Pyker question

[ShadeWolf]

does the crit warp strike trigger blazing soul on the great sword?

[Tunnfisk]

Originally posted by ShadeWolf:

does the crit warp strike trigger blazing soul on the great sword?

No.

[Grr. [SG CMD] Majah Lazah]

Nope.

Just one of the reasons the PsyZwei is actually kind of trash, especially compared to the Zealot one.

[BadAtNames]

Also, despite warpshock slash damage increasing when using the +5% ranged damage talent, it does not count as a ranged attack for the true aim talent and will not trigger the guaranteed ranged critical. Just in case you were thinking of getting around the warp slice blessing with true aim.

[Arani]

Originally posted by Larry:

Also, despite warpshock slash damage increasing when using the +5% ranged damage talent, it does not count as a ranged attack for the true aim talent and will not trigger the guaranteed ranged critical. Just in case you were thinking of getting around the warp slice blessing with true aim.

Ohh hadn't noticed this! Good info!

Also for OP & others: The special always counts as a chest hit, so no weakspots either. For Soulblaze (SB) there's a bug report stating that it can only - and maybe - benefits from one buff/blessing at a time, which is why Blazing Spirit among others are bugged and don't work right. The weapon does fantastic crit / weakspot dmg on its own already, and SB takes a long while to stack or kill. The special also only does +~30% dmg on crits - meaning your charge level is what decides what you kill, not the crit -, so Warp Slice is a bad pick too.

Regarding SB, 4 stacks doesn't even kill horde. It's barely enough to do just over 50% hp dmg over ~10s to trash and doesn't even scratch specials+. So you need 2 crits for enough SB to kill the weakest mobs. You're likely to get at least 2-4 regular hits between 2 crits anyway, which is *way* more than enough dmg for the sword to just kill on its own long before the SB even matters. So like with just about every other weapon, Blazing Spirit is generally a waste of a blessing slot. There are exceptions but they play into finer points in specific builds & playstyles, and those builds tend to pay a heavy price in setting aside talent points for Wildfire, In Fire Reborn etc.

Personally I recommend going with at least Shred, + Unstable Power (my usual pick) / Riposte / Precog / Wrath / Deflector.

[Bottom Frag]

Originally posted by Arani:

Originally posted by Larry:

Also, despite warpshock slash damage increasing when using the +5% ranged damage talent, it does not count as a ranged attack for the true aim talent and will not trigger the guaranteed ranged critical. Just in case you were thinking of getting around the warp slice blessing with true aim.

Ohh hadn't noticed this! Good info!

Also for OP & others: The special always counts as a chest hit, so no weakspots either. For Soulblaze (SB) there's a bug report stating that it can only - and maybe - benefits from one buff/blessing at a time, which is why Blazing Spirit among others are bugged and don't work right. The weapon does fantastic crit / weakspot dmg on its own already, and SB takes a long while to stack or kill. The special also only does +~30% dmg on crits - meaning your charge level is what decides what you kill, not the crit -, so Warp Slice is a bad pick too.

Regarding SB, 4 stacks doesn't even kill horde. It's barely enough to do just over 50% hp dmg over ~10s to trash and doesn't even scratch specials+. So you need 2 crits for enough SB to kill the weakest mobs. You're likely to get at least 2-4 regular hits between 2 crits anyway, which is *way* more than enough dmg for the sword to just kill on its own long before the SB even matters. So like with just about every other weapon, Blazing Spirit is generally a waste of a blessing slot. There are exceptions but they play into finer points in specific builds & playstyles, and those builds tend to pay a heavy price in setting aside talent points for Wildfire, In Fire Reborn etc.

Personally I recommend going with at least Shred, + Unstable Power (my usual pick) / Riposte / Precog / Wrath / Deflector.

Some great info here, thanks for that.
Just wondering though is SB not killing enemies outright really such a big deal? It’s still dealing passive DOT which can be stacked with other DOTs to increase damage yield. Weakening a crusher allowing you to take him out in 2 hits instead of 3 or 4 seems like a boon in my mind.

[Arani]

Originally posted by Slippery ♥♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by Arani:

...

Some great info here, thanks for that.
Just wondering though is SB not killing enemies outright really such a big deal? It’s still dealing passive DOT which can be stacked with other DOTs to increase damage yield. Weakening a crusher allowing you to take him out in 2 hits instead of 3 or 4 seems like a boon in my mind.

It's not a binary thing ofc so it's very hard to summarize. Soulblaze itself is absolutely fantastic, but it depends how it's used & applied.

All DoT's have a logarithmic dmg curve, basically each stack doubles the dmg of total stacks before it at first, then tapers down the higher you go. This is why 4 SB does just about nothing, 6 barely kills most hordes, 8-10 most specials, 11+ starts killing elites. And this stacking dmg is what plays into everything else.

Ranged Blazing Spirit caps at 6 SB, so worthless on anything but hordes and not even enough for the strongest hordes on its own. With Warp Rider & other buffs it's just enough to kill flak hordes & snipers but that's it. But ofc, 2 crits from any staff is going to do so much dmg only those caught in the splash of it would survive.

Melee Blazing Spirit caps at 12 so way better ofc. But again, few things can survive 3 crits nvm the non-crits inbetween, and whatever did survive is likely so strong & armored that SB will barely tickle it. T5+ Crushers for example have 3600hp and take like idk 3-5 dmg per tick from high SB. Since the latest patch, flak ragers also now have carapace chest & base type (DoT's hit the base type).

So on the outset, functionally useless. But then comes the but: Vent ult & Creeping Flames (+6 SB on 85%+ peril), and Perilous Combustion (+3 SB AoE around every special+ you kill) have no cap, so they can add SB stacks up to the global cap of 31 (iirc). Ofc it only gets ~+5-10% more dmg per stack after SB 15 or so, but still. So having enemies sitting at say 4-6 SB and adding even one special+ kill on top now means those horde around it are dying in 1-2s, or if you kill 2 specials+ nearby each other, the total 12 stacks + splash will now likely kill every other special / elite nearby. This is why Wildfire is such a sleeper gem for SB builds too: It's capped at 4 SB but that means you need half us much extra SB on top to push for those breakpoints. And then ofc Souldrinker (+5% toughness & +5% crit on SB kill), In Fire Reborn (10% chance to get a Warp Charge on killing something with your SB on it) come on top. And that armor problem isn't a problem at all if you have rending or add brittleness.

So it's never that simple. And ofc you're right that even a small DoT can be good in cleaves to finish off enemies that otherwise would've needed an extra hit. How good that is, is hard to measure.

But overall for example the Force Greatswords - which do almost +100% dmg on finesse hits already -, are far too strong to need SB for anything on their own, unless your build has other SB synergies. Especially when you consider that picking Blazing Spirit means missing out on something else. Another +20% crit, or +20% Power (dmg, cleave, stagger) is almost always going to be *far* stronger than those few rare stacks of SB on anything that survived the crits.

[Neon]

I may be imagining things, but if no one else has tried it on melee greatsword psyker, the electrocute enemies on heavy hit DOT is pretty substantial for the 1 point investment. It's 100% consistent unlike soul blaze, the damage is decent and the investment is tiny.

The only thing you're losing in my mind is the auto BB. I don't think anyone is using assail on melee psyker. I do like auto BB but obviously it's pretty random. You can't count on it.

Also having smite in your back pocket never hurts if a situation is completely out of hand.

I also use the 2 hand force sword where you can combo heavy's on hard targets and heavy light into a horde so your mileage may vary on the other mark.

[Arani]

Originally posted by Neon:

I may be imagining things, but if no one else has tried it on melee greatsword psyker, the electrocute enemies on heavy hit DOT is pretty substantial for the 1 point investment. It's 100% consistent unlike soul blaze, the damage is decent and the investment is tiny.

The only thing you're losing in my mind is the auto BB. I don't think anyone is using assail on melee psyker. I do like auto BB but obviously it's pretty random. You can't count on it.

Also having smite in your back pocket never hurts if a situation is completely out of hand.

I also use the 2 hand force sword where you can combo heavy's on hard targets and heavy light into a horde so your mileage may vary on the other mark.

I'm sorry but I have to disagree here. I explored this as soon as the greatswords came out, but instantly found it lacking. :( It's a 2-talent investment: Charged Strike (melee heavies electrocute for 1-2s) and Enfeeble (+10% dmg taken debuff on electrocuted enemies).

Except...

Electrocute itself does basically zero dmg & is only good for the status buff itself - if you have something that uses it (like Shock Mauls). Force Sword heavies are nearly all specialized for single target dmg only so cleave dmg reduction rarely matters, yet they deal extremely high dmg & kill almost everything in 1-2 hits. That debuff only adds that miniscule +10% for 2:nd hit +. So it's a lot like SB in this instance.

In practice, you're unlikely to notice any difference having those 2 talents or not. Yet the same 2 talents into say Lightning Speed & Warp Splitting adds a constant +10% DPS via attack speed, and *massively* buffs your cleave for all your tools, which can be worth double or more dmg depending.

Here's what I recommend:

FGS's (Force Greatsword) have fantastic finesse dmg (crit/weakspot). Bc any finesse buffs get stronger the better the weapon's innate finesse dmg is, weapons like this love crits, weakspots, and any finesse dmg bonuses. The FGS also has a rather low base light attack dmg, a fair bit below the breakpoints you need to actually kill stuff with a single strike.

tldr; Get Malefic Momentum, Empathic Evasion, Disrupt Destiny (through True Aim), and Shred on the sword itself. In gameplay, get sword headshots both for dmg & to stack TA -> switch to staff / Assail (any warp attack) for the autocrit kills -> back to sword. It plays similar to a Weapons Specialist vet. This way you'll have constant +20% dmg for all attack types from Malefic Momentum, +15-20% from Warp Rider, and a ton of finesse dmg from DD, all while constantly charging your sword's special and immunity to ranged while you're swinging.

Without most of the above the sword is entirely underwhelming. With those things? You get a number of synergies together which make it into an absolute monster cleaving everything like butter. Which ofc means even more dmg bonuses, more specials for those big clumps, more everything. It's been one of my favorite ways to play recently.

[Neon]

Sorry but I saw you recommend disrupt destiny and stopped reading.