Voidstrike Cleave Psyker
Build for Darktide
Weapons
Curios
Talents
Description
"Spark Head is out of control!"
"Why yes, good of you to notice."
This build uses Disrupt Destiny to turn the Voidstrike into a truly awe-inspiring weapon that clears rooms of shooters and can occasionally 1-shot Crushers. It's so disgusting that I don't often run it because it's not fun for the rest of the team. That said, it's the perfect build for when you're in an Ogryn/Zealot heavy team. You can also use it for lightweight teams and together ensure that nothing gets close. This build is extremely strong in maelstroms with waves of certain enemies, such as hounds, muties, bursters, and snipers.
You can drop the second toughness node for your choice of Electrocute, Enfeeble, Wildfire, Perilous Combustion, Peril Resistance, etc.
If you want to free up another talent node to go for something like Empyric Shock (great against bosses), I recommend dropping Soulstealer.
Voidstrike
Start every fight by looking for disrupt destiny targets, a fully charged shot to the head of one will get you started. As you build up stacks, it becomes easier to kill targets with less charge and you can even just switch to the primary fire, especially for shooters and muties. Don't get too tunnel visioned on increasing the number, your target can wait until a priority threat is dealt with.
For your dump stat, you can use Quell Speed, Peril Generation, or Blast Radius. Blast Radius is usually the best dump stat for Voidstrike, but the soulblaze on crit hit works better with 80 blast radius. By Crack of Bone's insane melee quell favors dumping Quell Speed or Peril Generation. I recommend dumping Peril Generation unless you like to run Scrier's Gaze with it, in which case dump Quell Speed or Blast Radius depending on your preferred playstyle (dump quell speed if you like to use melee for the first phase, blast radius if you like to use the staff the whole time).
Illisi Force Sword
The best melee horde clear a psyker has access to. You can absolutely use Voidstrike against hordes, but beware of accidentally shooting a poxburster. Illisi is the safe pick that also has access to deflector which can save you from shooters if your shield goes down sooner than you expect.
Once you reach high stacks of DD it can one-shot muties.
Remember that charged up attacks will provide extra toughness from Soulstealer if running it.
Wall Shield
You can absolutely use dome instead, but wall shield brings a lot of utility. You can use it to protect your front while clearing a room of shooters, and have a second charge for if there's so many that they break it. You can place it right in front of the team to prevent a mutie from sneaking through and disrupting your damage output, and of course as you move forward that shield that was in front of your team will now protect you from most specialists from behind. The most common use is to put it right in front of you as you support your team from the backline, then once nothing is shooting at you from the front you move forward so it can protect your back from specialists.
Consider placing it on a spawn door if the team is huddled up near one. Silent poxbursters are deadly.
Scrier's Gaze
Great alternative to Wall Shield; offensively way stronger but leaves you vulnerable. Lets you go ham on infinite peril with large buffs and makes for insane melee power, and comes off cooldown about as fast as your buff fades, but you don't have great defense against shooters and specialists while doing your thing so it's risky. Great if the team has a shooter-focused vet, aggressive zealots/ogryn, or ideally a dome psyker. You can either go into melee-mode while builing up time spent in it or just go for ranged kills as fast as possible. Smite can be safely spammed during the no-explode phase if your buff icon showing the duration doesn't show up.
Brain Rupture / Smite
Blitzes are rarely used in this build. Assail prevents you from using Psykinetic's Aura which is one of the most powerful nodes in the tree. Kinetic Flayer is the main reason to take Brain Rupture and will help against bigger enemies, whereas Smite is taken just to smite a big group of enemies briefly just to knock them down as you reposition, or to briefly stun enemies and build up peril for melee cleave.
On rare occasions, you may want to brain burst a disrupt destiny target that's behind cover but usually voidstrike's hit box will be able to reach them over the cover. It is sometimes helpful to reliably take down a target that is running away or very distant.