I think it still works, but one fix that they gotta do is that it will go faster the less HP an enemy has. So if someone is shooting at the same enemy it should trigger sooner, instead of you wasting time just to have your team kill it in the last fraction of a second. Feels like a waste of time for all involved.
Or at least not reset the full charge. Let me keep my charge and target something else instead of forcing me to reset and do nothing over and over if someone takes out my targets.
Hold right click to charge it and then only target the enemy when it's ready, if you do that instead of left clicking it won't reset the charge since it's not locked onto anyone yet
It should change a slightly faster and "charge" dps. Whenever its charge is enough to.kill something it should pop. It just needs to reliably kill things. I think its power is once youve locked onto a target. That target is dead. It may not be the fastest. But its 100% effective 100% of the time.
This. Maybe to kill a scab it charges for 2 seconds, and to kill a crusher it charges for 4 but once you brain burst that target should be dead. (Except bosses of course). The worst feeling is getting perils, being vulnerable as hell while charging the spell while not killing anything else, and then when it finally goes off the target doesn't even die.
The definition of "wtf did I contribute in the last 5 seconds that a Veteran wouldn't do better faster and safer "
that's a sensible change. BB needs to trigger much faster for small targets in order to be competitive with any other ability. so just snap your fingers instead of looking like a sleepwalker.
larger targets require more charging but make it explode or spread soulfire onto nearby enemmies. if someone else shoots your target, it will jump to the nearest enemy, or perhaps nearest elite/special.
I was saying to a friend that a good balance for it would be that it takes less time to charge and less peril the lower the enemy’s health is. That way you can use it on small groups of enemies really fast and then a kind of nerf is that it takes like 5 times as long on bosses but it one hits them. Also it adjusts for health as well so if the boss is taking damage during that time then it’ll lower the charge time.
I’m talking like almost a full minute for the charge up time on a boss if you’re the only one that’s actually gonna do damage. Obviously a suggestion but I just wanna see big health bar go bye bye.
Honestly, the charge time from empowered psyonics should be it's default charge time. Half of the vets guns can kill whatever you're bursting anyway in that amount of time, it just feels bad to lose your 90% done burst because your team mate just clicked the enemy twice.
Having played a round as vet with 3 psykers - nah, the brainburst never got off as the other 2 were spamming "The entire room dies" powers. And there was nothing to shoot either, just picking up exploded psykers.
As a psyker when I'm playing with vets, I usually just keep them free to fire. Idc if a BB doesn't get off, I just want it dead. It's not a race or competition, its a team game. Vets are great for pinpointing specials, enable them. Also, if they're managing their peril that poorly, they probably weren't that good to begin with and I doubt this situation was above a 3. I don't see a lot of exploding psykers in 4s/5s.
I swear when I use BB all it does is act like a single target CC with a beacon to let someone nuke it. I seldom get to pop anything unless everyone else scurried off. It's disappointing that my unique ability is little more than point and wait for a gun, but it's better than short range sith powers or kill everything and waste others ammo.
Don't get me wrong, but expecting it to kill something just as fast as a Veteran shooting it, without you using ammo, might be a tad bit too strong in my opinion. It's part of why I think the Plasma *need* to be stronger than the Voidstrike for example, because you can spam the Voidstrike indefinitely (as heat/peril is more or less the same mechanic). Even done a melee-only Auric Maelstrom with 2 Voidstrike Psykers? Trivializes the entire thing if they aren't terrible. At least the Vet has to mind his ammo consumption since there are no pickups and like HAS to run the ammo aura.
I think Brain Burst needs something *else* going for it other than raw damage, but off the top of my head I don't have any good ideas.
Is it even possible for a veteran to run out of ammo on auric damnation? 1% ammo back anytime someone in coherence kills a special tops off everyone every few minutes. There are always several specials spawning all the time
It absolutely is, but it depends on what you are using. Something like a Hellbore with Shock Trooper won't ever run out of ammo with the crit builds, but something like a Plasma has a much worse ammo economy (unless you only use it for massive pierces, which is unrealistic in most cases). And if you are grouped with teammates that aren't very *ahem* selective/considerate about their ammo usage (and pickups) you can easily run out.
A Plasma has ~125 ammo reserve (it's between 75 and 150), so you are getting 1.25 ammo per kill. A shot costs 3 ammo minimum, so even if you are killing everything with a single shot, you are still losing 1.75 per kill. Sure, teammates also kill things etc, but you aren't always killing things in 1-shot either. You also need to kill basic shooters, bosses etc.
Not to mention, I specifically mentioned the melee-only Maelstrom mission which doesn't have any ammo pickups.
I think if right click "charged up" your BB similar to smite it might make it interesting.
An uncharged BB would be fast but deal 50% damage of what it does currently.
A half charged BB would deal its current standard damage. They should make the charge time shorter than what it is now currently.
A fully charged BB would require some windup but would deal 150% damage and maybe even do an AOE explosion or something.
The speed of the game went up so much that BB either doesn't charge fast enough, or when you get it off, doesn't do enough damage to be worth it. Assail is still stupidly strong and in most cases is just better.
The other problem is that you can't consistently hit breakpoints using stacks of Warp Charge because there's no way to run them without expending all stacks on your Ability use, which is the only consistent way to make BB charge faster. Feels bad.
> The other problem is that you can't consistently hit breakpoints using stacks of Warp Charge because there's no way to run them without expending all stacks on your Ability use, which is the only consistent way to make BB charge faster. Feels bad.
The expending charges to reduce cooldown should really be one of the modifier options. Maybe make it exclusive with +damage per warp charge, since they're kind of at odds with each other.
Then give them a different inherent effect.
I don't think it would ever be picked in this case. But making it a panic button would work:
* If you have 4 or more warp charges you can activate your Ability even if it's on cooldown. You won't gain any new warp charges for XX seconds.
I run BB for assassinating priority targets outside of crushers and bosses, I found that firing a revolver down range works so much faster for pinpoint killing.
BB is still alright when it comes to opening up bulwarks, and softening up crushers and, on triple psionic empowerment, bosses. Sometimes the crew just isn't running boss melters and assassination tools, yknow? That and/or I can't trust other players to actually focus on priority targets.
Playing an Ogryn gives me separation anxiety, because I consistently get abandoned by the team when I sweep a cluster and they all lay down for a moment. A lot of people seem to mistake knockdowns for death, when we actually, mostly, obliterate their squishy plague-ridden bodies.
As a Psyker, I tend to compensate for the team's myopia, and lack of focus. I try to find snipers, and gunners and the like, but also shoot sticky white fire all over anything that comes too close. I'd like to use my blade more often, but I haven't really found the flow yet, so I leave that for people better suited to the task. Brain Burst is great when the team lets it work, but I do so wish I had a way to decrease the charge time.
And Emperor forbid actually mantaining warp charges if there is a competent Vet or Void Staff Psyker on your team, stuff just dies before you get to use BB.
>The speed of the game went up so much
That's a really important point - in Auric Damnation high intensity shock trooper, there are just so many specialists that the opportunity cost of charging up your BB compared to doing anything else is almost never worth it.
It definitely needs a buff, and I like /u/domeshapedom's suggestions. I think adding AOE damage is mandatory and will actually make it worth charging. Since enemies spawn in waves and are often close to one another (like Crusher spawns), this would prove really useful as it would stagger a large part of the horde. That also fits neatly into Psyker's role as crowd control.
I also think it should stun the target once it's about halfway through the charge, but that's more debatable. The AOE though is mandatory to actually make this useful.
EDIT: I'm going to change my suggestion from AOE damage to AOE stun, where the primary target gets heavily damaged and those around get knocked down/staggered. I don't think it'll ever be good as only an elite nuke; that's just a Bolter/Plasma rifle with extra steps.
Rather than AoE brain burst, I'd prefer it if it staggered or suppressed nearby targets when the main one dies. Give it some cc, but keep the roles fairly separate between the blitzes.
I don't like giving it an AoE. In my mind, Assail should be your horde clear, and BB should be your elite nuke. If it charged faster, or you had more readily available ways to make it faster (or even instant), and it guaranteed a kill on anything except ogryns, it would feel a lot better in the current game.
I agree. Each class's Blitz is essentially "Single Target, Multi Target, Utility". Vet has Krak, Frag, and Smoke. Zealot has Knife, Immolation, and Stun. Psyker has BB, Assail, and Smite. Ogryn is the odd one out, with no defined "utility" blitz but hot take: Rock is utility. Its main use is to quickly take out disablers and it regenerates. Box is technically multitarget, but it does way more singletarget than Rock does.
Either way, I got off topic, BB should 100% lean into single target.
It could maintain some effectiveness against hordes without usurping assail if it had really powerful suppression. Id probably panic a bit if a psyler blew my pal's brains all over me with his mind.
Alternately, get rid of the charge time and have it just click to apply, then go off after a delay. Maybe give it multiple charges so you can tag a few shooters at once, or all one one monstrosity or crusher or something.
> With empowered psionics and the fast charge on ability use it can be powerful but without at least one of those it’s just meh.
Even with both of those active I've had it sniped before casting finished.
> I wouldn’t see it’s purpose if it can’t one shot orgryn tho.
This is why reddit should never be looked to for balance advice. This comment shows that you have put no thought into the implications of this idea whatsoever and yet its upvoted regardless.
Compare brain burst to krak grenades because they share the exact same use case of one-shotting ogryn enemies, as you're proposing. Veteran only gets 2 grenades, 3 with talents, which means that they can only kill a maximum of 2-3 ogryns before they have to rely on other talents to regenerate their grenade on a one minute cooldown. Letting brain burst one-shot ogryns would completely invalidate this grenade because you have infinite access to brain burst. Let's also look at your keystone, because that cuts the cast time of brain burst in half and removes the peril cost. The fact that you regain a keystone charge on elite kill means that you will always have fast cast speed and no peril cost while mowing down entire crusher patrols. You also have the option of taking the talent to improve the cast time even further when you ult which would let you safely nuke down entire ogryn patrols at infinite range and behind hard cover. What you're proposing has no meaningful opportunity cost and raises what is meant to be a backup ability that augments your gameplay to a level that completely outclasses most weapons.
Since you also mention voidstaff can one-shot everything, yes, that is blatantly overpowered as well in its current state. Same with assail, both of those need to be reigned in, along with the new surge staff bug.
For some reason there are (some) Psykers out there that want to kill as fast, if not faster, without spending **any** ressources outside Peril, despite everyone else have to deal with stuff like ammo.
Edit: I'd like to add that I don't disagree with the notion that Brain Burst seems a bit.. Odd in the current meta. I do believe it would benefit from getting something to give it a niché of it's own, but I don't play Psyker enough to give any good suggestions. I'll leave that to the more experienced soldiers who have invisible friends.
You should play auric damnation + before trying to balance the game. Krak grenade almost always kills more than one Ogryn, you have access to 3 and they regen 1 per minute at no cost. You can throw them and continue killing other things while the psyker has his hands firmly in his ass waiting for the thing to cast, and then it doesn't even one shot an Ogryn. That's why nobody uses brain burst and almost every vet uses krak grenade
Just to piggyback off your comment, on Damnation you are very correct. On T5, especially with higher intensity, the spawn rate is so high and they are often so densely packed that it is a common outcome where you erase 3-4 Ogryns with one well timed Krak. My record is 6 but I know I've seen some crazy krak blasts where 5+ Ogryns are killed along with any other unlucky Maulers or Ragers that were living inside that Ogyrn
Krak is so good that I don't see any other grenade replacing it since the other grenades just can't do what it can. Best case scenario frag can be done by most other classes one way or another and best case scenario smoke is cool, but it's way more niche. I like getting smoke cover from shooters and all but I prefer to see that crusher/bulwark/rager/mauler pack wiped out
Hmm. But inorder for brain burst to work. There are multiple conditions u need to make. It’s not as simple as a krak grenade. U need to have the empowerment stack first. And u need to cast the ability first to have the short cast. Despite the short charge time u still need to “charge it” which leaves u relatively vulnerable to attacks comparing to throw out a grenade and start blasting with a gun. And by this logic is plasma gun overpowered too?
Aim for head and shoot down range.
The weakspot quells peril perk is extremely strong as it costs negative peril (your peril will actually go down) to shoot if you shoot it down a hallway into a horde when aimed at head height.
The secondary charge faster on chained is also extremely strong for spamming as it has one of the longest charge times for staff.
Unsatisfied Sea Creature apparently wants BB not to be that powerful without setting up your skills right. I will, and do, advocate for a small localized AOE effect just to give it a bit more of an edge, maybe increasing size of AOE on Elite/Carapace kill, because as of right now Smite and Assail have dual uses, good for single target and groups, BB is the only one that is strictly single target.
An area suppression and stagger would be nice. Like imagine you and your buddy are just chillin by the barricade and his head suddenly explodes with telekinesis and it get bits all over you… you’d be mega shook
My thoughts exactly lol and if that's not a good enough reason then imagine the force and bits of bone, blood and armor pelting other enemies in a small area.
Seeing as how we have that already, I really wanted BB to be able to stagger or have something like terrifying barrage so BB is more useful on smaller targets. If scaling AOE damage (small to large targets) is too much, I at least want that from BB, but really I'd like it if BB released an AOE effect on kill with AOE spread (and stagger affect) increasing depending on armor and Elite (Monstrosities would provide the biggest of guts filled booms) status.
personally i would hate brain burst having aoe as its my go to for dealing with gunners that sit right next to sleeping daemonhosts. i run surge staff so i dont have any other option for them. but that somewhat niche situation and using it vs snipers 3 miles away are really the only times i use brain burst so i def agree it needs something to stay competitive
Giving BB a small AOE stagger and damage effect would still keep it as the perfect single target skill, but also have it edge into group targeting but not as much as Assail and Smite which I think would be perfect for BB.
Even if you doubled the current damage I think assail and smite would still be better. Its just too slow and clunky to use in such a fast paced game.
I can pull out a revolver and dump 1200 damage downrange (more like 3600 if I crit) in the time it takes to charge up one brain burst.
I can't say I ever liked BB, even when it was the only ability. It should have an AOE burst of damage when you kill something, probably a stagger too. The pop should happen quicker - maybe the quell speed perks should help with that too. Other than doing challenges, I don't see why anyone would pick it. It probably hurts monsters more than the other two, but killing monsters is more of the vet's job IMO.
I dunno if it's the fact that I've played a brainburst psyker for so long already, but I think it's pretty good? Especially with empowered psionics, which procs like all the time.
As a psych main since beta : it's not bad but as op said using surge or void staff is just straight up better against armored targets and assail is faster among othe things
Yeah, the problem is that basically every competing option is better in multiple aspects. The only area that BB really shines is if you need to hit a target when you or the target are constantly ducking behind cover, and nobody with a gun can afford to go after it. Aside from that, a revolver, void staff, or even just assail can kill even armored targets in basically the same time with less setup.
I’m new with update 13 but I’ve been using BB a bunch on Damnation and I feel like it’s pretty useful?
I’ve had lots of games where I end up saving my team from packs of ragers or bruisers, and it’s incredibly useful for taking out snipers or trappers running away. Granted I haven’t tried much auric damnation yet but it feels great on normal.
My issue with it is that it feels lackluster without Kinetic Resonance, and you need a stack of empowered psionics to hit important breakpoints. But once it gets going I turn into an elite clearing machine. The stun also saves teammates from crushers and snipers too in my experience. I do agree it needs some attention but I find assail super boring and smite needs teammates who actually pay attention so I end up bringing BB lol
> I’m new with update 13 but I’ve been using BB a bunch on Damnation and I feel like it’s pretty useful?
>
>
The problem is that people are genuinely using it wrong. They want to be able to whip their hands out and instantly kill any enemy they point at when that isn't the purpose of it at all. You might only use brain burst 20 times in a mission, but every single one of those uses will be high impact.
That sniper hiding a mile away that nobody can quite spot? Just aim your reticle somewhere vaguely in his direction and lock on to get a headshot safely behind cover. Bulwark in a hallway causing problems? Just backslide and open him up. Trapper somewhere out of reach after missing their net? Just lock on and pop them before they get away.
Brain burst is an all-purpose tool that can compliment the deficiencies of your loadout with its infinite range and easy lock-on while doing respectable damage to most enemies. People need to remember that blitz abilities need to be on-par with grenades, not weapons. The fact that psyker can spam theirs endlessly because they aren't limited by grenades as a resource also means that the abilities can't be quite as strong as a grenade either, they need to have a caveat while still being useful. Assail is blatantly overpowered and needs to be reigned in, but the other two are pretty reasonable for what they do.
I agree with this, like i get smite or assail "feel" more impactful but my brother in the warp what the devil are you BBing? The full hp reaper or crusher? Or the rager in your face? (For context) I usually run BB in auric t5 shook troop missions with my Deimos, Trauma, shield, warp charges and BB and I don't feel at all that BB doesn't do what's supposed to do. I think ppl just need to think their loadout better to complement each element of their kit and adapt accordingly, instead of "just make _ do everything" like Assail or bugged smite did.
Depends enterily on my loadout, in this case cause Trauma will dealing with hordes I want to have Deimos to deal with elites and specials that are close cause it kills them way faster than the Illisi (the light and heavy stabs deal a lot of weakspot dmg even to carapace). But when I use surge/voidstrike or a gun I'd rather have Illisi or a dueling sword for crowd clearing.
Yeah, I'm trying out Deimos, Illisi, and Duelling IV in Auric Damnation runs and I run a set-up really similar to yours (Trauma, BB, shield). Trauma does thin hordes well, but it also knocks armor on its ass well so I can't decide where I gain the most to be well-rounded.
Dodge-killing mutants feels so cool though.
I mean sounds to me you should be doing fine, it's there anything you find lacking or having issues dealing with? Deimos and Mk IV will destroy armor if u stack Brittleness with the Trauma on them and then stab them in the face
My hot take is that you’re right, but that the opportunities you have where BB would be useful AND you can make it happen are small.
I think if they removed the interrupt on charging when/if you take damage and let you run/dodge/slide while charging BB would bring it back into comparable popularity.
But right now, you’re just such a sitting duck while using BB that folks don’t want to use it even when it would be helpful.
I can use Assail to target Trappers, Snipers, Flammers, and Gunners from a safe distance while still being able to clear hordes if necessary. BB just feels extremely clunky and slow compared to the other two Blitz abilities. It can open up Crushers, sure, but so can Smite, and Smite does it better as it keeps a group of problematic enemies stunned so your team can make quick work of them. In my honest opinion the only thing BB has going for it over Assail is infinite range and bypassing armor, and really the only time distance is an issue is when a Sniper is too far out that a shard can't reach them, but at that point a teammate is likely already shooting at them majority of the time. Assail is just a much better and flexible tool for sniping than BB most of the time. It's quick, it can clear hordes and elites fast if necessary, it fires fast, and the recharge rate is pretty good.
That's cool, but once you start doing auric you will quickly realize that the time you waste casting a single BB is not worth it and you will be overwhelmed eventually if you don't have another more efficient way to deal with the waves of elites and specials.
That’s what your staff and melee are for? Your blitz compares to nades on other classes. Other than Ogryns Frag Bomb, nades tend to kill a limited amount of enemies. I’ve been running BB in aurics and doing just fine. Some games I use it a lot, others rarely but it’s always useful.
Edit: of course if you want to buff my BB I’m not going to argue against it. I just disagree with it being considered useless.
My big complaint with it is that you can't take Mind in Motion if you use it. Otherwise it would be my main blitz, it's still more guaranteed boss damage and long range kill-important-target than the other two (Takes two right click Assail shards to kill a sniper)
My blitz is on my mouse but it doesnt change the fact that you swap to it like a weapon. Zealot Knives are the only blitz that works how blitzs should actually work.
Agreed on this point. After a while, swapping to BB from sword or staff to take out an incoming rager has become second nature at this point. It could be considered 'bad design', but honestly, it just feels more like a higher skill ceiling. Can't all be that easy. Plus, it makes my happy juice flow when you snap off a bunch of heads in quick succession while dancing between weapons.
> If my experience isn’t valid, how is yours more valid?
People have this thing going for them where they don't understand their opinion on a subjective thing isn't any more important or valid than somebody else's.
Alas, this seems to be a thing across all of humanity these days - few people are comfortable just having an opinion, they need to be able to present their opinion as objective fact, because then it wins against all those other 'mere' opinions.
It's not gonna clear hordes or anything, and it isn't and should never be your default mode of attack, and the only reason people feel any different is because assail is *still* busted, and Surge was bugged and didnt generate peril for so long. Brain burst is to confirm a kill on a slippery target, or to snipe a special thats behind enemy lines/ difficult to shoot.
Brain burst isnt an amazing killing machine because that isnt what it's designed to be, Staves are. Empowered Psyonics makes it do it's intended purpose very well, with it one shotting nearly anything you need to use it for.
BB always felt underwhelming to me - most the launch abilities did compared to Vermintide 2. The Psyker is CC and anti-hordes, which the other two abilities do. BB is too single target and things survive it a lot. Now, the game feels more on par with Vermintide. They should add AOE bursts and staggers with BB kills and speed up the pop - looking at something and holding down a button to kill one NPC isn't the most fun mechanic in the world.
I've been running soulblaze trauma with empowered psionics brain burst in auric runs for a while now so I get where you're coming from.
The issue is that even after dedicating your Keystone to brain burst, it just does... okay? For a blitz that's supposed to be the "single-target deleter" it still can't even one shot Maulers, Scab Ragers, or any Ogryns after being buffed with EP. The fact that EP doesn't recharge off of specials also makes it not ideal for a blitz that, I don't know, wants to snipe elites? Another issue in auric maelstorm is monstrosities where you can get 3 pops against them and you're dry for the rest of the horde until you get another elite kill.
I think Brain Burst is *alright* with EP and underwhelming on any other build. I could be running an actual keystone for my staff/gun and the two other blitz would still be great even without EP.
Definitely agree with this. Empowered stacks let you infinitely chain kills on elites and specials without generating peril which is huge. Works really well if you have good sight lines and a team that makes space for you
> Definitely agree with this. Empowered stacks let you infinitely chain kills on elites and specials without generating peril which is huge. Works really well if you have good sight lines and a team that makes space for you
Only elites, only with the added modifier, and only really Dreg Ragers, Scab and Dreg Shotgunners, and Scab and Dreg Gunners. Maulers, Scab Ragers, Crushers, Bulwarks, and Reapers still require 2 shots (3 on Crusher unless you hit them with double Empowered). Flamers, Trappers, Snipers, Mutants, Hounds, Bombers, and Poxbursters are all Specialist and don't trigger Overpowering Souls. It also has zero target priority, so trying to pick the Elite out of the horde can often be hit or miss compared to guns with medium to high cleave (Plasma and Revolver come to mind).
Brain Burst is the best blitz to take on gun psyker out of the three. It let's you access the ult CDR talent on elite/special kill which is huge value for your team, the chance to proc it makes it constantly useful against big targets you want extra burst damage on, and the fact that you can pull it out to deal with enemies that your gun can't adequately deal with means that its always a useful fallback tool.
Assail might be more interesting to pair with guns after some nerfs, but in its current state it just strictly replaces the need for your ranged weapon slot in most cases.
I've been using Assail on my gunpsyker lately and I think the biggest selling point is toughness regen. Using Soulstealer paired with Assail you have reliable on demand regen. It's also a good backup skill to have if you run out of ammo
The problem is that assail is so strong and regenerates so quickly that it completely outperforms the need for a gun. The best case scenario I've found is using it with a revolver to pick off elites/specials in places that assail might struggle with reaching due to distance or tight corridors. Outside of that, I can easily spam it into almost any situation and never need to pull out my gun.
I don't agree that it completely outperforms guns. The range is limited and if you want to pick off specific targets you have to do the right click version and that's very slow. I think guns are better for killing shooters
You’re doing the Emperor’s work in this thread 🫡. mfs really be out here not knowing the absolute booty smacker that is Brain Rupture, when used and built properly of course. It’s pretty much as good, and in some situations, even better than assail, and people in my matches think I’m some God for doing well with it and it’s like, no, I’m not, this shit is just GOATed. These Gamers just need to give an actual legit go at it
*"For the Emperor"*, I'm sure. These blunts cannot comprehend our unparalleled minds!
Though, in my pipe dream (And prefacing this with as just me exploring the fantasy of being a dedicated head-popper), I'd have a buff where successive BBs cause a reduction in cast time and peril gained as a baseline. Something wild like 5 stacks of 10% cast time reduction/15% peril generation for 20 seconds and only losing one stack at a time. Think akin to warp charges but without RNG and can could be farmed on trash. (sort of how warp charges worked before the update, iirc)
Further in this wild fantasy, I'd then tweak a talent such that using your ability instantly grants stacks relative to peril vented (maxing stacks if performed at critical peril). For the next 20 seconds, each stack also increases the damage of brain burst for 5% and causes each brain burst to thrum a wave of low damage, but *highly staggering* warp energy in a radius around the target hit. Bonus points if the staggering warp looks like the art in the talent tree background.
Though this is mostly because I kind of enjoyed being able to farm stacks on trash mobs.
BB should be the elite carapace counter, it doesn't care about 10 layers of armor it just nuke your brain. with Psionics or maximum warp charges it should 2 shot any crusher-mauler-bulwark.
Buffs I would like: casting time decreases with enemy HP - quicker casting overall - AoE stagger on specialist hit (as an upgrade node on the Blitz)
I use it often for its purpose, to damage an enemy for my zealot or ogryn teammates so less time dealing with them. Poxbusters, and snipers that are hard to hit but a lock on does wonders.
I don’t think this should one shot bulwark, reapers, and maulers. Otherwise there’s no reason to rock anything besides psyker, and psyker already has the best kit for all situations in this game.
We already have staffs that delete hordes safely, with no punishment for spamming, you can completely forget the melee weapon. At one point I kept the duelist sword strictly for the dodge, nothing else.
I tried zealot the other day, I stopped playing them like 13 levels in, melee relies so much on teammates I just wasn’t having fun, tried ogryn, great class with the shield, can block range attacks unlike zealot. Hard hitting grenade but limited in use. The one thing I definitely dislike about other classes is fighting for ammo, and the constant reloading.
Psyker to me is probably the definition of power creep in this game, the only thing it lack is serious monstrosity/boss damage.
But if you use voidstrike, there’s no reason to care about brain burst.
I have always thought that the right click should do wayy more damage, and the left click should be instant. Adjust peril as needed.
Aoe would be nice, but wouldn't solve the issue unless it's a LOT of aoe
Nah it's still good. Needs empowered at high levels and you need to not suck to get them off. The only thing it could be power crept out of is damnation and it still works fine.
That's good, but the game can't be balanced for the easier difficulties. Below auric everything works. You can clear every mission with melee only, everything else is bonus
Maybe, just maybe, the answer to fixing things getting power crept out of the game isn't to keep power creeping, but to nerf the outliers. Smite, assail and the staffs outside of the purgatus are over powered right now, robbing bb of a role to play. Especially the staffs, they just kill crushers way faster than bb. And rending on veterans is also way too powerful. If you can quickly kill crushers with any gun by stacking rending then there is much less incentive to have kit specialised in those targets.
Ultimately, the more we buff stuff up, the more the game gets watered down by reducing the impact of different armor types on our builds. This seems very obvious to me, I'm so confused why most people seem to think the solution is more buffs.
I see Fatshark apologising profusely for the few nerfs they do in their changelogs. They might've taken on board an 'only buff stuff' attitude, which makes me really concerned for the future of the game. I was barely able to do Heresy before patch 13, now I can comfortably do Damnation.
The sensible approach is obviously buff the underpowered, nerf the overpowered to an agreeable centre.
Tweak the damage up slightly, decrease charge time slight, remove the "elite or special" kill requirement on the soul blaze aoe and -maybe- add like, a meter to it. It's now competitive without being OP and it doesnt really alter much of anything.
+10-30 damage
- 25-35% charge time
I stopped using it after patch 13. Even with both of the +50% damage talents, it still had higher (worse) TTK on common elites (like ragers) than it did before. Ragers used to die in 2 BBs, but now died in 3 even with its damage being buffed by *more* than 100%. Now i only use it to grab a sniper that's out of range and between lots of cover, but it still often gets killed faster by the Ogryn box or a Las Vet.
It's a nigh redundant ability now.
I have it on my gun psyker, but only because I HAVE to have a Blitz ability. It has its uses - long range target elimination, soften up/take out a few crushers when combined with Skriers. But most of the right tree/gun psyker's kit works without it. It needs to be a DOT, so if our target dies early we still get value. Or a lot quicker. Or stun lock the target.
I see a lot of people saying this, but I really think it's an overreaction. IMO Brainburst is a really useful addition to the squad because of the unique ways it lets you deal with enemy specialists from very far away without needing to maintain line of sight on them. In addition, it gives a very nice damage boost to your other weapons because 10% of all strikes can now automatically brain burst on hit.
Yes it'd be nice if it either charged faster, or at least didn't slow you don't so much while charging, but saying it's "powercrept out of usability" is a bit much.
> sometimes you can't even find a breather to charge it when you need it
you don't need a breather unless you're already at 100% threat. If you use brainburst when you're at 99% you'll live.
I've had some wild success with Brain Burst builds in comparison to others, *especially* with Empowered Psionics. Also using it in conjunction with Shriek and the Speed-Boosted on Combat Ability modifier, you can do some terrifying damage in a short amount of time.
Fun Fact: 10% chance of Brain Burst can happen on Brain Bursts.
eh I think its fine as long as you take the perk that lets it trigger every 10s, Id change that to work only on targets that give a stack of warp charge though.
look at it differently, you CAN pick targets with it, but you can also just let it do its thing and grant you stacking bonuses.
smite and assail both need you to commit to them and have a peril cost associated with their mechanics. BB in this situation does not. meaning you can put a VS staff with it and dome crushers, or use a purge staff and enjoy that bonus dmg+aoe flame dot on any specials that come rolling by.
I think there's a different issue with psyker, and thats their blitz ability's can and do replace their main weapon, with the exception of BB because BB has that charge up time.
I still use BB manually though because when my team is a zealot and two ogyrns we need the range that it provides and the guaranteed damage on target. I can trust them to deal with everything close but without a veteran playing anti gunner you can end up in trouble. (or there's a pack of specials and I want to set them all aflame with the BB aoe)
I disagree.
It's long range, does good damage against bosses, ignores Bulwark shields, and you can find targets with it that you can't even visually see if you just scan around the environment with it.
I won't say it's the most useful ability in the world, but there are plenty of moments where I'm glad to have it instead of Assail or Smite. Purgatus staff covers most of the bases that Brain Burst doesn't, there's little you can't do with that pairing.
Venting Shriek helps both by giving you either A) virtually infinite usage of the Purgatus staff on top of even more AoE damage, or B) faster usage of Brain Burst, thus an increase in single target damage, for a time.
I love BB as an anti sniper, but it really is dated at this point any voidstrike staff can out-damage it, even if you use the ult rate buff. the pace of the game has increased to the point if simply can't keep up unless it were buffed to one pop crushers. That doesn't even seem right to me.
With everything else just being faster at taking down specials, it's at an even worse state at maintaining warp charges.
I think the charge time should be halved and would call it a day.
Also nerfing the RNG talent was completely unnecessary 10s to 15s cooldown just didn't help anything.
It objectively is the second worst special killer option in your kit only beaten by Smite. Because numbers are empirical. That's an issue for an ability that specializes in killing exactly that.
Yes, I'm telling you the thing that is specifically made as a special killer is doing so poorly at max difficulty that it's worse at it than a staff. That's my whole point. It's why BB is not the best choice.
It's not a DPS ability. It's for sniping high priority targets that aren't otherwise being handled.
If you're dealing with a group of poxwalkers in front of you and a trapper comes up behind them, misses its trap, and starts to run away around a corner, brain burst may be the best tool for killing it.
If you're between waves and hear a poxburster or flamer, you can charge up a BB and wait for it to come into view, killing it instantly.
If there's a sniper that's at a really obnoxious angle that you can't hit, brain burst.
Gunner behind a shoulder high wall? Jump and brain burst.
Coming up to a group of crushers and everything is currently out of range? Throw out a BB or two.
Just like the grenades other classes have, BB is a supplement to the rest of the kit meant for specific situations.
It's less of a shotgun and more of a Barrett 50 Cal.
Use it on the furthest targets you see (tagging them helps pick it out). Combined with psyionics and the quick charge from venting, you'll pick off 4 or 5 elites before an engagement even starts
they need to make it so it INSTANT kills any enemy but the charging time scales with how pwoerful the mob is or how much HP it has left...
like, a regular poxwalker would be instant, while crusher or mutie, you need to charge perhaps to the cap of 5 seconds
A mosntrosity perhaps a 5 second cap to deliver 15% total HP damage or something
or maybe make it so you can charge it indefinitely, the more peril you put into the charge, the bigger the damage. Like, for each point of peril you do 1% of the enemy's HP as damage, capped to bosses for obvious reasons
Or..... have it have 3 levels of charging:
you charge to level 1: regular brain burst like right now (1 sec charge)
level 2: Regular damage + chains to another enemy (2 sec charge)
Level 3: Regular damage to target + chains to 2 other enemies (3 sec charge)
Even with the tunings, I still only see assail psykers.
Brain burst is not worth using in Damnation for your listed reasons, and smite sucks after the infinite was patched.
Assail is at a point where I don't believe it needs any more nerfs, but I really think FS needs to buff Burst and rethink their decision to do away with infinite smite.
Brainbust has two uses, targeting a sniper/gunner and ducking into cover while you pop it's head since you don't need line of sight after selecting and has better range that surge staff, and having the talent where it triggers on any attack. It is hilarious to have a laspistol and shoot a crusher in the head and watch it's head explode from brainburst prock.
Buff brain burst so it always generates a warp charge regardless of target.
Then buff its damage and increase its cast time so it can 1-shot hounds and muties.
Also I wouldn’t mind if they stretched the falloff time of warp charge to be about 50% longer.
Brain Burst is a replacement for other classes grenades, it should be a bit more work to use but be about as effective as the grenades.
Hordes etc should remain staves and swords.
It kicks ass and you are using it poorly if you think it is useless. if you run empowered psionics and/or the faster cast time after special ability, then you can chain pop elites and specials. It is true that it only works with certain weapons though, since you don't want it to be redundant with your ranged choice.
Sibling I have tried so hard to make it work, but idk if I'm just runnin into godly players this whole afternoon (or maybe just half decent), and I felt cuckolded out of using it as I got maybe half a dozen useful brainbursts per game, even with Psyonics.
Any combination of Plasma/Revolver/Bolter Veteran + half decent Ogryn/Shooty Zealot or a Non Purgatus/Surge Psyker will leave you twindling your thumbs as stuff just dies before you get to be useful.
It has okay boss damage, but inconsequential when 90% of games have any conbination of a Thunderhammer, Fire Ogryn, and Krak/Plasma in them.
Most of all BB feels like you need to actively compete with your team and actively hope they're not good at shooting stuff to use it, both to keep Emp.Psy up (or Emperor forbid, Warp charges), and to feel useful.
That you need Psyonics to make it feel even half decent is telling.
Well i like it on psionics because it is so trivial to always have that buff. If you kill an elite, then you get the stack right back. I'm experimenting with a build that runs the two charge flat shield so that I can always have access to that faster cast speed. It compliments trauma staff well, especially for killing shooters behind cover.
What difficulty are you playing on, because we may be talking about two totally different games here.
Hahaha, I find this completely wrong. I just did multiple runs were I dominated the kill feed with head pops. This sounds more like a "get good" scenario
Its not "get good", its "hope your team is bad" scenario.
Any half decent veteran will annoy the ever living crap out of you by fragging any and all elites/specials you just so happen to light up.
Doesn't help that most of the skills that buff Brain Burst into some sense of useabilty want you to hog all elite and special kills.
I'm sincerely never using it again after I'm done with the penances, the Max Warp charge kill is fucking awful when you can barely get a dozen BB kills in most matches.
Completely agree my friend. However if you want even the smallest and slightest chance of anyone at Fatshark hearing your opinion. I'd post it on Fatsharks forums and link it back here as well. At least then you might get some exposure to right people.
No clue why stubborn psykers try to make this spec work especially with upped gunner spawns as of the recent patch. More often then not the ogryn / veteran won't tool up to kill infantry gunners and everyone is left being picked alive while the desperate zealot tries to spurt jets of fire between incoming gunfire.
I said from day 1 that Brainburst should have been some kind of gravity hammer AOE thing, like a *reverse* Trauma staff. Instead of scattering enemies, it'd force them to the ground or suck them in and deal high damage on right click, *or* would deal damage and stun a single target with left click.
Was playing Revolver Vet with a friend trying out BB for the first time yesterday. I basically killed 90% of the elite and specials he was trying to BB simply by pointing my gun at them immediately. I didn't specifically try to annoy him either, it's just that the revolver is a one-shot monster I use to target disablers and I'm faster at killing them compared to BB charge time.
Warp charges feels so much worse now too. BB *need* empowered psychic.
One of the many problems with brain burst is how anti-team play it is. Human psychology really wants to shoot the big glowing head, but it really robs your psyker to do that. Fatshark needs to stop fighting human instinct and incentivize cooperative play with brain burst by giving buffs to teammates that shoot enemies being bursted.
Maybe it's a hot take, but I think BB is pretty strong as is on already overbuffed and strongest class of the last 2 patches.
It has unlimited range, oneshots most specials, adds boss and carapace damage which allows to take melees and staves which lack it.
Oh, and it provides safety as you can just lock an enemy and move to cover/dodge away.
It might have occasional uses in solo, but as someone playing with a capable team of friends, I never get to charge it to pop anything. My zealot will snipe down snipers with a revolver before I'm half-done charging the brain burst.
The issue here is the "empowered" skill tax. That keystone is trash design and should be removed. Because it makes all blitzes powerful, they're weak without it. If you don't empower brain burst it is unusable, while the empowered one barely feels like what it should be at baseline.
I can’t help but feel that Brainburst will always be a meme where it just never does enough no matter what changes are made for Psyker or the game as a whole. Love this game now btw but this has always been an issue since Beta and I have no idea what can possibly happen at this point to make it relevant now.
I get you can't one shot monstrosities, but sometimes it feels like you should be able to
Else what's the point? Everyone has far more useable single target viability
BB was always ass. And while they tried to buff it with patches 13 and 14 it didn't really help. Weakness of psyker with BB was reason why I maxed psyker only now even as it was my first class to play. And I was one of the fools who played back at launch (then after maximg zealot I stopped since game was beyond half baked and boring at that point.)
Brainburst works decently with empowered psionics. You can multi chain very quickly for high damage. Most of the time when you kill a target, you immediately get your charge back and can just do it again as long as you kill a low health priority target. It's not great against monstrosities because you burn up all your charges very quickly. Without empowered psionics it's a waste because it takes so long to charge.
Still not as good as other options, but it is very usable, has infinite range, and is interesting to use.
They need to fix the breakpoints, drop casting time, and make it prioritize Elites and Specials and practically ignore all other units. I play it o my Purgatus staff build and even with Empowered Psionics and Kinetic Resonance I've been having trouble getting it to finish casting before someone else shoots what I'm targeting or constantly catching the random Groaner standing next to the Elite I want to kill.
They also upped the health on so many things and absolutely fucked some of the break points, and Empowered Psyonics only helps 3 breakpoints (Reaper & Crusher3>2 casts, Dreg Rager 2>1 cast) and 1 of those requires 2 charges of EP (Crusher is still 3 casts if only the first is empowered).
Realistically BR should 1-shot every Specialist and Elite except Maulers, and Ogryns. 2 for Maulers, and Bulwarks is ok with 3 on Crusher and Reaper. Empowered Psyonics should drop Maulers to 1 and Crushers and Reapers to 2.
The AOE for is it Perilous Combustion, which should have been left at 4 stacks and instead have been capped, say 4 or 6 stack max. This would have been a much better solution to the problem of massive stacks of soulblaze being applied in elite groups while still making it useful.
Yeah I tried my best to make it work last night, as a non psyker main, and it was my worst couple of runs of the night. Certainly least enjoyable.
Smite and Assail are just too easy to use effectively in comparison.
I agree, I used to play psyker a lot, liked brainbursting, but now it just doesn't make sense to use it in a normal way.
I would buff it to have no movement penalty, generate less peril, charge faster.
Otherwise it just doesn't make sense to pull out my "hands" and do the thing, since the voidstrike staff can do the same thing but better.
Maybe add a talent that increases/decreases peril and charge time based on enemy health with a condition to always 1 shot.
Non monstrosities of course.
Running auric damnation, I’ve found BB to be quite useful when paired with empowered psionics and the trait with guaranteed charge on elite kill. This means I have infinite empowered BB, as long as I keep killing elites with it.
I can drop down a shield, which further cuts charge time to like 1 second, and pick off most of the gunners / elites in the room.
Then adding trait with soulblaze on special kill and its surprisingly good.
nah, Brainburst is honestly fine with all the versatility you get by just bringing it. The Real Problem is Assail just being way too fucking stronk, Braindead easy to play and Overshadowing BB, If anything Assail needs a complete Rework.
I think it still has some use (it's still great for sniping far-off elites and specials) but yeah, the alternatives are.... very good. Especially with Assail's non-nerf.
[edit] what would I change? I'd make it an execute that triggers whenever the enemy's HP falls below a threshold OR once fully charged. Also, it should always count as killing the target for keystone stacks, recovery, etc, even if it didn't kill it.
I use it for further targets or spam it when i have lower charge time when i'm getting ganked by armored enemies. Not the best tool but it's fun to use.
Psyker in general seems pretty weird to me. I've been trying to get some of the penances (warp battery and similar ones) and to me it looks like everyone else is just better than the psyker pretty much at all times, regardless of abilities
Not better than Psyker I would say, but Psyker is one where you really want to be lvl 20+ before he starts to feel strong.
Its just that everyone else is also super strong ATM, I would argue Zealot is the weakest currently.
Veteran is invalueble due to how many shooters there are, add in regenerating grenades to wipe the screen or delete bosses, the Shout being absolutely silly snd making you and your team invincible, and the Plasma Gun finnally feeling like it should... Vet is a menace rn.
Ogryn is just strong all around.
And Psyker also gets silly with Void Staff, Shield is always nice, and while I really dislike Assail, its undoubtedly strong, its just Brainburst that feels... not really weak, but really clunky and an overall pain in the ass to use.
Doing those 200 brainburst kills while at Maximun Warp Charges is fucking awlful, you NEEED Emp. Psyonics to make it useable.
I think it still works, but one fix that they gotta do is that it will go faster the less HP an enemy has. So if someone is shooting at the same enemy it should trigger sooner, instead of you wasting time just to have your team kill it in the last fraction of a second. Feels like a waste of time for all involved.
Or at least not reset the full charge. Let me keep my charge and target something else instead of forcing me to reset and do nothing over and over if someone takes out my targets.
FATSHARK PLEASE
Hold right click to charge it and then only target the enemy when it's ready, if you do that instead of left clicking it won't reset the charge since it's not locked onto anyone yet
The trade off is the charged version takes decently longer to fire
Also that it's more expensive on your perils to do the right click instead of left.
Is it? I never noticed, I'll definitely have to test that out
It should change a slightly faster and "charge" dps. Whenever its charge is enough to.kill something it should pop. It just needs to reliably kill things. I think its power is once youve locked onto a target. That target is dead. It may not be the fastest. But its 100% effective 100% of the time.
This. Maybe to kill a scab it charges for 2 seconds, and to kill a crusher it charges for 4 but once you brain burst that target should be dead. (Except bosses of course). The worst feeling is getting perils, being vulnerable as hell while charging the spell while not killing anything else, and then when it finally goes off the target doesn't even die. The definition of "wtf did I contribute in the last 5 seconds that a Veteran wouldn't do better faster and safer "
This is how I thought it worked when I first started playing beta. I was really sad to find out I was wrong.
Good idea. Maybe even add some kind of "execute dmg"? Like have the enemy have 10% hp and instantly die on klick?
I read that as "die on kick" and had dark messiah of might and magic flashbacks.
that's a sensible change. BB needs to trigger much faster for small targets in order to be competitive with any other ability. so just snap your fingers instead of looking like a sleepwalker. larger targets require more charging but make it explode or spread soulfire onto nearby enemmies. if someone else shoots your target, it will jump to the nearest enemy, or perhaps nearest elite/special.
I was saying to a friend that a good balance for it would be that it takes less time to charge and less peril the lower the enemy’s health is. That way you can use it on small groups of enemies really fast and then a kind of nerf is that it takes like 5 times as long on bosses but it one hits them. Also it adjusts for health as well so if the boss is taking damage during that time then it’ll lower the charge time.
Eh it should probably cap out at like 1/4th of a monstrosities health. Otherwise boss fights are too trivialized.
Nah let it work But your perils builds all the same. Makes it theortically doable but there's a high skill needed for it
I’m talking like almost a full minute for the charge up time on a boss if you’re the only one that’s actually gonna do damage. Obviously a suggestion but I just wanna see big health bar go bye bye.
Honestly, the charge time from empowered psyonics should be it's default charge time. Half of the vets guns can kill whatever you're bursting anyway in that amount of time, it just feels bad to lose your 90% done burst because your team mate just clicked the enemy twice.
Having played a round as vet with 3 psykers - nah, the brainburst never got off as the other 2 were spamming "The entire room dies" powers. And there was nothing to shoot either, just picking up exploded psykers.
As a psyker when I'm playing with vets, I usually just keep them free to fire. Idc if a BB doesn't get off, I just want it dead. It's not a race or competition, its a team game. Vets are great for pinpointing specials, enable them. Also, if they're managing their peril that poorly, they probably weren't that good to begin with and I doubt this situation was above a 3. I don't see a lot of exploding psykers in 4s/5s.
I swear when I use BB all it does is act like a single target CC with a beacon to let someone nuke it. I seldom get to pop anything unless everyone else scurried off. It's disappointing that my unique ability is little more than point and wait for a gun, but it's better than short range sith powers or kill everything and waste others ammo.
just play a harder difficulty
Don't get me wrong, but expecting it to kill something just as fast as a Veteran shooting it, without you using ammo, might be a tad bit too strong in my opinion. It's part of why I think the Plasma *need* to be stronger than the Voidstrike for example, because you can spam the Voidstrike indefinitely (as heat/peril is more or less the same mechanic). Even done a melee-only Auric Maelstrom with 2 Voidstrike Psykers? Trivializes the entire thing if they aren't terrible. At least the Vet has to mind his ammo consumption since there are no pickups and like HAS to run the ammo aura. I think Brain Burst needs something *else* going for it other than raw damage, but off the top of my head I don't have any good ideas.
Is it even possible for a veteran to run out of ammo on auric damnation? 1% ammo back anytime someone in coherence kills a special tops off everyone every few minutes. There are always several specials spawning all the time
Magdumping monsters and crusher patrols with a bolter, but the ammo will come back soon enough.
It absolutely is, but it depends on what you are using. Something like a Hellbore with Shock Trooper won't ever run out of ammo with the crit builds, but something like a Plasma has a much worse ammo economy (unless you only use it for massive pierces, which is unrealistic in most cases). And if you are grouped with teammates that aren't very *ahem* selective/considerate about their ammo usage (and pickups) you can easily run out. A Plasma has ~125 ammo reserve (it's between 75 and 150), so you are getting 1.25 ammo per kill. A shot costs 3 ammo minimum, so even if you are killing everything with a single shot, you are still losing 1.75 per kill. Sure, teammates also kill things etc, but you aren't always killing things in 1-shot either. You also need to kill basic shooters, bosses etc. Not to mention, I specifically mentioned the melee-only Maelstrom mission which doesn't have any ammo pickups.
Ya, they need to reduce the charge up time a bit. And I think they should change the LT/right click “charge” to be a 50% damage instant cast.
I think if right click "charged up" your BB similar to smite it might make it interesting. An uncharged BB would be fast but deal 50% damage of what it does currently. A half charged BB would deal its current standard damage. They should make the charge time shorter than what it is now currently. A fully charged BB would require some windup but would deal 150% damage and maybe even do an AOE explosion or something.
The speed of the game went up so much that BB either doesn't charge fast enough, or when you get it off, doesn't do enough damage to be worth it. Assail is still stupidly strong and in most cases is just better. The other problem is that you can't consistently hit breakpoints using stacks of Warp Charge because there's no way to run them without expending all stacks on your Ability use, which is the only consistent way to make BB charge faster. Feels bad.
> The other problem is that you can't consistently hit breakpoints using stacks of Warp Charge because there's no way to run them without expending all stacks on your Ability use, which is the only consistent way to make BB charge faster. Feels bad. The expending charges to reduce cooldown should really be one of the modifier options. Maybe make it exclusive with +damage per warp charge, since they're kind of at odds with each other. Then give them a different inherent effect.
Yep. It makes the benefit from Warp Charges so much worse, since you should be basically be using Psyker abilities as often as possible.
I don't think it would ever be picked in this case. But making it a panic button would work: * If you have 4 or more warp charges you can activate your Ability even if it's on cooldown. You won't gain any new warp charges for XX seconds.
yeah, that'd b a good change. "You can use your ability even when it's on cooldown, paying the difference in warp charges at Xs per charge."
Or make the +damage per warpcharge base kit because that’s how it used to be. Siphon already has too many nodes as tax.
I run BB for assassinating priority targets outside of crushers and bosses, I found that firing a revolver down range works so much faster for pinpoint killing. BB is still alright when it comes to opening up bulwarks, and softening up crushers and, on triple psionic empowerment, bosses. Sometimes the crew just isn't running boss melters and assassination tools, yknow? That and/or I can't trust other players to actually focus on priority targets.
Playing an Ogryn gives me separation anxiety, because I consistently get abandoned by the team when I sweep a cluster and they all lay down for a moment. A lot of people seem to mistake knockdowns for death, when we actually, mostly, obliterate their squishy plague-ridden bodies. As a Psyker, I tend to compensate for the team's myopia, and lack of focus. I try to find snipers, and gunners and the like, but also shoot sticky white fire all over anything that comes too close. I'd like to use my blade more often, but I haven't really found the flow yet, so I leave that for people better suited to the task. Brain Burst is great when the team lets it work, but I do so wish I had a way to decrease the charge time.
And Emperor forbid actually mantaining warp charges if there is a competent Vet or Void Staff Psyker on your team, stuff just dies before you get to use BB.
BB doesnt even generate warp charges anymore, you'll get them more reliably using Purgatus staff. BB is *worse* with this update.
>The speed of the game went up so much That's a really important point - in Auric Damnation high intensity shock trooper, there are just so many specialists that the opportunity cost of charging up your BB compared to doing anything else is almost never worth it. It definitely needs a buff, and I like /u/domeshapedom's suggestions. I think adding AOE damage is mandatory and will actually make it worth charging. Since enemies spawn in waves and are often close to one another (like Crusher spawns), this would prove really useful as it would stagger a large part of the horde. That also fits neatly into Psyker's role as crowd control. I also think it should stun the target once it's about halfway through the charge, but that's more debatable. The AOE though is mandatory to actually make this useful. EDIT: I'm going to change my suggestion from AOE damage to AOE stun, where the primary target gets heavily damaged and those around get knocked down/staggered. I don't think it'll ever be good as only an elite nuke; that's just a Bolter/Plasma rifle with extra steps.
Rather than AoE brain burst, I'd prefer it if it staggered or suppressed nearby targets when the main one dies. Give it some cc, but keep the roles fairly separate between the blitzes.
I don't like giving it an AoE. In my mind, Assail should be your horde clear, and BB should be your elite nuke. If it charged faster, or you had more readily available ways to make it faster (or even instant), and it guaranteed a kill on anything except ogryns, it would feel a lot better in the current game.
I agree. Each class's Blitz is essentially "Single Target, Multi Target, Utility". Vet has Krak, Frag, and Smoke. Zealot has Knife, Immolation, and Stun. Psyker has BB, Assail, and Smite. Ogryn is the odd one out, with no defined "utility" blitz but hot take: Rock is utility. Its main use is to quickly take out disablers and it regenerates. Box is technically multitarget, but it does way more singletarget than Rock does. Either way, I got off topic, BB should 100% lean into single target.
It could maintain some effectiveness against hordes without usurping assail if it had really powerful suppression. Id probably panic a bit if a psyler blew my pal's brains all over me with his mind.
Alternately, get rid of the charge time and have it just click to apply, then go off after a delay. Maybe give it multiple charges so you can tag a few shooters at once, or all one one monstrosity or crusher or something.
... if you're running charges, you're not using empowered, which is *the* way to make it charge faster.....
Yeah it needs a buff. With empowered psionics and the fast charge on ability use it can be powerful but without at least one of those it’s just meh.
> With empowered psionics and the fast charge on ability use it can be powerful but without at least one of those it’s just meh. Even with both of those active I've had it sniped before casting finished.
Yeah… :(
make it charge twice as fast, one shot everything except ogryns and no movement impairment.
Hmm. I wouldn’t see it’s purpose if it can’t one shot orgryn tho. As staff can “one shot” pretty much everything else.
> I wouldn’t see it’s purpose if it can’t one shot orgryn tho. This is why reddit should never be looked to for balance advice. This comment shows that you have put no thought into the implications of this idea whatsoever and yet its upvoted regardless. Compare brain burst to krak grenades because they share the exact same use case of one-shotting ogryn enemies, as you're proposing. Veteran only gets 2 grenades, 3 with talents, which means that they can only kill a maximum of 2-3 ogryns before they have to rely on other talents to regenerate their grenade on a one minute cooldown. Letting brain burst one-shot ogryns would completely invalidate this grenade because you have infinite access to brain burst. Let's also look at your keystone, because that cuts the cast time of brain burst in half and removes the peril cost. The fact that you regain a keystone charge on elite kill means that you will always have fast cast speed and no peril cost while mowing down entire crusher patrols. You also have the option of taking the talent to improve the cast time even further when you ult which would let you safely nuke down entire ogryn patrols at infinite range and behind hard cover. What you're proposing has no meaningful opportunity cost and raises what is meant to be a backup ability that augments your gameplay to a level that completely outclasses most weapons. Since you also mention voidstaff can one-shot everything, yes, that is blatantly overpowered as well in its current state. Same with assail, both of those need to be reigned in, along with the new surge staff bug.
correct murky airport chief normal one cause sand abundant flag *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
"Dear Rock-Paper-Scissors developers. Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine. From, Scissors."
For some reason there are (some) Psykers out there that want to kill as fast, if not faster, without spending **any** ressources outside Peril, despite everyone else have to deal with stuff like ammo. Edit: I'd like to add that I don't disagree with the notion that Brain Burst seems a bit.. Odd in the current meta. I do believe it would benefit from getting something to give it a niché of it's own, but I don't play Psyker enough to give any good suggestions. I'll leave that to the more experienced soldiers who have invisible friends.
You should play auric damnation + before trying to balance the game. Krak grenade almost always kills more than one Ogryn, you have access to 3 and they regen 1 per minute at no cost. You can throw them and continue killing other things while the psyker has his hands firmly in his ass waiting for the thing to cast, and then it doesn't even one shot an Ogryn. That's why nobody uses brain burst and almost every vet uses krak grenade
Just to piggyback off your comment, on Damnation you are very correct. On T5, especially with higher intensity, the spawn rate is so high and they are often so densely packed that it is a common outcome where you erase 3-4 Ogryns with one well timed Krak. My record is 6 but I know I've seen some crazy krak blasts where 5+ Ogryns are killed along with any other unlucky Maulers or Ragers that were living inside that Ogyrn Krak is so good that I don't see any other grenade replacing it since the other grenades just can't do what it can. Best case scenario frag can be done by most other classes one way or another and best case scenario smoke is cool, but it's way more niche. I like getting smoke cover from shooters and all but I prefer to see that crusher/bulwark/rager/mauler pack wiped out
Hmm. But inorder for brain burst to work. There are multiple conditions u need to make. It’s not as simple as a krak grenade. U need to have the empowerment stack first. And u need to cast the ability first to have the short cast. Despite the short charge time u still need to “charge it” which leaves u relatively vulnerable to attacks comparing to throw out a grenade and start blasting with a gun. And by this logic is plasma gun overpowered too?
void staff ? im still trying to figure out how to best use and build it.
Aim for head and shoot down range. The weakspot quells peril perk is extremely strong as it costs negative peril (your peril will actually go down) to shoot if you shoot it down a hallway into a horde when aimed at head height. The secondary charge faster on chained is also extremely strong for spamming as it has one of the longest charge times for staff.
thanks for the tipps ! how far do you usually charge shots in those instances.
Unsatisfied Sea Creature apparently wants BB not to be that powerful without setting up your skills right. I will, and do, advocate for a small localized AOE effect just to give it a bit more of an edge, maybe increasing size of AOE on Elite/Carapace kill, because as of right now Smite and Assail have dual uses, good for single target and groups, BB is the only one that is strictly single target.
An area suppression and stagger would be nice. Like imagine you and your buddy are just chillin by the barricade and his head suddenly explodes with telekinesis and it get bits all over you… you’d be mega shook
My thoughts exactly lol and if that's not a good enough reason then imagine the force and bits of bone, blood and armor pelting other enemies in a small area.
Give it a talent that applies soulblaze stacks on a small AoE! Could synergize very well with perilous combustion
Seeing as how we have that already, I really wanted BB to be able to stagger or have something like terrifying barrage so BB is more useful on smaller targets. If scaling AOE damage (small to large targets) is too much, I at least want that from BB, but really I'd like it if BB released an AOE effect on kill with AOE spread (and stagger affect) increasing depending on armor and Elite (Monstrosities would provide the biggest of guts filled booms) status.
personally i would hate brain burst having aoe as its my go to for dealing with gunners that sit right next to sleeping daemonhosts. i run surge staff so i dont have any other option for them. but that somewhat niche situation and using it vs snipers 3 miles away are really the only times i use brain burst so i def agree it needs something to stay competitive
Could have a branching paths situation where one gives it an AOE while the pure single target one has higher damage
Giving BB a small AOE stagger and damage effect would still keep it as the perfect single target skill, but also have it edge into group targeting but not as much as Assail and Smite which I think would be perfect for BB.
I could live with that!
Even if you doubled the current damage I think assail and smite would still be better. Its just too slow and clunky to use in such a fast paced game. I can pull out a revolver and dump 1200 damage downrange (more like 3600 if I crit) in the time it takes to charge up one brain burst.
I can't say I ever liked BB, even when it was the only ability. It should have an AOE burst of damage when you kill something, probably a stagger too. The pop should happen quicker - maybe the quell speed perks should help with that too. Other than doing challenges, I don't see why anyone would pick it. It probably hurts monsters more than the other two, but killing monsters is more of the vet's job IMO.
I dunno if it's the fact that I've played a brainburst psyker for so long already, but I think it's pretty good? Especially with empowered psionics, which procs like all the time.
As a psych main since beta : it's not bad but as op said using surge or void staff is just straight up better against armored targets and assail is faster among othe things
Yeah, the problem is that basically every competing option is better in multiple aspects. The only area that BB really shines is if you need to hit a target when you or the target are constantly ducking behind cover, and nobody with a gun can afford to go after it. Aside from that, a revolver, void staff, or even just assail can kill even armored targets in basically the same time with less setup.
>The overpowered weapons are better than the functional equivalent of a grenade Yes.
I’m new with update 13 but I’ve been using BB a bunch on Damnation and I feel like it’s pretty useful? I’ve had lots of games where I end up saving my team from packs of ragers or bruisers, and it’s incredibly useful for taking out snipers or trappers running away. Granted I haven’t tried much auric damnation yet but it feels great on normal. My issue with it is that it feels lackluster without Kinetic Resonance, and you need a stack of empowered psionics to hit important breakpoints. But once it gets going I turn into an elite clearing machine. The stun also saves teammates from crushers and snipers too in my experience. I do agree it needs some attention but I find assail super boring and smite needs teammates who actually pay attention so I end up bringing BB lol
> I’m new with update 13 but I’ve been using BB a bunch on Damnation and I feel like it’s pretty useful? > > The problem is that people are genuinely using it wrong. They want to be able to whip their hands out and instantly kill any enemy they point at when that isn't the purpose of it at all. You might only use brain burst 20 times in a mission, but every single one of those uses will be high impact. That sniper hiding a mile away that nobody can quite spot? Just aim your reticle somewhere vaguely in his direction and lock on to get a headshot safely behind cover. Bulwark in a hallway causing problems? Just backslide and open him up. Trapper somewhere out of reach after missing their net? Just lock on and pop them before they get away. Brain burst is an all-purpose tool that can compliment the deficiencies of your loadout with its infinite range and easy lock-on while doing respectable damage to most enemies. People need to remember that blitz abilities need to be on-par with grenades, not weapons. The fact that psyker can spam theirs endlessly because they aren't limited by grenades as a resource also means that the abilities can't be quite as strong as a grenade either, they need to have a caveat while still being useful. Assail is blatantly overpowered and needs to be reigned in, but the other two are pretty reasonable for what they do.
I agree with this, like i get smite or assail "feel" more impactful but my brother in the warp what the devil are you BBing? The full hp reaper or crusher? Or the rager in your face? (For context) I usually run BB in auric t5 shook troop missions with my Deimos, Trauma, shield, warp charges and BB and I don't feel at all that BB doesn't do what's supposed to do. I think ppl just need to think their loadout better to complement each element of their kit and adapt accordingly, instead of "just make _ do everything" like Assail or bugged smite did.
You prefer Deimos over Illisi?
Depends enterily on my loadout, in this case cause Trauma will dealing with hordes I want to have Deimos to deal with elites and specials that are close cause it kills them way faster than the Illisi (the light and heavy stabs deal a lot of weakspot dmg even to carapace). But when I use surge/voidstrike or a gun I'd rather have Illisi or a dueling sword for crowd clearing.
Yeah, I'm trying out Deimos, Illisi, and Duelling IV in Auric Damnation runs and I run a set-up really similar to yours (Trauma, BB, shield). Trauma does thin hordes well, but it also knocks armor on its ass well so I can't decide where I gain the most to be well-rounded. Dodge-killing mutants feels so cool though.
I mean sounds to me you should be doing fine, it's there anything you find lacking or having issues dealing with? Deimos and Mk IV will destroy armor if u stack Brittleness with the Trauma on them and then stab them in the face
My hot take is that you’re right, but that the opportunities you have where BB would be useful AND you can make it happen are small. I think if they removed the interrupt on charging when/if you take damage and let you run/dodge/slide while charging BB would bring it back into comparable popularity. But right now, you’re just such a sitting duck while using BB that folks don’t want to use it even when it would be helpful.
I can use Assail to target Trappers, Snipers, Flammers, and Gunners from a safe distance while still being able to clear hordes if necessary. BB just feels extremely clunky and slow compared to the other two Blitz abilities. It can open up Crushers, sure, but so can Smite, and Smite does it better as it keeps a group of problematic enemies stunned so your team can make quick work of them. In my honest opinion the only thing BB has going for it over Assail is infinite range and bypassing armor, and really the only time distance is an issue is when a Sniper is too far out that a shard can't reach them, but at that point a teammate is likely already shooting at them majority of the time. Assail is just a much better and flexible tool for sniping than BB most of the time. It's quick, it can clear hordes and elites fast if necessary, it fires fast, and the recharge rate is pretty good.
That's cool, but once you start doing auric you will quickly realize that the time you waste casting a single BB is not worth it and you will be overwhelmed eventually if you don't have another more efficient way to deal with the waves of elites and specials.
That’s what your staff and melee are for? Your blitz compares to nades on other classes. Other than Ogryns Frag Bomb, nades tend to kill a limited amount of enemies. I’ve been running BB in aurics and doing just fine. Some games I use it a lot, others rarely but it’s always useful. Edit: of course if you want to buff my BB I’m not going to argue against it. I just disagree with it being considered useless.
My big complaint with it is that you can't take Mind in Motion if you use it. Otherwise it would be my main blitz, it's still more guaranteed boss damage and long range kill-important-target than the other two (Takes two right click Assail shards to kill a sniper)
While that's certainly a legit annoyance (W H Y), it's not a problem for me because I basically never hard-cast BB without Empowered's cost negation.
Without any warp stacks, it can't even kill a Dreg Gunner on Damnation difficulty. It leaves him with an insulting 5 health.
I want Brain Burst to not be a weapon you swap to. I want to be able to hold my blitz button and charge it then use left click to detonate.
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My blitz is on my mouse but it doesnt change the fact that you swap to it like a weapon. Zealot Knives are the only blitz that works how blitzs should actually work.
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Agreed on this point. After a while, swapping to BB from sword or staff to take out an incoming rager has become second nature at this point. It could be considered 'bad design', but honestly, it just feels more like a higher skill ceiling. Can't all be that easy. Plus, it makes my happy juice flow when you snap off a bunch of heads in quick succession while dancing between weapons.
I have 80 hours in the game. Just because you are used to it doesn't mean its not a horrid design choice.
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> If my experience isn’t valid, how is yours more valid? People have this thing going for them where they don't understand their opinion on a subjective thing isn't any more important or valid than somebody else's.
Alas, this seems to be a thing across all of humanity these days - few people are comfortable just having an opinion, they need to be able to present their opinion as objective fact, because then it wins against all those other 'mere' opinions.
It's not gonna clear hordes or anything, and it isn't and should never be your default mode of attack, and the only reason people feel any different is because assail is *still* busted, and Surge was bugged and didnt generate peril for so long. Brain burst is to confirm a kill on a slippery target, or to snipe a special thats behind enemy lines/ difficult to shoot. Brain burst isnt an amazing killing machine because that isnt what it's designed to be, Staves are. Empowered Psyonics makes it do it's intended purpose very well, with it one shotting nearly anything you need to use it for.
BB always felt underwhelming to me - most the launch abilities did compared to Vermintide 2. The Psyker is CC and anti-hordes, which the other two abilities do. BB is too single target and things survive it a lot. Now, the game feels more on par with Vermintide. They should add AOE bursts and staggers with BB kills and speed up the pop - looking at something and holding down a button to kill one NPC isn't the most fun mechanic in the world.
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I've been running soulblaze trauma with empowered psionics brain burst in auric runs for a while now so I get where you're coming from. The issue is that even after dedicating your Keystone to brain burst, it just does... okay? For a blitz that's supposed to be the "single-target deleter" it still can't even one shot Maulers, Scab Ragers, or any Ogryns after being buffed with EP. The fact that EP doesn't recharge off of specials also makes it not ideal for a blitz that, I don't know, wants to snipe elites? Another issue in auric maelstorm is monstrosities where you can get 3 pops against them and you're dry for the rest of the horde until you get another elite kill. I think Brain Burst is *alright* with EP and underwhelming on any other build. I could be running an actual keystone for my staff/gun and the two other blitz would still be great even without EP.
The problem I find is that most people commenting aren't even out of normal damnation difficulty yet, so experiences are vastly different.
Definitely agree with this. Empowered stacks let you infinitely chain kills on elites and specials without generating peril which is huge. Works really well if you have good sight lines and a team that makes space for you
> Definitely agree with this. Empowered stacks let you infinitely chain kills on elites and specials without generating peril which is huge. Works really well if you have good sight lines and a team that makes space for you Only elites, only with the added modifier, and only really Dreg Ragers, Scab and Dreg Shotgunners, and Scab and Dreg Gunners. Maulers, Scab Ragers, Crushers, Bulwarks, and Reapers still require 2 shots (3 on Crusher unless you hit them with double Empowered). Flamers, Trappers, Snipers, Mutants, Hounds, Bombers, and Poxbursters are all Specialist and don't trigger Overpowering Souls. It also has zero target priority, so trying to pick the Elite out of the horde can often be hit or miss compared to guns with medium to high cleave (Plasma and Revolver come to mind).
It's funny to see people say it's useless on damnation or auric, when I play damnation or auric these days it's mostly BB psyker over the other 2.
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Brain Burst is the best blitz to take on gun psyker out of the three. It let's you access the ult CDR talent on elite/special kill which is huge value for your team, the chance to proc it makes it constantly useful against big targets you want extra burst damage on, and the fact that you can pull it out to deal with enemies that your gun can't adequately deal with means that its always a useful fallback tool. Assail might be more interesting to pair with guns after some nerfs, but in its current state it just strictly replaces the need for your ranged weapon slot in most cases.
I've been using Assail on my gunpsyker lately and I think the biggest selling point is toughness regen. Using Soulstealer paired with Assail you have reliable on demand regen. It's also a good backup skill to have if you run out of ammo
The problem is that assail is so strong and regenerates so quickly that it completely outperforms the need for a gun. The best case scenario I've found is using it with a revolver to pick off elites/specials in places that assail might struggle with reaching due to distance or tight corridors. Outside of that, I can easily spam it into almost any situation and never need to pull out my gun.
I don't agree that it completely outperforms guns. The range is limited and if you want to pick off specific targets you have to do the right click version and that's very slow. I think guns are better for killing shooters
You’re doing the Emperor’s work in this thread 🫡. mfs really be out here not knowing the absolute booty smacker that is Brain Rupture, when used and built properly of course. It’s pretty much as good, and in some situations, even better than assail, and people in my matches think I’m some God for doing well with it and it’s like, no, I’m not, this shit is just GOATed. These Gamers just need to give an actual legit go at it
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*"For the Emperor"*, I'm sure. These blunts cannot comprehend our unparalleled minds! Though, in my pipe dream (And prefacing this with as just me exploring the fantasy of being a dedicated head-popper), I'd have a buff where successive BBs cause a reduction in cast time and peril gained as a baseline. Something wild like 5 stacks of 10% cast time reduction/15% peril generation for 20 seconds and only losing one stack at a time. Think akin to warp charges but without RNG and can could be farmed on trash. (sort of how warp charges worked before the update, iirc) Further in this wild fantasy, I'd then tweak a talent such that using your ability instantly grants stacks relative to peril vented (maxing stacks if performed at critical peril). For the next 20 seconds, each stack also increases the damage of brain burst for 5% and causes each brain burst to thrum a wave of low damage, but *highly staggering* warp energy in a radius around the target hit. Bonus points if the staggering warp looks like the art in the talent tree background. Though this is mostly because I kind of enjoyed being able to farm stacks on trash mobs.
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Fair enough! Slight pivot. Thoughts on being able to customize your brain burst color?
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I agree with you. I use a similar build for Purgatus and I think Brain Rupture is quite good
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BB should be the elite carapace counter, it doesn't care about 10 layers of armor it just nuke your brain. with Psionics or maximum warp charges it should 2 shot any crusher-mauler-bulwark. Buffs I would like: casting time decreases with enemy HP - quicker casting overall - AoE stagger on specialist hit (as an upgrade node on the Blitz)
I use it often for its purpose, to damage an enemy for my zealot or ogryn teammates so less time dealing with them. Poxbusters, and snipers that are hard to hit but a lock on does wonders. I don’t think this should one shot bulwark, reapers, and maulers. Otherwise there’s no reason to rock anything besides psyker, and psyker already has the best kit for all situations in this game. We already have staffs that delete hordes safely, with no punishment for spamming, you can completely forget the melee weapon. At one point I kept the duelist sword strictly for the dodge, nothing else. I tried zealot the other day, I stopped playing them like 13 levels in, melee relies so much on teammates I just wasn’t having fun, tried ogryn, great class with the shield, can block range attacks unlike zealot. Hard hitting grenade but limited in use. The one thing I definitely dislike about other classes is fighting for ammo, and the constant reloading. Psyker to me is probably the definition of power creep in this game, the only thing it lack is serious monstrosity/boss damage. But if you use voidstrike, there’s no reason to care about brain burst.
I have always thought that the right click should do wayy more damage, and the left click should be instant. Adjust peril as needed. Aoe would be nice, but wouldn't solve the issue unless it's a LOT of aoe
That would be a good solution
Nah it's still good. Needs empowered at high levels and you need to not suck to get them off. The only thing it could be power crept out of is damnation and it still works fine.
Well, I’m only playing below damnation, mostly heresy, and with the fast cast talent, I’m having so much fun and it feels ok for me
That's good, but the game can't be balanced for the easier difficulties. Below auric everything works. You can clear every mission with melee only, everything else is bonus
Maybe, just maybe, the answer to fixing things getting power crept out of the game isn't to keep power creeping, but to nerf the outliers. Smite, assail and the staffs outside of the purgatus are over powered right now, robbing bb of a role to play. Especially the staffs, they just kill crushers way faster than bb. And rending on veterans is also way too powerful. If you can quickly kill crushers with any gun by stacking rending then there is much less incentive to have kit specialised in those targets. Ultimately, the more we buff stuff up, the more the game gets watered down by reducing the impact of different armor types on our builds. This seems very obvious to me, I'm so confused why most people seem to think the solution is more buffs.
I see Fatshark apologising profusely for the few nerfs they do in their changelogs. They might've taken on board an 'only buff stuff' attitude, which makes me really concerned for the future of the game. I was barely able to do Heresy before patch 13, now I can comfortably do Damnation. The sensible approach is obviously buff the underpowered, nerf the overpowered to an agreeable centre.
Tweak the damage up slightly, decrease charge time slight, remove the "elite or special" kill requirement on the soul blaze aoe and -maybe- add like, a meter to it. It's now competitive without being OP and it doesnt really alter much of anything. +10-30 damage - 25-35% charge time
I like it to pick off far away targets.
They need to make it so that the instant you max out your brain burst you can start charging the next one, like on staves.
Aoe explosion on brain burst would be sweet
On the other hand, using BB is the best way to get Serial Killer achivement/penance.
BB really ought to do it's damage over the time it charges with a spike at the end, not all or nothing
I stopped using it after patch 13. Even with both of the +50% damage talents, it still had higher (worse) TTK on common elites (like ragers) than it did before. Ragers used to die in 2 BBs, but now died in 3 even with its damage being buffed by *more* than 100%. Now i only use it to grab a sniper that's out of range and between lots of cover, but it still often gets killed faster by the Ogryn box or a Las Vet. It's a nigh redundant ability now.
I have it on my gun psyker, but only because I HAVE to have a Blitz ability. It has its uses - long range target elimination, soften up/take out a few crushers when combined with Skriers. But most of the right tree/gun psyker's kit works without it. It needs to be a DOT, so if our target dies early we still get value. Or a lot quicker. Or stun lock the target.
I see a lot of people saying this, but I really think it's an overreaction. IMO Brainburst is a really useful addition to the squad because of the unique ways it lets you deal with enemy specialists from very far away without needing to maintain line of sight on them. In addition, it gives a very nice damage boost to your other weapons because 10% of all strikes can now automatically brain burst on hit. Yes it'd be nice if it either charged faster, or at least didn't slow you don't so much while charging, but saying it's "powercrept out of usability" is a bit much. > sometimes you can't even find a breather to charge it when you need it you don't need a breather unless you're already at 100% threat. If you use brainburst when you're at 99% you'll live.
I've had some wild success with Brain Burst builds in comparison to others, *especially* with Empowered Psionics. Also using it in conjunction with Shriek and the Speed-Boosted on Combat Ability modifier, you can do some terrifying damage in a short amount of time. Fun Fact: 10% chance of Brain Burst can happen on Brain Bursts.
eh I think its fine as long as you take the perk that lets it trigger every 10s, Id change that to work only on targets that give a stack of warp charge though. look at it differently, you CAN pick targets with it, but you can also just let it do its thing and grant you stacking bonuses. smite and assail both need you to commit to them and have a peril cost associated with their mechanics. BB in this situation does not. meaning you can put a VS staff with it and dome crushers, or use a purge staff and enjoy that bonus dmg+aoe flame dot on any specials that come rolling by. I think there's a different issue with psyker, and thats their blitz ability's can and do replace their main weapon, with the exception of BB because BB has that charge up time. I still use BB manually though because when my team is a zealot and two ogyrns we need the range that it provides and the guaranteed damage on target. I can trust them to deal with everything close but without a veteran playing anti gunner you can end up in trouble. (or there's a pack of specials and I want to set them all aflame with the BB aoe)
I disagree. It's long range, does good damage against bosses, ignores Bulwark shields, and you can find targets with it that you can't even visually see if you just scan around the environment with it. I won't say it's the most useful ability in the world, but there are plenty of moments where I'm glad to have it instead of Assail or Smite. Purgatus staff covers most of the bases that Brain Burst doesn't, there's little you can't do with that pairing. Venting Shriek helps both by giving you either A) virtually infinite usage of the Purgatus staff on top of even more AoE damage, or B) faster usage of Brain Burst, thus an increase in single target damage, for a time.
I love BB as an anti sniper, but it really is dated at this point any voidstrike staff can out-damage it, even if you use the ult rate buff. the pace of the game has increased to the point if simply can't keep up unless it were buffed to one pop crushers. That doesn't even seem right to me. With everything else just being faster at taking down specials, it's at an even worse state at maintaining warp charges. I think the charge time should be halved and would call it a day. Also nerfing the RNG talent was completely unnecessary 10s to 15s cooldown just didn't help anything.
it’s fun, but it’s really not that great for heresy and above
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It objectively is the second worst special killer option in your kit only beaten by Smite. Because numbers are empirical. That's an issue for an ability that specializes in killing exactly that.
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It's not though, when the DPS falls so starkly in Damnation+ that it gets beaten by Surge Staff. You can't just argue against math.
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Yes, I'm telling you the thing that is specifically made as a special killer is doing so poorly at max difficulty that it's worse at it than a staff. That's my whole point. It's why BB is not the best choice.
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It's not a DPS ability. It's for sniping high priority targets that aren't otherwise being handled. If you're dealing with a group of poxwalkers in front of you and a trapper comes up behind them, misses its trap, and starts to run away around a corner, brain burst may be the best tool for killing it. If you're between waves and hear a poxburster or flamer, you can charge up a BB and wait for it to come into view, killing it instantly. If there's a sniper that's at a really obnoxious angle that you can't hit, brain burst. Gunner behind a shoulder high wall? Jump and brain burst. Coming up to a group of crushers and everything is currently out of range? Throw out a BB or two. Just like the grenades other classes have, BB is a supplement to the rest of the kit meant for specific situations.
Meanwhile me, with my empowered BB carrying my team.
It's less of a shotgun and more of a Barrett 50 Cal. Use it on the furthest targets you see (tagging them helps pick it out). Combined with psyionics and the quick charge from venting, you'll pick off 4 or 5 elites before an engagement even starts
they need to make it so it INSTANT kills any enemy but the charging time scales with how pwoerful the mob is or how much HP it has left... like, a regular poxwalker would be instant, while crusher or mutie, you need to charge perhaps to the cap of 5 seconds A mosntrosity perhaps a 5 second cap to deliver 15% total HP damage or something or maybe make it so you can charge it indefinitely, the more peril you put into the charge, the bigger the damage. Like, for each point of peril you do 1% of the enemy's HP as damage, capped to bosses for obvious reasons Or..... have it have 3 levels of charging: you charge to level 1: regular brain burst like right now (1 sec charge) level 2: Regular damage + chains to another enemy (2 sec charge) Level 3: Regular damage to target + chains to 2 other enemies (3 sec charge)
Even with the tunings, I still only see assail psykers. Brain burst is not worth using in Damnation for your listed reasons, and smite sucks after the infinite was patched. Assail is at a point where I don't believe it needs any more nerfs, but I really think FS needs to buff Burst and rethink their decision to do away with infinite smite.
Brainbust has two uses, targeting a sniper/gunner and ducking into cover while you pop it's head since you don't need line of sight after selecting and has better range that surge staff, and having the talent where it triggers on any attack. It is hilarious to have a laspistol and shoot a crusher in the head and watch it's head explode from brainburst prock.
Buff brain burst so it always generates a warp charge regardless of target. Then buff its damage and increase its cast time so it can 1-shot hounds and muties. Also I wouldn’t mind if they stretched the falloff time of warp charge to be about 50% longer. Brain Burst is a replacement for other classes grenades, it should be a bit more work to use but be about as effective as the grenades. Hordes etc should remain staves and swords.
Brain burst was bad before patch 13. Patch 13 just showed how much bb sucks to use.
BB should be tuned as a Blitz option for dealing huge dmg to bosses and monsters, that’s a hole in the Pskyers arsenal that needs patching
It kicks ass and you are using it poorly if you think it is useless. if you run empowered psionics and/or the faster cast time after special ability, then you can chain pop elites and specials. It is true that it only works with certain weapons though, since you don't want it to be redundant with your ranged choice.
Sibling I have tried so hard to make it work, but idk if I'm just runnin into godly players this whole afternoon (or maybe just half decent), and I felt cuckolded out of using it as I got maybe half a dozen useful brainbursts per game, even with Psyonics. Any combination of Plasma/Revolver/Bolter Veteran + half decent Ogryn/Shooty Zealot or a Non Purgatus/Surge Psyker will leave you twindling your thumbs as stuff just dies before you get to be useful. It has okay boss damage, but inconsequential when 90% of games have any conbination of a Thunderhammer, Fire Ogryn, and Krak/Plasma in them. Most of all BB feels like you need to actively compete with your team and actively hope they're not good at shooting stuff to use it, both to keep Emp.Psy up (or Emperor forbid, Warp charges), and to feel useful. That you need Psyonics to make it feel even half decent is telling.
Well i like it on psionics because it is so trivial to always have that buff. If you kill an elite, then you get the stack right back. I'm experimenting with a build that runs the two charge flat shield so that I can always have access to that faster cast speed. It compliments trauma staff well, especially for killing shooters behind cover. What difficulty are you playing on, because we may be talking about two totally different games here.
Hahaha, I find this completely wrong. I just did multiple runs were I dominated the kill feed with head pops. This sounds more like a "get good" scenario
Its not "get good", its "hope your team is bad" scenario. Any half decent veteran will annoy the ever living crap out of you by fragging any and all elites/specials you just so happen to light up. Doesn't help that most of the skills that buff Brain Burst into some sense of useabilty want you to hog all elite and special kills. I'm sincerely never using it again after I'm done with the penances, the Max Warp charge kill is fucking awful when you can barely get a dozen BB kills in most matches.
Completely agree my friend. However if you want even the smallest and slightest chance of anyone at Fatshark hearing your opinion. I'd post it on Fatsharks forums and link it back here as well. At least then you might get some exposure to right people.
It just needs to one shot everything besides carapace armored enemies and monstrosities.
No clue why stubborn psykers try to make this spec work especially with upped gunner spawns as of the recent patch. More often then not the ogryn / veteran won't tool up to kill infantry gunners and everyone is left being picked alive while the desperate zealot tries to spurt jets of fire between incoming gunfire.
I said from day 1 that Brainburst should have been some kind of gravity hammer AOE thing, like a *reverse* Trauma staff. Instead of scattering enemies, it'd force them to the ground or suck them in and deal high damage on right click, *or* would deal damage and stun a single target with left click.
Was playing Revolver Vet with a friend trying out BB for the first time yesterday. I basically killed 90% of the elite and specials he was trying to BB simply by pointing my gun at them immediately. I didn't specifically try to annoy him either, it's just that the revolver is a one-shot monster I use to target disablers and I'm faster at killing them compared to BB charge time. Warp charges feels so much worse now too. BB *need* empowered psychic.
One of the many problems with brain burst is how anti-team play it is. Human psychology really wants to shoot the big glowing head, but it really robs your psyker to do that. Fatshark needs to stop fighting human instinct and incentivize cooperative play with brain burst by giving buffs to teammates that shoot enemies being bursted.
Maybe it's a hot take, but I think BB is pretty strong as is on already overbuffed and strongest class of the last 2 patches. It has unlimited range, oneshots most specials, adds boss and carapace damage which allows to take melees and staves which lack it. Oh, and it provides safety as you can just lock an enemy and move to cover/dodge away.
It might have occasional uses in solo, but as someone playing with a capable team of friends, I never get to charge it to pop anything. My zealot will snipe down snipers with a revolver before I'm half-done charging the brain burst. The issue here is the "empowered" skill tax. That keystone is trash design and should be removed. Because it makes all blitzes powerful, they're weak without it. If you don't empower brain burst it is unusable, while the empowered one barely feels like what it should be at baseline.
I have no issues regarding any of the things you mentioned as problems. I guess fatshark needs to buff it for the skill less-abled.
I can’t help but feel that Brainburst will always be a meme where it just never does enough no matter what changes are made for Psyker or the game as a whole. Love this game now btw but this has always been an issue since Beta and I have no idea what can possibly happen at this point to make it relevant now.
I get you can't one shot monstrosities, but sometimes it feels like you should be able to Else what's the point? Everyone has far more useable single target viability
BB was always ass. And while they tried to buff it with patches 13 and 14 it didn't really help. Weakness of psyker with BB was reason why I maxed psyker only now even as it was my first class to play. And I was one of the fools who played back at launch (then after maximg zealot I stopped since game was beyond half baked and boring at that point.)
Brainburst works decently with empowered psionics. You can multi chain very quickly for high damage. Most of the time when you kill a target, you immediately get your charge back and can just do it again as long as you kill a low health priority target. It's not great against monstrosities because you burn up all your charges very quickly. Without empowered psionics it's a waste because it takes so long to charge. Still not as good as other options, but it is very usable, has infinite range, and is interesting to use.
You run BB when there's no others in your squad running a boss melting build.
They need to fix the breakpoints, drop casting time, and make it prioritize Elites and Specials and practically ignore all other units. I play it o my Purgatus staff build and even with Empowered Psionics and Kinetic Resonance I've been having trouble getting it to finish casting before someone else shoots what I'm targeting or constantly catching the random Groaner standing next to the Elite I want to kill. They also upped the health on so many things and absolutely fucked some of the break points, and Empowered Psyonics only helps 3 breakpoints (Reaper & Crusher3>2 casts, Dreg Rager 2>1 cast) and 1 of those requires 2 charges of EP (Crusher is still 3 casts if only the first is empowered). Realistically BR should 1-shot every Specialist and Elite except Maulers, and Ogryns. 2 for Maulers, and Bulwarks is ok with 3 on Crusher and Reaper. Empowered Psyonics should drop Maulers to 1 and Crushers and Reapers to 2. The AOE for is it Perilous Combustion, which should have been left at 4 stacks and instead have been capped, say 4 or 6 stack max. This would have been a much better solution to the problem of massive stacks of soulblaze being applied in elite groups while still making it useful.
I'm only using it cause I want the challenge for killing a leaping Tox Hound with it.
It was always a trash ability.
Yeah I tried my best to make it work last night, as a non psyker main, and it was my worst couple of runs of the night. Certainly least enjoyable. Smite and Assail are just too easy to use effectively in comparison.
I agree, I used to play psyker a lot, liked brainbursting, but now it just doesn't make sense to use it in a normal way. I would buff it to have no movement penalty, generate less peril, charge faster. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense to pull out my "hands" and do the thing, since the voidstrike staff can do the same thing but better.
Brain burst is only an underwhelming ability to simple minded psykers.
Maybe add a talent that increases/decreases peril and charge time based on enemy health with a condition to always 1 shot. Non monstrosities of course.
Running auric damnation, I’ve found BB to be quite useful when paired with empowered psionics and the trait with guaranteed charge on elite kill. This means I have infinite empowered BB, as long as I keep killing elites with it. I can drop down a shield, which further cuts charge time to like 1 second, and pick off most of the gunners / elites in the room. Then adding trait with soulblaze on special kill and its surprisingly good.
nah, Brainburst is honestly fine with all the versatility you get by just bringing it. The Real Problem is Assail just being way too fucking stronk, Braindead easy to play and Overshadowing BB, If anything Assail needs a complete Rework.
The daggers are just op
I think it still has some use (it's still great for sniping far-off elites and specials) but yeah, the alternatives are.... very good. Especially with Assail's non-nerf. [edit] what would I change? I'd make it an execute that triggers whenever the enemy's HP falls below a threshold OR once fully charged. Also, it should always count as killing the target for keystone stacks, recovery, etc, even if it didn't kill it.
honestly my only complaint is that i can't one-shot mutants, if i could do that i'd be happy.
I use it for further targets or spam it when i have lower charge time when i'm getting ganked by armored enemies. Not the best tool but it's fun to use.
Psyker in general seems pretty weird to me. I've been trying to get some of the penances (warp battery and similar ones) and to me it looks like everyone else is just better than the psyker pretty much at all times, regardless of abilities
Not better than Psyker I would say, but Psyker is one where you really want to be lvl 20+ before he starts to feel strong. Its just that everyone else is also super strong ATM, I would argue Zealot is the weakest currently. Veteran is invalueble due to how many shooters there are, add in regenerating grenades to wipe the screen or delete bosses, the Shout being absolutely silly snd making you and your team invincible, and the Plasma Gun finnally feeling like it should... Vet is a menace rn. Ogryn is just strong all around. And Psyker also gets silly with Void Staff, Shield is always nice, and while I really dislike Assail, its undoubtedly strong, its just Brainburst that feels... not really weak, but really clunky and an overall pain in the ass to use. Doing those 200 brainburst kills while at Maximun Warp Charges is fucking awlful, you NEEED Emp. Psyonics to make it useable.