ASSAILSIN - ASSASSIN STYLE PSYKER
 Psyker Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Looking to give the heretics whiplash? Well look no further.

This build is for those who are looking to play the Psyker a little differently. Not a slow, squishy, backline caster, but instead a fast, self-reliant assassin.

UPDATE 08/09/2026: Adjusted recommended weapon perks on Dueling sword from Flak & Maniac to Carapace & Unyielding. Adjusted recommended Zarona revolver perks from Flak & Maniacs to Carapace and +5% critical strike chance. 

UPDATE 08/08/2026: Heavily adjusted talent points to improve survivability, speed, and damage.

CREATED 07/10/2026 (ish)

Overview:

Warning: This build has a high skill floor and a virtually endless skill ceiling, meaning in the right hands, this build can be ungodly strong, but in the wrong hands, it's nothing more than a liability.

Starting with the primary weapon, select the Mk IV Dueling Sword. This sword rewards clean, precise weak spot hits and provides incredible mobility, something this build relies on. When it comes to stats, mobility can be your dump stat. We don't want to be just fast, we want to be fast and lethal. Perks can be of your choosing, but I find Carapace and Unyielding has been working well. For Blessings, I highly suggest Riposte and Uncanny Strike. Riposte will greatly increase your critical chance for a good chunk of time after dodging an attack, and Uncanny Strike will make dispatching armored enemies much easier. 

When using the sword, always aim for the head if you can. If your target is of the stronger variety, use the heavy attack. Heavy weakspot hits with this sword chew through healthbars. 

Optionally, if you want to have a little bit more fun and a little less meta, you could opt for the Catachan MK III Combat Blade. This gives the build a little more of an assassin feel. Mobility is identical aside from increased dodge distance and better stamina efficiency. If you do end up preferring the Combat Blade, I recommend the same perks as the sword, but for blessings, swap out Riposte for Flesh Tearer. This blessing will make it a LOT easier to deal with bosses and bigger healthbar enemies because it gives 8 stacks of bleed on critical hits (max 16). This is huge because we get criticals in Scrier's Gaze, statistically, every two strikes.

For the secondary weapon, pick up the Quickdraw Stub Revolver: Zarona. The secret sauce of the Zarona is its penetrative capabilities and insanely high damage output. This thing can easily cleave a bullet through multiple gunners in a line. Mobility can be your dump stat for this weapon as well. For perks, I'm sticking with Carapace  damage buff and +5% critical strike chance. For blessings, I recommend Hand-Canon and Surgical. Hand-Canon grants +60% rending on critical hit, which will obliterate any armor in the bullet's path. Surgical increases your critical chance while aiming by 10% every 0.3 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. Do the math, and that's a 100% critical chance after only 3 seconds.

All your curios contribute to keeping you alive, just in different ways. All three should have combat ability regen, because we will want to be in this state as often as possible, and ally revive speed, as quicker ally revives ensure you don't stay in one place longer than necessary. The first two should also have +Toughness (main), and resistance to gunners. Resistance to gunners keeps you alive while you're on the run. Your third curio's main slot should have +3 max stamina (main), and stamina regeneration. Higher stamina and regen speeds keep you on the move.

Blitz: Assail. This is going to be your hoard clear or hoard softener to make the groups easier to deal with.

Aura: Prescience. The primary goal of this build is to proc as many critical and weak spot hits as possible. This is an assassin build, and even that flat +5% crit rate is huge.

Combat Ability: Scrier's Gaze (SG in future references). This combat ability is basically a Psyker's "god mode". It increases damage, crit rate, weak spot damage, speed... you get the idea.

Combat Loop Example: A poxwalker hoard is approaching, along with a rager. First course of action is to eliminate the elite from a safe distance if possible using the Zarona revolver. Then, spam Assail shards to thin the hoard numbers. Lastly, pop Scrier's Gaze, bringing peril back down and slowly rising, making you stronger as it rises. From there, eliminate remaining targets with your Dueling Sword.

Talent Point Selection: (Outdated- Updating later today)

1. Warp Expenditure: Keeps your toughness up in thick melee hoards while swinging your sword. 
2. Mettle: Replenishes more toughness on criticals and also causes speed buffs to stack. 
3. Perfect Timing: Stacking criticals boosts your base damage. 
4. Assail: Used for hoard clearing and creating breathing room
5. Ethereal Shards: With Assail being our mid-range hoard clearing, we want the shards to pierce as many targets as possible
6. Quick Shards: Simple, you don't have to wait for eternity to get your hoard-clear kit back.
7. Lightning Speed: Buffs melee attack speed.
8. By Crack of Bone: Helps keep SG up longer.
9. Prescience: Yet another +5% crit chance, for you and allies in coherency (crits are going to be popping left and right, my friend)
10. Psykinetic's Aura: Allows you to be in a near constant state of SG.
11. Immaterium Focus: 10% damage reduction from all sources, keeping you alive in tougher situations.
12. Empathic Evasion: With all the crits we're going to get, bullets don't even phase us with this talent.
13. One With the Warp: The higher our peril, the more resistant we are to toughness damage.
14. Just a Dream: Converting 25% of damage into peril. This is HUGE for talent points 13 and 22.
15. Scrier's Gaze: God mode. Super fast, super lethal. Use it for either hoard-clearing anime slashing or lightning fast ally rescue clutches.
16. Warp Speed: Bread and butter of SG's mobility boost.
17. Reality Anchor: Keeps you in SG longer..
18. Kinetic Deflection: Blocking attacks increase peril instead of using stamina. Feeds into talent points 13 and 22 just like talent point 14.
19. Disrupt Destiny (DD): Constantly gives you a target, keeps your toughness topped off, grants mobility buffs, and a lingering base, critical, and weakspot damage boost.
20. Lingering Influence: Keeps DD stacks up longer.
21. Vulnerable Minds: Deal more damage to the big boys.
22. Warp Rider: The higher your peril is, the more damage you do.
23. Warp Ghost: Essential for keeping you at mid-high peril for damage boost from TP 22 and toughness resistance from TP 13.

The remaining 7 points are from required talent points.

Note from yours truly: This build has gotten me out of countless bad situations and has gotten me through insane enemy director crash outs. I'm talking specifically about a damnation mission where I was sprinting towards a corridor to rescue the rest of my team (who all died, yes) and I kid you not..11 maulers with 5 crushers showed up from that corridor. Still managed to complete the mission successfully.

I hope this guide was helpful! Who knows? I might come out with a video on the build on my YouTube channel: @SteeKazee Plays

Stats for Nerds:

Flat Bonuses (no Scrier's Gaze/Disrupt Destiny or other conditional talent point effects):

Critical Chance (melee): +10% 

Critical Chance (ranged): +10%-100% based on aim time (Surgical blessing)

Damage (melee and ranged): +10% (+35% for Flak Armored and Maniacs)

Movement Speed: +5%

MAX POTENTIAL BONUSES:

Critical Chance (melee): +50%

Critical Chance (ranged): +50%-100%

Damage (melee and ranged): +100% (+125% Flak Armored and Maniacs). If weakspot, +147.5%-172.5%. If weakspot AND critical, +177.5%-202.5%!!

Movement Speed: +60%