Are Psycannons worth it on Justicars?

[Siven]

Trying to plan out my Justicar build and not sure if Psycannon is worth it or not.

Im looking at Terminator armor, Honor the chapter, +1ap upgrade and wargear slot (no warp charge). Hammerhand and down to get all the 4 bottom passives (armour break x2, +1 force dmg and 50% chance of AP on crit).

Leaves me with 6 points. I'm thinking maybe go Psycannon and 50% chance to reload, then last 2 points go for a couple of aegis armour points or rend the unclean?

I remember when i first played i tried out the charge and was dissapointed with it. Bad dmg, 2 WP cost and half the time there terrain that blocks it or cuts it short.

[JPLRocket]

Point of the charge is to stun. Use it after adding iron arm biomancy as an AoE stun 4 with low chance of killing.

It's good. Justicar has no reason to burn the skill points needed to grab enduring reflexes, as he doesn't have enough innate crit to double up on ruthless precision.

Because his force strike is great, you'll want to spam that with AoE weapons when not trying to stun. Psycannons aren't great when used for single target attacks- they do much better as AoEs, and purgators upgrade that far more. So not much reason to use the ranged line.

[Mecha Wings]

I usually adapt the knight to the talent he comes with, been using both Paladins and Justicars with Psycannons in my campaign, the extra firepower and range (depends on the weapon) can be pretty sweet, but autoreloading is a must.

[Scar Glamour]

Does a psycannon become an arm-mounted version when equipped on Terminator armor or does it stay two-handed?

I have being toying with Justicar builds myself and just couldn't bring myself to go into that tree and potentially lose a proper melee attack.

[Mecha Wings]

Originally posted by Scar Glamour:

Does a psycannon become an arm-mounted version when equipped on Terminator armor or does it stay two-handed?

I have being toying with Justicar builds myself and just couldn't bring myself to go into that tree and potentially lose a proper melee attack.

No, no, with Terminator Armour it's mounted on the left arm, so you can still use a melee weapon.

[ZexxCrine]

Originally posted by JPLRocket:

Point of the charge is to stun. Use it after adding iron arm biomancy as an AoE stun 4 with low chance of killing.

It's good. Justicar has no reason to burn the skill points needed to grab enduring reflexes, as he doesn't have enough innate crit to double up on ruthless precision.

Because his force strike is great, you'll want to spam that with AoE weapons when not trying to stun. Psycannons aren't great when used for single target attacks- they do much better as AoEs, and purgators upgrade that far more. So not much reason to use the ranged line.

Wut? Psychic onslaught doesn’t do stun damage. It explicitly states “no stun” there may be like a single psycanon that does stun during onslaught but I would hardly consider that to be justification.

The real answer is that psycanons do more damage at longer ranges because of their higher base damage. Psychic onslaught can be great for dealing with hoards of small things and there are a decent number of psycanons with a chance to proc effects like purge, or enrage etc and you can apply them in an aoe with it. Psycanons also break cover that they shoot at. As a utility option, doing a 0 damage psycanon shot that destroys the cover the enemy is behind can make the rest of your team more effective at killing that target. Psycanons also by default have low ammo values and the justicar’s reload chance, especially if you are running focus up can basically negate the need to ever reload or allow you to shoot twice and psychic onslaught in the same turn.

Psychic onslaught is also very good a weakening groups to be taken out by other units or to be mass killed by grenades that otherwise wouldn’t have killed and would have knocked enemies back.

[Alan]

Originally posted by Siven:

Trying to plan out my Justicar build and not sure if Psycannon is worth it or not.

Im looking at Terminator armor, Honor the chapter, +1ap upgrade and wargear slot (no warp charge). Hammerhand and down to get all the 4 bottom passives (armour break x2, +1 force dmg and 50% chance of AP on crit).

Leaves me with 6 points. I'm thinking maybe go Psycannon and 50% chance to reload, then last 2 points go for a couple of aegis armour points or rend the unclean?

I remember when i first played i tried out the charge and was dissapointed with it. Bad dmg, 2 WP cost and half the time there terrain that blocks it or cuts it short.

I love the psycannon on my Justicar tank/HTC spammer. Does an excellent job of regularly getting him finishing blows on enemies to keep his WP up. I will admit, it's less useful as a WP grenade now that I have my librarian, but it's still fine. I have a upgraded staff which gets him up to 12 armor at the end of every round, so his job is to stand in front, soak up bullets, and give AP to my other units, not do damage when my other units are so, so, so much better at it.

Charge is rarely worth it, but it has its moments--usually either knocking enemies off cliffs or destroying their cover.

[Nunda]

The charge is immune to autos. You can just go through opportunity attacks, overwatch and suppression with it.

Knocking people off cliffs with it is always fun. And I've used it once to just get a bit further for one ap.

[ShartinYaeger]

Yeah psycannon really helps Justicars in the mid and late game, when you stop taking Purgators.

[JPLRocket]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

Originally posted by JPLRocket:

Point of the charge is to stun. Use it after adding iron arm biomancy as an AoE stun 4 with low chance of killing.

It's good. Justicar has no reason to burn the skill points needed to grab enduring reflexes, as he doesn't have enough innate crit to double up on ruthless precision.

Because his force strike is great, you'll want to spam that with AoE weapons when not trying to stun. Psycannons aren't great when used for single target attacks- they do much better as AoEs, and purgators upgrade that far more. So not much reason to use the ranged line.

Wut? Psychic onslaught doesn’t do stun damage. It explicitly states “no stun” there may be like a single psycanon that does stun during onslaught but I would hardly consider that to be justification.

The real answer is that psycanons do more damage at longer ranges because of their higher base damage. Psychic onslaught can be great for dealing with hoards of small things and there are a decent number of psycanons with a chance to proc effects like purge, or enrage etc and you can apply them in an aoe with it. Psycanons also break cover that they shoot at. As a utility option, doing a 0 damage psycanon shot that destroys the cover the enemy is behind can make the rest of your team more effective at killing that target. Psycanons also by default have low ammo values and the justicar’s reload chance, especially if you are running focus up can basically negate the need to ever reload or allow you to shoot twice and psychic onslaught in the same turn.

Psychic onslaught is also very good a weakening groups to be taken out by other units or to be mass killed by grenades that otherwise wouldn’t have killed and would have knocked enemies back.

No, no.

The justicar charge skill. Its point is to stun.

[Gamefever]

Somewhere in here someone thought, "charge" meant warp charge.

But its a discussion of "Crushing Charge" vs "Pyscannon"

And the gist seems to be that they are both good for different reasons.

However it would seem that "Pyscannon" is made good when it has a good chance of proc extra effects, since Justicar can get "extra wargear" slot, makes sense to put "plus chance effect" there. Also I suppose if lucky, Justicar would have the trait that gives +10% proc effect.

Although both routes are nice,

Go with Crushing Charge if you are building a stun focused based party and just use Storm Bolter.

Altogether though, I often just use "For the Chapter" for a constant stream of free AP and then as a side "stun" focus the party to then reap in +1 execution AP party wide.

So for me it seems that Pyscannon is a waste on Justicar.

Probably if I do another build for the party than it might be otherwise.
But right now I do Stun focus across the party and have either an assassin or Interceptor/Librarian perform the execution. This can lead to execution streaks sometimes, especially with AOE stun effects, and Crushing Charge is AOE stun.

[John Hadley]

I'd say if you are not going to have a purgator or purifier then you probably want some source of AOE ranged damage to take out large number of weak things like cultists or poxwalkers and a psycannon on a justicar or a psilencer on an interceptor can do that. An interceptor cannot use a melee weapon if you have a psilencer., but the justicar can still use a melee weapon with a psycannon as long as he is wearing terminator armor. I would consider though that a psycannon doesn't have much ammo so you will need to use a passive ammo upgrade on your justicar if you want to use psycannon otherwise you may only have 1 ammo which is not enough to use psychic overload if you get a warp surge effect that lowers the amount of ammo for the rest of the mission. If you start figuring on having the passive equipment slot upgrade at the bottom and the reload skill on the right of the skill tree to make this weapon most effective then its quite a large skill point commitment though so if you do have a purgator then you might want to apply those points somewhere else.

[ShartinYaeger]

Originally posted by Gamefever:

Somewhere in here someone thought, "charge" meant warp charge.

But its a discussion of "Crushing Charge" vs "Pyscannon"

And the gist seems to be that they are both good for different reasons.

However it would seem that "Pyscannon" is made good when it has a good chance of proc extra effects, since Justicar can get "extra wargear" slot, makes sense to put "plus chance effect" there. Also I suppose if lucky, Justicar would have the trait that gives +10% proc effect.

Although both routes are nice,

Go with Crushing Charge if you are building a stun focused based party and just use Storm Bolter.

Altogether though, I often just use "For the Chapter" for a constant stream of free AP and then as a side "stun" focus the party to then reap in +1 execution AP party wide.

So for me it seems that Pyscannon is a waste on Justicar.

Probably if I do another build for the party than it might be otherwise.
But right now I do Stun focus across the party and have either an assassin or Interceptor/Librarian perform the execution. This can lead to execution streaks sometimes, especially with AOE stun effects, and Crushing Charge is AOE stun.

I would get both skills, prioritising psycannon access tbh. Crushing Charge I find is often hindered by terrain and it can leave you out of position from the team. It's not a bad skill to pick up, but you don't really need it. On the other hand, having access to a source of ranged AOE that ignores cover is very handy at all times. Also, unlike grenades, they won't be knocked back out of their cluster (so you can follow up with Vortex or Interceptor/Eversor multistrike abilities easily).

Psycannon is also a great way to trigger environmental explosives, as you can target an enemy and usually reach a nearby barrel etc with the AOE. Given that grenades fall off past early game (and Line of Sight to explosive objects is often bugged), I find it handy.

There is also a specific Reaper where taking four psycannons (2x Justicars, 2x Purgators) is very effective. You Astral Aim body parts off him with Purgators, while the Justicars handle Bloomspawn clusters that spring up in the arena as you battle.

[Nunda]

I find crushing charge useful almost every fight because it ignores autos.

I guess if you have psilencers, interceptors or other easy ways to cancel overwatch, you can rely on those.

[Slapstick]

For me it comes down to either going fortress or going cannon. Fortress is safer, Cannon is more fun. I tend to do one of each and bring the cannon on easier missions and fortress justicar on missions where I expect to get a thrashing. It's a perfectly valid option