Want to craft the best Darktide Psyker build? As the magic users of the Imperium, Psykers channel the warp, manipulating it to cave in the craniums of your enemies under intense pressure. They also get buffs for every Warp Charge they gain, which with the right tools equipped, can make them more formidable as the mission continues.
To get the most out of the Psyker, which out of the four Darktide classes, is the one who will likely deal the most damage out of the group, you need to commit to a strategy that may not be the most obvious at first. Since your role as a DPS dealer in the co-op game requires you to stay relatively far away, you will need protection from ranged gunfire – a common threat in the 40K universe.
Best Darktide Psyker build
For those unfamiliar with the universe in the new Warhammer 40,000 game, Psykers are good at manipulating the Warp. The main defining theme of this build is that it uses these types of attacks a lot, and they come from a few unlikely sources: Brain Burst is a Warp attack, and so is the charged-up melee attack with a Force Sword. In fact, Brain Burst is an essential ability, as using it triggers a series of events that will melt enemies near the affected target, and we want to have it occur as often as possible.
Weapons
Here are the best weapons for the Darktide Psyker build:
- Force Sword
- Accatran Mk II Recon Lasgun
For the melee weapon, you want to go with a Force Sword. This is because the charged attack is a Warp attack, which triggers many of the feats you’ll equip. They’re also mighty weapons, capable of chopping down hordes of foes with just a few well-placed swings. For the modifiers, try to go for the increased ranged critical strike chance to help you at range, and melee weak spot damage bonuses. As for the traits, Blazing Spirit can set off a chain of events by applying stacks of Soulblaze on a critical hit, while Riposte gives you a 2.4-5% critical chance for five seconds after every successful dodge.
While it can be tempting to wield the Force Staff and not worry about ammunition, we recommend you go with a decent Accatran Mk II Recon Lasgun with a fantastic fire rate. This is so you can take advantage of the Tier 5 feat, as this has a 10% chance for every bullet that hits an enemy to get the Brain Burst effect, dishing out massive damage. As a result, it can make short work of Ogryns and other large foes, including bosses. For the traits, you’ll ideally want ‘Crit chance on weak spot hit’ to stack up bonus crit chances up to a maximum of 10% until you land one, and ‘Deadly Accurate’ to give yourself an additional 40-47.5% damage whenever you do hit a critical weak spot hit. The modifiers ideally should focus on reload speed and damage against Flak or Carapace armoured enemies.
Feats
Each tier of feat unlocks every five levels, with the first tier at level 5 and the last one at level 30. You can only choose one of the three available feat perks at any one time, so here are all of the best picks for the best Darktide Psyker build:
- Warp Absorption: Replenish 10% toughness when you kill an enemy with a Warp attack.
- Wrack and Ruin: Killing an Elite or Specialist with Brain Burst applies two stacks of Soulblaze to all enemies within three metres of the target.
- Cerebral Lacerations: Damaging an enemy with your Brain Burst ability causes them to take an additional 15% damage from all non-Warp sources for five seconds.
- Kinetic Shield: Take between 10% and 33% reduced toughness damage from ranged attacks based on your current number of Warp Charges.
- Kinetic Flayer: All attacks have a 10% chance on hit to Brain Burst the target. This cannot occur while at critical Peril and has a cooldown of 15 seconds.
- Ascendant Blaze: Psykinetic’s Wrath expends all Warp Charges and applies Soulblaze to enemies hit based on the number of Warp Charged expended. Enemies killed by your Soulblaze effects from any source have a 10% chance to grant you a Warp Charge.
Warp Absorption lets you recover toughness for every enemy killed by a Warp attack, which may not seem like much right now, but there is a skill that makes this effect rather potent. Wrack and Ruin adds the Soulblaze effect whenever you slay an enemy, allowing you to spread damage over time to enemies and making your Brain Burst blitz skill even more potent.
Cerebral Lacerations gives you and your allies in coherency additional damage on enemies that have just been hit with Brain Burst, making it handy for taking down bosses and other bulky foes. Getting Warp Charges won’t be difficult with this build, so any damage reduction using the Kinetic Shield will always be beneficial, especially when trying to close in on a pesky sniper.
The key to making this build work is the Kinetic Flayer feat. All attacks, no matter which one you execute, have a 10% chance on hit to cast Brain Burst on the target for free (with a 15-second cooldown). This sets off a chain of events if you kill that enemy, potentially turning the tides in your favour. You will need to manage your Peril as it doesn’t work when it’s at a critical level, but this is a small price for a powerful effect. As for the issue with the cooldown, your gun choice mitigates this somewhat.
Finally, Ascendant Blaze has a sub-ability that gives you Warp Charges for every enemy killed by Soulblaze. As a result, you will constantly gain Warp Charges, which is effective not just for Psykinetic’s Wrath, but also for bolstering your ranged defences with Kinetic Shield.
Curios
For the curios, the slots for which you unlock at levels 8, 16, and 24, we recommend that two of them give you extra toughness and the last one some bonus health. This should help you survive a little longer on the battlefield. We also highly recommend any Curios with modifiers to give you Combat Ability Regeneration, toughness regeneration, or some damage resistance to the enemies you’re struggling against the most.
With the best Darktide Psyker build, you should have no problem with whatever enemies cross your path during a mission. Do also check out the best Darktide Veteran build if you find magic-like abilities a bit cumbersome or either the best Darktide Zealot build or best Darktide Ogryn build if you prefer a more melee-focused character.
While you’re here, you should also check out the best Darktide weapons to find some alternative weapon choices for other classes in the FPS game. If all of the classes look a bit dull, don’t worry. You can earn Darktide cosmetics by completing a bunch of unique challenges, known as Darktide Penances, or by buying them from shops unlocked by increasing your trust levels. Finally, we recommend checking out our Darktide crossplay guide for the latest news regarding this oft-requested feature.