Is Sanctioned Psycher the Most Fun Origin?

[was_fired]

I finished my first play through with a sanctioned psycher officer and after a very rough start had a lot of fun with a huge mix of powers. I thought it was be interesting to try another origin but most of them feel really boring by comparison since they only ever give a single power you can once per fight.

The exception is criminal so I went with that trying a criminal operative, but while it's decent at the start I can't help but feel it won't scale nearly as well as time goes on compared to being able to do mass armor debuffs, give more turns, give temporary health, and give loads of extra armor through abilities.

Operatives seem like their built for a few powerful attacks which is great in early and mid-game, but trails off when late game abilities will show up that give scaling damage for every attack. On my first play through I had specced Argentina as a Bounty Hunter, but I'm honestly more excited to have her as a Arch Militant to see how hilarious I can get all of her skills than I am for anything with my main character which feels off to me.

I'm probably going to keep trying to weird crime lord operative who will end up in heavy armor to see what happens, but I can't help but feel I would make a stronger character by just doing the same thing as a psycher while actually having unique abilities on the team instead of always picking the same things as every other party member who each have their own even more special talents as well.

[Balekai]

I'm not so sure it's the most fun "Origin" (What am i saying it is), but it's definitely the most spoiling lol.

I have tried to start some other characters other than Psykers and i miss my magic... :p

I'm even having a hard time pulling myself away from Sanctic Officer/GS support because it makes things so easy, and i know i'm going to miss having 110+ in all FELL/INT skills without items. :/

[Magni]

The thing about psyker is you don't just pay in losing out on other origins' abilitie sand talents. You'll also almost invariably lose out on a significant amount of archetype abilities and talents (both archetype and common) to pick more psyker stuff. I mena, take a look at Heinrix and Abelard. Even if you make both into Vanguards, they will be significantly different because Abelard will just keep picking more Warrior and Vanguard stuff while Heinrix is gonna use a bunch of those picks to get more of his psyker stuff.

Oh, and Operator absolutely can continue to dole out ridiculous damage into the late game, especially if they go Assassin.

[Khryst]

Sanctioned Psyker/Officer is ok, but I prefer if I'm playing Officer to be Noble.

the abilities/stats just feed into each other making what you do with an officer even nastier.

As a Psyker (cass being the exception since she's technically a Navigator not Psyker) you're better off NOT being an officer in the long run, since either you are giving up your officer abilities to improve your psyker potential, or giving up your psyker power to get your officer abilities.

Sure you can split the difference but you're really only gimping yourself by doing so. An officer is all about buffing the team mates and givng them extra turns. Psyker is all about dishing out Dmg/Debuffs and manipulating the warp.

Very different goals that due to how leveling up works hurt you by having them on the same character.

[Marcos_DS]

Its the most interesting background in terms of powers and talents - but it cannibalizes your archetype power choices and talents. For a regular background, you just pick it and a talent or two - the rest goes into your archetypes. If you did the same with a sanctioned psyker (just base power +2 talents), it would be rather underwhelming in comparison...

That said, my sanctioned psyker officer/master tactician was handing out extra turns and buffs (esp. those reduced AP biomancer ones) on top of the best officer/tactician buffs while tossing out the occasional AOE Emperor's Wrath, so it didn't feel like a downgrade from pure officer/tactician...

[Mister Bones]

You'll get the most mileage by thinking of being a psyker as a class choice, rather than an origin choice.

[Balekai]

It honestly doesn't matter that Psyker cannibalizes some of your archetype ability slots, if those psyker abilities are far superior. Like Mister Bones said, Psyker is really a class that uses whatever your Archtypes are as backup. The same way you build Cassia as Navigator first everything else second. For Psyker the abilities are more powerful in general than archetype ones, but use the Veil Degredation mechanic. Once you build for that and nullify degradation you are more powerful than non-Psyker versions of the build (for the most part, less so on offensive builds). Now this has nothing to do with "fun" but instead being spoiled like I said before. :p

Take my build. It may not be the most "fun" (although it is fun when you know your team should be dead but they face tank everything on unfair and chewing up the enemy):

As mentioned I play Voidborn Sanctioned Sanctic Psyker Officer/GS. First thing you notice about Sanctic Psyker is that it only cares about 1 characteristic in the game and even that characteristic it doesn't really care about (Fellowship). This is because it's actually based completely on Resolve and Psy Level. It's the most anti MAD (Multiple Ability (Score) Dependent) thing in the game. Meaning it can combine well with any Archetype or if it's your main focus, only care about raising Fellowship to max.

- The second thing you notice is that these Sanctic abilities effect all party members/allies when buffed with Word. It's really easy to turn garbage instantly dying NPCs into 1-3 turn wonders (or just survive outright) with major Word buffs.

- Your party/allies are very unkillable on unfair from Level 7 onwards when you pick up Shield of the Emperor. This easily gives 20-40%ish Armour bonus and 2ish Deflection to all party members early game. 2-4 Deflection and 50%+ armour mid-late game. Most other, if not all, bonuses to armour from other support ability/talents hover in the low teens with no way to buff Deflection. Nothing else in the game does that. Especially for all allies.

- Light of the Emperor just keeps everything alive once you get it period. It just gets better as the game goes on as you provoke colony/chronicle/Officer archetype/item bonuses whenever you heal something. If you keep casting word of the Emperor it;s like a 50+ wounds map wide heal. :p

- Once you hit GS, you notice that you only need to take one GS ability (especially if you have multiple GSes in the group). Unlike all other archetypes GS toons can gain access to GS abilities through taking talents like Improvised Stratagem, allowing more space for Psyker abilities and giving up practically nothing. In every fight, between Cassia (who took no GS abilities save Improvised), myself and Pascal I usually have access to every Stratagem with very little of them taken as actual abilities (Pascal has Trench and Killzone taken).

- After taking out Commissar in Chapter 3 he dropped Luck Thickener trinket. Which adds stacks of Luck whenever you use Minor Psyker power on allies (this is once or twice every turn on everyone with Word). That means 2ish stacks of rerolling an attack, dodge or parry every turn on all allies, on top of contagious luck.

- Hammer of the Emperor just adds about 20+ damage to one hit for all allies. really shine swhen buffing Snipers like Yrliet, but everyone gets at least 100+ish damage including garbage ally NPCs on their first hit on a turn.

- Sacred Rituals + Jinx (I believe it works on it) means I have a 35% chance to have free psyker abilities. I also have this Spirit Drape item (Chronicle item I believe in Chapter 2 for Janus) that makes all psyker abilities cost -1 AP on first turn which is very useful. That combined with Seize the moment and always taking the first turn in combat with GS, allows me to use all Officer, GS and Psyker talents on turn one basically that i want. Most fights don't get to the latter half of the first round. If they do there's only 1-2 enemies out of about a dozen left.

- Even though my build is built completely for support, it still do like 100-500 AoE damage without trying with Sanctic Staff from Drusians rank 3ish Vendor. Thousand plus if I kept using Word of the Emperor throughout a fight.

I'm going to leave it there this wasn't supposed to be some huge list lol. The only Officer abilities I really cared about, which I took or already had, was "Bring it Down!" by default and "Take Aim!" at level 12. Being able to to make Argenta (especially with Heavy Bolter) and Yrliet by mid game, just flat out ignore 60%+ damage reduction for any reason with an attack is huge AND ignore dodge. Things that are supposed to be invincible... are just not. :p

Everything else on Officer/GS is outshined by Sanctic support. It didn't matter with GS because again you could get most/all the goodies from just taking talents (I took Stronghold + it's upgrade though). The only true downside to Sanctic being that Word, Shield, Light and Hammer don't provoke all if any "when you target an ally" talents, except on yourself. I stack like 100+ to BS on myself from "Focus!" talent every turn just from using psyker abilities and I don't use a gun lol. I'm probably going to take Psychic Barrage to take advantage of it later.

[Verde]

It really doesn't make sense for the other Origins to be limited to one Ability use per combat when the Sanctioned Psyker can spam theirs ON TOP of having way better Passives. I hope they change that because at this moment there's really not much reason to play as anything other than a Psyker or the Crime Lord.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Verde:

It really doesn't make sense for the other Origins to be limited to one Ability use per combat when the Sanctioned Psyker can spam theirs ON TOP of having way better Passives. I hope they change that because at this moment there's really not much reason to play as anything other than a Psyker or the Crime Lord.

The rest of the origins really could have used a similar amount of love.

[battl3hamm3r]

If you ever want to try a melee character, play warrior/assassin pyro/sanctic psyker, its soooo much fun and original. You're a walking torch, and if you go with a 2h hammer, you AOE physical and fire damage, its glorious and super strong!!!!