Azyr Psyker | Smite | Venting Shriek | Empowered Psionics | Auric Ready
Build for Darktide

Azyr Psyker

So the Unlocked & Loaded Patch not only improved weapons customisation, but also buffed this build (and nerfed many of my others). Being able to pick up Empryic Resolve & Solidity has made Smite one of the most busted and brain-dead abilities in the game. Yes, our ability to replenish toughness is reduced, but that hardly matters when nothing is able to hurt you in the first place. In fact, I've tested it out, and when lucky with Battle Meditation and Psykinetic's Aura procs with the new reduced peril generation, I've been able to use Venting Shriek twice with a single smite cast. I honestly now think it is overturned, but you came here for a build, not me musing on the state of the game. 

Smite is a divisive skill in darktide. There is one camp that believes it to be the best ability in the game, and a second camp that sees the ability as pointless, as it is far better to kill your enemies than just stun them in place. This build aims to turn Smite from a crowd-control utility tool, into a crowd-control utility tool that murders everything that is not a crusher or monstrosity. By running Empowered Psionics, we more than double the damage of our smite whilst increasing how fast it spreads (useful to acquire new targets when old ones die). When our peril gets close to 100%, we use our ability Venting Shriek to remove half our peril and extend the duration of our smite (still only using one token of empowered Blitz), whilst hitting our foes with stacks of Soulblaze. You can use this ability without interrupting your lightning channelling which is an absolute game changer. Screaming 'UNLIMITED POWER!' as we do this is optional. 

Playstyle

Our Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff deals respectable damage on a quick charge time, and does not require us to be at all effective with aiming. This makes it especially good for players whose aim is not their strong point. It can stun larger armoured threats like Crushers in their tracks and can stop a leaping hound. The arc will spread to an additional target, letting us hit two targets at once, useful when trying to focus on a particular special or elite in a group. The arc also travels through our teammates, letting us support the strike team from the rear. This weapon should be used for killing the odd struggler, and deal constant chip damage to Monstrosities.

Our blitz is what makes this build. Save it for situations where you see a horde with elites mixed in. The recent buff to Empowered Psionics means that our Smite now deals 300% damage. This turns blitz from a situational crowd control to, into something that can delete entire hordes whilst locking them in place. Once our peril rises above 85%, we use venting shriek to apply max stacks of soul-blaze (6). This can be done whilst continuing to channel our blitz, so the combo will only use one stack of Empowered Psionics. By using Smite when our peril is at 0%, using Venting Shriek at 85% to reduce back down to 35%-15%, depending on how many targets we hit. we can continue our attack for longer until it hits 100%. This combo deals enough damage to kill ragers and maulers at full health. Only Crushers can survive the combo, and even these will be stunned and diminished, being an easy clean-up for our team. Few things are more satisfying than seeing our name fill the kill feed as we delete an entire squadron of elites. Oh, and this will keep Empowered Psionics semi-permanently at 3 stacks, so we can whip it out whenever we need it, provided we kill at least 1 elite. Our movement is greatly diminished whilst charging, so get into the habit of slide dodging whilst using this blitz to better navigate and position ourselves favourably.

We pick up the Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword, arguably the Psyker's most well-rounded weapon. Whilst it has less mobility and slightly less damage than the Duelling swords, it makes up for this by being able to bring Deflector, better deal with hordes and having a hefty stagger on its heavy attack, enough to drop even a Crusher in a weakspot hit. It's the second heavy attack, aimed at a Crushers Weakspot, that has insane stagger for some reason, able to knock them over. It's actually quite a bizarre interaction, seeing a Crusher knocked to its arse by a tiny psyker poking them in the face. I suppose all things are possible with the powers of the warp

Build Path

I like to pick up Soulstealer & Quietude are sufficient to replenish our toughness. We don't want to invest too heavily into toughness regeneration as a skill later down the line will limit it anyway. Any interaction with peril will replenish our toughness, helping us avoid chip damage from ranged enemies. Battle Mediation is usually a sub-optimal node on Psyker. In this particular build, however, it shines. When we are smiting an entire horde of enemies, it is pretty common for it to proc a few times, extending the duration of our ability. Perilous Combustion gains more value the higher the density of specials and elites, and provides incredible value in Auric Maelstrom missions. When you are stunning a horde, killing the lone high-tier enemy amongst them allows fire to spread through the enemy ranks.

Smite is what makes this build. We pick up both multipliers. Lightning Storm effectively allows us to hit more targets during our blitz. I know there is some debate about this, but I have done extensive Testing.. Psykinetic's Aura is up there with the Veterans Survivalist aura, competing with the best aura in the game. Wildfire allows us to wreak havoc when paired with our ability down the tree. 

Seer's Presence is the best 'real aura' option here. It allows us to more readily use our ability and have our Combo up more frequently. If it allows a veteran to shout more, or a zealot to use their chorus more, that is even more value we are adding to the team. One with the Warp provides a slight damage reduction. It's not really noticeable (a strong breeze will still knock us over), but it is necessary to spec into Venting Shriek. 

Venting Shriek is the second node which makes this build. We pick up both Becalming Eruption and Creeping Flames. If you are having doubts about how effective this is, please check out the Psyker venting Shriek Radius test below. The range on this thing is absurd, and can set an entire room full of enemies on fire. This synergises well with both Perilious Combustion & Wildfire to spread as much dot damage as possible. 

Psyker Venting Shriek Radius Test - Warhammer Darktide 40K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yHg6tov0vDc

Solidity allows us to quell our peril quickly between Smite casts. As this skill already knocks enemies down, you can usually chain-stun hordes of enemies without being at risk of retaliation. Empryic Resolve is... I have to level with you, I don't know why it is in the game. -40% Peril generation is just ridiculous. Prior to the unlocked and loaded patch, one had to make the decision to either extend smite going down the Wrp Siphon route or to empower it. Now you can do both. We drop Enfeeble to pick this up, as it is honestly now redundant. 

From here we move across to pick up Warp Rider. Up to 20% extra damage is a nice addition, and something we will be hitting fairly often. Moving down we pick up Empowered Psionics, the last piece of the puzzle. +200% Smite Damage is simply broken. This build was already powerful before, and I'm not entirely sure why they felt the need to buff it, but it only benefits us. The 50% faster spread means we can easily acquire new targets as old ones die. We will be sliding around a lot, so this lets us move and stun a new enemy mid-combo. We round our build off by picking up Overpowering Souls & Charged Up. This allows us to have Empowered Psionics up almost all the time. Finally, we move over to pick up Kinetic Deflection, to help keep us alive in situations where things have gotten out of hand. The extra 5% Crit chance is always welcome too.

Weapons

For melee weapons, Both the Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword and the Illisi Mk V Blaze Force Sword are both viable depending on preference. Realistically, our melee weapon is not used very often. It is our backup weapon, and needs to serve two functions. It needs to provide some level of protection from ranged attacks when we get caught out in the open. This removes the duelling swords as they do not have access to the perk Deflector. It also needs to be able to deal with small groups of enemies in a timely manner.  Your melee weapon should cover your staff's weakness. For this, I prefer to run the Illisi Mk V Blaze Force Sword as it can better deal with straggling hordes that would otherwise stop you from charging up. 

For our ranged option, I like the Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff. Not only does this complete our lightning-themed aesthetic (very important), but fills in the gap left by our smite, that off decent single-target damage. For the longest time, this was seen (unfairly) as the weakest staff by the community. It's impossible to make that argument anymore. The lightning staff has one property that the other staff lack, that of critical bonus. Whereas other staffs have a critical chance of about 5%, A good lightning staff can have up to an additional 24% critical chance (based on the armour it is hitting). This combined with Warp Nexus can get it close to 50%. Normally I consider Surge to be kind of a gimmick blessing. However since it has also been buffed to have an in-built critical chance, and given that we can get our critical chance close to 50%, that means we will be shooting out double lightning every other shot on average. It's simply a busted combo.

Curios

After 1,000+ hours in Darktide, I have a few simple rules when it comes to Curios. Melee classes (Ogryns and Zealots) should take 2x Toughness and 1x Health Curios to provide a good mix of defensive stats. Veterans should take 3 Toughness Curios, as they benefit more from Toughness than other classes due to their larger toughness pools and skills such as Iron Will. Psykers should run 2x Toughness and 1x Stamina Curio to make up for low base stamina and to benefit from their faster stamina regeneration. Obviously, there are some caveats to that. A melee-centric Veteran might want to run 1x Health Curio, and certain knife and stealth builds might want to run a Stamina Curio. But for the most part, I find this a good rule to stick to in order to ensure you have Curios that are effective for the vast majority of your builds, especially when starting out when it is difficult to find any Curios, much less good ones. Oh, and Wound Curios should only ever be used on Zealot Martyrdom builds. Having Wound Curios actually means that health stims will heal you less. I know some people like to take a Wound Curio 'just in case they go down,' but in higher difficulties, there is no guarantee your team can pick you up. It's far better to invest in defensive abilities that prevent downs as much as possible.

For perks, always take Extra Toughness and Gunner Resistance. Gunner Resistance is the most useful resistance node as it applies to Scab Gunners, Scab Shotgunners, Dreg Gunners, Dreg Shotgunners, and Reapers. This is the largest collection of enemies out of any of the resistance perks. These enemies can absolutely shred you in seconds and make up a significant portion of the enemies encountered in Auric Maelstroms. The ability is multiplicative, so it does have some diminishing returns. 0.80 × 0.80 × 0.80 = 0.512, meaning that we end up with a total gunner resistance of 0.488, just below 50%. I can certainly see the argument for only running two Gunner Resistance Curios (with an overall damage resistance of 36%) and opting for something else (potentially Sniper or Flamer), but I still value that extra 12.8%. The one exception is Ogryns. For these, I like to take extra Sniper resistance instead of health on the Health Curios.

For the final perk, it depends on your build. If you are using a build that relies heavily on your ability, then run Cooldown Reduction to more frequently make use of said ability. I find this to be especially powerful on builds that make use of Voice of Command, for instance. If your build is not too heavily reliant on your ability, then go for Extra Health. Again, you can tweak this to suit individual playstyles (and the mercy of the RNG gods as Hadron bricks yet another piece of equipment), but this is a pretty good rule to aim for. As this build benefits from Cooldown Reduction (and Psykers naturally have low health), we naturally go for Cooldown Reduction.

Strengths

The Azyr psyker is possibly the best crowd control build in the game, and works as a force multiplier, allowing your team to carry out their tasks unimpeded. Smite can be used to shut down packs of hounds and hordes of ragers, protecting your team from high-damage-dealing enemies. It works great into hunting grounds and high Specialty missions. The Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff can take out specials before they get into range to cause problems, and allows us to contribute to Monstrosity takedowns. The trick is to stay out of melee as much as possible, circumventing the biggest weakness of psykers, their squishy profile.

Weaknesses

It's best not to bring this build into Maesltroms with Nurgle's blessing, as these buffed enemies have high stagger resistance and will not be stunned by our attacks. Ranged fights are not our speciality. The charge attack of the Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff has limited range, meaning we have to rely on primary fire to take out distant snipers and ranged targets. Without Telekine Shield, we cannot support our teammates in firefights. Thankfully the staff's range is sufficient enough to hit ranged targets when they get close enough to hit us consistently and start to become real threats, but distant snipers can cause us issues. In addition, Gaggles of Mutants can cause us problems. They are resistant to electricity, so we will need to dodge them in order for our electricity to have enough time to actually stun them.

Questions & Answers

Question: Is it ok to run the Equinox Mk IV Voidstrike Force Staff Instead?

Answer: Of course! Please do not see any of my guides as being set in stone. You should take these guides and adjust them to suit you. The Equinox Mk IV Voidstrike Force Staff is a great and versatile staff. I personally prefer the Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff for its higher boss DPS, but both staffs can absolutely work in this build. 

Question: Why do the stats, weapons, and abilities in the video not match what's written in this guide?

Answer: I am constantly evolving and refining my builds. As patch notes are released, certain weapons and abilities may change in effectiveness. Additionally, as my skills and knowledge grow, my preferred builds can shift. I aim to provide videos demonstrating the effectiveness of my builds in a Damnation level Auric run as proof of concept. However, these videos may sometimes be outdated. While I strive to keep everything current, Darktide is my hobby, and I may not always have the latest updates in the videos. The information in these guides reflects my most recent thinking and should be considered more accurate than what is shown in the videos.