously consider nerfing flamer
→ “Nerf the flamer already” Views: 982 Replies: 55
Another thread where people carry on endlessly about the plights of the Flamer. There was very little resistance to the arguments.
Link: Nerf the flamer already
→ “Please BALANCE weapons” Views: 3500 Replies: 140
Thread where OP lobbies for nerfs, in particular the Powersword and the Bolter. This one even predates the previous thread, but it did have less traction overall.
Link: Please BALANCE weapons
→ “Balance feedback from a top 0.3% player” Views: 3100 Replies: 73
Thread where OP claims to be a top tier Tide Veteran. He makes a list going over every class and some loadouts and makes a number of suggestions on what to change - You guessed it, mostly nerfs to everything. He wrote in particular one paragraph for the Powersword and the Surge Staff each. Also suggested the Psyker to be way too strong. Psyker nerfs originated likely here:
Link: Balance feedback from a top 0.3% player
Essentially, these changes were asked for by the Community.
I’m not starting a flame war. The person I quoted wanted an explanation of why changes to the game were made and I provided a breakdown of the community opinions that contributed to these changes.
Edit: I rephrased a good chunk of what I wrote and put the long post in a summary bracket, so it takes up less space. I hope it reads better now.
In any case, I agree with you that Purgatus Flamer didn’t need those nerfs or shouldn’t have been affected by the readjustments. It’s an okay weapon, but wasn’t nowhere near the strength of the Flamer.
I do agree that flamer should get nerfed. Purgatuss and good chunk of psyker talents did not.
Do they listen?
Not rly, there are still a lot of missing features. And things that coummity screems about since day 1 are still here. For instance:
-Shared inventory
-Being able to pick specific mission
-Being able to re-roll second perk/blessing
-Better re-roll system
-Better gear progression
-Solo play
-Better bots
I`m not gonna mention some promises that were made and then taken back.
I refrain from listing a bunch of stuff that was community requests, but everything you listed is either worked on (with low priority, bots, and solo play), they have some excuse why it isn’t implemented yet (Shared inventory), or they have a different design intent/would take too much time/have an unsaid excuse (everything else).
They also managed to not fall for the Ogryn/Zealot being weak meme from bad players, or the Vet being too strong/best class bs so far. Balance wise the only 2 missteps were the recent brutal PS nerf and the stubber on ogryn. We can put AB not killing shooter groups into this category too (although Purg staff build is largely fine).
Literally no one was asking for soulblaze nerf so idk what you’re even talking about.
It’s just seem more like you’re trying to propagated ‘Look this is what happen if you ask for nerf!’ so that Psyker player can join your war of anti-nerf bandwagon or something.
Was about to write a paragraph or two, but you said exactly what was on my mind. I’d have made a list and almost everything he mentioned really is being worked on or part of the Agenda but just not meant to be available immediately.
Good post, have a like.
SoulBlaze nerf was a side effect from the Flamer nerf. And a lot of people were asking for Flamer nerfs. Maybe Soulblaze and Burning reference the same code, hence both being affected?
Whatever the case, certainly didn’t come out of nowhere.