The Warp is My Blade
 Psyker Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

The warp mocks the power of words to describe. But what I can never turn my back on is the power and the beauty of the Emperor. I see His soul shine out from Earth and His presence fill every corner of the immaterium.

--Peshto Vask Zemlya, Navigator

Changelog:

18/06/2025: Through ample testing, I have reached the conclusion that Godwyn-Branx Mk IV Bolt Pistol performs better at the intended role of the ranged weapon in this build - medium-range special killing and emergency space making - than the Crucis Mk XI Double-Barrelled Shotgun . I expect to revisit this decision after the Arbites patch to see the effects of shotgun buffs. The BP is better at securing kills on high-priority specials while the DB shotgun does suffer from a significant damage drop-off at range.

Introduction

Siblings, welcome to my guide to The Warp is My Blade, or TWIMB. This is an off-meta, melee-oriented hybrid build that is immensely fun and powerful but relies heavily on good positioning and spatial awareness to survive. With 10-20 hours' practice, you can handle most Auric Maelstrom in pubs (I will discuss the special conditions to avoid below). However, without trying too hard the highest Havoc level I have cleared with this build and pubs is 29, so do not use it to solo Auric missions or duo Havoc 40 - you wouldn't be able to. But again, I only have 200 hours as a Psyker and I have aged long past my gaming prime, hence my hope that your capabilities can bring this build to new heights. 

So, how does this build play like? Like a tweaked melee gun-psyker. You open with either targeted Assails, a melee heavy attack or an activation slice from your Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword on a target with Disrupt Destiny  to start accumulating those stacks. When things get heated and your peril reaches 50, you pop your Scrier's Gaze to further amplify your damage. If you need to make space from surrounding enemies, Godwyn-Branx Mk IV Bolt Pistol with Lethal Proximity  will stagger enemies around you while move away. Alternatively, if space isn't too tight but you want a room clear warpslice from the GS with 1 or 2 bars will clear a cone in front of you. Rinse and repeat.

Now, in reality this build is more complex than the boiled-down version above, but I hopefully you will be confident with this build after reading this guide. We shall start with core offensive and defensive mechanisms that define this build, then move on to talents, weapons and curio choices that reflect the build philosophy, and finally wrap up with advanced tips that further pushes your limit.

Core Offensive Mechanism 1: Critical Hit Chance

This build is all about increasing Critical Chance and buffing Critical Damage/effect, hence our weapons and blessings reflect such philosophy. It is therefore important to note, without going into the detailed maths, three aspects about critical hit chance and damage:

- Critical Chance is additive but the eventual damage caused by that critical hit is multiplicative 

- Each class has an innate base Critical Chance, for psyker it's 7.5%

- In addition to effects that explicitly mentions 'critical damage' or 'on critical hit', Finesse damage also increases critical hit damage

Core Offensive Mechanism 2: Mixing Warp and Non-warp Damage

This is where Malefic Momentum comes in. To maintain this whopping 25% damage buff, you need to essentially rotate between killing - not just hitting - enemies with the warp and without. As long as you land a kill of either kind every 8 seconds respectively, the buff will last. 

For warp-based kills, you can use either Assail or warpslice from activating Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword . Assail is good at killing chaff (left click spam) or squishy specials in the distance (targeted with right click) such as bombers and snipers while the warpslice requires energy build up but with buffs from the talents could clear the room of everything except ogryns and monsters at two bars. Use one bar activation on a horde is also a good way to strip away chaff before engaging.

For non-warp kills, light and heavy attacks with the Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword will easily fill that gap or you could use the Godwyn-Branx Mk IV Bolt Pistol to target medium-range disablers, flamers and gunners. Thanks to its immense stopping power, blessing and various buffs in our build, you could usually one-shot those specials with a head shot or critical bodyshot. 

Core Defensive Mechanism 1: Peril Up and Down

As we all know, psykers rely on the generation and quelling of Peril to pump up their toughness and provide additional damage or effects, so it is crucial to understand the tools at your disposal to effectively manage this resource, especially since we haven't picked up any nodes that increases Quell Speed or reduces Peril Regeneration. Here is a breakdown:

To increase peril, you can:

- Activate warpslice on your Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword (33 points)

- Use untargted (5 points) and targeted Assail (25 points); DO NOT USE UNTARGETED ASSAIL NEAR DAEMONHOST

- Reload your gun below 75 peril with Surety of Arms (25 points for a full reload)

- Block attacks with Kinetic Deflection under critical peril (amount depends on attack)

- Naturally generate peril with Scrier's Gaze (starts slow, gets slowed/interrupted by killing an enemy but eventually increases rather quickly)

To decrease peril, you can:

- Hit 2+ enemies with your GS equipped with Murderous Tranquility (5 point per hit)

- Kill enemies with By Crack of Bone (10 points per melee weakpoint kill plus 25% peril generation for 5s)

- Activate Scrier's Gaze (50 points), note that it also triggers the gradual generation of peril

- Press R or wait for a timer to trigger your innate quelling (depends on your quell speed)

Apart from using Scrier's Gaze , it is rather obvious that Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword offers great tools to generate and quell peril - warpslice and melee weakpoint kills/multi-target hits. The reliability and impact of these two moves ensures the success of this melee build. What's even better is that one is warp attack and the other is non-warp, which means you can trigger full stacks Malefic Momentum without swapping weapons/skills. Some practice in the Meat Grinder to understand the move set and combo will go a long way.

Core Defensive Mechanism 2: Block, Dodge and Stamina

Dodging and blocking should be a part of every reject's basic training but this build has a few quirks that will perhaps deviate you slightly from the conventional routine:

- Psyker has a base stamina of 1 but both of the chosen weapons provide +4 stamina (duelling swords, in contrast, only provides +1 stamina)

- Psyker has the shortest stamina regen delay among the four classes (0.4 seconds according to a reddit post)

- Both the Push and Push-attack on the GS cost only 1 bar

- Kinetic Deflection means you have the entire Peril pool as a Stamina buffer for blocking, you also get Peril from blocking

- Empathic Evasion means you don't have to dodge too many ranged shots as long as you keep landing critical hits onto enemies

- Unlike gun-psykers, you don't need to ADS/brace your gun at all, so no Stamina consumption there

All things considered, blocking has become as effective a means to mitigate damage as dodging, and it would be wise to tactically favour blocking over dodging in certain scenarios such as when you need to maintain high Peril, space is limited or facing Monsters/Daemonhosts.

Talent Build Path/Skills and Nodes

Having explained the core offensive and defensive mechanisms of this build, I will go through the Build Path quickly to save us all some time:

- Quietude is the signature Peril-Toughness interaction nodes and you have a few options to actively quell peril, must have

- Mettle gives mobility and toughness on critical hits and is essential for this crit build

- Perfect Timing lasts quite long and gives warp damage on critical hits, very useful for maintaining Malefic Momentum ; you can swap it for Soulstealer if you find yourself struggling to generate enough toughness

- Assail , as mentioned before, is great for sniping faraway specials and enemies marked with Disrupt Destiny , clear chaff and build up Peril; it leads naturally to the right side of the talent tree without wasting points

- Malefic Momentum 25% damage explained above, must take

- Lightning Speed and By Crack of Bone are both essential to a melee psyker build, must take

- Warp Splitting provides additional cleave to everything in your kit, that means the number of enemies that your Assail,  Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword 's warp and non-wap attacks as well as Godwyn-Branx Mk IV Bolt Pistol hits; also synergises with Warp Unbound 

- Seer's Presence and Prescience  are both viable aura. I prefer the ability CD reduction over Critical Chance because of its utility for all allies in coherence but I do have an identical build with Critical Chance just in case there is another psyker running the same aura on my team. The current setup reduces the downtime of Scrier's Gaze to sub-10s. 

- One with the Warp provides additional space for error at melee-range (replaced Warp Expenditure on 03/06/25)

- I prefer Empathic Evasion over Anticipation because it allows me virtually doge all ranged attacks when handling a horde because of how many critical hits I can land; Sadly it does not trigger Riposte

- Scrier's Gaze  and Precognition are the bread and butter of a melee crit build, must take

- Endurance provides much needed toughness damage reduction for a melee build (replaced Purloin Providence on 03/06/25); alternatively you can take Warp Speed which provides additional mobility while Scrier's Gaze is active

- Warp Unbound allows you to take full advantage of the 100 Peril bonuses for 10 seconds without exploding, great stuff

- Warp Rider gives you +20% damage at 100 Peril, works well with Warp Unbound 

- Kinetic Deflection lets you block a lot more than your stamina allows and is therefore essential for the survival of a melee psyker

- Surety of Arms gives you another option to raise peril and makes the Godwyn-Branx Mk IV Bolt Pistol a bit stronger too

- Disrupt Destiny  is a must-have for crit psykers because of the massive damage/Crit damage it provides

- Lingering Influence allows easy upkeep without focusing entirely on DD targets, which can be hard to reach as a melee psyker

With Scrier's Gaze , this build offers a base Critical Chance of 7.5%+5%+20% = 32.5% or 37.5% if you go for Prescience 

Alternatively, you can remove points from Lingering Influence and Endurance for the following two nodes that really emphasies your damage

- Perfectionism pushes DD damage to its full potential 

- Cruel Fortune allows faster stack build-up and easier maintenance necessary to keep 25 DD stacks, for melee psykers may not always reach our DD targets quickly

Weapons Choice - Melee:

Personally, I choose Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword over Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword for its reliable heavy hits that can stagger Crushers, but you can really use either based on your preference with the usual dump stat of Warp Resistance. Out of all enemy types, the GS is responsible for killing heavier specials/elites, monsters and chopping down chaff with cleave or warpslice, hence we choose bonus damage against Carapace and Unyielding Enemies as our refinements.

Blessing-wise,  Murderous Tranquility helps to make sure that while handling hordes of weaker enemies you can reach the full 30 seconds of Scrier's Gaze . Riposte is a common choice among crit builds and potentially offers synergy with Empathic Evasion . 

Alternatively, Shred provides 20% Critical Chance as long as you continuously hit something, it doesn't have to be the same target and even bounced-off hits against Bulwark shields count; Unstable Power provides a flat base damage increase that can be amplified by various buffs this build provides.

You can also take Deflector to provide further block efficiency and the ability to ward off ranged shots (you then need to swap Empathic Evasion for Anticipation ); Unstable Power for overall damage buff but less Critical Chance; or Wrath for GS-only cleave.

With Scrier's Gaze and Riposte active the GS has a Critical Chance of 52.5% or 57.5% (with Prescience )

Weapon Choice - Ranged: 

Between the amazing Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword and our existing Talent Tree, it is rather clear that we are still lacking two key elements of a well-rounded build - a quick CC against enemies rushing towards you like a dozen ragers and the ability to kill a flamer/diabler inside a mixed horde without peril. This is where Godwyn-Branx Mk IV Bolt Pistol with +25% damage against Flak Armoured and Maniac enemies comes in.

Point Blank gives you an easy 20% critical chance in the thick of battle and Lethal Proximity will create a plenty of space for you if you get surrounded.

With Scrier's Gaze and the blessing active, the bolt pistol has a Critical Chance of 52.5% or 57.5% (with Prescience )

Alternative weapons for good CC and close-range specialist kills: Crucis Mk XI Double-Barrelled Shotgunwith Scattershot and Man-Stopper ; Zarona Mk VI Combat Shotgun with Fire Frenzy and Hit & Run ; Zarona Mk VI Combat Shotgun with Scattershot and Man-Stopper 

Curio Choice - why not +3 Stamina?

If you look at psyker builds on the website, most of them will have one +3 Stamina Curio and two +Toughness Curio. This build does not. For the reasons listed in Core Defensive Mechanism 2: Block, Dodge and Stamina, we can ditch the +3 Curio and put in a third +Toughness Curio or, in the case of Havoc, one Health Curio. With +12% Stamina Regen, you should be able to sprint-slide virtually endlessly. The rest is quite standard.

Advanced Tips and Tricks

- Thanks to Kinetic Deflection , your peril will help you block incoming damage while reviving a teammate, feels great when you casually revive someone under heavy ranged fire

- Targeted Assail will not hit a nearby Daemonhost unless you specifically target it. Untargeted ones follow your cursor so make sure you direct them to enemy weakpoints.

- Push-attack on the Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword , despite being a single-target move, has a pretty good range and can knock down anything but monsters, which means you can easily interrupt a Crusher, a Flamer or a Reaper from afar

- Blocking is a 360-degree means of protection and with gold toughness it can protect you from any non-oneshot damage (i.e. Crusher overhead and some boss/monster moves), so sometimes you don't have to turn around upon hearing the Whoosh - I can't stress it enough, BLOCK MORE

- If you need a warp-based kill to refresh your Malefic Momentum while under the influence of Scrier's Gaze , make sure you trigger By Crack of Bone for that -25% peril generation before using Assail or the warpslice

- The warpslice from activating Covenant Mk VI Blaze Force Greatsword has a two-stage damage, for the swing itself does damage as well like a physical attack if anything is caught in the action. It is perhaps for this reason that this move counts as a melee rather than ranged and doesn't trigger True Aim. However, even if the enemy is killed by the swing, it counts as a warp-based kill towards Malefic Momentum 

- The warpslice damage drops as it travels further but is unaffected by how many enemies it has hit

- Try playing with the warpslice in Meat Grinder first if you haven't used it before. I often find myself crouching and aiming it slightly upwards to ensure it hits as many enemies as possible, for standing and aiming downwards might send it into the ground before reaching full length

- Unless the enemy's head is caught in the physical swing, the warpslice does not proc weakspot damage modifier or By Crack of Bone , so don't bother aiming at perfectly head-level. It does Crit though

- No matter how many you kill with the GS warpslice , they count as one 'hit' which triggers Murderous Tranquility once. 'Kills' on the other hand are calculated based on how many enemies actually died

- Scrier's Gaze goes through two stages before entering CD - Active (however long till you reach 100 Peril) and Lingering (10s). All buffs are active except Endurance in the Lingering phase.