Void Smiter
Build for Darktide

Weapons:

Melee: Illisi

• Great sweeping swings to clear hordes
• Fast charge attacks for problem situations 
• You may want to swap Shred for Deflector which can help when under fire. Paired with Kinetic Deflection in the skill tree and a +3 Stamina Curio you can block/dodge forever.

Range: Voidstrike 

• Paired with True Aim on the skill tree you'll be a crit machine.
• In over 500 hours of gameplay I still don't have Surge blessing, and still get >500 damage (low estimate) in most games. So it may not be necessary. I instead am currently using Transfer Peril and Warp Flurry for amazing Peril dissipation while spam firing charged shots through hordes.
• Aim through groups with your charged shot. Aim for Elite heads in the horde. Shoot Snipers through the horde with a charged shot. Listen to all the heads pop along the way.
• A fully charged secondary shot can stagger most enemies, including some monstrosities.

Curios:

• I prefer (2) +17 Max Toughness and (1) +21 Max Health. It feels like my survivability goes up astronomically compared to any other combination. A +3 Stamina may be swapped for one Toughness curio for amazing dodge and block capabilities. When paired with the Kinetic Deflection perk in the talent tree, it feels really good, you can literally face tank a monstrosity (as long as nothing is sneaking up behind you...). I noticed I seemed to get one tapped and instantly killed from behind more frequently when I went this route instead of the (2) Max Toughness curios though.
• +5 Health  and +5 Toughness perks on the curios.
• +20% Damage Resistance (of your choice) on all three. The percentages stack multiplicatively not additively, so more than one of each perk wouldn't be recommended. I'd recommend Bomber, Tox Flamers, and Gunner to help alleviate the flame and bullet spam. Some people go for Sniper, I think their lasers are easy to dodge so that's a nope from me. Honestly, if you're caught in the center of flame or bullet spam as a psyker, you're going to die. Your best option is to kill them before they get the chance to spam you, use corners and dodge slide to cover as quickly as possible. It's ok, and sometimes necessary, to backtrack on the cleared areas of the map to create space.

Blitz/Aura/Ability/Keystone:

• I see a lot of builds taking way too many passives above the blitz layer in the tree.
  • Pick a passive to release peril and move on, you don't need them all.
  • I usually pick Quietude and/ or Battle Meditation. 
    • Quietude regenerates Toughness through Peril quelling, which occurs naturally when using the Illisi to clear hordes and close range combat. A quick charged attack can rebuild your depleted Peril in a crunch for more damage. It also builds toughness while quelling manually or when Peril is dissipated through Voidstrike blessings.
    • Battle Meditation regenerates Toughness when paired with Quietude upon kills. Toughness has a 10% chance to quell Peril. When spam firing the Voidstrike this can be useful. When paired with the Transfer Peril (Surge alternate) blessing on the Voidstrike you can go for longer spans before having to swap weapons or quell.
  • I like Perilous Combustion because I just like seeing things glow. Plus it does a little extra damage to the horde.
  • I just added Mettle and Perfect Timing to try and maximize my crit damage since, according to the scoreboard, I usually have the highest crit damage also >500k in most matches. So why not. I took the points from Smite's modifiers because Smite should be used a minimal amount of time during a match.
• Blitz: Smite as an emergency brake when the match gets too hot to handle. A wave of Crushers/Maulers/Pox Hounds/Mutants/Maniacs etc... are incoming and your team needs space, then you use Smite.
  • A common horde is there, don't use Smite, just kill them it's by far more efficient than waiting for your team to carry you.
  • You're cornered and alone, use Smite's burst to push down the enemy and switch to a weapon and kill them.
• Wildfire. I like painting crowds with blue fire. It's really dependent on whether you want to take Kinetic Presence or Seers' Presence, do you want to help recharge abilities or destroy elites?
• Unlucky for Some (helps when downed) or One with the Warp (helps prevent going down), the choice is yours.
• You have a choice to make here. Venting Shriek or Telekine Shield.
  • Venting Shriek
    • Creates space in a crunch
    • Travels through walls. I've blown dogs off of downed teammates through walls or on an upstairs level above me.
    • Does extra damage
    • Regenerates some Toughness
    • Paints the enemy with Soulfire, which can help in darkness to highlight missed dangers.
  • Telekine Shield
    • Stops enemy projectiles, extremely helpful if your team uses the shield properly
    • Bubble (right branch) regenerates team Toughness
    • Left branch can stun enemies. Stops mutants and dogs from charging/ pouncing through.
      • can be placed twice in front or behind/ to the side of you or a teammate.
  • The choice is yours. I currently prefer Venting Shriek over Shield. I find a lot of teammates just don't give a f*** about shields and would rather take chip damage. So unless you have a knowledgeable team, if you are taking a shield take the bubble so you can just slap it over them in a crunch.
• Remaining necessary Passives:
  • True Aim is an amazing passive for any staff, but really shines on a Voidstrike. Shooting through hordes, hearing heads pop. knowing your crit numbers are going through the roof. It's a dopamine rush.
  • Warp Rider for extra damage. Even with the Peril reduction you will still have it build and this adds extra damage.
  • Solidity helps quell the peril built by your warp attacks.
• Keystones:
  • I like the way Warp Siphon behaves with this particular build, the choice on Keystone is up to you and your preference. Test them out. Warp Battery feels a little superfluous so I generally don't take it since I typically spam my Venting Shriek when it's available, and I usually have 4 stacks of siphon when this occurs.
    • Warp Siphon builds stacks on elite kills. This is beneficial since you are aiming for elite heads the entire match.
    • Empowered Psionics helps with Smite but since you aren't spamming smite it's kind of useless.
    • Disrupt Destiny is iffy. You have to actively kill highlighted enemies to build stacks, which can take your focus away from killing priority targets if you aren't paying attention and they aren't highlighted.

General Advice:

• Smite is an emergency brake, don't spam it the entire match.
• Dodge and Block more often.
• It's ok to backtrack on the map to create space.
• Move as a team to pick up downed teammates quickly.
• Focus priority targets. bursters, fire makers, dogs, shooters, disablers, crushers, maulers, etc...
• Stay in coherency more often than you are.
• Learn armor and damage types and their effects.
• You can use the Armoury Exchange plugin for Chrome to see Melk's and Brunt's shops on a web browser to farm weapons and Blessings.

Hope this helps.