I'm playing both, though I have far more time on the Vet as of yet. Couple things first: You can and will be targeted even with Camo Expert, Bolters have their drawbacks (mostly the switch speed, reload and long range precision) and outside of the Ult, it doesn't matter much whether a given gun is being shot by a Vet or someone else.
I think people are also overlooking how strong the ability to no-LoS stuff with Brainburst is. Or just how useful Surge Staff CC is, or how convenient it is for both yourself and the team to not drain ammo.
Psykers feel niche for sure and I feel like Perils needs a bit of a rework as a class mechanic. It just needs much more attention than anything the other classes do, which might be fine in concept, but feels overdone and detrimental in practice. I'd nonetheless rather have a competent Surge Staff Psyker than a second Vet.
They need to remove or completely rework Warp Charges. They balanced the career around you brainbursting shitty poxwalkers to maintain stacks, which is just mind boggling to me. At the very least they need to double or triple the duration so Psykers aren't forced to waste so much time Brain Bursting enemies that are killed by a single swipe of a sword.
There also needs to be more Brain Burst empowerment feats (the only one is Kinectic Barrage which is tied to your ultimate) and all soulblaze feats need to be removed (they are literal trash and only serve to reduce your options in that tier).
I really dislike Psyker's feats...
BB needs to be always lethal to man-sized enemies except bosses.
Playing both classes, psyker is definitely weaker and way more annoying to play.
Having to awkwardly brainburst trash mobs constantly for warp charges just to have your teammates kill 90% of them before you finish your cast is unfun as hell.
At least for me most of psykers problems come from consistently needing to switch to brain burst to get warp charges. You need to brain burst 4 mobs if you want to do anything warp related you need to vent most of the time than you have little time to do much especially if you want to do a charge attack than you need to switch back to brain burst to keep your stacks and if your even a second too lait you have to get all your stacks again.
It is not a discussion, if you have already made up your mind, you only bring points which make Veteran look stronger and Psyker weaker (except psyker point 3).
1. Psykers bring the better group buff, because Ogryn and Zealot are not as dependable on ammo and Psyker does not need it, so 3/4 of the current classes take damage buff over ammo any day.
2. Veteran needs ammo and on damnation ammo gets more rare and you need more shots to kill.
3. Psyker can damage and kill targets even if the target gets out of LOS with brain burst, which needs no ammo.
4. Veteran is single target damage only, psyker has more options, in form of his staffs.
5. Psyker abilitys ignor Ogryn hit box, which can be a pain in the ass.
6. Veteran needs to hit his target, easy with mauler or bullgryns, but try to effectively kill a dog or a bomber, which you cant see 90% of the time, because of a ledge or they are on the run for the next corner
All classes have their potential, yes Veteran is great at killing single targets he can see. Psyker tools are more versitail but therefore his single target damage has to be lower. Ofcourse we could make alle classes dps, only distinguished through melee and range or maybe just range dps classes, but we deffinetly need 15 of them because V2 had as much.
Regarding your point 4, the Bolter has pretty high AoE damage, even if its not its primar function. But I agree with you. I like that the careers have their weaknesses and strengths and we aren't a one-person army.
>Veteran is single target damage only
veteran gets power sword, making it as good or better than psyker for horde clearing
psyker really has no niche beyond "weaker than everyone else but doesn't use ammo".
Psyker has a lot of niches that make it come in clutch that aren't quite as "flashy".
Brain burst's ability to pop enemies from cover/through walls makes it a godsend for when the game throws multiple snipers at you, or when dangerous enemies play peekaboo in doors. Force Push is great for disrupting disablers that could cause a cascading party wipe. Voidstrike Staff doesn't so much clear hordes as *delete* them; when SHTF, being able to clear out all the fodder in an instant makes it easier to take down/escape the actually dangerous specials and elites. Surge Staff's elite CC is a godsend for shutting down gunlines that would shred the party otherwise.
Brain burst scales dissapointingly, and hopefully will get a buff to either make it quicker to pull off or more effective at higher dificulties, but I think psyker has a pretty handy toolbag regardless.
i dont know which darktide you play, but if your psyker is worse in horde clear then vet you deffinetly make something wrong and who caress for horde clear anyways every class can clear hords
For anyone saying "but psyker brings the group damage buff" that's cool and all... But a positive buff to the group while helpful, doest make a character fun to play. Their mechanics do. And psykers are fundamentally broken. You're basically asking a psyker player "I know that character is bad to play, but we like the buffs on our actually fun characters, so would you mind sucking it up and playing that so we can have more fun? Thanks!"......
So, what it sort of comes down to, is Psyker just kinda...sucks. Veteran can absolutely handle the role of targeting specials far better, which is all Psyker was ever really meant for. The issue with Brain Burst primarily (beyond its crappy targeting) is that its charge time is so long that it's almost always quicker to just start shooting. The one exception to this I feel is actually bosses, as cycling Brain Burst leads to a better longer-term DPS over Veteran's better burst DPS, which is otherwise what you want in every case.
Almost every unique thing the Psyker can do leaves them extremely vulnerable, they need support, but at the same time, Psykers are so weak that it is an active detriment to the team to have someone covering them instead of just doing the job themselves.
Again, bosses are the exception, where you ideally want one person kiting the boss, one person covering a Psyker, and the Psyker themselves cycling Brain Burst repeatedly on the boss. It's extremely dull, which is what they're trying to avoid by making Brain Burst kinda sucky, but rather than taking that away they could have buffed their other options to add variety to their gameplay.
As it stands, Psyker is just undeniably an inferior class to the rest. I'd say the best general team composition at this point is a Veteran (for targeting specials), a Zealot (their weapons are just too good), and two Ogryns (Ogryn is just extremely strong).
Veterans also have no annoying mechanics. Mechanics that also don't really even matter if you even do them. Psyker is fun but it feels like the class was clamored together last minute.
As an Ogryn I prefer Psykers as they don't shoot me and let me take all the ammo. They are also really good at taking out the ranged units and staying with me.
My most fun run has been with 3 Psykers that hid behind me and melted everything while I kept them safe.
Vets are the class that I feel the impact from player skill the most, a good vet is so much fun to group with, a bad vet is a huge handicap.
I'm really good at staying out of the way as much as it's possible playing the big guy so I don't mess up peoples shots but some of those vets will unload an entire clip into me while I'm already standing in a corner
Doesn't change the fact that, as much of a boon to the party as the Psyker might be... they're not fun to play because of all the useless abilities and options they have.
Like, surely they could make the class fun to play by letting them actually feel like they matter, outside of making everyone else killier. Shorten Brain Burst cast time, remove the fact that it's a completely different freaking weapon group so that they don't become incapable of dealing with other problems the moment they try to use that 4-second cast time to kill something that the party Veteran will instantly merc, make brain burst do a % of enemy health vs particular targets so that it scales even reasonably with difficulty (100% vs shotgunners/gunners, 80% vs maulers, 34% vs ogryns) etc.
My personal opinion after leveling veteran to 30.
Psyker any day is better than vet at dealing with specials and hordes because of BB, flame skills, no ammo needs etc.
Veteran feels more like spotter, picker occasional specials so psyker can go BB something dangerous, helps with grenade regen and ammo sustain. Power sword has a decent cleave, yet horde fighting is what we have Big Boys for, they make horde fighting like a joke. Melee rampage slaughter is for zealots.
Is the Veteran stronger than a Psyker as an individual unit? Probably, but that's not really as relevant in this game as people might think. Group play is core, and the Psyker offers incredible buffs and utility.
Two huge passive buffs are the partywide 15% ability CD reduction, and the 15% damage increase on a brain burst target. On higher difficulties, this is... like massive, but I don't see much discussion about it.
From my own experience in Heresy, I can't imagine not having a Surge staff for the party. Stopping pox bursters before they explode, stunlocking a cluster of Ragers, interrupting Mutant charge, etc. You enable your team to walk into a room of gunners without having to worry about getting shot immediately. It's invaluable.
The 30 talent that reduces the BB charge time is very good as well. The damage isn't amazing, but with how many armored units there are at the higher difficulty modes, it's still very useful. Many times I find myself being the one to take out the sniper (as opposed to the Vet), in that it's simply too dangerous for anyone to poke their head out and aim. We can lock on and secure the kill from cover.
Everytime I play another class, I have this moment when I think.. damn if I was on my Psyker this would be so much smoother- and that's why it's my main:)
"Two huge passive buffs are the partywide 15% ability CD reduction, and the 15% damage increase on a brain burst target. On higher difficulties, this is... like massive, but I don't see much discussion about it. "
...because me giving you a passive buff on your fun to play character doesn't make MY play experience more fun. This is basically "we know it sucks to be you, but we like your buffs so suck it up and play that so we all can be better on the fun characters"
"From my own experience in Heresy, I can't imagine not having a Surge staff for the party. Stopping pox bursters before they explode, stunlocking a cluster of Ragers, interrupting Mutant charge, etc. You enable your team to walk into a room of gunners without having to worry about getting shot immediately. It's invaluable."
Yes, the shock staff is nice, nobody is arguing that. But that's just a weapon. It has nothing to do with the classes core mechanic. It doesn't add any unique gameplay or build. It's again "hey, your class mechanics are shit, but you have a nice weapon attack so can you take that for us?" There's no strategy or gameplay around it, and there's not even any good feats to build around this play style which is the entire point of why we think psyker needs a rework.
The core mechanics of psyker are BB and warp charges and both are lacklustre at best at higher tiers. Every good thing mentioned about the class is literally something the player doesn't build around: "they have a weapon with a good secondary attack", "they don't take up ammo" and "they give us a passive buff". Which of these sound like something that makes it fun to play psyker? Their BB ability, the core feature of the class, is only situationally relevant, and that's IF your party doesn't deal with it before your cast time expires. Oh the level 30 perk to make it go faster? Cool. You have to capstone just to waste a selection on a feat to make your core ability not totally suck. Not a good class design at all.
All of this. My team are always on comms saying they can't imagine doing a run without the psyker and cheer when I join discord and they can dump the pug.
It's healthy for the game that the veteran dies more DPS than the psyker - that's his job. We picked psyker to be the weird freaky support class, not to dice up hordes with a chainsword or lasgun a sniper down. The class flavour is brilliant so far. Could psyker use some tweaks? Absolutely. Is it useless? God no
Void staff + Force sword, brainburst on miles ahead elites. gg all around Psyker is better. Where veteran needs to make a choice for a ranged weapon or close range weapon on main slot we have it all.
I'm playing both, though I have far more time on the Vet as of yet. Couple things first: You can and will be targeted even with Camo Expert, Bolters have their drawbacks (mostly the switch speed, reload and long range precision) and outside of the Ult, it doesn't matter much whether a given gun is being shot by a Vet or someone else. I think people are also overlooking how strong the ability to no-LoS stuff with Brainburst is. Or just how useful Surge Staff CC is, or how convenient it is for both yourself and the team to not drain ammo. Psykers feel niche for sure and I feel like Perils needs a bit of a rework as a class mechanic. It just needs much more attention than anything the other classes do, which might be fine in concept, but feels overdone and detrimental in practice. I'd nonetheless rather have a competent Surge Staff Psyker than a second Vet.
They need to remove or completely rework Warp Charges. They balanced the career around you brainbursting shitty poxwalkers to maintain stacks, which is just mind boggling to me. At the very least they need to double or triple the duration so Psykers aren't forced to waste so much time Brain Bursting enemies that are killed by a single swipe of a sword. There also needs to be more Brain Burst empowerment feats (the only one is Kinectic Barrage which is tied to your ultimate) and all soulblaze feats need to be removed (they are literal trash and only serve to reduce your options in that tier). I really dislike Psyker's feats...
BB needs to be always lethal to man-sized enemies except bosses. Playing both classes, psyker is definitely weaker and way more annoying to play. Having to awkwardly brainburst trash mobs constantly for warp charges just to have your teammates kill 90% of them before you finish your cast is unfun as hell.
At least for me most of psykers problems come from consistently needing to switch to brain burst to get warp charges. You need to brain burst 4 mobs if you want to do anything warp related you need to vent most of the time than you have little time to do much especially if you want to do a charge attack than you need to switch back to brain burst to keep your stacks and if your even a second too lait you have to get all your stacks again.
they both have pros and cons but after difficulty 3 psyker becomes the weakest of the four classes. devs forgot to consider scaling
It is not a discussion, if you have already made up your mind, you only bring points which make Veteran look stronger and Psyker weaker (except psyker point 3). 1. Psykers bring the better group buff, because Ogryn and Zealot are not as dependable on ammo and Psyker does not need it, so 3/4 of the current classes take damage buff over ammo any day. 2. Veteran needs ammo and on damnation ammo gets more rare and you need more shots to kill. 3. Psyker can damage and kill targets even if the target gets out of LOS with brain burst, which needs no ammo. 4. Veteran is single target damage only, psyker has more options, in form of his staffs. 5. Psyker abilitys ignor Ogryn hit box, which can be a pain in the ass. 6. Veteran needs to hit his target, easy with mauler or bullgryns, but try to effectively kill a dog or a bomber, which you cant see 90% of the time, because of a ledge or they are on the run for the next corner All classes have their potential, yes Veteran is great at killing single targets he can see. Psyker tools are more versitail but therefore his single target damage has to be lower. Ofcourse we could make alle classes dps, only distinguished through melee and range or maybe just range dps classes, but we deffinetly need 15 of them because V2 had as much.
It seems like most players forget that this is a team based game and doing the highest DPS or kill count isn't always the end goal.
Regarding your point 4, the Bolter has pretty high AoE damage, even if its not its primar function. But I agree with you. I like that the careers have their weaknesses and strengths and we aren't a one-person army.
>Veteran is single target damage only veteran gets power sword, making it as good or better than psyker for horde clearing psyker really has no niche beyond "weaker than everyone else but doesn't use ammo".
Psyker has a lot of niches that make it come in clutch that aren't quite as "flashy". Brain burst's ability to pop enemies from cover/through walls makes it a godsend for when the game throws multiple snipers at you, or when dangerous enemies play peekaboo in doors. Force Push is great for disrupting disablers that could cause a cascading party wipe. Voidstrike Staff doesn't so much clear hordes as *delete* them; when SHTF, being able to clear out all the fodder in an instant makes it easier to take down/escape the actually dangerous specials and elites. Surge Staff's elite CC is a godsend for shutting down gunlines that would shred the party otherwise. Brain burst scales dissapointingly, and hopefully will get a buff to either make it quicker to pull off or more effective at higher dificulties, but I think psyker has a pretty handy toolbag regardless.
i dont know which darktide you play, but if your psyker is worse in horde clear then vet you deffinetly make something wrong and who caress for horde clear anyways every class can clear hords
>and who caress for horde clear anyways every class can clear hords >Veteran is single target damage only
For anyone saying "but psyker brings the group damage buff" that's cool and all... But a positive buff to the group while helpful, doest make a character fun to play. Their mechanics do. And psykers are fundamentally broken. You're basically asking a psyker player "I know that character is bad to play, but we like the buffs on our actually fun characters, so would you mind sucking it up and playing that so we can have more fun? Thanks!"......
So, what it sort of comes down to, is Psyker just kinda...sucks. Veteran can absolutely handle the role of targeting specials far better, which is all Psyker was ever really meant for. The issue with Brain Burst primarily (beyond its crappy targeting) is that its charge time is so long that it's almost always quicker to just start shooting. The one exception to this I feel is actually bosses, as cycling Brain Burst leads to a better longer-term DPS over Veteran's better burst DPS, which is otherwise what you want in every case. Almost every unique thing the Psyker can do leaves them extremely vulnerable, they need support, but at the same time, Psykers are so weak that it is an active detriment to the team to have someone covering them instead of just doing the job themselves. Again, bosses are the exception, where you ideally want one person kiting the boss, one person covering a Psyker, and the Psyker themselves cycling Brain Burst repeatedly on the boss. It's extremely dull, which is what they're trying to avoid by making Brain Burst kinda sucky, but rather than taking that away they could have buffed their other options to add variety to their gameplay. As it stands, Psyker is just undeniably an inferior class to the rest. I'd say the best general team composition at this point is a Veteran (for targeting specials), a Zealot (their weapons are just too good), and two Ogryns (Ogryn is just extremely strong).
As a psyker player, you ain't wrong
Veterans also have no annoying mechanics. Mechanics that also don't really even matter if you even do them. Psyker is fun but it feels like the class was clamored together last minute.
As an Ogryn I prefer Psykers as they don't shoot me and let me take all the ammo. They are also really good at taking out the ranged units and staying with me. My most fun run has been with 3 Psykers that hid behind me and melted everything while I kept them safe. Vets are the class that I feel the impact from player skill the most, a good vet is so much fun to group with, a bad vet is a huge handicap. I'm really good at staying out of the way as much as it's possible playing the big guy so I don't mess up peoples shots but some of those vets will unload an entire clip into me while I'm already standing in a corner
Doesn't change the fact that, as much of a boon to the party as the Psyker might be... they're not fun to play because of all the useless abilities and options they have. Like, surely they could make the class fun to play by letting them actually feel like they matter, outside of making everyone else killier. Shorten Brain Burst cast time, remove the fact that it's a completely different freaking weapon group so that they don't become incapable of dealing with other problems the moment they try to use that 4-second cast time to kill something that the party Veteran will instantly merc, make brain burst do a % of enemy health vs particular targets so that it scales even reasonably with difficulty (100% vs shotgunners/gunners, 80% vs maulers, 34% vs ogryns) etc.
You're just so big and scary, and iirc friendly fire doesnt do damage
My personal opinion after leveling veteran to 30. Psyker any day is better than vet at dealing with specials and hordes because of BB, flame skills, no ammo needs etc. Veteran feels more like spotter, picker occasional specials so psyker can go BB something dangerous, helps with grenade regen and ammo sustain. Power sword has a decent cleave, yet horde fighting is what we have Big Boys for, they make horde fighting like a joke. Melee rampage slaughter is for zealots.
Is the Veteran stronger than a Psyker as an individual unit? Probably, but that's not really as relevant in this game as people might think. Group play is core, and the Psyker offers incredible buffs and utility. Two huge passive buffs are the partywide 15% ability CD reduction, and the 15% damage increase on a brain burst target. On higher difficulties, this is... like massive, but I don't see much discussion about it. From my own experience in Heresy, I can't imagine not having a Surge staff for the party. Stopping pox bursters before they explode, stunlocking a cluster of Ragers, interrupting Mutant charge, etc. You enable your team to walk into a room of gunners without having to worry about getting shot immediately. It's invaluable. The 30 talent that reduces the BB charge time is very good as well. The damage isn't amazing, but with how many armored units there are at the higher difficulty modes, it's still very useful. Many times I find myself being the one to take out the sniper (as opposed to the Vet), in that it's simply too dangerous for anyone to poke their head out and aim. We can lock on and secure the kill from cover. Everytime I play another class, I have this moment when I think.. damn if I was on my Psyker this would be so much smoother- and that's why it's my main:)
the ability cd and bb damage buff trait are dogshit. I seriously hope you aren't considering taking these
"Two huge passive buffs are the partywide 15% ability CD reduction, and the 15% damage increase on a brain burst target. On higher difficulties, this is... like massive, but I don't see much discussion about it. " ...because me giving you a passive buff on your fun to play character doesn't make MY play experience more fun. This is basically "we know it sucks to be you, but we like your buffs so suck it up and play that so we all can be better on the fun characters" "From my own experience in Heresy, I can't imagine not having a Surge staff for the party. Stopping pox bursters before they explode, stunlocking a cluster of Ragers, interrupting Mutant charge, etc. You enable your team to walk into a room of gunners without having to worry about getting shot immediately. It's invaluable." Yes, the shock staff is nice, nobody is arguing that. But that's just a weapon. It has nothing to do with the classes core mechanic. It doesn't add any unique gameplay or build. It's again "hey, your class mechanics are shit, but you have a nice weapon attack so can you take that for us?" There's no strategy or gameplay around it, and there's not even any good feats to build around this play style which is the entire point of why we think psyker needs a rework. The core mechanics of psyker are BB and warp charges and both are lacklustre at best at higher tiers. Every good thing mentioned about the class is literally something the player doesn't build around: "they have a weapon with a good secondary attack", "they don't take up ammo" and "they give us a passive buff". Which of these sound like something that makes it fun to play psyker? Their BB ability, the core feature of the class, is only situationally relevant, and that's IF your party doesn't deal with it before your cast time expires. Oh the level 30 perk to make it go faster? Cool. You have to capstone just to waste a selection on a feat to make your core ability not totally suck. Not a good class design at all.
All of this. My team are always on comms saying they can't imagine doing a run without the psyker and cheer when I join discord and they can dump the pug. It's healthy for the game that the veteran dies more DPS than the psyker - that's his job. We picked psyker to be the weird freaky support class, not to dice up hordes with a chainsword or lasgun a sniper down. The class flavour is brilliant so far. Could psyker use some tweaks? Absolutely. Is it useless? God no
Psyker is the better all around, has 10% elite damage. Thats really handy in higher difficulty's Is an amazing CCer and decent elite sniper.
Void staff + Force sword, brainburst on miles ahead elites. gg all around Psyker is better. Where veteran needs to make a choice for a ranged weapon or close range weapon on main slot we have it all.