Crimson Sorcerer | Auric Maelstrom | Crit Inferno-Warp Siphon
 Psyker Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

"The warp is a mirror that swirls with the smoke of our burning souls. Without us there would be no reflection, no patterns to perceive, no shadow of our desires." - Iskander Khayon. 

The Rifthaven Inferno Staff is potentially one of the strongest weapons in the game, wasting not only Heretics, but our poor PC's performance alike. With infinite cleave, powerful DoT, and talents/buffs galore to syngergize with it, the Inferno Staff reigns supreme amongst the Psyker's weapon choices. The core idea of the build is using this as a crit ranged build, using blessings and talents to facilitate pumping our crits up for sustain and higher damage, with most of our fighting being done with our staff, while using our melee weapon specifically for its strong movement tech, allowing us greater freedom in our positioning, and single target elimination, such as when we are being walked down by a crusher or rager. Once you have the build mastered, you will easily be able to mow down entire hordes, mixed or not, and become a boon for any team comp as a midrange suppressor. The Crimson Sorcerer is the first among my "spellcasting" Psyker builds, all distinguished by colors and a specific flavor of magic, with this one's focus all about the wonders of fire. This build has been used extensively and successfully in Auric Damnation, and is my go to for an inferno staff build.

Weapons: 

While I'd much prefer to start by explaining the talents of a build first, in this case, I think its much more important to begin with the star of the show: 

The Rifthaven Mk II Inferno Force Staff, as previously stated, is easily one of the games most oppressive weapons. Infinite cleave, this staff burns everything that is unlucky enough to be caught in your torrent, inflicting not only a powerful DoT that gets stronger the more its applied, but synergizes heavily with our own talents. While one could make the claim its a mindless weapon that trivializes encounters, they would only be half right. The Inferno staff has two attacks, with each doing different things. The primary attack, and oft neglected tool, is a quick burst. This attack has the aforementioned cleave property, but the most important part is the high stagger component, able to stop even Ragers from attacking you. If used right, you can not only protect yourself from enemy attacks, but also your teammates. The secondary, and most infamous attack, is the charged stream. This attack will melt hordes, but something that can be overlooked is its ability to suppress enemies. This ability is incredibly useful, and can save you and your team from turning into swiss cheese from gunners. You might not stagger a Reaper, but you can make him poop his pants in fear, as you "slow" cook him. 
Since we are running a crit build, are going to run increased crit chance, and for our other enhancement I prefer 25% to Flak armored. The reason being, is Flak armored is a big damage buff to a widely used defensive type, getting a lot of bang for your buck. Some good alternatives are 10% damage to elites for a similar reason as Flak armored, and 25% to Unyielding, which will help rid you of non-crusher ogryns and Monstrosities easier.
For our blessings, we are running Warp Nexus and Penetrating Flame. With Warp Nexus, our staff can get up to 47.5% crit chance, which is not insignificant with a torrent class weapon like the Inferno staff at all, allowing for constant crits to occur. We then pick Penetrating Flame, as not only is it boosting our own damage, its also boosting our teammates damage, as long as we keep applying stacks of brittleness; a task not difficult to perform for this staff. 

With a ranged weapon as powerful and versatile as the Inferno Staff, its enough to make some people wonder why you'd even care what melee weapon you'd you use, but you, the intelligent connoisseur of fine builds that you are, know well enough how wrong that would be. While its true that the inferno staff will be our primary weapon in engagements, our melee weapon choice will be the deciding factor between making this build "good" or great. Which brings us to our two main options: Maccabian Mk IV Duelling Sword and the Catachan Mk III Combat Blade. These two weapons are highly important and will be the determining factor in how well you excel with the build. The reason why we choose these melee weapons is two-fold: 1) We lack high power, single target elimination. Both of these weapons excel in that regard, with powerful and fast heavy thrusts that make short work of any crusher, mauler, or rager who decide they want to try to make your day. 2) As the great philosopher, Sonic the Hedgehog, once said: "Gotta go fast." The movement tech these weapons allow is an incredible boon to our kit, enough to make me almost pick the weapon solely off that alone. The movement tech will allow us to, *ahem*, reposition to strategic points, to better flank enemies, and avoid their damage. The choice between the two is preference, in my humble opinion, and while they both "do" the same thing, one is better at one thing than the other, and vice-versa. If you feel like you need even more movement, go Combat Blade. If you need more killing power, go Dueling Sword. For refinements, I like to run Carapace damage 25% for sure, while for the second is a tie between Maniacs and Unyielding, with me personally leaning Maniacs to deal with ragers, since I prefer to use the staff on Bulwarks, Reapers, and Monsters. For Blessings, Uncanny Strike is non-negotiable, as it facilitates the single target elimination we are using it for, and your choice between Precognition and Riposte. Precognition is a usual choice for me, as it further boosts our headshots, but Riposte will further boost our high crit chance, which definitely is a strong option for the knife, with its rapid attacks. 

Talents: 

As the Inferno Staff is all about soulblaze, its only natural we are going to use the "crit-soulblaze package," which seamlessly fits into a build like this. To start off with, our first two talents, as well as a big part of our Toughness sustain, is Soulstealer and Mettle. While seemingly risky to pick only these two toughness sustain talents for now, especially when we are running ER, with our Keystone (which will be discussed in a bit), and the next talent, we will generate plenty of toughness sustain, as well getting a nice boost to our movement. Lightning Speed is taken so we can get to Souldrinker, which directly synergizes not only with our staff, but Mettle, with Souldrinker giving a boosted crit chance to further set off Mettle for even more toughness sustain. Our aura buff of choice is Prescience, giving us a much appreciated boost to our crit chance, paired with our crit chance boosting node, for 10%. Since we arent running Seer's Presence, we can take Psykinetic's Aura to compensate, giving us and our teammates a boost to our Ability regen. I was conflicted on whether or not to take Wildfire, but unlike in a lot of other crit-soulblaze builds of mine, I find it unnecessary due to the fact that the Inferno staff blankets everything in soulblaze already. Solidity and Empyric Resolve allow for us to constantly loose a torrent of flames at all times, and with Warp Rider and One with the Warp, we benefit greatly from casting in high peril, making you stronger the longer the fight goes on. 

Our Combat Ability of choice is surprisingly modular. I typically prefer to use Venting Shriek, but Bubble Shield can be taken for the same talent investment, which is pretty incredible, especially if your team comp needs a shield for a Havoc run. The reason I like to use Venting Shriek, is because it allows for us to constantly be applying soulblaze, manage our peril, and while both abilities benefit, Venting Shriek really synergizes with our Keystone. Becalming Eruption is nice, but the real meat and potatoes is Creeping Flames, which synergizes with so much of our build, by applying up to 6 stacks of soulblaze at everything hit. 

Our Keystone is one I find really neat, and maybe my favorite keystone of the 3, and that is Warp Siphon. Warp Siphon is the biggest piece of the puzzle to our build, and most importantly to our sustain. Each stack will not only give us Combat Ability reduction (up to 30%!), the modifiers we take are the contributors to said sustain. We first take the talent on the right, Essence Harvest, giving us a massive boost to our Toughness regen. We then take Empyrean Empowerment, giving us a flat boost of up to 16% damage dealt. Lastly, we take In Fire Reborn, which gives us a 10% Warp Charge on soulblaze kill, which is huge when you consider almost all of our damage is from soulblaze, allowing for us to proc Warp Charges much more frequently. 

Lastly, for our Blitz, I highly recommend Brain Rupture. While Smite could be taken for the same talent investment, Smite wouldnt be doing anything our Inferno Staff isn't, as well as suffering heavily from not running Empowered Psionics. Brain Burst, while not benefiting from the boosted charge times from the blitz modifer or Empowered Psionics, is still incredibly useful for dispatching threats over vast distances. Needless to say, Brain Burst could be the difference between having a Sniper harass you and your team, or not. 

Closing Words: 

This build has become one of my favorite playstyles, and frequently picked in my rotation of psyker builds. Psyker, in general, has quickly grown to becoming one of, if not, my favorite classes in Darktide. The diversity it brings to the table is truly unparalleled in this game. 

With the Crimson Psyker done up, this completes "Red," for my color coded psyker builds. Up next will be my "Blue" Psyker: The Mage of Azure - Lightning/Support build, followed by green and purple! I hope you enjoy this build as much as I enjoy making it, but more importantly, playing it.

Video showcase coming soon(ish, I just need to figure out this dang software I got)!