The Darktide Psyker Staff is one of the higher-level unlocks for the Psyker, granting the Psyker the use of ranged magical attack from the staff, in place of a pistol or shotgun. This is a great addition, as it can do some decent single-target damage with its primary attack, and then its special can drop an AOE explosion on the floor at the cost of Peril. Here is everything you need to know on the Psyker’s Force Staff, including how to use it and get it.

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Here is a closer look at the Pyker’s Force Staff in Darktide. Image via Fatshark.

How to get a Psyker Force Staff¶

The Psyker Force Staff is a weapon that unlocks through the leveling process of the Psyker. You can typically start stumbling upon one at level 13, have they start appearing in the shop, and even in the Requisitorium when you start grinding your weekly challenges and currencies. Until then, the game shouldn’t allow you to see the staff in action. This information is taken from the October beta, so it may have changed for the full release and the Pre-order beta.

Be aware that each named Force Staff is slightly different, with the staves behaving as follows

• Trauma Force - Heavy attack charges an explosion on the ground, with its size growing over time
• Voidstrike - Heavy attack sends forth a white void ball that explodes in a small area on impact
• Surge Force - Heavy attack charges lightning attacks, that lock onto nearby enemies, stunning and dealing damage, and can potential fork to other nearby enemies dealing minor damage and stunning them while they are electrocuted.
• Purgatus Force Staff - Throws volleys of fire from the staff, similar to a Flamer.

How to use the Psyker Force Staff¶

Once you get your hands on the Psyker’s Force Staff, players will then start using it as a ranged weapon. Your primary ranged attack will send out a white-ish ball to detonate on enemies and surfaces. This is just a standard ranged attack, but has a fairly slow rate-of-fire, in exchange for decent damage. It also costs around 5 peril per attack. However, this offsets the lack of ammunition the class has to deal with.

Meanwhile, you can spend peril using the weapons special attack to use an AOE on the floor. It’s pretty much a circular radius attack that detonates instantly, taking out clumps of enemies. Be aware that the Psyker will build Peril while channelling the special move on it, and then when it explodes, get a burst of peril. In the October beta test, this was around 35 peril per cast. It may be different, as the Psyker has received a fair few stealths nerfs going into the beta. It’s hard to tell until Psyker players start getting to the mid-levels and testing it out.

Ideally, players will use this weapon to tag enemies like they do with their guns. Primary fire is a decent tool for picking off enemies, saving you from going into melee and risking your low toughness and HP levels. It’s also a better tool for killing enemies at ranged when you don’t need to Brain bust, as Brain Bust on regular enemies is not worth the peril, unless your need a souls stack.

You only want to use the special move button on the staff when hordes are coming. The move is somewhat grenade-like in its detonation range, so makes a great horde clearer when your team does not have grenades. A great combo with this weapon is to use your special move, get high peril, and dump it using your class ability, into another staff special move. What this means is you can control your peril, kill a bunch of enemies, CC them and kill even more. The flamethrower and lightning variations are fairly similar, and are likely ways o get cleave damage on enemies using a different damage type, similar to how different classes have different weapon types.