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

Azyr Psyker

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 Is our bread-and-butter weapon. It deals respectible 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. 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.

The Illisi Mk V Blaze Force Sword is used sparingly. The only time we whip it out is when we don't have time to charge up or smite, or to kill the odd chaff enemy we encounter. I opt for the Illisi Mk V Blaze Force Sword over the Deimos as the attack pattern is better for clearing out small hordes. These will be the biggest problem stopping us from charging up our electrical attacks, so we want to dispatch them quickly. The benefit of the force sword with Deflector, is to provide us with ranged protection, especially useful as we will not be running Telekine Shield.

Build Path

I like to pick up Soulstealer, Quietude & Warp Expenditure. 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. Perfect Timing works well to increase our staff damage, owing to its naturally higher-than-average critical strike chance.

Smite is what makes this build. We pick up both multipliers. Lightning Storm effectively allows us to hit more targets during our blitz, and Enfeeble increases the damage from our soul-blaze stacks, as well as provides a small damage buff for our allies. 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

From here we move down to pick up Puppet Master. Not really useful to us, but necessary to pick up Solidarity. We will be using our staff and blitz 90% of the time, so something that can increase our peril speed will improve the uptime of our attacks, as well as how quickly we can replenish our toughness. 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.

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. It allows us to quickly take out specials and deal respectable damage to Monstrosities. It is viable to run Equinox Mk IV Voidstrike Force. This staff is amazing, however, It has less damage against Monstrosities, the one area Smite really falls down in. It charges quicker than the voidstrike, allowing us to more quickly respond to threats as they arise. We will be spamming this a lot, so Warp Flurry increases our overall DPS whilst Warp Nexus... well...also increases our DPS. I take Unyielding damage to better deal with Monstrosities and reapers, and carapace so we can actually deal decent damage to Crushers. The stun from this thing will also knock back pox bursters without killing them, meaning we do not have to get close to them to shove them back. Very good for stopping poxhounds and trappers too.

Curios

After 500+ hours in Darktide, I have a simple rule of thumb when it comes to Curios. For melee classes (Ogryn and Zealot) Take 2x Toughness and 1x Health Curios. For ranged classes (Veteran and Psyker), take 3x Toughness curios. Veteran benefits massively from Toughness and Ogryn massively from health, with the other two classes falling somewhere in between. There are a few niche builds that might require Stamina Curios, but this is a pretty safe rule to stick to, and means that you have curios that are effective for the vast majority of your builds. Wound curios should only ever be used by Zealot Martyrdom builds. Even then, I consider Martyrdom builds a bit gimmicky and less effective than other Zealot builds, which is why I only ever run them for banter and memes.

For perks, I opt for raw stats. +20% 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 difference between running 3 of these perks compared to running none is night and day, and arguably the single most useful perk you can apply to your curios. +5% Toughness and +5% Health provide us with raw stats that you can never go wrong with. If you have to pick between one of the two, go for Toughness. This is because the Health Curio provides 21% Health, and the Toughness Curio provides 17% Toughness, meaning that the Toughness Perk is a better value proposition. 

For the Azyr Psyker, I like to opt for a 4% cooldown reduction over the health perks. Psykers are squishy and the extra Health is not going to benefit us too much. Being able to vent peril, regain toughness and more quickly use our Wombo Combo to stop enemies in their tracks is far more impactful for increasing our survivability. 

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. 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

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.