- Stay behind the Ogryn.
- Stay behind other team membes.
- Stay in cover / corners.
- Have several nodes with Toughness Regeneration (for example: TR when reducing peril, TR on crit, TR with warp kill).
- Dont forget Toughness Damage Reduction nodes.
- Run Telekinetic Dome. Different playstyle thou, compared to shriek.
In the end the psyker is the squishiest class of all 4, so let the team tank the bullets for you. This is after all their job: they are rejects and you have been blessed by the Master of Mankind with a fraction of his powers.
SYL
I’ve been dealing with a lot of team splitting lately because I play with randoms but yeah I definitely need to try my best to stay with ogryn and zealot especially. I do my best to stay in cover/corners, and I do it well on maps that allow for it but there’s usually a few spots per mission that really put you out in the open. Thanks man
Dodge and slide constantly while charging your staff and quelling peril.
Take the empathic evasion talent (immunity to ranged attacks on critical hit).
Its a really good talent. It works for both melee and ranged crits, so if you have a melee weapon that crits a lot like a duelling sword or knife with riposte or shred it will save you in those melee engagements where you are also taking ranged fire.
I’m sure you know this but you can essentially be sliding at all times that you have more than no stamina. If you are sliding you are dodging ranged attacks
So avoiding gunfire is just a matter of sliding from cover to cover periodically recovering your stamina getting closer and closer until you can force melee with whoever’s left. If you have 0 stamina and there’s no cover nearby and get stunlocked, you fucked up. This is where you die.
If you are facing a mixed horde backed by gunners then take care of the vanguard before diving into the gunners. Unless you are a zealot and can close distance quickly
You can get hit by melee attacks while sliding but not gun fire unless there are multiple enemies shooting. Sometimes their attacks don't match to on the timing so you can dodge 1 and get hit by another as you stand up. You can also block/shoot while sliding to prevent the melee from getting through.
Slide dodge gets pretty useful at higher levels as the dodge can be the best way to generate enough momentum. Psyker Regen for stamina is so quick you will gain enough stamina from the first one to chain slides if done right.
One other thing I didn't see mentioned yet was the deflector perk on force swords in combination with kinetic deflection perk on the first point of the bottom right branch. This combo lets you block bullets with your sword and it goes to your peril with a big reduction instead of taking out your wimpy stamina pool.
In auric damnation if u ain’t sliding or in cover, u getting shot
Also make sure you manage your stamina, no stamina no dodge ie: You gotta always get maximum value for the stamina by getting the big slide keep stamina above 50% as a rule of thumb if you can stagger them out of an attack it’s more efficient than dodging it
Alot of false information in this thread.
Dodges are not tied to stamina. Stamina affects sprinting and blocking, nothing else.
Force-sword does not have unlimited dodges. That was taken out about a year ago.
Well it has a lot of dodges so you can dodge more times in a row without running out of dodges, but the force swords have actual unlimited dodges (but very slow)
Train your game awareness by playing more. Stay with team, psyker is very reliant on someone taking care of close ranged mobs for them. Know what mobs you can take and which ones you can't. Dodge, dodge and dodge again and some more. Also headshot ranged mobs with staff's primary fire to quickly put them down
I find that the speed boost that comes with disrupt destiny does wonders for keeping my psyker alive. Has the added utility of letting you peep enemies without having eyes on them. I find it my go to for t4/t5. Also highly recommend bubble over shriek. It'll make your teammates make more of an effort to stay near you.
I like the bubble and I’ll certainly be using it for certain missions that I know will be putting me in those really bad spots. But otherwise I’ve found that venting shriek is absolutely crucial for me in terms of taking out entire hordes of poxwalkers and other specialists. I just need to be careful when using the bubble shield to not overcharge my peril
I usually find purgatus or smite can handle the crowd control role shriek can help with just fine, I'll run purgatus if I'm using assail and one of the better long range staves like void strike if smite. It definitely changes the way you have to manage peril to not have shriek but I find ultimately the defensive option in bubble keeps me upright better
https://preview.redd.it/wb0762hayt9d1.jpeg?width=465&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe238f722ee63f935540fd05f166ad36b40e99e2
if you got a spare build, feel free to try the one a friend gave to me! I run this one in auric/auric maelstrom and it's easily my fave psyker loadout.
rock it with surge staff with casting speed/crit chances on peril blessing! surge staff is relatively safe to use and distrupt destiny+that one node higher down the tree makes you extremely nimble for repositioning.
not having assail also makes your venting shriek avaible waaay more often thanks to the elite kill cooldown node (with means more cc, more killing if you wait to reach 85% before using it, more instant toughness refill!)
lastly do try to stay in the middle of the team but at least with this build you can peek a boo from behind cover if you're isolated (since surge got a pretty good range)
I need to try a smite build out again. I had a terrible experience with it last time, and I made the mistake of declaring that I was a smite user in a post and got flamed hard.
oh smite is just here as a panic button when the team in about to be overrun, you barely use it most of the time. use staff to target elites and pretty much everything, pop the vent everytime it's ready, burn everything to a crisp and repeat
smite you use when you see allies about to be fucked by a doomstar of crushers and the two trappers hidden behind/poxbuster you can see behind the horde of elites and the like
Yeah I mean people really like to exaggerate how bad it needs to be in order to use smite but it’s definitely 3rd on deck when compared to staff and melee. It’s still cool though, I’ve enjoyed using it especially when there’s an assail psyker on my team
One thing that's kinda neat is that venting shriek can be used while channeling smite and it does not interrupt your channel.
This means that if you run empowered psionics, the next time your blitz is empowered for +200% smite damage, you can channel smite up to about to 90%peril, vent back down to 40%, and keep channeling for a really long empowered smite.
It can be pretty juicy.
I've always said this: four evenly spaced apart shooters are my nightmare as a psyker. You can probably get all four, but more often, you get most of them, and the fourth shoots you. Or you take a stray melee hit from a Groaner/Poxwalker as you focus them.
My biggest analysis as Psyker is team roles and player behavior. I use Smite(for cooldown talent below it, would rather Assail)/Dome Shield/ DD/Crit Voidstrike in Auric, but my role as a long-range eliminator gets contested with the Plasma Gun Vet. Since I know anything I tag is most likely killed by him before I can let loose a ball, I would prioritize smaller threats more often. But if I am in a more melee heavy team, my role as range enemy eliminator is much higher, and my positioning should be in the back line. Granted, this is case by case. Especially after this update to shooters, I feel a Psyker Shield sets the pace in a majority of engagements.
If you have a loadout you enjoy, just try to analyze what your strengths and weaknesses are compared to your team. If you have an Executioner Stance Vet with a marksman weapon, you definitely want to keep them safe so they can take out shooters at the start of their Ability. If you have a Shield/Bullrush Ogryn or Zealot, you want to push alongside them to handle the shooters as they draw aggro. But if none of your team can reliably handle shooters, just keep with someone's pace and whittle away Shooters with Assail. Just don't be caught alone.
I’m always so thankful for orgyns in pretty much any match. The symbiotic relationship between the two classes works very well when both are competent. I’ve also gotten better at seeing when I’m needed for a certain task and when I’m needed elsewhere, like you’re talking about. The only thing I haven’t done yet is create a bubble shield class. I definitely will soon, I just need to get some practice in with it because assail makes it very easy to overdo it with your peril.
I am a Shriek main, but Bubble has come into favor for this update. The absolute MAJOR downside to Bubble at this moment is its 40s cooldown. This cooldown can be mediated with the double wall, but Dome's Toughness replenishment/ damage reduction is a God Emperor save in some scenarios. I was originally using Assail to handle sudden Shooters/ Shotgunners, but I swapped to Smite for the path to [Psykinetic's Aura] Talent on the left + [Seer's Presence] Aura for more cooldowns, and finally [Disrupt Destiny] Keystone to help identify enemies in a crowd. I picked up all 7 talents in the beginning and took [Warp Rider] in the bottom middle. Weapons were Voidtstrike Staff with both crit blessings and +crit chance perk to have something like 22.5% base chance, or more if you picked the crit Aura, then the Illisi Force Sword for horde juggling and some power swings (use what you like).
I alluded to it in my earlier comment, but ideally, I would pick Assail over Smite and keep mostly to the right for crit bonuses. But after more than a handful of Auric failures, I couldn't help but notice the long cooldowns by not having [Psykinetic's Aura]. It really sucks that Talent and Assail are mutually exclusive due to pathing.
Yeah I’ve noticed that as well. The bubble shield is so incredibly tempting, especially since there’s plenty of places in virtually every map where you can place one and be completely invulnerable, at least from one direction
Brainburst and Bubble seem to work just fine for me. Yeah, they suppress and hit harder, but it just makes you use your brain more to find cover and slide.
I really wish I didn’t absolutely despise brain burst but I just do. I’ve tried multiple times to use it and it just doesn’t jive with me unfortunately
Get the secondary node on Brainburst to decrease its cast time on Blitz use. Seems to delete everything quickly...also, the bottom middle nodeway increases its damage and peril percentage after killing an elite (or something like that).
Venting Shriek I've found is excellent for dealing with the regular shooters, get it to 85% and use it in their general direction. Since there is no cap on amount of targets hit, they all get six stacks and die while hiding in cover. If you use Wildfire this can slowly spread to the rest of them. The dome shield is another option, but I personally prefer Vent to just go ham with Peril now and then. If you want to you can trade the dueling sword for a Force Sword with Deflector on it and taking Kinetic Deflection talent, bring a +3 Stamina curio and you turn into an Ogryn with a Slab shield.
I used to go down all the time (and still do sometimes), despite stacking toughness curios and taking every toughness regen node on top. What solved it for me was taking the Combat Knife as melee. Almost purely as a movement tool, you go so fast, slide so far and can dodge all day. I sprint and slide toward gunner lines, then swap to the purge staff, spam M1 a couple times hoping for some crits and Kinetic Flayer proc, then back to the knife to keep dodging. Can recommend giving it a spin, when you are caught out in the open and see dozen dozens barrels glinting start sliding sliding sliding.
Edit: To add to the above, with the prevalence of shooters present these days I have a newfound appreciation for Psychic Leeching (15% toughness to everyone in coh when using a stack) under Empowered Psionics. Saying I got three stacks and we come under fire, I spam three Brain Ruptures and everyone close to me gets 45% toughness to tank some more stray shots.
Psyker has some of the best toughness generation in the game. Use that to your advantage and you can survive shooter onslaughts without your toughness breaking, and then you can slowly pick them all off.
Good talents to look for are One with the Warp, Soulstealer, Mettle, Warp Expenditure and Quietude. Combined with dodging, falling back behind allies and occassionaly taking cover, you can survive pretty damn well.
On higher difficulties with lots of elites and specials, Warp Siphon and Essence Harvest are crazy.
I’m constantly hitting them hard and then falling back to cover. It serves me super well and I have most of these talents. I think my main problem here is that I have pretty much no way to deflect any projectiles. I’ll be adding a bubble shield build and using the force sword to see if it’s worth it, with its limited shielding ability
Assail, purgatus, trauma, laspistol and infantry autogun are good options to kill shooters on your own, and if you need to engage them in melee you can also use a dueling sword or force sword to farm headshots with funny multipliers. A personal favorite of mine is the Graia IAG with empathic evasion, true aim and scrier's gaze; it's the old infinite toughness shredder vet, but with the caveat of needing a brain.
To be honest, from the responses I’m getting it’s really just seeming like the randoms I play with tend to separate too much because I do all those things you just described, and still get put into situations where there’s like 10 ranged infantry across from me and no cover. Something tells me that shouldn’t happen if the team is staying together. But yeah assail is great for taking out especially problematic ranged targets and I love it.
With the power some builds have, sometimes people forget not everyone can do everything and clear a whole room by sheer willpower. For times like that I'm glad to have memorized certain rooms and escape routes, as well as almost religiously using weapons with high movement speed.
Depending on where you play from, I could even give a hand and see if things get a bit less tense, since apparently the Director took his ritalin and the game is harder than ever.
I like how hard it is. It does well to help each player improve their own skill set, but then also sometimes does the opposite. But yeah memorizing the different routes and stuff is something I’ve been working on lately, especially with the build I run. If I’ve got room to backpedal/climb, I’m all good. I typically switch to my dueling sword to run away and cover my retreat when needed
any reason you guys never mention surge as a shooter melter? this staff just slaughter squads of shooters and their gunners, especially paired with the fire nodes and venting shriek
Personally? I just find it boring and spammy, so I never use it and it ends up kinda erased from my mind. It definitely hits like a truck and charges really fast though, so it's also a solid option.
Never be in front unless its a team of 4 psykers and pray one of that other psyker have a dome.
Be aware of your surrounding them spiky are really good at shanking you and never run in openly always be ready to run back to cover or behind your ogryn
Cover the zealot that fight with you and pray to the one in the throne that the zealot that do go in front is a good distraction.
always bob and weave
Always use the environment to your advantage, use crates, walls, pillars, anything to help block enemy fire. If you're rocking surge staff and they are outside of 25m then you can run to cover ahead, use venting to stagger some of them and start surge-sliding back and forth or strafing to pick them off.
I use Scrier's and using it for speed bonus and toughness boost has helped me many times get out of terrible situations.
Yeah I do all of those things when I can. And on a good day I’ll go through an entire mission without even taking damage until the squad hits that big open area, at which point I really have nowhere to go. Those are really the times I’m talking about and I can’t dodge everyone at once
I didn't really focus on toughness, I focused on reducing buildup, and DPS, but then again I'm a space taser type, Smite, so I mostly just try and step off to the side while stun locking the enemy, it's also satisfying to see entire crowds just reduced to nothing but tweaking out corpses
You need to make your peril go up and down faster. Every psyker takes quietude and warp expenditure. That's the foundation of every build. There are other things like toughness damage reduction, crits restore toughness, something reduces peril and so on and so on. Big picture peril has to go up a lot and down a lot. That's the hamster wheel you are on.
There are gameplay things you can do like not playing like a zealot who is constantly running around with his dick out but everyone without a perfect slide game is getting tagged. You want as much toughness damage reduction as possible and actual toughness because the first thing there you will not get much of. I think you said venting so staff guy. Remember you have great melee weapons and don't be the asshole 40m behind the team
I recomend adding bubble shield with recent buffs to enemies to your build and it Will increase your Survivability and teams.you Will have less dmg but you Will have panic button when you and your team need it.
Hello, associate.
The others have already given some solid advice, but Ill add some more.
- The most important piece of advice: try a Force Sword with Deflector blessing and the talent to Convert Blocked damage to Peril. I personally love the Illisi. It should be a game changer against gunners.
I try to always have weapons or blitz for both horde clear and killing elites and specials. I think you dont need both a Duellling sword and the Surge staff, as they are both good elite killers, but not as effective horde clear. The Illisi is good horde clear, so goes well with surge staff.
- Stay with the team. Full coherency is king. If you get divided in 2 groups of two, which happens, always go join to the other two guys as soon as possible (3 in coherency is better than 2). Yes, sometimes your team will become stupid and split up and get killed. It should happen less in aurics, but it happened once to me in Auric Maelstrom, so dont worry to much about it.
- The psyker is rather more squishy than the other classes, so get as much toughness regeneration talents as you can. Do not bother with toughness \*replenishment\*, as that just increases the speed at which you regenerate toughness, it does not give toughness on its own (so if youre alone with no coherency, your toughness replenishment will be is 0, so a 50% increase is still 0).
- Get a 16% or 17% Toughness Curio.
- Get a 3+ Stamina Curio. Stamina is important for survival.
- consider using Smite instead of Assail, I personally dont like Assail on higher levels, cause it seems to fall off significantly in damage and utilitiy in damnation. Smite is extremely powerful on higher levels, cause stunning a huge group of elites while your teams clears them out is OP.
Good luck and see you on Tertium, associate.
Hello, associate.
The others have already given some solid advice, but Ill add some more.
- The most important piece of advice: try a Force Sword with Deflector blessing and the talent to Convert Blocked damage to Peril. I personally love the Illisi. It should be a game changer against gunners.
I try to always have weapons or blitz for both horde clear and killing elites and specials. I think you dont need both a Duellling sword and the Surge staff, as they are both good elite killers, but not as effective horde clear. The Illisi is good horde clear, so goes well with surge staff.
- Stay with the team. Full coherency is king. If you get divided in 2 groups of two, which happens, always go join to the other two guys as soon as possible (3 in coherency is better than 2). Yes, sometimes your team will become stupid and split up and get killed. It should happen less in aurics, but it happened once to me in Auric Maelstrom, so dont worry to much about it.
- The psyker is rather more squishy than the other classes, so get as much toughness regeneration talents as you can. Do not bother with toughness \*replenishment\*, as that just increases the speed at which you regenerate toughness, it does not give toughness on its own (so if youre alone with no coherency, your toughness replenishment will be is 0, so a 50% increase is still 0).
- Get a 16% or 17% Toughness Curio.
- Get a 3+ Stamina Curio. Stamina is important for survival.
- consider using Smite instead of Assail, I personally dont like Assail on higher levels, cause it seems to fall off significantly in damage and utilitiy in damnation. Smite is extremely powerful on higher levels, cause stunning a huge group of elites while your teams clears them out is OP.
Good luck and see you on Tertium, associate.
Can't say I agree with most points. The force field is pretty weak in auric damnation or maelstrom, and not much more than a crutch.
Assail slaps gunners and is also amazing against maniacs, if you're in a pinch.
The rest is pretty individual, I run +3 stamina and two health curios.
Imo, the most important things in damnation and auric damnation are movement (don't stop, always slide around) and situational awareness.
Force field or force sword?
I didnt mention the shield.
I like it for horde clear and the deflector. I agree its not amazing against stronger enemies, but thats what Surge Staff is for.
I also agree about positioning and movement.
But im shocked to hear you running 2x health curios. I run one stamina, one health and one toughness curio, cant imagine going 2x health curios on a psyker, or any other class for that matter
I mean the deflector blessing, sorry for the confusion.
As for the curios, I tried it all, and just felt that toughness breaks so easily, and is so low for psykers, that I'd rather have more hp. The only must have curio is stamina, I'd say. The rest is preference imo.
I do have 4% toughness in all curios though.
That said, I'm thinking of retesting toughness curios after the recent changes. Don't really have survivability problems, but who knows. I have improved significantly since I changed curios, and maybe more toughness would be even better now.
Psyker main with 600 hours who plays auric 5 and auric maelstrom exclusively here. There are a lot of fun builds for psyker for sure, but when it comes to the higher difficulties and especially right now with the super charged gunners there's really one build the carries the most. Brain burst, CDR aura, warp charges. Constantly throwing down domes REALLY helps you team survive and be able to push. I build this with a purgatus (fire) staff to handle hordes and elites getting 6 stacks of warp charges very quickly which helps thin waves immensely for the rest of your team to focus specials while simultaneously leading to situations where you've dropped double domes with a 3rd in the wings. You have BB as a way to pick off any volley gunners or bombers, snipers that might not be accessible to your teammates and I've been really enjoying the new indignatus shock maul with an unyielding/carapace focus to absolutely devastate any bosses or ogryns you come up against. It's far more effective than I thought it would be and rather fun to hit em with the taser to stun ogryns. Keep in mind that positioning is everything for a psyker, and you have to use BB often to knock out high prio targets before they close in or as they are getting away so they can't loop back to your team. Hope this helps your journey to auric.
Outside the obvious stay behind, play around cover, yadda yadda. Your build has a clear weakness to Gunners and that's probably the biggest reason you're having the problem.
I also play surge and it does absolutely nothing whenever they're out of range, dueling sword doesn't have the block bullets blessing and assail kinda sucks at long range to. But i may say so, the build doesn't make any sense against anything either, surge works wonders on high peril with the crit blessing, you're rocking the ability to clear peril, assail doesn't benefit much from that ability either. Dueling sword is probably the best melee in the game so not much going wrong there, but it doesn't help with the gunner problem either.
Overall every weapon/skill has a clear weakness and the other sides of your build should aid you with that, this is true for any class but especially on Psyker. If you're rocking the surge, you're better off running bubble/barrier to protect youself and allow you to close the gap, if you got yourself a strong long range weapon like a void strike and a single target fire sword you'll want something to aid you when getting swarmed like assail, etc etc.
TL/DR swap surge for void strike to deal with long range gunners.
Voidstrike is ok but I am personally not a huge fan. Assail has worked wonders for me long range, and I can pick off most ranged enemies with ease, as long as I’ve got some reliable cover. The instances I’m talking about are ones in which I don’t have access to that. And so I think my best option is to add a bubble shield build, and also play around with the force sword. That’ll give me a good chance to cleave enemies a bit better while also deflecting projectiles on the run. I did more experimenting earlier on with this class but that was before I was as good as I am now. I have a feeling the force sword is gonna be the way to go. It’s just a shame because the dueling sword is so fun man
Shield is really cool and makes more sense since you dislike Voidstrike.
Just bear in mind that you sure can pick off two or three gunners if you can freely stop in cover and alt throw into them, but in auric you'll probably have a small horde throwing themselves into targeting, two armored enemies and one or more specialists while you're trying to alt throw assail into a pack of 5-6 gunners.
It falls into that pit, can assail KILL GUNNERS? Sure can, but if it can't effectively and amidst chaos, it can't. Hell for all it's worth the regular lmb attack on the surge staff also can.
Yeah the primary fire of the surge staff (and probably the others too) is pretty underrated. I’ve found myself switching over to that after my shards are out and just aiming eye level at basic enemy types. Works pretty as a quick backup. My issue with setting assail aside is that when you spec the build properly, you can absolutely tear into a mixed horde and really thin it down to a manageable level for both you and your teammates. Its efficiency definitely goes down the more space the enemies have in between them, but it’s so valuable when used correctly. That being said, I will probably go for brain burst in the bubble shield build. It’s easier to use when your line of sight is obscured.
Bubble is more than enough to fix your gunner problem without changing much of the build.
I speak from experience, i use a Surge/Mk4 fire sword/Bubble/Smite build on my psyker and the only thing i don't do effectively is killing bosses (most psyker builds don't exactly melt bosses)
Ok so I just used the bubble shield with my surge staff and ilisi force sword. Game changer. The surge staff is plenty for a ranged attack and I honestly rarely felt myself using brain burst. Might tweak it a bit and put smite in there for when shit gets super hairy. But I managed absolutely fine with nothing but bubble shield, sword and staff. I think the thing that turned me away from the bubble shield originally was trying to use it with assail, and the lack of venting shriek became a problem
Yeah I slide all the time. As of right now, bubble shield has fixed this problem. Obviously the “problem” is just a rudimentary challenge of the game that every player has, regardless of class. However, many maps put me (paper thin magician) out in the open where I can only dodge and slide so much. And with gunners now being more powerful than ever, I just had to incorporate it into my build.
Don’t forget them suppression mechanics! Shooting near and around gunners will force them to cower. It’s very good. Shield is incredibly reliable gunner protection though.
Yeah I do actually forget to surprise them that way. To be honest I’ve never actually done that intentionally, or at least realized it was a thing. I’ll keep that in mind, thanks
- Stay behind the Ogryn. - Stay behind other team membes. - Stay in cover / corners. - Have several nodes with Toughness Regeneration (for example: TR when reducing peril, TR on crit, TR with warp kill). - Dont forget Toughness Damage Reduction nodes. - Run Telekinetic Dome. Different playstyle thou, compared to shriek. In the end the psyker is the squishiest class of all 4, so let the team tank the bullets for you. This is after all their job: they are rejects and you have been blessed by the Master of Mankind with a fraction of his powers. SYL
I’ve been dealing with a lot of team splitting lately because I play with randoms but yeah I definitely need to try my best to stay with ogryn and zealot especially. I do my best to stay in cover/corners, and I do it well on maps that allow for it but there’s usually a few spots per mission that really put you out in the open. Thanks man
Yeah, playing with randoms makes it a lot harder!
Dodge and slide constantly while charging your staff and quelling peril. Take the empathic evasion talent (immunity to ranged attacks on critical hit).
Ok I’ll check for that one because I may or may not have it. I’m still practicing sliding and dodging while simultaneously preforming ranged attacks
Its a really good talent. It works for both melee and ranged crits, so if you have a melee weapon that crits a lot like a duelling sword or knife with riposte or shred it will save you in those melee engagements where you are also taking ranged fire.
Quell sliding is a psyker's most important movement tech.
Just kill them bruh
Best one so far
I’m sure you know this but you can essentially be sliding at all times that you have more than no stamina. If you are sliding you are dodging ranged attacks So avoiding gunfire is just a matter of sliding from cover to cover periodically recovering your stamina getting closer and closer until you can force melee with whoever’s left. If you have 0 stamina and there’s no cover nearby and get stunlocked, you fucked up. This is where you die. If you are facing a mixed horde backed by gunners then take care of the vanguard before diving into the gunners. Unless you are a zealot and can close distance quickly
I feel like I’ve gotten shot while sliding before but I still try and slide anytime I hear someone lock onto me
You can get hit by melee attacks while sliding but not gun fire unless there are multiple enemies shooting. Sometimes their attacks don't match to on the timing so you can dodge 1 and get hit by another as you stand up. You can also block/shoot while sliding to prevent the melee from getting through. Slide dodge gets pretty useful at higher levels as the dodge can be the best way to generate enough momentum. Psyker Regen for stamina is so quick you will gain enough stamina from the first one to chain slides if done right. One other thing I didn't see mentioned yet was the deflector perk on force swords in combination with kinetic deflection perk on the first point of the bottom right branch. This combo lets you block bullets with your sword and it goes to your peril with a big reduction instead of taking out your wimpy stamina pool.
In auric damnation if u ain’t sliding or in cover, u getting shot Also make sure you manage your stamina, no stamina no dodge ie: You gotta always get maximum value for the stamina by getting the big slide keep stamina above 50% as a rule of thumb if you can stagger them out of an attack it’s more efficient than dodging it
Doesn’t the dueling sword give you unlimited stamina for dodging? I could be wrong but I thought it does
Alot of false information in this thread. Dodges are not tied to stamina. Stamina affects sprinting and blocking, nothing else. Force-sword does not have unlimited dodges. That was taken out about a year ago.
Interesting. I never really noticed a difference one way or another when using the dueling sword or the ilisi force sword
Well it has a lot of dodges so you can dodge more times in a row without running out of dodges, but the force swords have actual unlimited dodges (but very slow)
Average Orgyn response
Train your game awareness by playing more. Stay with team, psyker is very reliant on someone taking care of close ranged mobs for them. Know what mobs you can take and which ones you can't. Dodge, dodge and dodge again and some more. Also headshot ranged mobs with staff's primary fire to quickly put them down
I find that the speed boost that comes with disrupt destiny does wonders for keeping my psyker alive. Has the added utility of letting you peep enemies without having eyes on them. I find it my go to for t4/t5. Also highly recommend bubble over shriek. It'll make your teammates make more of an effort to stay near you.
I like the bubble and I’ll certainly be using it for certain missions that I know will be putting me in those really bad spots. But otherwise I’ve found that venting shriek is absolutely crucial for me in terms of taking out entire hordes of poxwalkers and other specialists. I just need to be careful when using the bubble shield to not overcharge my peril
I usually find purgatus or smite can handle the crowd control role shriek can help with just fine, I'll run purgatus if I'm using assail and one of the better long range staves like void strike if smite. It definitely changes the way you have to manage peril to not have shriek but I find ultimately the defensive option in bubble keeps me upright better
Yeah you’re right I’ve just gotta practice with it more
https://preview.redd.it/wb0762hayt9d1.jpeg?width=465&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe238f722ee63f935540fd05f166ad36b40e99e2 if you got a spare build, feel free to try the one a friend gave to me! I run this one in auric/auric maelstrom and it's easily my fave psyker loadout. rock it with surge staff with casting speed/crit chances on peril blessing! surge staff is relatively safe to use and distrupt destiny+that one node higher down the tree makes you extremely nimble for repositioning. not having assail also makes your venting shriek avaible waaay more often thanks to the elite kill cooldown node (with means more cc, more killing if you wait to reach 85% before using it, more instant toughness refill!) lastly do try to stay in the middle of the team but at least with this build you can peek a boo from behind cover if you're isolated (since surge got a pretty good range)
I need to try a smite build out again. I had a terrible experience with it last time, and I made the mistake of declaring that I was a smite user in a post and got flamed hard.
oh smite is just here as a panic button when the team in about to be overrun, you barely use it most of the time. use staff to target elites and pretty much everything, pop the vent everytime it's ready, burn everything to a crisp and repeat smite you use when you see allies about to be fucked by a doomstar of crushers and the two trappers hidden behind/poxbuster you can see behind the horde of elites and the like
Yeah I mean people really like to exaggerate how bad it needs to be in order to use smite but it’s definitely 3rd on deck when compared to staff and melee. It’s still cool though, I’ve enjoyed using it especially when there’s an assail psyker on my team
One thing that's kinda neat is that venting shriek can be used while channeling smite and it does not interrupt your channel. This means that if you run empowered psionics, the next time your blitz is empowered for +200% smite damage, you can channel smite up to about to 90%peril, vent back down to 40%, and keep channeling for a really long empowered smite. It can be pretty juicy.
If you don't want to get caught in the crossfire, stay out of the crossfire. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
BatmanArkham
I'm proud of you, Dick.
I've always said this: four evenly spaced apart shooters are my nightmare as a psyker. You can probably get all four, but more often, you get most of them, and the fourth shoots you. Or you take a stray melee hit from a Groaner/Poxwalker as you focus them. My biggest analysis as Psyker is team roles and player behavior. I use Smite(for cooldown talent below it, would rather Assail)/Dome Shield/ DD/Crit Voidstrike in Auric, but my role as a long-range eliminator gets contested with the Plasma Gun Vet. Since I know anything I tag is most likely killed by him before I can let loose a ball, I would prioritize smaller threats more often. But if I am in a more melee heavy team, my role as range enemy eliminator is much higher, and my positioning should be in the back line. Granted, this is case by case. Especially after this update to shooters, I feel a Psyker Shield sets the pace in a majority of engagements. If you have a loadout you enjoy, just try to analyze what your strengths and weaknesses are compared to your team. If you have an Executioner Stance Vet with a marksman weapon, you definitely want to keep them safe so they can take out shooters at the start of their Ability. If you have a Shield/Bullrush Ogryn or Zealot, you want to push alongside them to handle the shooters as they draw aggro. But if none of your team can reliably handle shooters, just keep with someone's pace and whittle away Shooters with Assail. Just don't be caught alone.
I’m always so thankful for orgyns in pretty much any match. The symbiotic relationship between the two classes works very well when both are competent. I’ve also gotten better at seeing when I’m needed for a certain task and when I’m needed elsewhere, like you’re talking about. The only thing I haven’t done yet is create a bubble shield class. I definitely will soon, I just need to get some practice in with it because assail makes it very easy to overdo it with your peril.
I am a Shriek main, but Bubble has come into favor for this update. The absolute MAJOR downside to Bubble at this moment is its 40s cooldown. This cooldown can be mediated with the double wall, but Dome's Toughness replenishment/ damage reduction is a God Emperor save in some scenarios. I was originally using Assail to handle sudden Shooters/ Shotgunners, but I swapped to Smite for the path to [Psykinetic's Aura] Talent on the left + [Seer's Presence] Aura for more cooldowns, and finally [Disrupt Destiny] Keystone to help identify enemies in a crowd. I picked up all 7 talents in the beginning and took [Warp Rider] in the bottom middle. Weapons were Voidtstrike Staff with both crit blessings and +crit chance perk to have something like 22.5% base chance, or more if you picked the crit Aura, then the Illisi Force Sword for horde juggling and some power swings (use what you like). I alluded to it in my earlier comment, but ideally, I would pick Assail over Smite and keep mostly to the right for crit bonuses. But after more than a handful of Auric failures, I couldn't help but notice the long cooldowns by not having [Psykinetic's Aura]. It really sucks that Talent and Assail are mutually exclusive due to pathing.
Yeah I’ve noticed that as well. The bubble shield is so incredibly tempting, especially since there’s plenty of places in virtually every map where you can place one and be completely invulnerable, at least from one direction
Brainburst and Bubble seem to work just fine for me. Yeah, they suppress and hit harder, but it just makes you use your brain more to find cover and slide.
I really wish I didn’t absolutely despise brain burst but I just do. I’ve tried multiple times to use it and it just doesn’t jive with me unfortunately
Get the secondary node on Brainburst to decrease its cast time on Blitz use. Seems to delete everything quickly...also, the bottom middle nodeway increases its damage and peril percentage after killing an elite (or something like that).
Venting Shriek I've found is excellent for dealing with the regular shooters, get it to 85% and use it in their general direction. Since there is no cap on amount of targets hit, they all get six stacks and die while hiding in cover. If you use Wildfire this can slowly spread to the rest of them. The dome shield is another option, but I personally prefer Vent to just go ham with Peril now and then. If you want to you can trade the dueling sword for a Force Sword with Deflector on it and taking Kinetic Deflection talent, bring a +3 Stamina curio and you turn into an Ogryn with a Slab shield. I used to go down all the time (and still do sometimes), despite stacking toughness curios and taking every toughness regen node on top. What solved it for me was taking the Combat Knife as melee. Almost purely as a movement tool, you go so fast, slide so far and can dodge all day. I sprint and slide toward gunner lines, then swap to the purge staff, spam M1 a couple times hoping for some crits and Kinetic Flayer proc, then back to the knife to keep dodging. Can recommend giving it a spin, when you are caught out in the open and see dozen dozens barrels glinting start sliding sliding sliding. Edit: To add to the above, with the prevalence of shooters present these days I have a newfound appreciation for Psychic Leeching (15% toughness to everyone in coh when using a stack) under Empowered Psionics. Saying I got three stacks and we come under fire, I spam three Brain Ruptures and everyone close to me gets 45% toughness to tank some more stray shots.
Psyker has some of the best toughness generation in the game. Use that to your advantage and you can survive shooter onslaughts without your toughness breaking, and then you can slowly pick them all off. Good talents to look for are One with the Warp, Soulstealer, Mettle, Warp Expenditure and Quietude. Combined with dodging, falling back behind allies and occassionaly taking cover, you can survive pretty damn well. On higher difficulties with lots of elites and specials, Warp Siphon and Essence Harvest are crazy.
I’m constantly hitting them hard and then falling back to cover. It serves me super well and I have most of these talents. I think my main problem here is that I have pretty much no way to deflect any projectiles. I’ll be adding a bubble shield build and using the force sword to see if it’s worth it, with its limited shielding ability
Assail, purgatus, trauma, laspistol and infantry autogun are good options to kill shooters on your own, and if you need to engage them in melee you can also use a dueling sword or force sword to farm headshots with funny multipliers. A personal favorite of mine is the Graia IAG with empathic evasion, true aim and scrier's gaze; it's the old infinite toughness shredder vet, but with the caveat of needing a brain.
To be honest, from the responses I’m getting it’s really just seeming like the randoms I play with tend to separate too much because I do all those things you just described, and still get put into situations where there’s like 10 ranged infantry across from me and no cover. Something tells me that shouldn’t happen if the team is staying together. But yeah assail is great for taking out especially problematic ranged targets and I love it.
With the power some builds have, sometimes people forget not everyone can do everything and clear a whole room by sheer willpower. For times like that I'm glad to have memorized certain rooms and escape routes, as well as almost religiously using weapons with high movement speed. Depending on where you play from, I could even give a hand and see if things get a bit less tense, since apparently the Director took his ritalin and the game is harder than ever.
I like how hard it is. It does well to help each player improve their own skill set, but then also sometimes does the opposite. But yeah memorizing the different routes and stuff is something I’ve been working on lately, especially with the build I run. If I’ve got room to backpedal/climb, I’m all good. I typically switch to my dueling sword to run away and cover my retreat when needed
any reason you guys never mention surge as a shooter melter? this staff just slaughter squads of shooters and their gunners, especially paired with the fire nodes and venting shriek
Personally? I just find it boring and spammy, so I never use it and it ends up kinda erased from my mind. It definitely hits like a truck and charges really fast though, so it's also a solid option.
Use your brain to make brains explode
Never be in front unless its a team of 4 psykers and pray one of that other psyker have a dome. Be aware of your surrounding them spiky are really good at shanking you and never run in openly always be ready to run back to cover or behind your ogryn Cover the zealot that fight with you and pray to the one in the throne that the zealot that do go in front is a good distraction. always bob and weave
Yeah for sure I’ve had a few four psyker games and they can go crazy as long as one of them has a bubble shield.
Always use the environment to your advantage, use crates, walls, pillars, anything to help block enemy fire. If you're rocking surge staff and they are outside of 25m then you can run to cover ahead, use venting to stagger some of them and start surge-sliding back and forth or strafing to pick them off. I use Scrier's and using it for speed bonus and toughness boost has helped me many times get out of terrible situations.
Yeah I do all of those things when I can. And on a good day I’ll go through an entire mission without even taking damage until the squad hits that big open area, at which point I really have nowhere to go. Those are really the times I’m talking about and I can’t dodge everyone at once
I didn't really focus on toughness, I focused on reducing buildup, and DPS, but then again I'm a space taser type, Smite, so I mostly just try and step off to the side while stun locking the enemy, it's also satisfying to see entire crowds just reduced to nothing but tweaking out corpses
Always Be Dodgin'. It's why I bound dodge to space bar on my keyboard, you need to hit it way WAAAAAAAAAAY more than you ever need to jump.
Damn I’m playing on controller unfortunately
You need to make your peril go up and down faster. Every psyker takes quietude and warp expenditure. That's the foundation of every build. There are other things like toughness damage reduction, crits restore toughness, something reduces peril and so on and so on. Big picture peril has to go up a lot and down a lot. That's the hamster wheel you are on. There are gameplay things you can do like not playing like a zealot who is constantly running around with his dick out but everyone without a perfect slide game is getting tagged. You want as much toughness damage reduction as possible and actual toughness because the first thing there you will not get much of. I think you said venting so staff guy. Remember you have great melee weapons and don't be the asshole 40m behind the team
Retreat. Pick off a couple with assail secondary. Slide in and zap the rest into gibs. Vent to stun, it is CC more than DPS.
Bar for bar that’s exactly how I play
Stay behind your meat shields...I mean fellow rejects
Yeah that’s the vibe when possible
I recomend adding bubble shield with recent buffs to enemies to your build and it Will increase your Survivability and teams.you Will have less dmg but you Will have panic button when you and your team need it.
If squishy: fire. If not squishy: head go boom.
Hello, associate. The others have already given some solid advice, but Ill add some more. - The most important piece of advice: try a Force Sword with Deflector blessing and the talent to Convert Blocked damage to Peril. I personally love the Illisi. It should be a game changer against gunners. I try to always have weapons or blitz for both horde clear and killing elites and specials. I think you dont need both a Duellling sword and the Surge staff, as they are both good elite killers, but not as effective horde clear. The Illisi is good horde clear, so goes well with surge staff. - Stay with the team. Full coherency is king. If you get divided in 2 groups of two, which happens, always go join to the other two guys as soon as possible (3 in coherency is better than 2). Yes, sometimes your team will become stupid and split up and get killed. It should happen less in aurics, but it happened once to me in Auric Maelstrom, so dont worry to much about it. - The psyker is rather more squishy than the other classes, so get as much toughness regeneration talents as you can. Do not bother with toughness \*replenishment\*, as that just increases the speed at which you regenerate toughness, it does not give toughness on its own (so if youre alone with no coherency, your toughness replenishment will be is 0, so a 50% increase is still 0). - Get a 16% or 17% Toughness Curio. - Get a 3+ Stamina Curio. Stamina is important for survival. - consider using Smite instead of Assail, I personally dont like Assail on higher levels, cause it seems to fall off significantly in damage and utilitiy in damnation. Smite is extremely powerful on higher levels, cause stunning a huge group of elites while your teams clears them out is OP. Good luck and see you on Tertium, associate.
Hello, associate. The others have already given some solid advice, but Ill add some more. - The most important piece of advice: try a Force Sword with Deflector blessing and the talent to Convert Blocked damage to Peril. I personally love the Illisi. It should be a game changer against gunners. I try to always have weapons or blitz for both horde clear and killing elites and specials. I think you dont need both a Duellling sword and the Surge staff, as they are both good elite killers, but not as effective horde clear. The Illisi is good horde clear, so goes well with surge staff. - Stay with the team. Full coherency is king. If you get divided in 2 groups of two, which happens, always go join to the other two guys as soon as possible (3 in coherency is better than 2). Yes, sometimes your team will become stupid and split up and get killed. It should happen less in aurics, but it happened once to me in Auric Maelstrom, so dont worry to much about it. - The psyker is rather more squishy than the other classes, so get as much toughness regeneration talents as you can. Do not bother with toughness \*replenishment\*, as that just increases the speed at which you regenerate toughness, it does not give toughness on its own (so if youre alone with no coherency, your toughness replenishment will be is 0, so a 50% increase is still 0). - Get a 16% or 17% Toughness Curio. - Get a 3+ Stamina Curio. Stamina is important for survival. - consider using Smite instead of Assail, I personally dont like Assail on higher levels, cause it seems to fall off significantly in damage and utilitiy in damnation. Smite is extremely powerful on higher levels, cause stunning a huge group of elites while your teams clears them out is OP. Good luck and see you on Tertium, associate.
Can't say I agree with most points. The force field is pretty weak in auric damnation or maelstrom, and not much more than a crutch. Assail slaps gunners and is also amazing against maniacs, if you're in a pinch. The rest is pretty individual, I run +3 stamina and two health curios. Imo, the most important things in damnation and auric damnation are movement (don't stop, always slide around) and situational awareness.
Force field or force sword? I didnt mention the shield. I like it for horde clear and the deflector. I agree its not amazing against stronger enemies, but thats what Surge Staff is for. I also agree about positioning and movement. But im shocked to hear you running 2x health curios. I run one stamina, one health and one toughness curio, cant imagine going 2x health curios on a psyker, or any other class for that matter
I mean the deflector blessing, sorry for the confusion. As for the curios, I tried it all, and just felt that toughness breaks so easily, and is so low for psykers, that I'd rather have more hp. The only must have curio is stamina, I'd say. The rest is preference imo. I do have 4% toughness in all curios though. That said, I'm thinking of retesting toughness curios after the recent changes. Don't really have survivability problems, but who knows. I have improved significantly since I changed curios, and maybe more toughness would be even better now.
M1 of the ranged staffs does some suppression
Kill them before they kill you
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Psyker main with 600 hours who plays auric 5 and auric maelstrom exclusively here. There are a lot of fun builds for psyker for sure, but when it comes to the higher difficulties and especially right now with the super charged gunners there's really one build the carries the most. Brain burst, CDR aura, warp charges. Constantly throwing down domes REALLY helps you team survive and be able to push. I build this with a purgatus (fire) staff to handle hordes and elites getting 6 stacks of warp charges very quickly which helps thin waves immensely for the rest of your team to focus specials while simultaneously leading to situations where you've dropped double domes with a 3rd in the wings. You have BB as a way to pick off any volley gunners or bombers, snipers that might not be accessible to your teammates and I've been really enjoying the new indignatus shock maul with an unyielding/carapace focus to absolutely devastate any bosses or ogryns you come up against. It's far more effective than I thought it would be and rather fun to hit em with the taser to stun ogryns. Keep in mind that positioning is everything for a psyker, and you have to use BB often to knock out high prio targets before they close in or as they are getting away so they can't loop back to your team. Hope this helps your journey to auric.
Outside the obvious stay behind, play around cover, yadda yadda. Your build has a clear weakness to Gunners and that's probably the biggest reason you're having the problem. I also play surge and it does absolutely nothing whenever they're out of range, dueling sword doesn't have the block bullets blessing and assail kinda sucks at long range to. But i may say so, the build doesn't make any sense against anything either, surge works wonders on high peril with the crit blessing, you're rocking the ability to clear peril, assail doesn't benefit much from that ability either. Dueling sword is probably the best melee in the game so not much going wrong there, but it doesn't help with the gunner problem either. Overall every weapon/skill has a clear weakness and the other sides of your build should aid you with that, this is true for any class but especially on Psyker. If you're rocking the surge, you're better off running bubble/barrier to protect youself and allow you to close the gap, if you got yourself a strong long range weapon like a void strike and a single target fire sword you'll want something to aid you when getting swarmed like assail, etc etc. TL/DR swap surge for void strike to deal with long range gunners.
Voidstrike is ok but I am personally not a huge fan. Assail has worked wonders for me long range, and I can pick off most ranged enemies with ease, as long as I’ve got some reliable cover. The instances I’m talking about are ones in which I don’t have access to that. And so I think my best option is to add a bubble shield build, and also play around with the force sword. That’ll give me a good chance to cleave enemies a bit better while also deflecting projectiles on the run. I did more experimenting earlier on with this class but that was before I was as good as I am now. I have a feeling the force sword is gonna be the way to go. It’s just a shame because the dueling sword is so fun man
Shield is really cool and makes more sense since you dislike Voidstrike. Just bear in mind that you sure can pick off two or three gunners if you can freely stop in cover and alt throw into them, but in auric you'll probably have a small horde throwing themselves into targeting, two armored enemies and one or more specialists while you're trying to alt throw assail into a pack of 5-6 gunners. It falls into that pit, can assail KILL GUNNERS? Sure can, but if it can't effectively and amidst chaos, it can't. Hell for all it's worth the regular lmb attack on the surge staff also can.
Yeah the primary fire of the surge staff (and probably the others too) is pretty underrated. I’ve found myself switching over to that after my shards are out and just aiming eye level at basic enemy types. Works pretty as a quick backup. My issue with setting assail aside is that when you spec the build properly, you can absolutely tear into a mixed horde and really thin it down to a manageable level for both you and your teammates. Its efficiency definitely goes down the more space the enemies have in between them, but it’s so valuable when used correctly. That being said, I will probably go for brain burst in the bubble shield build. It’s easier to use when your line of sight is obscured.
Bubble is more than enough to fix your gunner problem without changing much of the build. I speak from experience, i use a Surge/Mk4 fire sword/Bubble/Smite build on my psyker and the only thing i don't do effectively is killing bosses (most psyker builds don't exactly melt bosses)
Ok so I just used the bubble shield with my surge staff and ilisi force sword. Game changer. The surge staff is plenty for a ranged attack and I honestly rarely felt myself using brain burst. Might tweak it a bit and put smite in there for when shit gets super hairy. But I managed absolutely fine with nothing but bubble shield, sword and staff. I think the thing that turned me away from the bubble shield originally was trying to use it with assail, and the lack of venting shriek became a problem
Slide a lot and make sure to utilize the suppression mechanics.
Yeah I slide all the time. As of right now, bubble shield has fixed this problem. Obviously the “problem” is just a rudimentary challenge of the game that every player has, regardless of class. However, many maps put me (paper thin magician) out in the open where I can only dodge and slide so much. And with gunners now being more powerful than ever, I just had to incorporate it into my build.
Don’t forget them suppression mechanics! Shooting near and around gunners will force them to cower. It’s very good. Shield is incredibly reliable gunner protection though.
Yeah I do actually forget to surprise them that way. To be honest I’ve never actually done that intentionally, or at least realized it was a thing. I’ll keep that in mind, thanks