So, a few days ago I was planning on making a topic asking about which psyker melee has the best specials and push attacks, inspired by a Devil’s Claw VII parry thread by @NemesisNidhoggr where they made some fantastic points about it all. Instead, I wound up on an ADHD spree testing those in the grinder, and made quite a few new discoveries on the side! So I’ll share!
I invite everyone to read up, share what they know, discuss ideas, or argue my points if you know better so we all learn better!
Legend:
PA = push attack
H = heavy
L = light
S = weapon special
WS = weakspot hit
Push attack & Weapon Special Test
I tested every single melee weapon available to the psyker. I only made notes about anything that caught my interest, since at that point I wasn’t intending on making a big deal out of it or sharing any of it. Sadly that means I may have omitted some weapons with things I took for granted and didn’t surprise me, but I hope it’s still helpful.
Weapon
Notes
Combat Blade III
PA surprisingly strong
Devil’s Claw VII (vs. IV)
Horde = H>L, Single target = L>H>L. Latter way faster and stronger than DCIV’s H>L?
VII PA = stab vs. DCIV’s overhead. Why is DCIV meta?
Devil’s Claw I
All combos horde clear, no single target combos. PA super weak. Bad weapon?
Obscurus FSword
S dmg test (WS): S>L/H = 1292 / 1716 (diff DoTs before, couldn’t measure)
Deimos FSword
S dmg test (WS): S>L/H = 1390 / 1855 (diff DoTs before)
- (Force Sword general notes) -
S>L / S>H both 4 hits! They stack 4x Uncanny Strike (isn’t removed on non-WS hits inbetween). Shred gets only 1 stack.
Theory: S = 1 attack but 4 hits? Shred description wrong?
Illisi FSword
S dmg test: S>L/H = 991 / 1167. L way faster, L optimal for low-cleave spam?
Tac Axe (all)
Diff but weak S with stagger. PA’s all slow but ok power. Nothing remarkable otherwise.
Combat Axes (all)
Antax V has fastest special & PA.
Achlys H>PA/PA>H massive, powerful cleave! Ideal for cleave WS’s with Brutal Momentum (BM), but slow.
Force Sword Blessing Test
After discovering that non-Illisi specials proc some blessings 4x, I ended up testing that further with other blessings too. I also wanted to make sure to test some previous assumptions in case they might be wrong. Like is rending personal vs. debuff (brittleness), whether crits are always based on attack vs. hits, etc. All tests were done with no talents or interfering blessings. Meaningful weapon dmg comparisons were tested with as similar base dmg stats as I could get with no interfering perks ofc to get reliable comparisons.
Sword Sword test
Notes
Can any of the S DoT crit, or is it all/nothing?
It’s all or nothing, same as attacks.
Does Blazing Spirit (+4 stacks Soulblaze on crit max 12) stack 4x?
Yes! But 3:rd hit caps it ofc.
Does Executor (+6% power max 30% on repeated WS hit) stack 4x?
Yes! Also starts stacking on 1:st hit, but breaks on any non-WS hits inbetween. Needs further testing to see what breakpoints this would let the special reach, ie. could you 1-shot things with Executor thanks to the +18% power on last hit, or if you preceded it with 1-2 regular hits?
Does Executor 1:st hit get its own power bonus?
No
Does Exorcist (-5% peril on repeated WS hit) stack 4x?
No. This blessing doesn’t work at all. -SNIP-
Edit: Correction, it does work! However it requires combos to work. So no block cancel, no special, just regular L/H attacks. It also seems to only proc once per attack, not per hit on cleaves (?).
How does Unstable Power (max +20% power scaling on peril) work?
I was hoping old Warp Rider (+10-20% power, new = 0-20%), not so. It’s divided into breakpoints rather than dynamic. Peril vs. +Power works like so:
0-20% = +0%
21-40% = +5%
41-60% = +10%
71-79% = +15%
80%+ = +20%
Obscurus vs. Deimos # of S hits?
Same: 4 on both L & H
Does 1:st hit of Uncanny Strike (+24% rending per WS hit, max 5 stacks) get its own rending bonus?
No
Uncanny Strike: Is rending personal and transfers to other targets?
Yes
Uncanny Strike: Max rending? (0,1,2,3,4,5 stack dmg comparison)
Unyielding: 553, 586, 619, 652, 686, 691
~+6% (+33) dmg per stack, capped at ~+25% dmg (barely above 4)
Rending caps at 100% (4x24 = 96%, 5:th only adds 4% dmg). So a T3 blessing can still cap it.
Carapace: 138, 271, 404, 537, 582, 588
+Dmg% per stack = 0, +96%, +96%, +96%, +33%, +4%
Oddly it almost caps at 3 stacks already, yet still takes 5 hits to fully cap.
Uncanny Strike: What all does rending affect and how much does the dmg increase total? (min/max stacks dmg)
Unarmored (WS): 663 / 663 = 0
Infested (chest*): 573 / 573 = 0
Flak (WS): 691 / 864 = +25%
Unyielding (WS): 553 / 691 = +25%
Carapace (WS): 138 / 588 = +326%
Maniac (WS): 442 / 663 = +50%
*Note, no infested could survive WS so had to use doggo chest to compare.
General notes or other discoveries
WS dmg perk for Force Swords is odd. I noticed that my sword with +8% WS dmg was really +5% Unyielding and +5.2% Carapace, even though the rest of the detail pane info was accurate.
In previous test findings on Brain Burst dmg with Warp Charges (+4% per stack, per description) before class overhaul, they really added +2.5-3.5% dmg per stack depending on enemy type. BUT they got the full +4% on Maniacs. I assumed this has to do with the order in which the different base values vs. modifiers are calculated, so I was expecting the FSword WS perk to likewise add its full bonus to Maniacs. However(!), the WS dmg bonus on Maniacs was just +4.9%. Interesting.
I had been hoping that Executor would work like Warp Rider used to, and add a base dmg bonus even at low peril. Sadly it was the opposite where you get nothing up to 20%, and even at mid 40-50% peril merely 5-10%.
Worth noting that the Warp Efficiency stat on FSwords has a huge impact. Low vs. high value can even double the peril cost.
Also worth noting that Force Sword specials can be canceled with dodge same as chain weapon specials now. Yet the hits thus far will still stack the blessings ofc.
(Edit: Regarding Exorcist)
I was surprised to learn that it uniquely requires combos AND repeated WS hits to work (no block cancels, specials, just pure combos). This is extremely limiting but doesn’t entirely invalidate it. I was hoping for it to stack 4x (and get 3-4x -5% peril reduction) on WS hits like Uncanny Strike, or even just to be able to spam S with Illisi and refund its own cost on groups, but that’s a no. The comboing is also tricky, since the need for repeated headshots limits the attacks you can use.
And that’s all for the tests!
So to summarize my personal notes and discoveries on these:
I’ve moved to using Devil’s Claw VII over IV, since it does seem to have a faster recovery on parry (not 100% sure). But above all, it has instant access to horde clear with H>L, and its single target combo L>H>L while more complex than DCIV, is faster and stronger. While its push attack does about the same dmg as DCIV, the stab seems to come out slightly faster and feels easier to aim with.
What also surprised me was that Obscurus S is actually weaker than Deimos S, so what exactly is Obscurus supposed to bring to the table anyway? Note that I used WS hits for the test and Deimos has massive WS bonuses. Obscurus non-WS hits are likely stronger than Deimos.
The 4x stacking of Uncanny Strike (and Blazing Spirit) on one S hit is a big deal, and has some fantastic potential in combat. Due to how low the ‘DoT’ dmg of the special is before the final strike, you can easily cap it on even weaker enemies if needed.
For whatever reason I thought Uncanny Strike was based on repeated strikes. I also didn’t know/remember that rending applies to almost all special+ enemies in the game, including flak trash. So in practice, Uncanny Strike will give +25-50% dmg on almost all non-poxwalker trash, +25% on bosses, and a massive ~+300% dmg on Carapace! It’s much more than just an anti-crusher blessing. Even an Illisi may well be better overall with Uncanny Strike rather than Slaughterer.
Since Uncanny Strike’s rending caps at 100% quickly and in practice stays there, functionally there is almost no difference between Uncanny Strike III vs. IV. Gearing being what it is, it’s helpful to know there’s really no real difference between the two.
Edit: Exorcist’s WS combo is pretty comfy and easy with Deimos’s L>H, or Illisi’s H>L. They have some fantastic potential with Scrier’s especially if coupled with WS builds & talents like Disrupt Destiny. While Exorcist won’t let you spam Illisi S nonstop, alternating attack patterns can achieve similar results. So S>L/H to spam peril up, then H>L to quickly bring it down, repeat. With Warp Rider and any other appropriate talents & blessings, this would let you perfectly control your peril levels while putting those S cleaves where they count. It could also pair well with some high-peril staff builds, letting you quickly bring your peril down in the heat of combat and help you maximize the staff’s uptime.
Edit: Thanks for your valuable feedback regarding Exorcist everyone!
First of all - great testing. Was very interesting to read and its very well made. I will make a listnot of it to come back when i will be playing psyker and using melee weapons.
The interactions between rending and DoT effects is probably related to percentage shown by you. So your soulblaze will be dealing 326% more dmg on carapace armored enemies under full stacks of rending. Rending is also applied by your Push-Attack on force swords and it’s AoE, so you can have purgatus staff + uncanny force sword, stack some soulblaze, swap and get rending and see numbers go whoosh!
Yes +25% carapace dmg increases the damage of DoT effects applied on target while you holding weapon. So you can stack soulblaze with purgatus and then swap to melee weapon with 2 +25% dmg on certain enemies and increase the burning effect
Btw this is also works on any other classes. With burn, soulblaze and bleed effects. Altho bleed seems to be gaining much less bonus dmg, than burn.
And the reason why Zealot’s FotF 2 charges + flamethrower can wipe packs of 100 crushers in one go.
Also have a funny build for ogryn and his automatic shotgun.
Also the reason why recon lasgun veteran with Infernus blessing and brittleness stacking talent melts 5 crushers in a row with a single magazine.
Great points about rending and DoTs! Yeah the zelly FoF back before class overhaul was one of the primary tricks to playing them effectively: stack DoT’s up with the flamer, tick FoF, and watch the now high stacks do massive dmg through the armor.
As for my Crusher test, I had no talents nor DoTs on it. At that point I was simply poking with a Deimos 1 poke at a time, light attacks if I recall, just doing L>cancel>L repeat to see how that base dmg 138 would change. I tested that particular oddity many times, and it was the same setup I used for all the other rending tests on other types too. Crushers were the only one with that odd tip on the last 2 stacks.
Your point about Soulblaze taking advantage of rending is great tho! I just wish there was an effective way to stack rending and apply SB both at the same time. That said the 10s window until SB starts decaying might well be it.
For example, if you spammed Purge through a pack of crushers, then switched to FSword, did a single special WS poke to reach 96% rending, then switched back to SB or used Vent with Creeping Flames. It might be tricky though since that’s a lot of delay for a pack of crushers. Also not sure if the rending sticks when you switch weapons, or if and what cap Vent has beyond applying 6 SB (but one would assume it at least refreshed the SB already on the targets).
But(!) Perilous Combustion (and Wildfire) from a single kill at that point would already refresh and further stack SB and get the dominoes going without even having to switch the sword at all. And PC afaik has no cap on its SB! So you’d have the 10s to just dodge and weave that rending up all you like, so long as even one of them died (and they do, just from regular attacks in that time frame).
This is definitely something that needs testing. All of those are standard on about all my Purge builds. And actually now that I think about it, I’ve probably already done this several times without realizing. xD It would explain why sometimes those packs of crushers die so easily. I always figured it was just my team focusing them down with me. xD
Thanks for the tests! I had already seen the Deimos S>H L H combo to get 5 stacks of Rending in 2 attacks and then headshot finish a Crusher in a few seconds, but it’s good to see other data.
For your Uncanny strikes testing with Soulblaze: From YouTuber Ryken XIV, he released a Purgatus build with Deimos.
He uses the full push of Deimos Force sword with Uncanny Strikes to trigger stacks if no one is in range to stab, since it’s a single target 9 m push that automatically counts as a 1 damage weakspot hit. No matter where you aim it on an enemy, you can get an Uncanny Strike stack from it.
Thus, you can stack Soulblaze on Crushers, push them a couple times to knock em over, then start stabbing heads (any heads, doesn’t have to be the Crushers) with a +25% Carapace perk and the rending stacks on the Deimos, and they burn out fast.
Definitely seems difficult to pull off without some kite space, given I don’t incorporate much slide staff charging myself and you can only knock down a few at a time with Deimos stabbing or pushing, but it’s an interesting way to make Purgatus more reliable against armor, especially as we’re not straight front line a lot of the time anyway.
For your first post with push attack comparisons, I highly recommend trying Combat Knife Mk VI over III. Its push attack stab can be dragged across multiple heads pretty easily or just has a longish hitbox in general, and seems to more reliably hit more enemies (4-5 poxwalkers if they overlap) than the MK III push attack slash. I wonder if that’s just cuz i push aiming at head height, and I need to adjust my MK III technique though…
That makes it super safe horde clear if you have Peril blocking with Kinetic Deflection, given Psyker Stam recovery delay is short, you can do it endlessly and with much smaller gaps for backstabs to leak. It’s also nice to have a slash on the heavies for killing a few enemies as you movement tech past them (but it also clips barrels more easily on accident, so canceling the actual attack with a spot-block might be necessary).
yep, still works. No talents to improve dmg on flamethrower. No keystones. No immolation grenade for extra damage.
Just 2 charges of FotF, +25% carapace perk and 2 blessings. You can melt 100 crushers ez pz. My PC just isnt that good and lags a bit when i tried xD
P.S. the jump at the end is my combination to stop recording. Alt+F9, and my jump button is binding on alt to prevent jumping instead of dodging on spacebar… looks like happy jumps from killing so many xD
Ohh very nice! I tried this with a flamer just now doing my zelly weeklies but it still seemed underwhelming. But then I don’t have Overpressure and only used the one FoF. Definitely gonna have to give this a try later!
Thanks for your post! I’ll definitely take a look at that vid later. Night’s coming and I wanted to get a few more tests out of the way after realizing I have a perfect Deimos for some more tests with great stats, +20% carapace & flak, and 2 blessings I can swap out at will. So I wanted to test what happens if a single strike procs several of these blessings. These were super fast so I really just did a few attempts with each.
Blazing Spirit & Uncanny Strike together do add a ton of dmg, and just one light crit takes crushers at below 50% hp thanks to the 12-stack SB. But that’s where the rending wears off on its own and the DoT wouldn’t be enough anyway. Even with non-crits leading with Uncanny lets you 3-shot the crushers (S>L>H>L
Executor & Uncanny Strike does nothing special either. It adds dmg sure, but the +16% dmg enjoyed by the final hit doesn’t seem to reach any meaningful breakpoints on crushers, reapers or the random few other things I tried.
Then I tried Bloodthirsty & Uncanny Strike. It does a respectable amount of dmg, but still not enough. Even if you use the Deimos unique PA>H2 to get to use that heavy stab without consuming Bloodthirsty on the first L, it still only does around 3/5:ths of a crusher’s hp worth dmg.
Without time to test further I can’t be sure but it seems the FSword special is entirely warp dmg so it may not benefit from Uncanny Strike at all?
So what about Bloodthirsty & Slaughterer at full stacks for +40% power? With 4 stacks Warp Charge, Perfect Timing at 5 stacks and Warp Rider with 100% peril (+16% / +15% / 20% base / warp / all dmg, respectively) and a H2 WS still only did around 75-80% dmg to crushers. It felt far less than it should’ve been, so maybe FSword specials do get partial physical dmg after all? This would ofc obviously reach other breakpoints but still not enough.
Disrupt destiny doesn’t work in the grinder so can’t test that, but I have a feeling that or Scrier’s could push over that limit, or even just Malefic Momentum? Ofc Scrier’s is a bit finnicky since you’re gonna run out of peril. xD
The reason you see the rending bonus damage falloff like it did is because of how rending works:
If the weapon deals X% damage versus an armour type, then rending will add to X, until 100%, at which point, the excess is divided by 4.
So, 20% damage multiplier +100% rending (the cap, as you pointed out) means 105% damage (20%+80%+20%/4).
The weakspot damage modifiers only affect the actual weakspot damage, that is, the damage over the baseline.
If your weapon deals 100 dmg, 150 versus weakspots, 130 on crit, and 180 on crit weakspot, then adding 10% weakspot damage will change those values to 100/155/130/… I’m not actually sure if the latter will be 185 or 188. I assume the latter.
“Finesse” damage bonuses will affect both crit and weakspot.
Force swords have some spectacular weakspot modifiers, but the difference would still be disappointing if you were expecting an actual 10%.
In personal use, admittedly a month ago, Exorcist did work, but it wasn’t quite an instant reduction, more like a quick quell. It wasn’t exactly reliable.
I haven’t used the Devil’s Claw in some time, but my personal reasoning for taking the IV over the VII comes down to the Strikedown on the IV being at the start of the heavy combo; having the Strikedown heavy readily available is rather valuable, for blowing up the sneaky specialist who managed to get in close.
Unless it changed since patch 13, there shouldn’t be any stacking of Exorcist. You should just get the listed reduction to your current peril on subsequent weakspot hits; I wasn’t aware it was currently broken - were you one-shotting enemies by any chance? I wouldn’t be surprised if the Repeated Weakspot Hit required weakspot hits against the same enemy
When you say exorcist doesnt, youre specifically referring to the S attack, yes? While thats disappointing in some, i never use the S attack on the deimos anyway. Too slow and i find it to be inferior to just using the heavy poke (dont tell FS about this - i want this to stay).
But it works on repeated weakness hits, no? The first attack wont do anything but the second weakness hit would result in 2 stacks of whatever peril reduced, and each subsequent weakness hit works as advertised.
No I tested the basic L attacks specifically, repeatedly. But with all these people doubting it I’m thinking I need to give it another few tests, at least with non-Deimos swords. I’ve tried Illisi with it before too I’m sure, since being able to do S>H / S>L spams indefinitely would be so wonderful. But now I’m not sure if the S itself cancels the blessing since it’s technically no longer a chained attack (even though the description claims repeated WS hit).
And yes you’re right typically with Deimos you never use the special, well outside of just wanting to lock down and kill 1 rager in particular or open up a bulwark shield. That’s been the way most people used Deimos since it came out almost a year ago.
Part of the reason for this thread was the surprise of getting 4 stacks of blessings on a WS hit. You’re right that quite often it still isn’t optimal, but getting those stacks up that fast is really good to know. I used to just deal with crushers by setting up with a L or PA to get to the H2 and then knock them down, but taking them down that way is a lot slower than just putting a single S poke to the face without knocking one down, and then finishing it off with a L>H. The H2 knockdown is both a blessing and a curse, since used right it lets you control them but used wrong you’ll just spread them around and make them harder to kill after all.
Edit: Exorcist does work!! But it requires repeated WS combos, so no block cancels or anything else. I’d made the mistake of using block canceling with Deimos as I was testing it. Edited this and some further tests regarding it into the main post, thank you so much everyone who pointed out I was wrong!
Ahh, yes, the blessings and fatsharks terminology - or lack thereof.
Some blessings requiring repeated weakspot hits just require 2 WS hits to refresh. Others require you to always hit a weakspot on an attack or lose all stacks.
Some count all special ticks as WS hits as long as you initially hit a weakspot, others fall off with the 2nd tick of special damage in that same situation.
I believe Exorcist only really has one purpose: To prolong the meatgringer of an Illisi with Scriers Gaze.
Fyi, using Bloodthirsty with an Illisi and almost exclusively using special attacks is a weird and repetitive, but surprisingly efficient approach that makes sure you always get your toughness back.
Sadly, no one seems to have an idea what that force attack actually does, stats wise.
Watched it now, and my god that’s a fantastic vid! Also really emphasizes the issue with Darktide with how many random tricks and tips and bits of information there are that aren’t exposed anywhere easy to find, so so many people have to discover these things on their own.
About the only thing I disagree with there is: 1) Run’n’Gun, since you can just slide & spam primary for the same result. But Warp Nexus instead makes reaching those high stacks way faster while being crucial for Empathic Evasion - which is just 1 talent away from Seer’s Presence - to let you stay on offense and ignore ranged. And maybe 2) Warp Flurry, since I too spend a lot of time spamming primary and when not, the charge time for the secondary esp. with slide & charge, is not as relevant. But there’s not really a great replacement for that. Terrifying Barrage is popular but I feel it adds suprisingly little considering the flames control the enemies already, while the primary spam staggers far more effectively than Terrifying Barrage would.
But a fantastic vid! That Deimos with +crusher in a SB build is definitely my next build!
I do not see this as an issue, really.
When things actually do not work as described (or the description is bad), that really is an issue and in those cases i think that the desriptions should be updated.
However, many things have synergies that i do not think need to be explicitly described or mentioned anywhere.
Testing out a few things and finding interesting beneficial interactions, is something that requires some thought and which is an additional aspect of skill.
Actually testing a few things and thinking about their meaning, when crafting a build, is something that should be rewarded.
That’s probably worth bug reporting. I think Chained Hit and Repeated Hit both allow a short grace period (such as for blocking or activating your special) before they reset.
I’d have to double check on Repeated Hit (which I had been testing last night for other reasons ), but Chained Hit definitely received the improvement (in patch 13 iirc)
Oh yes I didn’t mean an issue like, a serious problem, but rather just a minor annoyance at how there’s no one place anywhere that has even remotely all the important details and minutiae of the game.
I have mixed feelings about it myself. On one hand, it’s a bit annoying to have to test everything yourself, especially since there’s a lot of bad info around the community so you can’t really even trust everything people say. And knowing how debilitating it can be for new or more casual-minded players, I feel for them. On the other hand however, I quickly grow bored of the games with massive communities and huge dissertations and math down to the very last variable, because there’s nothing left to discover. And those tend to lead to both highly restricted cookie cutter builds, and a community that expects everyone else to follow those exact builds. After all, what is the point of options, if they aren’t really options at all?
I absolutely love discovering things in Darktide! It’s crazy that after a year of playing so much of it I haven’t come even close to uncovering or understanding everything there is despite being a rather analytical person. And I couldn’t agree more with what you said, that those many tiny details and bits of knowledge that only experience can teach you, are just another aspect of skill.
whatdyaknow. I just assumed it had gone as it’s not mentioned in the keystone. Is that still part of the base skill then (i.e. pre-lvl 15 or whatever it is?). nm - I can go find out!
Though … I imagine 6 seconds of continuous burn is a luxury with aggressive targets
