What if Brainburst is the *only* balanced Blitz?

[Snobby Hobo]

Brainburst is OK. It's not good, it's not terrible. It finds uses a few times a match even when playing with competent allies. Pretty much everyone agrees it needs a buff in the form of better breakpoints, especially after the enemy health buffs.

Smite and Assail, without going into any balance, both reward spammy consistent use of the Blitz. It doesn't really matter what the situation is, you will frequently just use it to spam for a while.

Brainburst is the only tool of the three that doesn't seem designed to incentivize constant use. It's a tactical ability that has tactical uses, just like grenades on the other classes. Of course it's Psykers shtick so it's allowed to be a bit better, which Brainburst would be if it had reasonable breakpoints - just like before the update.

What if BB is the *only* well designed Blitz and Assail and Smite are just poorly designed in first place?

[Lamiosa]

Smite and Assail are brain dead modes. You can spam them at enemies and do decent damage/kills. Brain burst was often useless many times, as you can only use it at strategic situations like nuking bosses with high armor or nuking multiple specials under cover in distance (snipers for example). Esepcially if you already have good weapons and playing on highest difficulty with a good team you rather use brain burst than assail, as you will have a veteran for taking out specials/normal enemies at distance and do not need to play solo.

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by Lamiosa:

Smite and Assail are brain dead modes. You can spam them at enemies and do decent damage/kills. Brain burst was often useless many times, as you can only use it at strategic situations like nuking bosses with high armor or nuking multiple specials under cover in distance (snipers for example). Esepcially if you already have good weapons and playing on highest difficulty with a good team you rather use brain burst than assail, as you will have a veteran for taking out specials/normal enemies at distance and do not need to play solo.

Not sure why you reply with a list of general remarks. You sure you even read the post?

[Lamiosa]

Originally posted by Snobby Hobo:

Originally posted by Lamiosa:

Smite and Assail are brain dead modes. You can spam them at enemies and do decent damage/kills. Brain burst was often useless many times, as you can only use it at strategic situations like nuking bosses with high armor or nuking multiple specials under cover in distance (snipers for example). Esepcially if you already have good weapons and playing on highest difficulty with a good team you rather use brain burst than assail, as you will have a veteran for taking out specials/normal enemies at distance and do not need to play solo.

Not sure why you reply with a list of general remarks. You sure you even read the post?

Not sure why you feel offended. Just feel ok if someone does not agree to your point?

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by Lamiosa:

Originally posted by Snobby Hobo:

Not sure why you reply with a list of general remarks. You sure you even read the post?

Not sure why you feel offended. Just feel ok if someone does not agree to your point?

Some people on here should be studied.

[Lamiosa]

Ah I get it, you are a troll and now disappointed that no one answered with saying that you write BS, but side stepping your points. So you start insuling. Ever tried to be a useful member for society, instead of doing this as a hobby?

Btw. sorry that I do not spend points to give you a clown for, as you might have hoped for.

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by Snobby Hobo:

What if BB is the *only* well designed Blitz and Assail and Smite are just poorly designed in first place?

That ship has sailed. BB is a badly designed Blitz straight from the gate.

This game does not leave you so much free time that you should need to slowly charge an ability that wastes two resources in one when a teammate shoots the special you're trying to BB. (You're losing both cast time and peril generation.)

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Originally posted by Snobby Hobo:

What if BB is the *only* well designed Blitz and Assail and Smite are just poorly designed in first place?

That ship has sailed. BB is a badly designed Blitz straight from the gate.

This game does not leave you so much free time that you should need to slowly charge an ability that wastes two resources in one when a teammate shoots the special you're trying to BB. (You're losing both cast time and peril generation.)

Again, you absolutely fail to react to the point being made here. Just "it charge so it objectively bad >:(".

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by Snobby Hobo:

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

That ship has sailed. BB is a badly designed Blitz straight from the gate.

This game does not leave you so much free time that you should need to slowly charge an ability that wastes two resources in one when a teammate shoots the special you're trying to BB. (You're losing both cast time and peril generation.)

Again, you absolutely fail to react to the point being made here. Just "it charge so it objectively bad >:(".

Bruh, it was bad before we had Assail or Smite. It has always been a dubious proposition to bother with as opposed to using a staff or gun. It has suffered from poor scaling with difficulties and breakpoints since Beta.

Smite is reasonably balanced. I use smite when I need that tool, but also swap to my staff or melee when I need those tools.

I only use BB when I feel compelled to get use out of what should be a fun ability.

I do mostly agree with your point regarding Assail; it's too much of a swiss army knife. Outside of heavy melee pressure, it solves too many problems and renders your staff and other stuff somewhat irrelevant.

[RunningBot]

I get what you're saying.

Three thoughts:

1. BB or Brain Rupture (eye roll), was the first one developed and has had a lot more thought put into it. It has basically undergone a whole new revision vs the other two which are Aplha versions if you will. Though stacking up 3 Empowered BBs and dropping them on a Monster is super fun.

2. Smite without some kind of peril cost reduction is pretty meh now. Its CC ability is closer in use to BB, meaning more situational than spam happy like before. Even before the bug fix you could get hit/interrupted and it was worth building 3 stacks before spamming it around. I don't think damage is the answer to balancing it, more damage just makes the staff less useful. Peril reduction seems the only path, but that could lead back to your balance issue with it being spammed. Perhaps the 3 charges in the Empowered Psionics Keystone is what needs fixing as well, but that might screw up BB builds.

3. Assail is the odd man out. It's way overpowered for any Malce and under. It's kinda balanced in Heresy and it feels weak compared to the others in Damnation and beyound. I don't have a good solution here. Maybe a %of health with a modifier of some kind? Armor damage reduction? I don't know. It's a puzzle.


That's my thoughts. I agree with your premise.

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by Black Hammer:

Originally posted by Snobby Hobo:

Again, you absolutely fail to react to the point being made here. Just "it charge so it objectively bad >:(".

Bruh, it was bad before we had Assail or Smite. It has always been a dubious proposition to bother with as opposed to using a staff or gun. It has suffered from poor scaling with difficulties and breakpoints since Beta.

Smite is reasonably balanced. I use smite when I need that tool, but also swap to my staff or melee when I need those tools.

I only use BB when I feel compelled to get use out of what should be a fun ability.

I do mostly agree with your point regarding Assail; it's too much of a swiss army knife. Outside of heavy melee pressure, it solves too many problems and renders your staff and other stuff somewhat irrelevant.

BB was completely fine. Ask any experienced Psyker player on here (myself included). I did solo Damnation as Psyker, probably one of the very few. It was fine until Psyker started getting these ridiculous alternatives (also BB got gradually worse after a series of weird changes by Fatshark).

This was Psyker before all the changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SskhcICe-CU&t=106s

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by RunningBot:

I get what you're saying.

Three thoughts:

1. BB or Brain Rupture (eye roll), was the first one developed and has had a lot more thought put into it. It has basically undergone a whole new revision vs the other two which are Aplha versions if you will. Though stacking up 3 Empowered BBs and dropping them on a Monster is super fun.

2. Smite without some kind of peril cost reduction is pretty meh now. Its CC ability is closer in use to BB, meaning more situational than spam happy like before. Even before the bug fix you could get hit/interrupted and it was worth building 3 stacks before spamming it around. I don't think damage is the answer to balancing it, more damage just makes the staff less useful. Peril reduction seems the only path, but that could lead back to your balance issue with it being spammed. Perhaps the 3 charges in the Empowered Psionics Keystone is what needs fixing as well, but that might screw up BB builds.

3. Assail is the odd man out. It's way overpowered for any Malce and under. It's kinda balanced in Heresy and it feels weak compared to the others in Damnation and beyound. I don't have a good solution here. Maybe a %of health with a modifier of some kind? Armor damage reduction? I don't know. It's a puzzle.


That's my thoughts. I agree with your premise.

Assail is still a lot of value generation in Auric Damnation and Mealstrom, believe it or not. But it's certainly not going to be carrying any games there. The problem is just how much it incentivizes spamming to me; the player basically shuts their brain off and just spams it for a while until the Peril becomes too overwhelming (the shards themselves seem to never run out anyway).

I've not touched the new Smite just because of how much I despise it's design. It literally snyergizes with "just pressing the button more and longer". The previous infini-Smite was the most unimaginably boring experience I've had in this game.

[Arani]

I just really can't agree on BB being anywhere close to a good place right now. It's far too slow and far too weak to be of use, and since it no longer has the synergies it did before there's no real need to use it either.

If it was up to me to change them all, I'd probably something like this (all from T5 perspective):

Brain Burst

• Put back Cerebral Lacerations (+25% dmg from all sources against target after BB for 5-10 seconds) as one of BB's sub-talents.
  
• Boost the primary cast time by around 25-33%, just enough to keep up with the new faster kill times.
  
• Change the secondary into an overcharge that takes max 3-5 seconds, increasing BB's power the higher that charge goes. At max charge and some talents it should 1-shot crushers.
  
• If it required further balancing for the higher damage, simply increase its peril generation. Ultimately BB is supposed to be a heavy-hitter & anti-armor tool. As an extreme example, even if you could 1-shot something but it cost 50% peril to do so, it would be balanced through the horrible peril economy alone.

Smite

• Change it from "just hold" into something similar to Purgatus, where the longer you charge the longer you can use it per blast and the more damage it does. But you still have to keep reapplying it eventually. Primary would apply a short shock to a few enemies ideal for speed.
  
• Reduce the number of targets affected by the CC, but have it prioritize elites -> specials.
  
• Empowered Psionics should lose most of the damage buff and get a charge speed, peril efficiency and increased CC buff instead. So with EP you could get to full charge nearly instantly, while stopping even muties in their tracks like the old Surge used to do. But because you need EP to do this, it would still remain balanced as you couldn't just disable all muties indefinitely.
  
• The reduced damage would give it a more distinct role as a more pure CC, instead of semi-competing with Assail for horde kills.
  
• Overall, this would change it from such a lazy design into something that gives more control to the player and rewards more skillful use. You could do things like change targets or do short quells between each blast, while having to more carefully choose what you use it on instead of just standing still and holding LMB while controlling basically everything on the screen.

Assail
Honestly this is tricky, since I still feel like Assail is supposed to be BB's opposite: the blitz that gives ranged horde clear. The problem is that outside of some rare novelty builds and weapons, all of our staves save for Surge already do plenty of horde clear. Assail would pair very well with something like Bolt Staff from VT2, but we don't have anything like that. I can't think of a "good" way to change this one but I suppose if I had to try I'd go for something like this:

• Reduce the ammo generation.
  
• Increase primary damage against horde type enemies, keep it about the same against flak, and drastically reduce it against specials and especially elites.
  
• Increase secondary ammo consumption to 2-3 per shard with increased damage against specials+.
  
• Basically make it better as horde clear, but you'd have to specifically use the secondary fire to focus down specials+, and could only clear a small handful at a time.
  
• Possibly increase cast speed and travel time especially for the secondary, making it a faster reactive tool for taking out key targets when you need to prioritize mobility and speed over the overall better staves.
  
• Overall this would change it from a "spam at everything" into a more tactical weapon you could use to either effectively clear hordes, or quickly take out snipers, bombers, or the first few ragers that got a drop on your team. But with the more expensive ammo economy, slower ammo generation, and varied use of the different firing modes you would have to choose. As opposed to how it is now where you mostly just spam it willy nilly and the ability takes care of the rest.

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by Arani:

I just really can't agree on BB being anywhere close to a good place right now. It's far too slow and far too weak to be of use, and since it no longer has the synergies it did before there's no real need to use it either.

If it was up to me to change them all, I'd probably something like this (all from T5 perspective):

Brain Burst

• Put back Cerebral Lacerations (+25% dmg from all sources against target after BB for 5-10 seconds) as one of BB's sub-talents.
  
• Boost the primary cast time by around 25-33%, just enough to keep up with the new faster kill times.
  
• Change the secondary into an overcharge that takes max 3-5 seconds, increasing BB's power the higher that charge goes. At max charge and some talents it should 1-shot crushers.
  
• If it required further balancing despite the higher damage, simply increase it's peril generation. Ultimately BB is supposed to be a heavy-hitter & anti-armor tool. As an extreme example, even if you could 1-shot something but it cost 50% peril to do so, it would be balanced through the horrible peril economy alone.

Smite

• Change it into something similar to Purgatus secondary, where the longer you charge the longer you can use it per blast and the more damage it does. But you still have to keep reapplying it eventually.
  
• Reduce the number of targets affected by the CC, but have it prioritize elites -> specials.
  
• Empowered Psionics should lose most of the damage buff and get a charge speed, peril efficiency and increased CC buff instead. So with EP you could get to full charge nearly instantly, while stopping even muties in their tracks like the old Surge used to do. But because you need EP to do this, it would still remain balanced as you couldn't just disable all muties indefinitely.
  
• The reduced damage would give it a more distinct role as a more pure CC, instead of semi-competing with Assail for horde kills.
  
• Overall, this would change it from such a lazy design into something that gives more control to the player and rewards more skillful use. You could do things like change targets or do short quells between each blast, while having to more carefully choose what you use it on instead of just standing still and holding LMB while controlling basically everything on the screen.

Assail
Honestly this is tricky, since I still feel like Assail is supposed to be BB's opposite: the blitz that gives ranged horde clear. The problem is that outside of some rare novelty builds and weapons, all of our staves save for Surge already do plenty of horde clear. Assail would pair very well with something like Bolt Staff from VT2, but we don't have anything like that. I can't think of a "good" way to change this one but I suppose if I had to try I'd go for something like this:

• Reduce the ammo generation.
  
• Increase primary damage against horde type enemies, keep it about the same against flak, and drastically reduce it against specials and especially elites.
  
• Increase secondary ammo consumption to 2-3 per shard with increased damage.
  
• Basically make it better as horde clear, but you'd have to specifically use the secondary fire to focus down specials+, and could only clear a small handful at a time.
  
• Possibly increase cast speed and travel time especially for the secondary, making it a faster reactive tool for taking out key targets when you need to prioritize mobility and speed over the overall better staves.
  
• Overall this would change it from a "spam at everything" into a more tactical weapon you could use to either effectively clear hordes, or quickly take out snipers, bombers, or the first few ragers that got a drop on your team. But with the more expensive ammo economy, slower ammo generation, and varied use of the different firing modes you would have to choose. As opposed to how it is now where you mostly just spam it willy nilly and the ability takes care of the rest.

When you start comparing it to Blitzes outside just Psyker it's "not terrible", as I described it. In comparison to Assail there's not much reason to run it, but I despise Assail as is due to its generalist nature.

Smite shouldn't be channeled in my opinion. And it shouldn't reward "pressing it more". Perhaps something like a charged blast that inflicts heavy stagger and some kind of debuff, but more like a "shotgun" effect. At least that way people would have to think about what to do.

Assail is just... just delete it or something.

[Dragontoast]

BB only isn't a spammed thing because it is worthless. The damage, time, and peril investment is too high. In other words, people don't use it because it has almost 0 redeeming qualities.

I have never liked BB, there is just no situation where it is a better option than my Staff or Melee weapon and the gap just grows as difficulty increases.

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by Dragontoast:

BB only isn't a spammed thing because it is worthless. The damage, time, and peril investment is too high. In other words, people don't use it because it has almost 0 redeeming qualities.

I have never liked BB, there is just no situation where it is a better option than my Staff or Melee weapon and the gap just grows as difficulty increases.

The latter part is definitely true. The first is definitely false. BB has various cases where it's worth using, but the amount of those use cases seems to be diminishing with every update Fatshark puts out.

It's also an ability that's tactical by definition in a game that becomes increasingly less tactical ("just spam more ♥♥♥♥" is essentially the approach to "difficulty" here).