Combining the right talents, you can brainburst 125% faster. Chain those elite kills!
Introduction
All credit goes to Marsh Man !
With the new skill trees, Psyker got a lot of cool powers to play with.
Protective domes are cool and lightning is fun, but I found myself most comfortable with Headburst since I’ve been using it since the beta.
Headburst without any boosts can be very slow to cast, and often the specialist can do its damage or die to another party member before you get the burst off.
Unboosted Headburst
Brain Rupture. Generates 80% peril after 2 uses. Doesn’t kill a rager in 1 go.
Boosted Headburst
Here’s how fast the headburst can get with empowered psionic stacks and the activated ability speedboost:
You can keep the stacks up by killing Elites! Specialists don’t guarantee stacks.
Build Pics
Some key talent tree screenshots for those who don’t want to open the links:
- Speed boost from activating our ability.
- 2 stacks of our ability, ready whenever you need the speedboost.
- Additional casting speedboost, massive damage boost and no peril generated. Guranteed from elite kills and Hold up to 3 stacks!
- Picture of the full tree.
Details and Limitations
- You only get guaranteed stacks of empowered psionics from killing ELITE enemies. (Ragers, Ogryns, Gunners, things you can tag) and not from killing Specialists. (Hounds, snipers, flamers, etc) Keep track of your charges on those increased specialist spawn missions!
- I enjoy using the 2 stacks of telekine shield so an ability is always available to boost the blitz. It helps protect from gunners and other specialists while you chain the headbursts. Picking other abilities, like Scrier’s gaze, might cause issues with the blitz’s effectiveness.
- Getting swarmed as psyker can be an issue, Voidstrike force staff helps alot with crowd clearing to keep weenie enemies away before they reach you. Don’t be afraid to switch to melee and block when they get close though! You will need your teams help to survive.
- Less effective with Warp Charges. Those looking to complete that redacted penance with friends wont be able to take Empowered Psionics. Using the shield for the speedboost removes all the warp charges, and empowered headburst lets you one shot ragers!
- Randomly triggered headbursts don’t seem to use a charge.
you can animation cancel if you swap right back to the brainburst after you burst someone
Venting shriek is also a very good alternative to shield, and also saves you from swarms much better than double shield(though not as well as bubble) since it can have a damaging effect, and also benefits from soulblaze.
Only real problem is if your team doesn’t have anyone good at clearing chaff gunners(non-elite/specials) you end up missing out on a lot of defense, though normally there’s at least one person who always focuses them, so it should be a decent alternative for a bit more aggressive and melee-accepting psyker, since you know. Panic button.