Original perk was either t3 sprint or stamina and the original blessing was t3 Terrifying Barrage… Should I have just leaned into critical? Gotta be honest it’s really underwhelming me with the performance. The charge takes forever even with the rate being ostensibly maxed, damage with the charge feels sub-par even at full.
Again: not a super-great Psyker, still learning. Guessing my build could use some work, too, but the Staff is the real kick in the gonads right now.
Check out the bottom right branch in the talent tree.
The one that ends in the bottom right keystone.
One of the first talents of that branch makes your next ranged attack a guaranteed crit, after hitting 5 headshots (with anything).
That talent is pretty much a must have if you want to use the voidstrike staff with surge blessing.
If enemies are lined up, you can get 5+ headshots with a single voidstrike cast, this lets you chain guaranteed crits (and guaranteed surge activations) on hordes.
Do a few tests in the psykhanium and see how much you actually need to charge the staff in order to kill enemies.
You could also use the warp flurry blessing instead of warp nexus (the guaranteed ranged crits from the talent still allow you to make good use of the surge blessing).
Sadly, your warp nexus blessing is locked, and your staff is great overall.
I’ve been using similar staff myself (60% warp resistance 379 rating).
You can use charged attacks, but unless you make yourself a real glass canon or are good at headshots, it will be hard to rely on critical hits constantly.
Here is my build where try to make almost every shot a crit:
Of course, you can go with more safe approach (with rarer critical strikes) or turn to soul blaze.
Yeah, this is basically the approach I see most people adopting with far more efficacy (different rolls I’m guessing).
Yeah, aware of that one – will make some room to mess around with that more.
Psykhanium is next to useless to me since it doesn’t give me feedback about how an ACTUAL run in Damnation goes. In theory, everything should be the same, but in practice that data isn’t useful since the game functions/performs entirely differently (between latency and ghost hits and whatever input-eating garbage exists with the servers lately).
Yeah, depending on the targets I’m going for I’ve been varying between the two and finding either fairly inconsistent (probably due to the build).
Think this is the thing that I needed to really pay attention to-- since there’s a fairly large splash I’m sort of operating under the assumtion that it was better for me to hit center mass to make it affect the largest number of targets, but I should be playing like normal (which I almost exclusively aim for weakspots).
It still allows you to test how you have to aim in order to hit enemy heads with the void orb.
It also allows you to test how far you need to charge in order to kill enemies, that are full hp. Or to test for breakpoints in general.
Be sure to aim the bolts at head level, other than that i really don’t see any reason why it should feel horrible.
Staff with those stats can also easily be slapped into basically any psyker build so unless you are running something absolute troll, it should be slapping pretty hard.
the only or first thing i can think of is Warp Flurry for shorter charge times.
Surge 4 is nice, i also want to try that, but my favorite is the Surge Staff with Flurry and Terrifying Barrage.
There’s a mod for manually changing height, very helpful for maximizing damage with this weapon. But everything has mostly been said. I like warp flurry more on void though, you get the crits guaranteed from the node. So that could definitely be improved slightly with a new staff (joy).
I’ve been finding the fire damage on crit to be a bit more effective than the double shot (even though you’d think 2x damage is better)
simply cause a full charged hit already one shots weaker units, a crit hit will kill (almost) everything and then start a fire that sets everything in the blast radius on fire which then spreads very quickly with that one passive
I’ve been maining 2 psykers since release and it’s by far my favorite class! Since Oct 3:rd’s class overhaul & other changes, that same Void you have has become by far my favorite weapon. Trauma is still better overall, but after a year of nothing but Trauma it’s just too boring now. Void meanwhile is great fun!
Anyway, here’s probably my favorite build so far (you may want to change the top 2 talents Warp Expenditure & Perfect Timing into Quietude & Battle Meditation at first, as they make peril & toughness management way easier):
There’s a billion tricks and things to psykers and the build and all but I’ll try to focus on the things that probably give you most trouble. Hopefully this is helpful:
Psykers by far have the highest skill floor & ceiling. They have the worst passive defenses like hp/toughness, melee cleave & stagger, while relying on charged staff attacks that seem slow and immobile and are easily interrupted. But they compensate for all this with tons more tools, tricks and unique mechanics than the other classes.
Oggies or zellies can afford to make tons of minor mistakes like getting staggered or taking dmg here and there, and easily survive a few big mistakes too. Psykers can’t. Minor mistakes easily cascade into a lot of damage while breaking your flow, and a single major mistake will likely kill you outright.
Because of the above, psykers are all about the basics regardless of weapons or builds: dodging, sliding, blocking, positioning (cover against ranged, funneling enemies to choke points etc) and above all awareness. Other classes can afford to react, psykers can’t. You need to anticipate, plan ahead, manage your dodge counts, compensate with positioning and blocking when you’re out of dodges, track your peril, some buffs, etc.
The basics are especially important for a crit Void:
Along with its good crit & weakspot dmg bonuses, it relies on crits, which rely on headshots (True Aim). So you need to hit headshots consistently despite its slow-ish rate of fire and travel time.
To cleave those headshots through tons of mobs at once, you need great positioning and awareness
But it’s interruptible, immobile while depending on positioning to line up the cleaving shots. So you need to learn to dodge and slide while charging & firing for both defense, mobility and positioning. The slide & charge/fire trick is important for all staves, but mandatory for Void.
It has a narrow attack and leaves you vulnerable to melee, so you need to always position in a way where you put whatever mobs are trying to melee you between yourself and your priority targets, taking out both at once
Because you absolutely need to use dodges when firing but Void only has 3 dodges, you want to develop a feel for letting them recharge or risk getting downed instantly by snipers, maulers & crushers, etc. Alternatively, switch to melee early to block or push if you can while the dodges recharge.
Like Trauma Void depends on breakpoints. Depending on perks & talent stacks ~50% charge will cleave through regular horde heads, ~75% charge will cleave through flak horde heads, 100% through specials / ragers. On top of that, the primary fire is cheaper, faster and even stronger against some mobs. So because in real combat they’re all mixed, you need to develop a feel for what charge levels you use, what enemies or clusters you prioritize, and even mix in 1-2 shots of primary to finish things off instead of wasting 2s charging for it. And your talent buffs like Perfect Timing, Warp Charges, nevermind True Aim dynamically change these breakpoints so you need to develop a feel for those too.
The breakpoints don’t just apply to damage but stagger too, develop a feel for low charge shots that are enough to stagger trash, pox bursters etc. when you don’t have the time to switch weapons or do anything else.
And all of the above while managing your peril and making sure you don’t get blindsided. Warp Nexus scales on peril so you want to dance as high as you can, making micro quells between every few shots to maximize that crit chance.
Because Void’s biggest weakness is that lack of horizontal control and no cleave through oggies (meaning the trappers & bursters behind them can get to you), Smite is a fantastic pairing for addressing both. BB and Assail meanwhile are mostly useless, as they offer little synergy while really only doing the same thing Void does on its own already. Except Void cleaves and is far more peril efficient.
The psyker Force Swords have a massively wide and deep push. You can literally control most mobs indefinitely 360 degrees around you by just spamming push > turn 180 degrees > push, repeat all while recovering peril on the background. With Kinetic Deflection you dont need stamina to block, and that stamina recharges faster than you can spend pushing, making this a great way to cover decrypting or rezzing teammates, to just buy space and time for yourself, or even just to make meleeing enemies easier and more manageable.
The Force Sword push attack has a massive range of 8-9m or so and it can also headshot for extra stagger. You can use it to CC anything aside from muties, like bursters (kills them) or crushers far out of melee range.
Many experienced players will tell you to use Dueling Sword IV instead of Deimos. Don’t do it. The Deimos Sword has access to the same Uncanny Strike for weakspot rending as the DSIV, and its second heavy attack (you can either do a light > heavy attack, or push > heavy attack to get to it) is stronger than the DSIV heavy pokes. So used right they are almost identical in offense. But Deimos also has its push & push attack, and the Deflector blessing (+30% blocking efficiency + can block ranged). For new players in particular, being able to block ranged with Kinetic Deflection on top is a game changer, as it lets you survive tons of positioning mistakes. For experienced players Deflector lets you make super aggressive plays that would be impossible otherwise.
Venting Shriek & Creeping Flames penetrates the map, meaning it goes through floors, doors, walls, everything and has a massive ~35m range in an oval shape. Trust me, its area is MUCH bigger than you likely think because the stagger quickly becomes so weak you can’t even tell the enemies are still in range, but Creeping Flames still hits them. At 80%+ peril Creeping Flames will apply its max 6 stacks of Soulblaze which is enough to kill all horde including flak and snipers anywhere in its area (to kill snipers, you do need Warp Rider and to maintain ~50% peril for a bit after ult). That’s over ~500 dmg within ~10s. This is on top of flushing your peril ofc. So always try to focus Vent on wherever the biggest horde is, even through walls, rather than at whatever you’re shooting. Unless they’re both the same.
To all of this there are exceptions however. For example regarding Vent, if you have Perilous Combustion (add +3 stacks of SB to enemies near a special+ you kill), syncing that 6-SB stack Vent in the direction of special+ enemies puts the SB stacks on 9+, which now means the DoT will start killing them. You can use this to start a domino effect where you only have to kill 1-2 special+ here and there and everything in that Vent area including elites will die just from the DoT, with weaker enemies dying nearly instantly from the massive dmg.
Since Vent penetrates the map and the stagger remains strong on crosshair to its max distance, it’s also a great way to push dogs off teammates 2 rooms behind or above you, or even to interrupt specialists in a pinch.
And that’s about it I think. So in short: use headshot cleaves, learn to dodge & slide while charging and firing, be wary of your positioning both to line the shots and not get staggered by ranged or stray melees. Try to track True Aim since at 5 stacks you know you’ll proc Surge, making it ideal for a fully charged shot to destroy special+ groupings and anything else on the way there. Learn awareness to switch to Smite or melee before things go wrong rather than too late, use the environment for cover and funneling the enemies to make the most of Void’s narrow but powerful cleave.
Edit: I apologize for the super long writeup, but I really did keep this short. I want to stress that there’s SO much more to psykers or even just crit voids than this. The game is surprisingly deep, so if that strikes your fancy, look forward to learning lots and lots of things that will absolutely make you orders of magnitude better as a psyker.
Well it is better.
Anything that would be damaged or even killed by the soulblaze stacks from crit, would have taken more damage from being hit by the second projectile (more and instant).
Aside from that, if you kill enemies directly, surge still gives you a second projectile, but putting the corpses on fire is worthless.
You can flick your reticle to fire the second projectile (from surge) at a different location if you want to.
With either of the two blessings, you should be using the talent that guarantees a ranged attack crit after 5 headshots.
Both projectiles of a crit with surge blessing can headshot, so you have a much easier time of chaining guaranteed crits.
My guess is your talent assignment is the real culprit as others have chimed in on, but also I’d suggest reassigning that flak damage perk to crit damage. I think that’ll be more flexible and probably net you more DPS overall.
I’m also not super familiar with surge as a blessing, the way it’s worded and with how some of the other blessings work (or rather don’t) I’m suspicious if it does anything for you.
I roll with Warp Flurry and Warp Nexus and as the other have said, I just hold right mouse and spam left click. It works pretty well for me and my staff is unfortunately only a 58% damage modifier. To me, the perfect surge staff is a D 80%, CR 80%, CB 80%, WR 80%, QS 60% (I personally don’t think quell speed is important), Perks Crit Damage and Chance, and Blessings Warp Flurry 4 and Warp Nexus 4. No doubt someone will disagree with me, but everyone has their own style or things (including me) we’re learning with how subtly complex the game is.
If you think that crit dmg is better, feel free to explain.
You should have a reason to hold that opinion, no?
Especially if you suggest, that others change their perk to crit dmg.
you can always go surge or purgatus staff if you wanna be helpful, without having to worry about build intricacies too much. both will allow you to provide good wave clear and/or some kind of horde management utility on auric. the surge staff also happens to be good against flak and carapace by default, so not only will you be able to clear trash well, you’ll be cc’ing and dealing good damage to some of the bigger elite threats, too.
the only down side to both is range(surge range actually pretty decent), and if you’re going against monstrosities, you won’t be dealing the best damage, but you can still kite and rope-a-dope them.
