Electro Shriek! Big Damage! Psyker's squishy? Just DELETE Everything!
 Psyker Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Previously, if you're doing nothing but spam Venting Shriek and Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic Force Staff over and over, it dealt "okay" enough damage to go through most content like duo auric maelstroms and Havocs.

But after the Psyker Talent tree rework, you can deal more damage and have an easier time. If I were to speculate, Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic Force Staff feels 15%-35% stronger due to Penetration of the Soul Vulnerable Minds Kinetic Flayer in addition to the previous existing damaging talents; and Venting Shriek cooldown feels double fas- Nevermind Psykinetic's Aura has been nerfed from 100% per second to 60% Cooldown per second. After thorough playthroughs, I have continuously found that I am waiting for cooldowns, thus, Seer's Presence is once again, NECESSARY. Not only that, Kinetic Presence does not consistently allow you to one shot on full staff charge due to elite hp increases from prior patches.

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The Main Damage:
Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic Force Staff 
Use Flak Armoured and Unyielding Perks, with Warp Flurry and Warp Nexus.
Flak Armoured allows you to kill most elites at 2 half charges, and Unyielding will allow you to eat through monstrosities.

The gameplay is simple, half charge almost everything. There is not much difference in DPS between full charge and half charge. I'd generally recommend full charging monstrosities/bosses, and half charging everything else. Be aware that Poxburster may jump in strange directions because the electric staff chain lightning can push it towards you, rather than away from you (if you target an enemy behind the burster instead). Kinetic Flayer will also NOT trigger on Poxburster.

Once you're at critical peril, turn to face the thickest of hordes or monster, and use Venting Shriek. The soulblaze from Creeping Flames can normally delete most hordes on your screen and the DoT damage is surprisingly decent on Monstrosities. You can run in circles kiting 2 full hp plague ogryns while targeting trash/elites with staff and venting on the ogryns; the plague ogryns will die after a minute or 2. 

Why Soulblaze? A single Perilous Combustion isn't much damage, but one thing to know is that the more stacks of Soulblaze, the higher the damage per second exponentially. Perilous Combustion (3 Stacks) is single digit damage over time, Venting Shriek Creeping Flames (6 stacks) is 50+ damage over time, Creeping Flames + Perilous Combustion (9 stacks) is 120+ per tick. 2 Perilous Combustion + Venting Shriek (12 stacks) is 200+ damage per tick. I don't know if there is an absolute maximum cap of Soulblaze. The instant kill nature of Kinetic Flayer is the main reason why I bring Brain Rupture, for that massive Soulblaze stacking potential damage. Please know, Soulblaze spread from Perilous Combustion and Venting Shriek does NOT spread on unaggroed Demonhost (patch 7 Oct 2025).

When killing Monstrosities, your main priority is to kill elites near the monster to stack soulblaze. Also note, when playing with teammates, pay attention to what type of enemies are nearby. You are predominantly ranged, so you can easily turn to remove elites and specialists that are coming to disrupt your team from killing the monster. When killing Captain bosses (the human bosses with bubble shields), the staff damage is noticeably lower, switch to Melee and heavy attack the boss only when you deem it safe to do so (melee deals double damage to the bubble). 

Without Empathic Evasion you'll need to continuously Line of Sight enemies (hide behind boxes/walls and take enemies one at a time). This applies to the newly added Scab Plasma Gunner, you treat them the same way you treat any other ranged enemy; Line of Sight. 

Please know, you can SLIDE + RELOAD to keep mobility up. You can also SLIDE + HALF CHARGE turn 180 to hit enemies behind you as well. You will NEVER need Mind in Motion because of this.

Also note, the staff is an aimbot weapon, on the video, you'll find that I'm swinging my screen zapping at nothing. This is because I'm sweeping to see if it connects to anything.

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Melee of choice is up to you:
How to melee?
If you ever need to swap to melee because you're being cornered, the first thing you should do is push. Staggering the mobs in front of you would set you up to not being hit, and keep holding block to stop stray attacks if the push doesn't stop additional mobs/elites. Only after that, should you start attacking. If you're trying to get out of a situation, spamming push is an option too. Once you build this habit, you'll begin to understand what pushing does per enemy type, and then you can adjust your gameplay accordingly to your experience.

1. Covenant Mk VIII Blaze Force Greatsword 
I have selected this for simple horde clearing with Infested/Unarmoured perks, with Shred Wrath blessings. It is definitely overkill for Auric Maelstroms, but in higher havocs, hordes can take a while to kill when you're cornered. If you feel like you're taking chip damage too much while using Greatsword, use Momentum Wrath instead. Cutting through hordes will charge up the greatsword special attack quickly, don't forget to use it (wipes most of hordes with it, passes through objects).

2. Cadia Mk XIIIg Assault Chainsword 
With the Chainsword buffs, if you enjoy spamming light attacks to take care of hordes (like me; which is not good, best to push enemies too), then with Infested/Unarmoured perks and Shred Wrath, this will clean up hordes faster than the Greatsword due to faster attack speed and higher base light attack damage (150+ on Greatsword, 210+ on Chainsword). However, Greatsword has a wider sweep area, making greatsword the safer pick. Enemies can hit you easier because of Chainsword's smaller sweep attacks. Please don't forget to use Special Action attacks on captain shields, it cuts through those quicker than left click spam.

If you're bored of Greatsword, give Chainsword a try. It's fun.

3. Catachan Mk VI Combat Blade 
Slot in any Perk or Blessing, this is mainly used as a mobility weapon to get in and out of situations. Alternate light attacks and push for hordes, otherwise hold heavy attack while sprinting to run away faster.

4. Maccabian Mk IV Duelling Sword 
With Unyielding and Carapace Armoured Perks, Uncanny Strike Riposte for Blessings; this is generally a go to weapon for an all rounded Psyker. Left click and push for hording, heavy attack heads/weakspots on everything else.

Other options would be Deimos Mk IV Blaze Force Sword for the diversity (it does a bit of everything), and Catachan Mk IV "Devil's Claw" Sword for the Special Action abuse.

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Curios are up to you:
I default to Cooldown Reduction, the other 2 slots are optional. Note that stamina regen and block efficiency are great options, I don't melee enough to justify needing them.

I would aim to get Curios that suit your play style. If you have absolutely no idea what to do with Curios, grab Health, Toughness and Cooldown Reduction; and then adjust to get what you need depending on what you're struggling with. The stamina curio is up to you as well; sometimes, I find myself with no stamina to push a poxburster or that I don't have enough stamina to block multiple attacks (reviving someone for example), hence why I went for that instead to match my needs. 

Just a rule of thumb, you don't need a ridiculous amount of toughness, minmax build crafters will tell you that Health is more important than Toughness due to the mechanics of being hit while not on maximum toughness (if you get hit while not at max toughness, the damage is spilled onto hp, that is, you survive longer for more hits with higher hp in general). If you continuously get hit twice then recover toughness to max, the second hit will always chip away your hp, a very high maximum toughness in this case would not matter. High toughness does allow you to take a 3rd or 4th hit better, as the toughness reduces hp damage taken so long as you have toughness. If you run out of toughness, it's all going to hp damage direct. But remember, you have a lot of toughness regeneration/damage reduction talents to make up for this, I don't know what the optimal hp vs toughness ratio is for the best durability; because I think it depends on how often you get hit consecutively.

What is used in the video is Health + Toughness + Stamina Curios, with Toughness/Health/Cooldown Reduction perks on all. I believe this provides the best balance for all situations. 


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Talents to note:
Survivability: Quietude Mettle Souldrinker is generally more than enough to keep your toughness up. The idea is to recover chip damage. Unfortunately, Psyker does not have the luxury of tanking hits. Psyker has 2 states; you recover chip damage and move on, or you take too much damage too fast and is dead; no amount of toughness regen will save you from fast damage taken. Why Quietude and not Soulstealer? Sometimes, there are moments where there is a boss or monster, and there is no other enemy at all. Soulstealer would be useless in this situation, whereas Quietude will be useful in all situations.

Essence Harvest is optional, swap as you please: Empathic Evasion (best alternative to get, great for havoc as shooters hurt a lot) Anticipation (great all rounder pick, very effective on players that dodge well, for average people like me, the extra dodge + evade window helps create distance) Warp Ghost (+2 stamina allows you to block more, you can swap stamina curio out for something else here) Immaterial Focus (it's okay, you need to take stunning hits to make it worthwhile) Just a Dream (25% reduction of damage taken is quite strong, coupled with One with the Warp, you will always have damage reduction regardless of your peril). 

One with the Warp is a defensive talent that I previously used before the talent tree rework. I've defaulted to this because this was what I was used to; and that I take chip damage often. But I can imagine that Anticipation might end up being the better talent to grab. Feel free to try it; better to dodge and take 0 damage, rather than reduce a damage taken right?

With that in mind, I will eventually remove One with the Warp and Essence Harvest for Empathic Evasion and Anticipation when I get better as a player; because I believe this is the better set of talents to have when you never take hits anymore.

Kinetic Flayer is surprisingly consistent and I don't know if Psykinetic's Aura affects it; it'd be a nice synergy if it does. Remember that it does not affect Poxburster, but be careful not to accidentally kill it with your staff when its near your teammates.

Do note that Empyric Resolve allows you to spam staff longer before needing to reload. Without this, the staff feels like a peril hog.

If you want Kinetic Deflection, I would remove Essence Harvest and Psychic Vampire. If you're new to psyker and you're asking "why would I want that?" it's because you can block anything without the cost of stamina. This means you can revive players and block attacks at the cost of peril. You can also hold block on a demonhost while in a corner, venting, and your team has a non running around demonhost to full dps on. It is true that you shouldn't wake a demonhost to begin with, but with the chain lightning from Nomanus Mk VI Electrokinetic Force Staff, mistakes happen, and it's nice to be able to hold it without worry.

Perilous Combustion Wildfire are bread and butter for the electric staff because of the nature of being able to remove elites quickly. There are clutch moments where the soulblaze killed enough enemies in the way for me to escape a cornered situation.

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The video attached is after the 100% to 60% cooldown nerf on Psykinetic's Aura. This should showcase a current gameplay footage of this build with Health/Toughness/Stamina Curios with Health/Toughness/Cooldown Reduction on them.