Sanctic melee Psyker (no fire)

[Zepulchure]

TLDR; looking for help making Psyker only Melee build.


Looking for some input on how to get this build going.
Wanna do a sanctic melee psyker, using a force sword and just chopping foes to bits.
Beefy with word of the emperor and resolve stacking buffs and talents.
Blade of light, and faith on the force sword should be able to deal plenty of damage in melee, but I am wondering if it's worth it to dip into telepath for some ranged options when they are too far away? I would prefer not to use an actual gun.

I have zero interest in pyromancer or flames in general.

My current thought was to go forge world with extra armor, (or int crit? )
As a forge world I can take points in int instead of fellowship, but wondering how much of an impact that has overall, also out of combat stuff.
(Or voidborne?)

Following that question, which stats would you recommend to focus on (and why)

Archetypes I am thinking warrior for charge, but the archetype itself is not something I plan to go deeply into, the focus is on the Psyker aspect of the game.

I know a lot of Psyker stuff gets asked, sorry to bring more, but everything I see in terms of sanctic, it's more of a background pick for buffing, and the focus is on either officer, pyro, etc,,,
Really want to go pure Psyker Melee. (If possible)

[Neoz]

So, for this, the simple answer is-
Santic
Biomancy

Warrior->Arch Militant
OR
Soldier-> Master Tactician (though, this one is more focused on using ranged Powers)

For the warrior into AM, go Death World or Forge (armor), death world is better for stats.
Talents-
Crowd Control, open Engagement, Thick skin I found good, you also want Santicfied Slayer, and once it is patched to actually work, Psalm of heros.
Abilities- Reckless strike, w/e you want ( I picked Sworn Enemy for single target)

Grab a two handed weapon. Spam Word of Emperor to stack resolve (which gives crit) and spam the AoE attack on as many enemies as you can.

Priority stats-
Weapon Skill
Strength
Toughness.

secondary-
Agi/Perception to help with initiative/dodge

Psychic powers- All you *need* early on at least is Iron arm and Word of emperor. Eventually you'll want regenerate, sword of the emperor and the like

[I'm A Distraction!]

I'm currently doing this build as an Officer base. Warrior would get you more mobility (charge) and a bit of extra durability (second skin for +1 deflection and some parry, Endure, etc), but the entire Santic discipline scales off of Resolve, not Willpower, and Officer is KING of Resolve stacking (Steel Resolve for +3 flat, Fellowship characteristic advances, another Talent gives you +5 Fellowship every time you attack for even more Resolve, etc). Also Officer has all the talky talky skills, and if you want your Rogue Trader to be the talky boy, you're going to want it.

Its a bit buggy, but Officer also has a neat combination with Breaking Their Ranks (gives 1/2 Fellowship Bonus * Number of Adjacent enemies damage to an ally) and Lead By Example (after using two Officer Abilities that don't give an extra turn, e.g. Voice of Command and Breaking Their Ranks, you benefit from the next use of an Officer ability as well, so you can set things up to give yourself Fellowship bonus to melee damage. However, this strategy mostly relies on a bugged talent for Breaking Their Ranks which is meant to let you use it on any ally, not just ones with enemies adjacent to them, but for some reason I can only use it on Adelbard in this situation (although I've used it plenty on Pasqal when we've been rocking it as melee bros, giving him an AoO with his Omnisiah Axe has paid dividends).

Ability wise you tend to want to gain mostly Psionic Powers. The Santic Purge Soul is entirely decent as a ranged option on its own (it starts weak, but scales heavily with Psy Rating and your Resolve, and absolutely CHUNKS daemons. Throwing Cassia's Officer ultimate on my Santic Officer I just spammed it to chunk a boss that was murdering my team, Warp ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ be damned). You can also get a Santic-only Psyker Staff early in Chapter 2 with one of the Traders that gives you an AoE Psyker Power that also scales with your Resolve. So, the only reason to pick up Telepathy is for the Parry/Dodge and (with a talent) Weapon Skill buff from the starting ability if you bench Idera (or throw her out an airlock).

Either way, you're going to want to grab Heavy Armor Proficiency or maybe Power Armor late game (so start with 35 Strength as an officer and put two strength advances in when you upgrade to Vanguard, or just be a Warrior and shoot for decent Strength). Psalm of Heroes is currently bugged and doesn't work, when its fixed its a must have, likewise with the Biomancer talent thats meant to give you 5 Toughness for every Psyker power on someone (and considering Santic is all about stacking buffs, that would have been a huge boon for you). Another must have I found is one that gives you 25% chance to refund the AP cost of a Psyker Power if Veil Degradation is lower than 10 - I don't know if the Emperor Favors me or not, but this usually leaves me swimming with AP despite spamming Word of the Emperor + Hammer of the Emperor every turn.

Force Sword wise... I'm actually using a beefy two handed sword I've found instead right now, at least compared to the early Force Sword you can find, only miss the Force Sword's Armor Pen on a few fights compared to the higher flat damage and AoE of a two hander. I'm sure eventually the Force Sword(s) will out scale, especially now that I've just grabbed a VERY interesting helm if it works like I expect...

[Balekai]

I wouldn't dip. At least not early. Just use a psy staff or pick up the lacklusterish Purge Soul (no). That said you can make him like Heinrix so he's moving a lot and far, killing stuff to get momentum and thus Sword of Faith.

First off you're probably going to want to build him like Heinrix as an agility dodge warrior.

This guide helped me build him as he's a biomancer/Sanctic Psyker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=lfOVJiEjDtQ&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo

- Take Thick Skin (+1 Deflection, + to Parry baed of 25% of total Armour) and Destined (Sanctic gets a passive +5% Armour and while in combat, stacking +5% Armour every turn after first turn until the end of combat). These two talents combined will scale Armour and Parry up over the course of battles to huge amounts.

- Replace Invigorate with Shield of the Emperor for extra tankyness since we don't have the dual starting background with Biomancy. Enfeeble replace with Sword of Faith maybe. might be better off picking something else here for now.

- Damage talents Desolation, Blade of Light etc.

- Take dodge talents Nimble, Defensive Manoeuvres, Rigorous Training (charge talent but 25% dodge on use).

[Zepulchure]

Thanks for the replies!!
Good starting point and stuff to look into :)
Hope more stuff gets added, as this info can always be useful to others ^^

[Balekai]

Автор сообщения: Zepulchure

Thanks for the replies!!
Good starting point and stuff to look into :)
Hope more stuff gets added, as this info can always be useful to others ^^

I had more to add, but I wanted to get some sleep. :p

I too like rorek55, like Death and Forge worlds, but also like Voidborn for Fortune since it's a great way just to reroll unlucky everything. That said the rest of Voidborn, in addition to the -5 strength, doesn't help you that much.

Forge World is where it's at in my opinion, but unlike rorek55 I believe a melee Sanctic should go Locomotive System's instead of Subskin Armour. Again let Destined supply you with very low investment, super high armour over time and by extension with Thick Skin, high parry. Remember we have Shield of Emperor too for extra armour.

You instead should go with Locomotive will get +2 Agility divided by 2 movement points (Big deal!) See Heinrix video above then add even more movement) and +2 agility bonus to dodge which is easily +14% dodge chance early game. Your dodge will easily be in the 110-130ish mark without buffs by the end of Chapter 1.

Persistence of the Forge helps you hit things without too much WS/BS investment. Once you start hitting the target like a boss the easier it gets to hit.

Calculated Relations might allow your RT to become a face especially if you find ways to exploit intelligence on this build (doubt there's enough room due to MAD, which is the dreaded Multiple Ability-Score Dependent character).

In the same breath Pinnacle Weaponry but this one may be useful if using a Power Sword instead of Force, even at only a +2ish damage bonus. It makes up for some possible MAD when it comes to Strength investment.

The following starting charactersitic spread if you have Limited Outfit Pack due to the cool looking and useful +5 to all characteristic Cloak (that only RT can wear so it's good to put other good cloaks on other chars). I really hate to promote paid DLC though but if you already have it exploit the bonuses for elminating some Warrior MAD.

- 40 WS
- 35 STR (let cloak bring it up to 40 after tutorial. Edit: Or don't do this. by the time U got to the end of the post I saw that strength wasn't really needed if goingSword of Faith. Maybe just more into Toughness)
- 45 TGH (let cloak give +5 to bring it to 50 Edit: Or just let it be 55 with cloak)
- 40 AGI (Max at character creation as we're rushing/prioritising this characteristic first and +5 form cloak will just allow us to get an earlier 50 rank),

If you don't have that DLC cloak then 40 WS. 50 TGH, 40 AGI.

Since we want to cast Word and Shield of the Emperor almost every turn (word id how we get Sword of Faith really early in fights like round 1-2), we want to take the talent Stabilizing Factor to minimize Veil degradation. Maybe even Inscribed soul ability-like talent if we take Light of Emperor too and use it in conjunciton (so you're taking the 25% wound dmg hit then healing thereafter).

This build wants to take EVERY Sanctic Psyker talent. You want it all. Even Eternal Glory. With huge initial Resolve stacking for Sword of Faith your goign to have lots of crit chance and lot's of crit damage making us much less dependent on Strength, if at all. Save for maybe Edge of Dawn which would be last.

Lastly use a Force weapon for Sword of Faith. The rundown:

- Your equipped force weapon (possibly weapons if using two?)w adds all its bonuses to Sword of Faith sword.
- Sword of Faith is two handed. So now your force weapon(s) turned into Faith Sword now of a great attack range.
- Base Sword of Faith damage mechanics is Purge Soul in melee form. You would think this is bad but no because the sword is also your initial Force Weapon and uses Force talents. It has an AoE cone attack like a flame thrower.
- Casting Sword fo Faith with one already summoned ADDS YOUR RESOLVE TO DMG. This could easily be like 20-30 resolve by that point. No need for strength. combine this with all your criting, and increased crit damage, and Purge Soul mechanics adding liek 100% more damge vs daemons etc.... like wow.

After typing this all out I feel like giving the build a shot LOL. You basically run around the map super fast, Murder hoboing for the Emperor with a big sword of light while having insane Armour, Dodge and Parry.

I would probably go into Arch Militant switching in between single attack and area flame attack to get further bonuses. Or just do the assassin thing in the above video.

[KyuuMann]

I like divination + telepathy so far on a agility operative assassin. Divination gives dodge and precognition, both somewhat useful for assassin's. Telepathy is kinda meh but blindness is nice. The main power behind melee psykers comes from items I think, mainly the warp surge brooch that you can get from the Kasbalica, and an act trinker that let's you add 3xpsy rating to your melee damage

[Aranador]

I feel you with wanting to do this - I too have pondered this very thing - up until I realised that your inquisitor companion is already set up to do this, and better than you can to boot as he also has biomancy built in for free.

Anyway, Either Assassin or Arch Militant can work well, both require you to know how to maximize their particular abilities - assassin with boss killing levels of percentage damage, but needing to move to hit weaknesses, and arch militant, with needing to mix up area and single target attacks in order to get going. Either way, set up other team members (Navigator works) to buff your stats, especially resolve, in order to get the Sanctic damage up to decent levels. Origin of Void or Forge are both useful.

[Balekai]

Автор сообщения: Aranador

I feel you with wanting to do this - I too have pondered this very thing - up until I realised that your inquisitor companion is already set up to do this, and better than you can to boot as he also has biomancy built in for free.

Anyway, Either Assassin or Arch Militant can work well, both require you to know how to maximize their particular abilities - assassin with boss killing levels of percentage damage, but needing to move to hit weaknesses, and arch militant, with needing to mix up area and single target attacks in order to get going. Either way, set up other team members (Navigator works) to buff your stats, especially resolve, in order to get the Sanctic damage up to decent levels. Origin of Void or Forge are both useful.

All true. Then again having two Heinrixes doubling up Word of the Emperors etc. and getting Sword of Faith faster could be nutty.

But I myself am playing a full Officer Sanctic support as my MC, and think that's the way to go. Proliferating leader talent buffs through your Word powers. A map wide tower/totem/ritual whatever build you could say. Let Heinrix benefit from all that focused map wide AoE casting and resolve boosting to cast Sword of Faith. Especially with my MC having lots of room for Stabilising Factor, and Inscribed Soul combined with Light of the Emperor (used from safety and light partially or completely healing 25% damage hit from using inscription),in order to keep spamming emperor powers without veil degradation.

The only thing an MC Sanctic version of Heinrix would have better is possibly better stat allocation, and a better Homeworld like Forge for stated above reasons in previous post.

[Zepulchure]

Loving all of the information!!

I have started my character now, sanctic psyker, forge world, (went armor, tho the ago is interesting)

Started as officer, with the current plan (not set in stone) to go for master tactician, being able to stack resolve and momentum very fast.
Was unsure how much use you could get out of the INT instead of FEL from forge world, outside of combat, as officer uses FEL more, otherwise operator would be the go to for INT (if I remember right and am not mistaken)

Heinrix is close to he same, and I still plan on having him as secondary melee, but more focused on the supportive healing side of things.
All of this is of course very early thoughts and no were near the time in the game where I am actually ready to fully build out everything, as everything can change.

Quick question, I am still on the first ship, later in the game, is there an option to respec?
Both first and second archetype, and also for companions (the ones where you can choose at least) ?

[Balekai]

Автор сообщения: Zepulchure

Loving all of the information!!

I have started my character now, sanctic psyker, forge world, (went armor, tho the ago is interesting)

Started as officer, with the current plan (not set in stone) to go for master tactician, being able to stack resolve and momentum very fast.
Was unsure how much use you could get out of the INT instead of FEL from forge world, outside of combat, as officer uses FEL more, otherwise operator would be the go to for INT (if I remember right and am not mistaken)

Heinrix is close to he same, and I still plan on having him as secondary melee, but more focused on the supportive healing side of things.
All of this is of course very early thoughts and no were near the time in the game where I am actually ready to fully build out everything, as everything can change.

Quick question, I am still on the first ship, later in the game, is there an option to respec?
Both first and second archetype, and also for companions (the ones where you can choose at least) ?

Nothing wrong with going the Subdermal armour route. You're depending much less on the ramp up of Destined and start with a good damage soaking armour stat, at the expense of stacking higher dodge (for protection vs more high % hitting, high damaging enemies such as bosses/snipers) and also at the expense of better movement in combat. When enemies do hit you though it will hurt less. :)

The problem with wanting to use Forge world intelligence talents for a melee build, with a fellowship based archetype, is that the INT based talents you want are in Forge World, but the key talent to reduce MAD with Fellowship/Intelligence is in Voidborn Homeworld being the "Be Smart" talent. That makes all your fellowship checks inside abilities and talents use your Intelligence instead. So impossible to have it all that way if you want both the INT goodies in Forge World. but also want fellowship goodies. That's a lot of characteristic spread even if you dump Strength due to resolve scaling Sanctic mechanics.

I think in that case, it's better to forget Intelligence and scale damage with resolve with and say a Fellowship Archetype, replacing Strength if going that way. Or think about going Voidborn combined with some other way to scale damage with INT other than Forge World talents. By that point you're better off just taking Forge World, focusing on Fellowship instead of Strength and dropping INT talents within the homeworld form the build.

Heinrix in the party is almost a no brainer for many reasons. :p

No you don't get to respec your original choices at level one for RT. Just everything else for RT and your companions are much the same, but you can only respec to the level they start out with when recruited. So some companions will have locked in second archetypes I believe that get recruited late, while Abelard for example can respec like the RT back to level 1.

Edit: To be clear on the starting Archetype I still like Warrior. Endure is a great way to add damage sponginess, extra deflection every turn for 1 AP. You get manoeuvrability damage and utility with charge. Manoeuvrability that also counts as a damage talent, and can be upgrades to not use up all your movement points amd move more spaces. More manoeuvrability = more killing things in melee = more resolve multiplication from kills = more overall resolve while also eliminating things not just supporting your resolve generation = more using of Sword of Faith. :)

[Lord_WC]

Santic gives very little (but I abhor pressing Hammer of the Emperor every turn and it can be done by any of the two other companions), you can get 100% crit without it, I would go Bio-Div. As a psyker you will want WS>WP>STR, you can get more out of your WP with Fortress World (you can hit 200 WP for 100% free attacks). Pyro for Relentless Blaze+Orchestrate flames if you can squeeze it in.

With Ancient Force Sword, Blade of Light and Hand of Offence you get 1+5xPR to damage, so being Dogmatic is also a given for Eyes of Joyeouse. Carnage axe maybe, but that's pretty late in the game.

For defenses Solomon/Carapace which also sets the skill.

Archetypes - Soldier and I presonally like Vanguard for abusing temp hp (Beacon of Might, Peculiar Trinket+Malpian Shroud).

That said you are still more of a bruiser than a DPS - you will solo likely everything but not in a speedy manner.

[Zepulchure]

Автор сообщения: Balekai

The problem with wanting to use Forge world intelligence talents for a melee build, with a fellowship based archetype, is that the INT based talents you want are in Forge World, but the key talent to reduce MAD with Fellowship/Intelligence is in Voidborn Homeworld being the "Be Smart" talent. That makes all your fellowship checks inside abilities and talents use your Intelligence instead. So impossible to have it all that way if you want both the INT goodies in Forge World. but also want fellowship goodies. That's a lot of characteristic spread even if you dump Strength due to resolve scaling Sanctic mechanics.

That is also the same conclusion i reached after having looked through the different abilities and talents.
Focusing on resolve, fellowship, toughness, and psy rating when possible.
All my direct damage with the correct gear comes from resolve and psy.
Buffs (via sanctic/officer) from resolve and fellowship.
And toughness/armor simply to take more hits, aiming for heavy armor.

Officer has a few talents to help with resolve that i can take early before psy rating kicks in, but other than those it's mainly psyker stuff i focus on, blade of light and faith on a force sword (will try power sword as well due to recommendations, and choose on personal preference)
Sanctic staff which also scales on resolve for ranged stuff, hitting the needed points for the gear and other stuff along the way.

[Balekai]

Автор сообщения: Lord_WC

Santic gives very little, you can get 100% crit without it, I would go Bio-Div. As a psyker you will want WS>WP>STR, you can get more out of your WP with Fortress World (you can hit 200 WP for 100% free attacks). Pyro for Relentless Blaze+Orchestrate flames if you can squeeze it in.

With Ancient Force Sword, Blade of Light and Hand of Offence you get 1+5xPR to damage, so being Dogmatic is also a given for Eyes of Joyeouse. Carnage axe maybe, but that's pretty late in the game.

For defenses Solomon/Carapace which also sets the skill.

Archetypes - Soldier and I presonally like Vanguard for abusing temp hp (Beacon of Might, Peculiar Trinket+Malpian Shroud).

That said you are still more of a bruiser than a DPS - you will solo likely everything but not in a speedy manner.

Great build but it's not Sanctic melee and uses fire which the OP didn't want to do. :/

I agree it would be/is very effective and the extra attacks from pyro are really really good.

With Sanctic though you still have to remember there is some hidden damage scaling too. Like in Sword of Faith in addition to +50% dmg vs xenos, +100% vs chaos, +150% dmg vs Daemons, it also gains +50% damage just from an enemy hitting/damaging any ally and incorporates any Force Sword into it. Then if you cast it again in a combat it gets more base resolve damage which can be huge. :)

[Lord_WC]

Автор сообщения: Balekai

Great build but it's not Sanctic melee and uses fire which the OP didn't want to do. :/

I agree it would be/is very effective and the extra attacks from pyro are really really good.

With Sanctic though you still have to remember there is some hidden damage scaling too. Like in Sword of Faith in addition to +50% dmg vs xenos, +100% vs chaos, +150% dmg vs Daemons, it also gains +50% damage just from an enemy hitting/damaging any ally and incorporates any Force Sword into it. Then is you cast it again in a combat it gets more base resolve damage which can be huge. :)

He said melee psyker build - he can take out parts he doesn't like to tune it to his tastes.

I just don't see the value in sword of faith - if you want to do resolve shenanigans might as well grab a sanctic staff and gleefully giggle when blasting stuff for 3000 damage.

[Zepulchure]

Автор сообщения: Lord_WC

He said melee psyker build - he can take out parts he doesn't like to tune it to his tastes.

I just don't see the value in sword of faith - if you want to do resolve shenanigans might as well grab a sanctic staff and gleefully giggle when blasting stuff for 3000 damage.

I appreciate all types of input, will never say no to knowledge or perspectives.
Personally I just have no interest in pyromancer or any type of fire based builds in 99% of games I play.
I find them overdone, boring and often overturned due to popularity, but that is purely a personal preference of course.

Sword of faith is so I can go more into the melee options as I prefer that playstyle, I still plan on using the sanctic staff that scales off of resolve as I am stacking that easily, but more as a secondary option for big clumps of enemies or if I cant get into range (also high priority targets out of range)