Gandalf: Melee Max Wizard
 Psyker Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

I always loved that Gandalf was a wizard who fought in the thick of it with a big ole sword and ever since I started playing Psyker I wanted a big ole sword of my own. Now with a refreshed talent tree and Covenant Force Swords we finally have truly frontline viable melee Psyker that can go toe to toe with the big boys and chop them good and hard.

TLDR: The goal of this build is to maximize your time and damage in melee while not throwing away the utility a Psyker can bring to the team. Pop Scrier's Gaze as much as possible for a damage boost vs elites or to farm stacks from a horde. Learn your combos, dodge and chop. Whip out your staff to soften up particularly big groups of elites or to provide CC in an oh shit moment. Use Assail to counter specialists and soften gunner packs.

I've tried a lot of the builds out there right now and none of them have sat right with me. Plenty of them are very strong, but I keep feeling like I'm sacrificing the CC a Psyker can bring for pure selfish damage. This is my attempt to build as hardcore of a melee DPS build as possible while still being able to deal with the elite spam that can overwhelm even the incredible single target damage you put out. We aren't here to play Gun-Psyker (even though that's awesome) so we don't care about talents that synergize with rapid fire guns in between bursts of Scrier's Gaze. We want to use the sword as much as possible while still having strong CC to deal with the worst situations.

Latest Revisions:

• Swapped Quietude for Soulstealer to further support Soulblaze, Assail, and staff usage, which give us peril and lots of toughness. 
• Swapped Battle Meditation to Perfect Timing because we dropped Quietude, but also because it was kind of counterproductive. We don't want to lose our peril in melee so fast and combined with By Crack of Bone our peril was evaporating anytime we were not in Scrier's Gaze. You can still easily hit max stacks of Scrier's Gaze from the innate reduced peril generation on kill and By Crack of Bone, but now we can maximize our toughness and damage buffs from peril for longer when we are on cooldown.
• Swapped Warp Speed to Warp Unbound in order to maximize damage when we are at high peril by allowing sword specials, assail, and staff use in our 10 seconds of post Scrier's Gaze buffs while also at high peril.

General build theory:

• Maximize opportunities for getting toughness back through crits and killing targets that have Soulblaze on them as well as warp kills.
• Go fast with sprint and stamina buffs.
• Spam Scrier's Gaze for more damage and tankiness with a reduced cooldown.
• Carve up hordes with your sword and dump special attacks into groups when charged.
• Rush groups of shooters with your speed and carve their soft flak bodies up before they can react.
• Don't be afraid to tango with a boss. Pop Scrier's Gaze and use your DPS to chunk them down.
• Use your staff when you need to. Sometimes there are too many melee elites to safely duel as a squishy Psyker. Stun, knock over, and debuff them with your staff to either open them up for quick melee finishers or allow your team to deal with them.
• Use Assail to soften up dangerous groups of shooters before you charge them. Use it as a sidearm to take out specialists. Use the aimed attack to snipe specials/gunners further away. Don't blow yourself up.
• You can get even more damage buffs by mixing up warp usage with your melee combat. Once you get more comfortable with the build this is a final cherry on top. (Buffs from Disrupt Destiny + Buffs from peril + Buffs from Scrier's Gaze + Buffs from Malefic Momentum)

Sword tips:

• Either Mk is great. Take Mk 6 and replace Flak with Unyielding if you want better elite combos and boss damage. Take Mk 8 if you want more spammable lights and to mulch gunner/shotgunner packs (my current preference).
• Hold your heavies down when chaining between enemies that are further apart. Using your speed and the relatively long hold time you can keep your stacks of Shred while you hop from one kill to the next.
• Use the quickdraw attack! Stun an elite with a charged staff blast and then hit them with that overhead on swap.
• (Between us girls) You can get away with light spam intermixed with light pushes. This is especially true on the Mk 8.
• Stab is life. Crazy reach, big damage. This is why the Mk 6is the choice for elite damage, but you can do the same by comboing from your push attack on the Mk 8. You can get away with absurd skate stabs just like the Crushers and Maulers have been doing to us for years.

Controversial choices:

• Why do I like Soulblaze?
  • Because you are a Psyker. Every Elite/Specialist kill is a damage over time bomb. A single 3 stack is a measly drip of damage, but when you bag a cluster everyone around gets some serious hurt. Without these talents you are just a squishy zealot. Also Souldrinker gives us another way to consistently get chunks of toughness back along with even more crit.
• Why Blazing Spirit?
  • Because while you sacrifice cleave from Wrath you double the amount of toughness you can get back from a ton of your crits. Think of this like bleed on a crit zealot. It makes you safer and it does more damage even if it might take a tiny bit longer to mulch hordes. Also with Warp Splitting and the Mk 8's more horizontal attacks (and especially the heavies) you will not notice the missing Wrath that much.
• Why not other Auras?
  • All Auras will work fine for this build. I just want all the crits. Honestly you probably get enough from Scrier's Gaze, but hey more is more.
• Why not Riposte?
  • Riposte requires you to be targeted, attacked, and successfully dodge. A lot of the time we are moving so fast we don't even get fully attacked by the enemies we kill. This allows us to maximize crit uptime.

Variations to Experiment with:

I have decided that moving from Brain Rupture to Assail is simply an upgrade for this build. While you lose the infinite range snipe of Brain Rupture you get a lot more use out of Assail which triggers Malefic Momentum and thus makes you stronger. We can also now take Warp Splitting to increase our cleave with peril to somewhat makeup for the lost cleave from Wrath. Losing Psykinetic's Aura had much less impact than I thought it would. Worst case scenario Scrier's Gaze is on cooldown for around ~18 seconds. You could swap auras to Seer's Prescence to shave another couple seconds off that, but I think maxing your crits (especially because we don't have as much cleave) is better.