Psyker?

[BoltHarrier]

How good is it? I've been playing it a little bit but it feels like a death sentence. Lore wise? Love it. Too much juice means you attract the daemons. but after 2 rounds and conjuring one of said daemons makes me heavy handed on the quickload button

[Green Knight]

Originally posted by Thunderhawk:

How good is it? I've been playing it a little bit but it feels like a death sentence. Lore wise? Love it. Too much juice means you attract the daemons. but after 2 rounds and conjuring one of said daemons makes me heavy handed on the quickload button

You have to watch Veil Degradation.

If you don't like daemons, put Idira on the bench, don't use too many psykers in one battle, and/or invest in talents that reduce veil degradation (Cassia even has one that REDUCES degradation when she uses a power).

And watch for those mission which have naturally high degradation.

[Og-the-Trog]

If you have a psycher or two you should ALWAYS have an anti-degradation Cassia in the party (she's OP as ♥♥♥♥ anyway) and invest in the stabilizing factor perks on the psychers.

If you do that psyching is fine, just starts a bit weak.

Keep in mind that warp manifestations (daemons you summon) disappear when you kill the last *real* enemy, so you shouldn't prioritize them unless they'll get multiple turns to act otherwise.

[reevestone]

Pretty much all the most broken builds in the game involve being a Psyker. The most cracked builds there are that I'm aware of for being a melee DPS, a tank, a ranged DPS and a leader all involve being a Psyker in some capacity... I think the only exception is being a sniper, for which being a psyker is inferior to being a Crime Lord. The builds can be weird and unintuitive, and some take a while to really come online, but Psyker for an MC has truly incredible potential. Keep in mind that the MC is always a Sanctioned Psyker, while Idira is Unsanctioned, so your MC (and Heinrix) can only cause Bad Things when you try to cast a Major Power while Veil Degradation is above 15, while Idira always has a 5% chance to cause Bad Things whenever she casts any power so she is considerable riskier (though the Psychic Bad Things do become a lot less relevant as the game goes on, since they don't really scale... they can be terrifying and throw encounters in Act 1, but by Act 3 they're rarely more than a mild inconvenience).

If you explained the sort of character idea/concept you were going for beyond "psyker", I could give you some advice on how to realize it in a way that won't have your MC feeling ineffective.

[Sasquatch]

Just a funny story;
My first run at the game, I didn't know about the veil degradation. So I had Heinrix, Cassia, and Idira all spamming their abilities in every fight. Needless to say, fights got complicated.

[BoltHarrier]

Originally posted by Green Knight:

Originally posted by Thunderhawk:

How good is it? I've been playing it a little bit but it feels like a death sentence. Lore wise? Love it. Too much juice means you attract the daemons. but after 2 rounds and conjuring one of said daemons makes me heavy handed on the quickload button

You have to watch Veil Degradation.

If you don't like daemons, put Idira on the bench, don't use too many psykers in one battle, and/or invest in talents that reduce veil degradation (Cassia even has one that REDUCES degradation when she uses a power).

And watch for those mission which have naturally high degradation.

Yea I noticed that the moment I benched Idara, the degradation was a significantly less issue. Then I noticed she is *actually* heretical and was spawning daemons on her own.

[steventirey]

Idira is an unsanctioned psyker. They have a larger chance of causing issues when using psyker powers. Sanctioned psykers like the player or Heinrix don't usually have problems until the veil degradation has gotten high enough.

Cassia, despite navigators having a special type of psychic power in lore, is not considered a psyker in-game. Her powers don't raise the veil degradation when used. In fact, with the right choice, her powers repair the veil when used.

[Pierogolepca]

Warrior+Psyker Flamer is amazing.
Biomancer+Warrior is very good.
Ranged DPS Operative+Psyker Telepath (or w/e it's called) is amazing as well.

Just note that they're kinda dead-weight until Act 2. Well, maybe not dead weight but not exactly impressive.

[eech1]

Originally posted by Thunderhawk:

How good is it? I've been playing it a little bit but it feels like a death sentence. Lore wise? Love it. Too much juice means you attract the daemons. but after 2 rounds and conjuring one of said daemons makes me heavy handed on the quickload button

Sanctic psyker/officer/strategist top tier character. Pyro/warrior/vanguard decent too.

[ByTheNumbers]

Originally posted by reevestone:

Pretty much all the most broken builds in the game involve being a Psyker. The most cracked builds there are that I'm aware of for being a melee DPS, a tank, a ranged DPS and a leader all involve being a Psyker in some capacity... I think the only exception is being a sniper, for which being a psyker is inferior to being a Crime Lord. The builds can be weird and unintuitive, and some take a while to really come online, but Psyker for an MC has truly incredible potential. Keep in mind that the MC is always a Sanctioned Psyker, while Idira is Unsanctioned, so your MC (and Heinrix) can only cause Bad Things when you try to cast a Major Power while Veil Degradation is above 15, while Idira always has a 5% chance to cause Bad Things whenever she casts any power so she is considerable riskier (though the Psychic Bad Things do become a lot less relevant as the game goes on, since they don't really scale... they can be terrifying and throw encounters in Act 1, but by Act 3 they're rarely more than a mild inconvenience).

If you explained the sort of character idea/concept you were going for beyond "psyker", I could give you some advice on how to realize it in a way that won't have your MC feeling ineffective.

Well, no wonder my MC sucks as a psyker. I put her as a operative/bounty hunter and her psyker abilities don't do much. I rather put bullets between the eyes with sniper rifles. Even then, she pales in comparison to Yrliet who I made into an assassin and just drops people like nobody's business.

[reevestone]

Originally posted by ByTheNumbers:

Well, no wonder my MC sucks as a psyker. I put her as a operative/bounty hunter and her psyker abilities don't do much. I rather put bullets between the eyes with sniper rifles. Even then, she pales in comparison to Yrliet who I made into an assassin and just drops people like nobody's business.

Biomancer-Operative-Assassin is actually a pretty decent sniper build that combines high DPS with team support, but if you want to exceed Yrliet's cracktastic damage numbers it really is preferable to go Crime Lord.

[Darx]

the skills feel very underwhelming. like they let the intern do that job.

[Pierogolepca]

Originally posted by Darx:

the skills feel very underwhelming. like they let the intern do that job.

They aren't very good when your PSY rating is 0 but really pick up later on.

[Darx]

Originally posted by Pierogolepca:

Originally posted by Darx:

the skills feel very underwhelming. like they let the intern do that job.

They aren't very good when your PSY rating is 0 but really pick up later on.

they become stronger later on but visually they all look like poop.
could have simply copied something from kingmaker or wrath if they are lazy but not even that.

[Pierogolepca]

I definitely disagree they all look like poop - Telepath as well as Staff skills look pretty good. Tho I'll give you the Pyromancer, think they're all kinda boring.

[Tobi89]

I would say that psykers are pretty strong in the game. They do however work mostly as casters in owlcats other games meaning they mostly shine as buffers/debuffers. So you can quite easily make some crazy hybrid psykers by going for a psyker who uses a ranged weapon or melee weapon while using psy powers mostly as a support.

There are some exceptions though, for instance pyromancer is very strong even on unfair however it only get's really strong in mid to late game since at first it's damage is focused around over time and having the enemies move around, which works very well with Cassia's nav powers since she can force the enemies to move. But because most battles are over in just a few turns it doesn't work well early on in particular.

The really heavy hitting unga-bunga psyker in the game is weirdly enough a sanctic psyker going officer + master tact, which is weird because the powers + classes are pretty much focused around buffing the team. However, this part of psyker get's access to Santicified Staff that gives an ability that deals dmg based of your resolve in a 3x3 grid and the dmg is very high it is a bit RNG though since the dmg can easily go from 1-200 base dmg or more. But then if you play as an officer + master tact you can buff your dmg too easily do something like 5-1000+ dmg. It works best with a second master tact to buff your psyker but basically the build can one-shot most stuff in the game even on unfair and the power spike comes out from the start of act 2 when you can get the Santicified Staff. It also works well with pretty much any team since outside of the nuke dmg this psyker can also buff the team a lot, heal and will also debuff the enemies a bit, you'll also get a ton of momentum since the build is focused around resolve and this psyker get a free turn after each heroic act, you'll be pretty tanky and it's very strong in dialogue skills since it focuses around the fellowship stat. All in all this build is probably able to solo most of the game even on unfair though it would be pretty tough in act 1 since then it's just a buffer. The biggest downside is probably how strong it is since I just use Cassia to group enemies up + maybe add a bit of debuff + dmg then just one shot pretty much anything with the psyker.

A basic combo of the attacks is, word of the emperor (gives + resolve to everyone), press the advantage (+4% dmg per tact adv stack) then sanctified staff power.

You can also eventually add in fervour -20% max hp for more tact adv stacks, hammer of the emperor (all allies affected by word of the emperor get's + X flat dmg on their next attack) and enfeeble for -X STR + AGI and take X% more dmg for enemies.

Just the basic combo above will probably make you hit something like 50-200 dmg on average but with the other skills that you evetually get you easily hit for hundreds if not a thousand dmg in act 2 and onwards. It's honestly kinda broken being able to deal so much dmg in an aoe, being unmissable, while also able to buff, debuff and heal.