Burden
 | This article relates to content added by Royalty (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
Burden
Slow the target for a short time by suppressing motor activity in the brain.
Base Stats
- Type
- Psycast
Ability
Burden is a level 1 psycast that slows a single target for its duration.
Acquisition
There are two ways to acquire the burden psycast:
- Upon reaching psylink level 1, a random psycast of level 1 is granted regardless of how this level up is achieved. This won't apply if the psycaster already knew one or more level 1 psycast.
- Burden can also be acquired from a psytrainer naming it. See the psytrainer page for further details.
Summary
Psychically-induced difficulty in locomotion.
— Psychic burden description
The burden psycast inflicts the "Psychic burden" hediff on its singular target. This target must be in line of sight but can be any human, animal, or mechanoid with a psychic sensitivity above 0%. The hediff has only one effect, capping the Moving capacity of the target at 40% for 1,200 ticks (20 secs). Note that this is not a multiplier or offset. It does not stack with other effects on the Moving capacity - if a pawn's Moving would be below 40% anyway, then it has no effect, and an enemy won't reach below the cap from injuries or other effects any faster. Conversely this means that Moving buffs cannot mitigate the effect either.
Moving, in turn, affects the following stats: Hunting Stealth, Melee Dodge Chance, Move Speed. Assuming a baseline of 100% Moving, this results in a directly proportional change to the target pawn's move speed, and a change in melee dodge chance equivalent to losing 10.8 levels of Melee skill. Due to how the stat is fit to a post-process curve, this will result in the melee dodge chance dropping to 0% for pawns with skill under 16. Note that additive buffs to move speed like the jogger trait or speed penalties obtained from various sources like wearing plate armor do still affect move speed as they are added before the Moving multiplier.
Analysis
Burden does one thing and it does it well. The ability to slow enemy pawns is reasonably useful in combat, and powerful enough for its role as a level 1 psycast. Due to its low neural heat gain and psyfocus cost, as well as a moderate duration, it can perform well against groups of enemies in spite of its single target nature, given a sufficiently capable psycaster.
Primarily, Burden is most effective against melee attackers, as they are most heavily impacted by the loss of move speed, given their need to close the distance between them and their intended target. Casting Burden drastically increases the time your pawns have to deal with said attackers before they enter melee range, giving the player time to kite their firing line backwards to a new position, intercept them with melee pawns, or simply dispatch them before they ever get close. As a minor benefit, the reduction to Melee Dodge Chance incurred by the loss of Moving renders affected enemies more vulnerable to your own melee pawns. As such, casting Burden can be worthwhile against strong melee pawns, regardless of their distance from your own pawns. Burden is also of particular use against pawns with increased movement speed, such as impids
or chimeras
.
Outside of direct combat, Burden is highly useful for hunting dangerous animals, such as thrumbos, or packs of rhinoceros. The reduction to movement inflicted makes kiting and killing said animals effortless, allowing clean and bloodless hunting trips, securing their valuable meats and hides at little risk to your own pawns. It can also be used reactively to an unexpected manhunter from a lower risk animal (such as caribou or boomalope), allowing your pawn to flee to safety, or make space to dispatch the threat.
Lastly, note that unlike many other psycasts, neither the effect nor the duration of Burden is affected by Psychic Sensitivity. This makes Burden particularly effective as a countermeasure to Scythers and Scorchers - while their 50% Psychic Sensitivity reduces the effectiveness of other psycasts such as Berserk
or Vertigo pulse, Burden will retain its full duration and Movement reduction. While this holds true for all mechanoids, these two tend to be the only ones that are significantly impacted by Burden, due to their low effective range compared to other members of the mechanoid caste.
Version history
- Royalty DLC Release - Added.
- 1.1.2559 - Range increased from 25 to 30.
- 1.1.2571 - Duration decreased from 30 to 20.