Title. I like the new surge staff. I’m trying to find a build that would focus on it, but can’t settle on anything that i would like.
So, basically:
Surge staff is the main focus of the build.
Preferably smite, because i like the CC it gives.
No empowered psionics bug.
That’s what i’m trying to do. Any suggestions?
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What I do is go to gameslantern: darktide and search builds by weapon:
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I specifically said no empowered psionics bug
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Generally even minus the bug running assail alongside it is a good call due to the staff having weaker horde clear but fantastic single target / elite damage as well as big stuns. I find warp syphon works well with it and as long as you stack quell speed and resistance you can absolutely dumpster entire lines of gunners, Ragers, and Ogryns. I would say psy shriek if you are having trouble with sustain but shield is a major team help if you can effectively balance peril.
For blessings I have the one that makes secondary attacks uninterruptible and power based on peril.
Will have to actually share a build when I get home with what works for me.
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But, uh. Surge staff dosent have perils=power blessing, no? Only peril=crit.
I think it has crit now that I think about it bout would need to double check since I’m doing it off memory at the moment
I run 2 surge staff builds
1st is creeping flames warp charge based, my staff is crap at 402 rating and 1 real bad blessing with only rank 2 faster charge perk but it still does massive work in higher difficulty games aka Auric 4. Does admittedly struggle in Auric 5 I still run smite here as my blitz because i know if i cant kill stuff quick my team always appreciates me reducing pressure via chain stuns a patrol.
2nd is smite and empowered psionics based but you seem to be anti that idea because of a bug FS said they will leave in place for now (i.e. how EP interacts with stuff). Here i run Assail (harder to fit) or Smite again.
I only recommend Brain burst if using any staff bar surge 
The issue I have with trying to min-max surge is there’s a few different things at play.
1- Surge shines with more crit.
2- Surge doesn’t hit weak points
3- Surge is good single target damage (although I prefer void strike honestly)
4- A lot of the talents for crits on the right tree are designed for assail/guns things that can hit weak points, and feels wasted if you’re trying to focus on surge.
5- Smite doesn’t benefit from crits and weak points much since it’s just is CC not really killing much aside from pox walkers (and even then barely) with it’s damage so low.
You can main assail and have surge as your back up and just build it for carapace and heavies.
You could also take brain burst just for the chance to hit and not really use blitzes.
This is a filter for all psyker damnation builds that use surge as the ranged weapon.
^This one seems decent.
^Different approach here. Personally I like telekine shield too much to do this. But you’re maining assail and use surge for ogyrns and maulers mainly here.
I don’t see popular builds using smite and surge (except for the bug)
I used to use nothing but surge on psyker. But since patch 13 I only use void strike. I refuse to use guns on psyker. Been tempted to try rifthaven staff though with soul blaze talents and brain burst.
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Void strike isnt just proffered its the best ST staff for psyker with the crit double shot blessing.
I don’t think surge is meta especially paired with smite, but I rock it because it functions in Auric and hits that sweet sweet lightning aesthetic.
Optimal psyker rn iirc is Assail, Dueling Sword IV and Void staff or Laspistol. (Laspistol ideally with infernus IV)
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With the surge staff I’s use either BB or Assail. It has a limited range so you’ll need options for far away targets.
I don’t use Assail that much because I rely on my party to take care of the smaller enemies and when a horde attacks I switch to melee with a mk 5 Force sword (with the wide cleaves)
I’d recommend Venting Shriek for the ability because of the random overheating and the ability to push back enemies in a pinch.
As for the aura +5% damage is optimal IMHO, but if you find yourself in need of Venting more often the 10% CD reduction is a valid chioce.
The keystone would be Warp Syphon (unlocked in an S shape), I personally don’t like Disrupt Destiny because it’s too distracting and confusing (sometimes I think the highlited enemies are my outlined party members…)
Step 1: Get a well rolled surge staff with high crit bonus
Step 2: Get Warp Nexus & Warp Flurry on it (crit chance with peril & charge speed)
Step 3: Roll Flak & whatever damage on perks
Step 4: Skill into crit damage, quell speed and toughness on warp kills.
Enjoy
Hiden step: Skill into Smite and Empowered Psionics to abuse the bug and have constant +120% damage as well as +1 target hit, if you can’t cut it with just the above
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Remember that bug is intended now which it kind of needs to be otherwise psyker just becomes head popper or CC bot again.
As EP is a broken OP mess atm, I would go left side to the bottom, to increase your peril resist and damage output. Also Soulblaze stacking. In certain game modifiers SB is silly strong as it stacks and melts everything around it when you get it rolling. Surge kills fast enough for that.
The Surge/EC bug was long overdue, Idk why they didn’t hotfix it with other stuff they just put out.
You could try Surge, Smite, Venting Shriek and Warp Siphon though, can stunlock horde of enemies for quite a long time with this build and let DoT/soulblaze kill them if your teamates are too dumb. Just be sure to pick all cooldown/peril generate reduction.
Where did they say that the bug will stay as feature?
I believe that was a joke my guy. Hence the emoji.
You could also say it was sarcasm.
That doesn’t look like sarcasm or joke to me but my detector may be off 
Oh I was referring to the post you replied to. Didn’t see the other one, my bad.
Hi OP! I whipped up a build (linked here) close to what I usually do when I play around with Surge. Btw once the bug is fixed I recommend you go with EP instead since Smite is way better with that. The bug really is super annoying rn because this build with EP is what I want to do, but there’s no way I’m going to ruin what is supposed to be a good experience for myself and others by abusing the bug.
Some notes about the build below. Imma skip most obvious talent interactions to try and keep this short, but still try to list some stuff many may not know because it’s really important for those T5 breakpoints:
- Smite & Venting Shriek (w/ Creeping Flames) go great together: Smite CC’s and builds up peril, Vent burns and vents peril, more Smite after keeps them CC’d as they burn.
- You want to fire Venting Shriek at 80%+ peril, since that’s the cut-off point for it’s max 6 stacks Soulblaze. Each stack of Soulblaze beyond the first massively increases the damage of that DoT, so the 5-stacks from ~70-79 peril is barely enough to kill all horde, while the 6 stacks with Warp Rider (+10-20% dmg scaling on peril) easily kills all horde including ranged and snipers, and softens the specials+.
- This also makes Venting Shriek great with Perilous Combustion (killing specials/elites applies 3 stacks of Soulblaze to enemies nearby) since killing even 1 raises those 6 stacks to 9 which iirc raises its dmg by like 3x, just melting the specials and elites in there all on its own. Each of them ofc will be proccing more Perilous Combustion so yeah, it’s strong.
- Thanks to Surge and all of the above, you’ll reliably get Warp Charges and be proccing Psykinetic’s Aura, so your ult CD is really low. Which ofc means more AoE spamming or just Surging in general >:)
- Surge Staff: The blessings and perks are imo the best. Surge only has 2 good blessings and those are it. The crit perk obv. supports the talents and Surge crits do 60% extra dmg against most enemies so it’s great. While the +flak isn’t mandatory, imo it reaches the best breakpoints by letting you 1-shot bombers & gunners while 2-shotting scab ragers with full charge, even without talent buffs.
- Deimos Force Sword: This is a preference, I’m just a huge Deimos fan and this build has more than enough anti-horde as it is. But imo Deflector is always great, especially when you don’t have a shield like here. Slaughterer and +flak together makes it way better for hordes, ranged and any specials in there. And +maniac lets you easily 1-shot muties with 2:nd heavy headshots which is always pog.
- Finally, remember that Venting Shriek goes through all enemies and objects including the map itself, and like I said before with these talents at 80%+ peril it guarantees a wipe of any regular horde/flak/ranged + snipers in a few seconds. So often the best way to use it is not to just fire it wherever you’re already shooting, but instead into whatever direction with the most horde, even if that’s behind a wall or in the room above you etc. So you can do things like spam Smite against the huge groups of elites in front, then turn around and blast the massive horde coming from behind, and then go right back to CC:ing the elites again. Ofc. the best plays depend on the situation but it’s good to be aware of this. :>
I’ve done variations of this build and it’s really effective, combining lots of support and CC with tons of AoE dmg. But it would be even better with EP so when the bug gets fixed, I recommend you change to that.
Have fun OP!
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I want to tell you about some good builds but honestly without the bug its a worse voidstrike.
It hits 2 targets and kills neither, but it generates peril anyway.
Its decent against elites and it CAN prioritize them in a horde but its NOT guaranteed and casting it to kill a poxwalker is wasteful (not to mention your team is dying to a elite/special)
The second enemies are slightly far the surge is worthless.
So tldr in 1000 situations you want voidstrike in 950 of them instead of surge.
WITH the psionics bug the surge is actually a competitor to voidstrike, which just shows how bad the staves are.
Purgatus is nice and works with hordes to give your team space - BUT it lacks blessings, like bonus soulblaze on crit with purgatus WOULD work perfectly but its not there
Trauma - AoE is nice but same problem as purgatus, it has f-ckall blessings that interact with its right click making it bad (like a blessing which makes the circle bigger by each cast would be amazing to have)
Voidstrike - all blessings works on LMB and RMB, it has AOE presence, Its pinpoint accurate, it cleaves everything, it deals stupid dmg to anything = a go to staff in any build
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