Mage of Azure | Auric Damnation | Telekine-Smite
 Psyker Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

"Knowledge is a deadly friend, if no one sets the rules."- Ahzek Ahriman. 

Smite is a blitz that had sadly accrued a bad rep, justified or not. Known as a "noob trap," most discourse on Smite is to disuade its use from newer players. I, personally, believe Smite to be a powerful, yet misunderstood, tool, and potentially the Psyker's most "powerful" blitz if used correctly. I believe a lot of the hate and misconceptions come from a misunderstanding and misuse of Smite by a lot of the playerbase, which leads to this status as a "noob-trap," not all reasons unjustified either, in my humble opinion. With this build, I hope I can bridge the gap between "noob-trap" for players to "deadly-trap" for heretics.
The core idea is pretty simple: we are an electric themed support build for our team, and a sort of defensive-lightning turret platform. With our ability to summon bubble shields and our deflector sword, we turn ourselves into a tank, able to tank deadly fire and give our teammates much needed breathing room, and with our staff and blitz, we are the ultimate crowd controller, shutting off scores of enemies' nervous systems for our teammates to shut off those enemies, permanently. When using this build properly, you will be easily stop massive groups of enemies in their tracks, while being the perfect support to facilitate your own team's abilities! This build is the second of my color-coded "spellcaster" psyker builds, and in my opinion, THE "spellcaster," focusing all on the wonders of electricity (Nikola Tesla would be so proud 🥹)! This build has been tested and played extensively in Auric Damnation missions, and is my go-to support build for Psyker!


Talents: 

This is a build that's defined by its talents, as they are going to be the primary facilitators of everything we do. To start off, we are going to pick Soulstealer, Quietude, and Mettle. These three talents are our main sources of toughness regen/sustain, allowing us to be able to shrug off attacks while we are spell casting, which will be frequently. Warp Expenditure is an option you could take to make yourself more tanky, but because of a later talent, its usefulness drops off a bit, and I much prefer taking the +5% ranged damage node instead. Next, we take Battle Meditation and Perfect Timing, both of which boost our spellcasting significantly. Battle Meditation is going to allow for much longer cast times of our spell casting, especially in regards to our blitz (when pumped up), and Perfect Timing is going to allow for a constant ramping of damage on said spellcasting, especially in regards to our staff. To further boost our spell casting times, we will be taking Solidity and Empyric Resolve. These two in tandem will allow for us to constantly be shooting lightning, from our staff and our finger tips. Next up, we will be taking Warp Rider and One with the Warp. As we will be constanly shooting lightning, we will be operating in high peril, and thus the buff to both our defense and offense will be a huge boon. As for for our aura buff, we will be taking Seer's Presence, and we will be further boosting it with Psykinetic's Aura. These two talents will allow for us to be able to constantly lay down our shields for us and our teammates, not to mention granting them boosted cooldown times as well. For our basic nodes, important ones to grab are the aforementioned ranged damage node and the crit boosting node, which is going to neatly benefit out lightning attacks. Lastly, before we get into our Ability, Blitz, and Keystone, we will be grabbing Kinetic Deflection. This talent, when paired with blocking efficiency boosting refinements, will allow for supreme blocking power, allowing for you to tank a great deal of punishment, and will be key to our sword's own special blessing. 

The combat ability of choice here is going to be the Telekine Shield. As a support build, I find it only natural that we use it, so we can be that more useful to our allies. That said, before I get into more of the Telekine shield, I wanted to talk about Scrier's Gaze. Alot of people believe that Venting Shriek is the way to go when it comes to a Smite build, because it would allow for "longer" cast times. I'd argue that if your intention is to pump Smite to its absolute limits, then you should use Scrier's Gaze. Using Venting Shriek is going to cut into what's making Smite strong, and thats climbing peril levels. Scrier's Gaze will have the initial dip of peril on activation, sure, but if you take Warp Unbound, you are going to give yourself 10 full seconds of max power Smite, not to mention the small boost to damage (that can be boosted before hand) that its giving Smite already. This is the reasoning behind using Smite on my Blade of Librarius, and is the ultimate way to get the highest busted Smites that you can. If you want to go that route, change the ranged damage node for Empathic Evasion, then Scrier's Gaze over Telekine, then pick up either Reality Anchor or Precognition, and finally Warp Unbound. Now, with all of that out of the way, lets talk about the Shield. As I said before, Telekine Shield is the way to go for the support role we are playing, and we aren't using just any shield, but of course the infamous "Bubble Shield." Naturally, the two talents we take are going to be Telekine Dome and Sanctuary. This is going to turn us into that "turret platform" I mentioned. This ability is supreme for its defensive abilities, as not only will we be getting a shield that protects from all ranged attacks, but also replenishing everyone's toughness! If you really wanted to be thematic, you could go the left side talents instead, for the electric shield, but the bubble talents are too good to pass up, in my humble opinion. 

Next up is Smite. Poor 'ol Smite. It really does get a bad rep, because I think its not only the strongest Psyker Blitz, but its also the coolest. I'm pretty sure a lot of us picked Psyker just to shoot lightning from our fingers just like Palpatine. I know I'm guilty. So, imagine my surprise when I hear the awful slander (kidding) of my beloved Smite! I knew I had to make a build to prove them wrong. In doing so, I learned 2 things: 1) I'm probably not going to be able to convince the masses of the glories of Smite, and 2) I got a really awesome build out of it. I digress, Smite can be incredibly powerful if used right. On its own, Smite is not killing anything, except pox walkers, at least not after a long time frying the stronger heretics. Where Smite shines is in its ability to stop nearly anything in its tracks. This can give you and your team much needed breathing room, and a free pass for your team to chop those heretics down like they are mowing the lawn. This also leads to the sad reputation as the "noob-trap," as new Psykers can find themselves falling onto it for everything as a crutch, to save themselves, despite it's low killing power by itself, and the fact you can't rely on it trapping the enemies that you want when you are zapping large hordes, which will lead you to getting killed (not to mention causing yourself to blow up if you aren't careful). Despite this, with the right talents in play, we can actually turn Smite into quite a capable horde clearer with the right talents, using Lightning Storm to boost its chaining, the aforementioned Warp Rider, and most importantly, our Keystone. 

Empowered Psionics is the crux to making Smite an actual threat to our enemies. Without it, Smite would be a limp noodle, more of an electric massage for the forces of Nurgle. +200% damage, meaning triple the regular output, and 50% increase to spread speed is HUGE. This will allow us to set off busted smites, freezing whole hordes in place, and melting them into the floor. We take Overpowering Souls, as this will allow for guaranteed stacks of EP to occur, especially when paired with our staff. Lastly, we take Charged Up, which will give us 3 stacks of EP, allowing for more powerful Smites to happen more often. 

Weapons: 

The weapons we choose for this build are important; not only for the role we are playing, but I find it to be the most "thematically" appropriate. A big reason I enjoy playing Auric Damnation/Maelstrom over Havoc, is because that its the highest difficulty you can go, while still being able to have fun, diverse, and engaging builds. While that doesnt mean you can just go willy nilly on anything and expect good results, you are allowed a lot more freedom in regards to a "flavorful" build. Which is a big reason why we are choosing the Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic Force Staff and the Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword. 

Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic Force Staff is not only thematic, but an incredibly potent tool at our disposal. This staff is pretty much a "focused Smite stick," with its secondary attacks firing a powerful bolt of lightning that stuns not only the target, but enemies around it as well. Unlike Smite, it does great damage on its own, easily taking out non-ogryn elites and specialists in one to two hits. Because of that, this staff is also perfect for us to start accruing EP stacks for Smite, as it will allow us to kill those elites with ease, letting us get the ball rolling for our Smite. As with the inferno staff on the Crimson Sorcerer, we go with 25% to Flak Armored, as its the most widely used defense stat for enemies, and I like to use 25% to Maniacs, to deal with ragers, flamers, and trappers, but 25% to Unyielding is a fantastic choice as well, for damage to monsters and non crusher ogryns. For blessings, we go with Warp Nexus and Warp Flurry, pretty standard blessings. Warp Nexus will give us up to 20% extra crit chance, which is never a bad a thing to increase, while Warp Flurry is going to let us get off our charged lightning bolts much quicker. That said, don't neglect the primary attack, as it will be able to reach enemies the lightning won't, like say a Sniper perched far away. 

The Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword is such an incredibly unique and stylish weapon. While the Dueling Sword is by far the most popular choice for Psykers (... and Veterans and Zealots), the Deimos Blaze Force Sword is not one to be neglected. The reason we choose the Deimos Sword is for two reasons: 1) It's a powerful single target weapon that has a moveset made for weakspot attacks, with powerful thrust attack combos, and a special attack that can do big damage. 2) it's the last piece of our tanky puzzle, with its blessing ability to deflect ranged attacks, further boosting its blocking ability to allow us to defend ourselves much easier. The refinements I personally prefer are Block Efficiency 20% and 25% to Carapace, as Carapace enemies like Maulers and Crushers are going to be the enemies you use this blade on. That said, because of the high blocking efficiency granted by our curios and blessing, you could forgo the additional blocking efficiency refinement, for either Unyielding for monsters and ogryns, or Maniacs, to more easily deal with ragers and mutants. For blessings, we take Uncanny Strike and Deflector. Uncanny Strike is going to boost our weakspot attacks greatly, such as L1 to H2 and so forth, when fighting those preferred enemies. Deflector is the reason we choose the Deimos Blaze Force Sword over the Dueling Sword, as this will allow us to block those ranged attacks, and all attacks with much better. Paired with the talent Kinetic Deflection and all the blocking refinements, you can tank incredible amounts of punishment for long periods of time. 

Closing Words: 

With this build finished, that completes the color blue in our list of spellcaster builds. To be honest, this build came about because I wanted another "elemental" build to complement my Crimson Sorcerer fire build, more than any silly notion of proving Smite to be "the best" or anything like that. I just really love the Blitz, personally, and thought it would be cool to have a whole "lightning" psyker paired with the lightning staff. I'm really proud with the final outcome, too. It's a really potent set up that works really well in hard difficulties. While Smite never get away from its label as the "noob-trap" (or the fact a lot of people seemingly have no clue what to do when a psyker casts smite on enemies, but no one is seemingly ready for that conversation 😉), I hope this doesnt disuade anyone from using Smite, and I hope that you guys find this build as fun as I do, as I think its a real blast! Next up on my color-coded they of builds will be the Verdant Warlock, a Voidstrike/Assail build using the "crit-soulblaze package," but before that I have something unique in mind. I'm calling it the "Wesley Gibson" Psyker Build (iykyk), so I hope you guys enjoy those as well!

Video Showcase coming soon! ... relatively speaking...