This weapon Blocks both Melee and Ranged attacks. Additionally, Block Cost is reduced by 22.5-30%.
Up to 14-20% Strength, scaling with Peril.
2 Shots on Primary Critical Hit. 2-5% Ranged Crit Chance.
Gain between 3.5-5% and 14-20% Critical Chance based on current level of peril.
If your Havoc team already has a Psyker running bubble, this setup turns you into a hardened killing machine. Excellent for taking out pesky gunners at range, and very strong at overall suppression, which is huge at high-level Havoc. On lower and non-Havoc, this build becomes a fun scoreboard chaser.
HOW IT WORKS
Keep Scier's Gaze active as much as possible, quelling the ever-building peril at every opportunity. All weapons are peril-based, so you can always push peril down.
The goal is to keep peril below 100% until you hit 30 stacks of Scier's Gaze. It cannot go higher, and your peril builds faster/harder until you cannot prevent hitting cap. As soon as you hit cap, dump any remaining Assail shards, switch to your staff and pump primary fire into everything in sight.
After you hit 100%, watch the cooldown on Gaze! You want to stay at 100% peril while spamming for max damage, but you have to stop spamming and quell just as it ends (there's a small grace period). The Better Buff Management mod allows you to place the icons in the center of the screen, ensuring you don't miss when it drops off.
COMBAT STYLE
There's a flow to your weapon choice based on enemy forces:
Staff - Primary fire (the little orbs) is the go-to. Only use alt fire electricity on Elite Ogryns, and then only to stun while your team finishes them. Elites are your weakness in this build (except when inside the 30-stack burst window). Always hit the same enemy until it dies, Empyric Shock will make sure that's fast. Spam into crowds for effective suppression.
Assail Shards - Anytime you have a mass of groaners and unarmored specialists. Great when enemies are sitting in unreachable battlement areas. Also helps crowd control packs of standard gunners, as it can be easier to throw assail shards while dodging. It doesn't suppress like your staff, but they will stop shooting when hit.
Sword - Your melee weapon is there only for when groaner hordes gets to big/close, at which point this sword config will melt them. The alt fire swing of this Mark is a sweeping cleave, and ignores armor (you get follow through). You otherwise should not melee engage anything, staying at range as much as possible. If things get tight, block and dodge to get breathing room, then swap to staff and unload.
COMMON QUESTIONS
"Why no Keystone?"
Only Warp Siphon and Empowered Psionics are reasonably available, and neither one significantly contributes to your survivability and/or damage (when compared to the talents you grabbed earlier in the tree). Disrupt Destiny would be amazing, but you burn a lot of points getting there, disrupting the natural flow of the build.
"Why not a gun? Won't I just build peril super fast using a staff?"
Reality Anchor and Empyric Resolve keeps natural peril gen down. You won't run out of peril too fast, promise. Honestly I find gun psyker to be a complete bait, as it's impossible to control your peril gen. With a staff, the peril build becomes controllable, allowing you to output insane damage.
"What about Kinetic Deflection?"
No good for this build, as your naturally stacking peril constantly. You really want to avoid having to block anyway, it means you are out of position.
