Prescience on the way out as the default power?

[march10k]

 

via BoLS comments section

My sister in law works in the printing department and has seen parts of the new rule book. She has limited gameplay experience but does know the rules from watching countless games. One thing she did notice is that "Prescience" is no longer the Primaris Power in Divination. It has move to number five and now cost two warp charges to cast.

 

So everyone and his dog ignores the other disciplines and mostly doesn't bother rolling on the divination table, declaring prescience outright.  Whether that means prescience is OP, or that we just prefer predictability and the other primaris powers are just plain "meh" doesn't much matter, there's clearly an imbalance...and it seems logical that GW would address that.  I don't know about the two warp charges bit, that sounds as implausible as the move from primaris to #5 sounds plausible...The effects of the power aren't broken, automatic access to it is the problem...but that got me wondering, what will people choose if they can't have automatic prescience?

 

I have a bike-mounted librarian who often takes flame breath to hunt down scouts in cover on an objective in a forgotten corner of the board, and psychic shriek has great potential (and the chance to get puppet master) against expensive units and solo characters.  

 

But for a T3 firepower army like guard, I think it's still divination.  Foreboding is kinda "meh," (I'm guessing it'll be moved to primaris), but in a blob?  Who would dare assault it?  Forewarning is awesome...a squadron of tanks or a blob with a 4++?  Misfortune on marines in cover that are about to eat pieplate, or on termies about to eat plasma?  Sweet.  Perfect timing on a unit in cover, right before it eats pieplate, or on a transport that popped smoke in the dark at long range?  Precognition is terrible.  Scrier's gaze is nice enough, if you have reserves.  Really, it only has one horrible and two marginal powers out of seven, and four that are fanstastic.  

 

By comparison, biomancy has three shooty powers (we have shooting) and two that buff the psycher.  Only two useful powers, in other words.  Pyromancy, five damage-dealing powers, one buff on the psycher, and one pseudo-invul for a friendly unit.  No thanks!  Telekinesis, four damage-dealers, a 5+ invul, gate of infinity, and a minor debuff.  Meh.  

[Komrk]

I agree that prescience is too good for a primaris power. Of course divination overall is what I would consider the best discipline because there's only one power in it that I would consider "meh" compared to the others where there are maybe one or two good ones.

[mustardParty]

Rolling for random powers has always irked me anyway. Prescience hits the sweet spot for value and reliability in terms of what it does for you on the battle field and knowing you have out right access to so you can form a battle plan with that knowledge in mind.

[Frater Cornelius]

Talking as an ex-sw and current mech guard player: why bring shooty powers to a shooty army? I have enough fire power to level whole squads in a shooting phase, so why would I bring some psy shooting with less of an impact and more hazard to pull of? It's like giving Arnold Schwarzenegger a pistol while he tripple wields rocket launchers. No, what my army needs is something that makes their shooting more reliable, enemies weaker to bullets and my army more survivable. Divination is thr no.1 pick obviously due to rerolls, invul and denying cover. On a second spot comes biomancy for enfeelement and iron arm but those are not guaranteed in a tree with useless shooting powers. If the other trees would provide more utility, they would be chosen too. Telepathy almost got it right and is very strong in some armies. And if you must add shooting powers, then make 'em powerful and worth it. Right now it's a chore to cast witchfire. Psy-test with a chance to kill the model, deny the witch, hit, wound rolls, rolling some additional effects. It's just easier to put a big pie plate on them and achiev a greater result with less rolls.