Thoughts on a telepath psyker with operative background?

[Xeawn ~Rafa~]

I'm noticing the same thing a lot of other players are, that my MC is just getting completely outpaced at every turn. I keep seeing the sentiment being "Just play a soldier if you want to be a psyker" and that being a psyker is overall not that great as is.

Are these just more vocal sentiments, or do you think if I want to be a psyker maybe it's best to put this game to the side and wait for a few balance patches?

Overal I don't dislike the game, I'm a 40k fan and the universe and narrative seem interesting, but in addition to the the way psyker's seem to play (MC anyways) there's a lot of little QoL things that keep popping up that make me feel like maybe I ought to wait a bit and revisit this title. What do y'all think?

[Kensei Seraph]

I saw in another thread here that described how to build a really strong operative psyker for pyromancer or telepath.

Raise your Int so that Analyse Enemy gives at least 3 exploits (so Int needs to be at 40+).
Then you get the Tactical Knowledge ability at level 7 which allows you to remove exploits from a single enemy to give an armour bonus to your entire team and if you remove 4+ exploits (1 from beginning of turn and 3 from Analyse Enemy) it also gives a stacking damage bonus.
This will mean that on turn 1 your basic Psychic Shriek will hit for 5 ~ 13 damage which will increase by an extra 4 damage for each turn.

You can then grab the Improved Tactics talent at level 8 to get even more damage each turn based on your Int bonus which means that assuming you have the minimum 40 Int you will be starting turn 1 with a 9 ~ 17 damage Psychic Shriek which increases by 8 damage each turn.
Combine that with a chain lightning staff and you should be clearing groups of enemies relatively easily.

If you manage to get 60 Int then you would be getting 5 exploits a turn with an Int bonus of 6 for 11 damage each turn rather than the above 8.
Throw in the telepath Pain Channelling, the Psychic Barrage and Second Sight talents and I'm sure you will be able to clear out crowds of enemies at pretty decent ranges with little issue.

[Drake]

Operative telepath/diviner is pretty much the psyker you get in the prologue.

I play my psyker as an officer, biomancy/sanctic and it's pretty much a buffer, and it's starting to be a very powerful one, making people stronger and acting several times in a turn.

[Faith]

Psyker is very strong. The player psyker has less upfront power(staring with zero psy level and all moves being increased by that, the damage difference is obvious upfront because the companion starts with psylevel1 at a cost)but the player has a reduced chance of causing negative effects(perils) and the companion has a increased chance of causing worse than normal negative effects.

Purge soul explodes people at higher levels doing insane damage against big threats like demons but early it does a staggering... 2-5 damage while idras lightning staff can easily hit for 15 on a whole group of people. Its definitely a very lategame class for the player character.

Also.. just play a soldier? like a soldier psyker? Well, being able to cast 2 spells a turn is nice(and less dangerous since you have reduced peril chance as a player psyker) and the loss of ballistic skill doesnt do much against you unless you have the feat that lets your spells do damage based off ballistic skill ( might be a seriously good way to boost your damage early honestly) Operative, and past that assassin's bonuses both work for spells too but so do all of soldiers abilitys, it really depends on what type of spells you plan on using, if your going to rely on int and willpower or willpower and balistic.

My psker is a warrior-vangaurd because vangaurd makes your resolve go up to +!5, and sanctic turns resolve straight into damage(purge soul doesnt gain damage from anything but resolve and psylevel, int and willpower dont matter for it same as sword of faith and purge soul does psy level TIMES resolve in damage so purge soul instantly kills pretty much most things with a soul, by the time you have level 2 psy level thats already 30 damage even without stacks or other bonus like the 200% damage to demons who hit allies dragging it up to 90 damage against demons) so I can get extra attacks with the sword of faith spell by using charge etc.

Its all about what works best for the brand of psyker you are. stacking willpower to high hell is obviously best for telepath, and they have skills that would really benefit from attacking multiple times a turn like warp mind and weak hearts, visions of doom, they have a bunch of stacking abilitys. And if your a soldier you can raise your ballistic levels higher and use psychic barrage "Whenever the psyker uses a damaging psychic power on targets that are 6 cells or farther from the psyker, the targets suffer an additional +ballistic skill bonus damage." with the talent that also boosts the range of spells too.

Operative would boost your one time damage with its stacks of expose, but I think that you'd get a lot more out of soldier with all the feats telepath has that synergize with casting against targets multiple times.

[Xeawn ~Rafa~]

Thank you for all the advice, I really appreciate it! I might roll a new character and try some different Psyker combinations to see what fits me best. Much obliged!

[Ilxuss]

Postat inițial de Faith:

Its all about what works best for the brand of psyker you are. stacking willpower to high hell is obviously best for telepath, and they have skills that would really benefit from attacking multiple times a turn like warp mind and weak hearts, visions of doom, they have a bunch of stacking abilitys. And if your a soldier you can raise your ballistic levels higher and use psychic barrage "Whenever the psyker uses a damaging psychic power on targets that are 6 cells or farther from the psyker, the targets suffer an additional +ballistic skill bonus damage." with the talent that also boosts the range of spells too

I thought I'll try asking you.
It's my first contact with Rogue Trader ruleset and I'd like to build something more around the idea but I'm not sure how well it would work/what to expect. While I've read most of what is written during the character creation I can't say if what I plan is viable and so I'd hope for your insight.

I'd like to play as Telepath Psyker mainly with origins that appeal to me the most being one of Voidborn Forge world or Imperial world. I think I like the idea of soldier telepath crowd controlling and doing damage while doing so so Soldier would work for me.

At the same time, I'd prefer my character to focus more on mental stats which seems incompatible with soldier - I'd like to focus more on Willpower > Intelligence > Perception, and maybe > Toughness (more or less in this order), while dropping Fellowship < Agility < Weapon < Ballistic (sorted with Fellowship most likely to be dropped). But this seems to conflict with Soldier who seemingly focuses on Ballistic, Agility, Strength.

I'd be fine with wearing any armour and I don't have a strong preference towards fighting in melee vs ranged. Initially, I planned to not use any "normal" weapon at all and use a staff or something similar. I think crowd control fits nice but I'm not overly stuck on any role either.

Do you have any pointers on how to build it and which lvl 16 archetype should I aim at? Or should I drop soldier after all? maybe about feats to look for?

I'm looking forward to your answer (or anyone's who might want to). :) I can pick things up as I go so I don't need anything super detailed but I have no experience whatsoever with RT systems. But I believe that after half or so available levels I should have a relatively decent grip on the system.