Soulblaze is a damage-over-time (DoT) debuff the Inferno staff (and Creeping Flames Venting Shriek, and Perilous Combustion) applies to enemies. The Inferno staff applies 2 stacks on a crit, or 1 stack on a normal hit. The important thing to note about Soulblaze is the damage is exponential for the most part, meaning the more stacks you have on a single target, the more damage each stack does. This means you want to increase stacks on an enemy as quickly as possible. Inferno staff can apply a max of 15 stacks, 16 on a crit. Creeping Flames and Perilous Combustion have a max of 31, but it is very hard for anything to survive long enough to get to that max, especially when the application is 6 stacks per cast for Creeping Flames at max and 3 for Perilous Combustion. This debuff can be applied to any enemy, even if the visual is hidden on some bosses.

Notably, the Uncanny blessing works on soulblaze while your melee with Uncanny is out. This isn't useful for most targets, as the Inferno staff will deal with almost every enemy in short enough order that there is no benefit to switching to your melee. The exceptions are carapace and bosses, but you will lose the benefits of the Inferno staff's Blaze Away blessing so swapping to melee may not be beneficial if you cannot trigger Uncanny quickly by hitting weakspots (such as if a Beast of Nurgle is targeting you).

Blaze Away is the best blessing on the Inferno staff by a long shot. It stacks very quickly when using the secondary charged attack, or once per left attack, and lingers around long enough that if you spam secondary charged attacks without fully charging you can maintain the stacks.

However, maintaining Blaze Away stacks, while helpful, isn't always optimal since fully charged secondaries will apply Soulblaze faster and you may not need the damage (as in the case of trash hordes such as Poxwalkers and Groaners). Regardless, you don't have to bother with maintaining Blaze Away stacks if you don't want to even in Auric Maelstrom or Havoc 40.

Another important note is that Blaze Away only applies if you apply the first Soulblaze stack on a target. If another Psyker is applying more Soulblaze at greater distances, Blaze Away will not help you (but even in a 4-Psyker squad with 3 other Psykers running longer-distance Soulblaze, generally Blaze Away is still very, very good).

Warp Nexus is the second best blessing on the Inferno staff. This is because crits are very valuable on Inferno due to them doubling your Soulblaze application (from 1 to 2 stacks) and still increasing your direct damage relatively significantly. It is trivially easy to remain at high peril to maximize Nexus' benefits once you are used to how Psyker plays, though you notably do not need to 'edge' (stay at high peril) significantly hard to still benefit from Nexus. If you don't edge at all, the difference between Nexus and Penetrating Flame narrows a lot and you can benefit from Penetrating Flame more, but this is generally the better pick.

Penetrating Flame is the third best blessing on the Inferno staff, and better than Nexus only in boss damage (and the benefit is minimal, and not really a benefit if you aren't great at maintaining Soulblaze stacks on the boss) and when you have a reliable team comp. The one interesting note about Penetrating Flame is it stacks with other sources of brittleness, meaning it is one of the few ways to go over the normal brittleness cap but cannot do so by itself (as the cap is 40% and PF only goes to 20%). This can let you kill crushers with Soulblaze when combined with other brittleness such as another Psyker running Rending Trauma (Rending Voidblast).

Warp Flurry is not that great on Inferno. Inferno spends a long time casting, and not a lot of time charging relative to other staves. I do not recommend Warp Flurry.

Other blessings aren't useful or significant on the Inferno staff. Focused Channeling is easily replaced with dodges and sliding. Run 'n' Gun is not useful since Inferno wants to make use of its secondary charge attack almost all the time. Terrifying Barrage is completely useless because anything in Inferno range will be on fire and most things will be staggered. Showstopper is a joke and a meme and might even be so even if the explosion chance was guaranteed. Can you run these blessings? Yes. You can run anything with enough skill. However, their performance is abysmal.

Generally, you want +Flak on your Inferno staff. This is because most human-sized elites have flak as their center of mass armor type, and soulblaze works off that center of mass armor type. I recommend +Flak for most Inferno builds.

Notably, the recently-changed Scab Ragers still count as flak for the Inferno staff, despite counting as carapace at center of mass for other staves and weapons. This is probably a bug.

+Unyielding isn't a terrible nor fantastic perk on Inferno, and largely depends on how you use it. Soulblaze inherits the perks of the active weapon, so in cases where you switch to your melee it's not hugely useful. However, if you stick to your staff, +Unyielding is very helpful to deal with bosses, reapers, and bulwarks.

I recommend +Critical Chance if you are running Penetrating Flame due to the lack of critical chance from Warp Nexus. I would not recommend it if you are running Warp Nexus, as a meager 5% critical chance isn't going to help that much compared to +Unyielding. I would recommend it over +Maniac though.

+Maniac isn't super useful on Inferno. Most enemies with +Maniac are easily staggered and trivial to deal with using Inferno, from specials to ragers (ragers you stun with the short burst of the primary attack). The one single exception is mutants, but your melee is normally a better tool to deal with mutants anyway. Still, if you really hate mutants, you can take +Maniac.

I do not recommend +Carapace on the Inferno staff. The Inferno staff does abysmal damage to crushers, the only enemy currently affected by +Carapace, and does not clear them in reasonable time frames. You are better off bringing and using a melee weapon that can handle crushers in most cases, though notably on high Havoc you can face unreasonable amounts of armor to the point where burning them really is faster (but I recommend getting an ally who can deal with them instead).

Most other perks are not worth using. +Unarmored, +Infested, and +Groaners/Poxwalkers are bad on a staff that already excels to an unreasonable degree at dealing with such targets. +Critical Damage is a joke due to how it only calculates off the additional critical damage and not the critical hit's total damage. +Elite is just a worse version of +Flak for most targets (and for almost every target Inferno wants if you combine +Flak and +Unyielding because two +Elites wouldn't even be +25%) and the ones that are excluded (dreg ragers, crushers) are either trivial to deal with using Inferno (dreg ragers) or shouldn't be dealt with using Inferno at all (crushers). +Specialists isn't useful since most specialists will get staggered by and die to Inferno pretty quickly (the one exception being mutants which would benefit from +Maniac more). +Stamina and +Sprint Efficiency are jokes on Psyker who has very good stamina regen and wants to swap to their melee weapon for mobility anyway.

I recommend a single target melee weapon with uncanny. You will mostly be using this for dangerous, chonky targets like crushers and mutants. The dueling sword is great at this, and you can also use the Deimos force sword to great effect. Uncanny strike is important because stacks of it boost your soulblaze damage against the most healthy targets, bosses and enemy ogryns. You will generally not need to switch to your melee outside of crushers and bosses. When you do switch for the boss, switch only after applying max soulblaze to the boss (I recommend a mod to show debuffs[www.nexusmods.com]) as soulblaze damage on bosses is not insignificant for Psyker, who has a hard time doing good boss damage on staff builds. Inferno staff is actually one of the best ways for a staff psyker to apply boss damage.

For dueling sword, I recommend two of three perks of your preference. Unyielding helps with bosses but you can use Maniac or Carapace. Maniac helps you one-shot ragers (and if you take maniac, I recommend swapping away from Thrust). Uncanny is very much recommended, and Thrust helps one-shot mutants running at you if you hit their weakspot (and one-shot maniac ragers with full stacks of both Thrust and Uncanny). Other good secondary blessings are Agile (defensive), Riposte (offensive), and Relentless Strikes (bosses). Rampage is a bad pick since you don't want to horde clear with dueling sword, you have a horde clear staff anyway, and Precognition has the issue of a very short duration with a finicky activation.

Brain Burst (BB) is a tool you never want to take out. It is your last resort, used only because nobody else is around to take out the sniper 90 meters away. In any other case, you would be better served by slide-spamming up to an enemy and lighting them on fire. This build is an Inferno build, and focuses on Inferno damage. Use the Inferno staff. BB is always a damage loss, and the amount of investment required to make it more worthwhile simply isn't useful. BB is by far the worst blitz on the Psyker, and I don't recommend ever trying to rely on it if you can help it.

However, one of the subnodes, Kinetic Flayer, is actually useful as it generally guarantees a Perilous Combustion and Psykinetic's Aura activation (or hits something sturdy enough that you want that extra damage on that thing anyway). It is especially good with Inferno because it can activate on each of Inferno's hits from a single secondary attack, meaning it often activates quickly.

That said, you can easily make a more BB-focused build work. You could take Kinetic Resonance to speed up BB after ability use, or go Empowered Psionics over Warp Siphon for more consistent BB use. If you do go EP, don't take Bio-Lodestone or Psychic Leeching, as there are better nodes elsewhere to take. Crystalline Will on the way is obviously a crutch I wouldn't recommend if you're pushing into Aurics or Havoc.

For alternatives, Assail is a choice. It doesn't have the range that BB has but it's a lot more useful, the only problem being much of that use is covered by Inferno anyway. You also lose out on Wildfire and Psykinetic's, which is quite devastating. The Inferno staff will still largely work, though, so you can take Assail if you strongly prefer it, it just isn't optimal.

Smite is not a good choice. Empowered Psionics Smite has largely the same effect and role as Inferno when combined with Creeping Flames (albeit at a slower but safer pace) while Smite without EP is just a stun, and most things in stun range will die to Inferno. As with anything, you can run whatever you like with enough skill but I do not recommend Smite at all for Inferno.

Warp Rupture is, quite frankly, complete trash. It is worse than Creeping Flames in every single way, and lacks the damage to even kill chaff (poxwalkers and groaners) on Damnation. I cannot ever recommend Warp Rupture if you want effectiveness, because it is never effective and always worse than Creeping Flames.

Creeping Flames Venting Shriek is the best ability for Inferno on Auric Damnation. Shriek should be used most often when your peril is above 85%, allowing you to apply 6 stacks of soulblaze to basically everything in front of you for 30 meters. It staggers enemies, which is quite helpful, and amps your soulblaze damage by stacking it quicker and can go beyond Inferno's stack cap (up to 31 stacks). Shriek is one of the most damaging and helpful abilities Psyker has, and if you are looking to carry a team I highly recommend spamming it into big groups of enemies.

You should try to use Shriek off cooldown (if there's more than a few enemies), and aim to have 85% peril or more at that moment. If you have made a mistake and get caught in the open, Shriek can be used defensively to stagger whatever is attacking you but be aware that the stagger strength and range scales with your peril. In addition, Shriek can be used to save yourself from the Perils of the Warp (exploding from too much peril) if you use it while the animation is playing before you explode.

Telekine Wall (Telekine Shield with Enervating Threshold and Bolstered Shield) is less useful than Bubble because walls only help in corridors where you can burn everything in one direction anyway. They block bullets, yes, but are worse than Bubble/Telekine Dome in almost every way that isn't a trivial benefit. Their only use is that Kinetic Resonance (Brainburst's subnode) can stack with itself, and Telekine Wall is the only Psyker ability with two charges (meaning you can use both charges to have quicker Brainbursts in a Brainburst-focused build).

Bubble is useful if you want to play defensively and help your team stay alive. It is highly recommended for 30+ Havoc runs (and can be helpful below that on Havoc). It can keep your team alive in a pinch and invalidate a lot of specials from taking your team out of the action, including bombers (fire bombers can't cover the bubble's insides in fire unless they threw a bomb before you used bubble, you can also sit inside the bubble with pox gas and not take damage anyway due to bubble's toughness regen if you don't have Empyric Resolve though I don't recommend this).

Bubble is best used preemptively, and placed in positions where it cannot be rapidly destroyed by gunners/reapers (or used to destroy said gunners and reapers). It is also best to be prepared to hide behind cover when Bubble inevitably goes down, either from running out of health after being shot too much or running out of duration after sitting too long.

Scrier's Gaze (SG) boosts your damage but not nearly as much as Shriek (you already burn everything to death in Inferno distance anyway, Shriek goes beyond that and helps to stack more soulblaze). Scrier's is only useful if you want boss damage in particular, but even then it's not a huge boost. If you do take Scrier's Gaze, take Reality Anchor over Precognition because Precognition does nothing for the Inferno staff, and make sure to grab Warp Unbound so you get a long period of unmitigated fire.

Soulstealer is a decent toughness generation node. It can often be dumped due to Mettle normally being enough (and being more valuable due to allowing access to Perfect Timing).

Mettle is a very good on Inferno because of the toughness generation. It is currently broken on Inferno secondaries so that it only works once on the first hit (if it happens to be a crit) per target, but it is often still plenty of toughness generation when actively attacking to the point where an experienced player doesn't need Soulstealer.

Perilous Combustion is very good on Inferno (and in general), but is actually worse than one might expect since it only activates if the enemy dies from Inferno's direct damage. Soulblaze killing a target does not activate Perilous Combustion. It's still a must-have (as much as a node can be 'must-have') for Inferno.

Quietude is useful because it is active when you are quelling (passively or actively). This means you are always generating toughness when combined with Mettle and/or Soulstealer while in combat. This talent doesn't require 10% peril quelled to generate toughness, and will give you any amount of 50% of peril quelled as toughness %.

Warp Expenditure is half of Quietude, and practically never better than Quietude as it doesn't even work with peril generated over 100% (plus, it's actually competing with Mettle and Soulstealer, not Quietude, due to when it generates peril). This is normally a talent to skip.

Perfect Timing is a very, very good node for all staves. It boosts warp damage, which all staves deal, and that includes Soulblaze's damage. It also boosts Blitz damage (even though Brain Burst and Smite can't crit) and damage for charged force sword attacks (Force Greatsword's slice, Illisi's/Deimos'/Obscurus' charged strikes). This is a very good node, and generally a must-have for any staff build.

Battle Meditation is pretty bad outside of Havoc, where it can actually be useful due to enemy density and reduced quelling (venting) speeds. At Havoc 40, you get an 85% reduction to quelling speed, so Battle Meditation can do a lot for you. However, it's generally not a valuable pick in Aurics.

Some people dislike Wildfire, but it is good and is a damage increase. Wildfire works by spreading up to 4 stacks of soulblaze on a target that dies, with each stack being distributed evenly (so a dying target with 3 stacks spreads 3 stacks, 1 stack to each nearby enemy if there are 3 of them with 0 stacks, but will spread 4 stacks if the dying target has 4 stacks, 2 to one of the 3 nearby enemies). Wildfire will spread stacks to a target as long as the target has less than 4 stacks. Wildfire is incredibly useful because it can spread beyond your Inferno staff's range, meaning when an enemy enters Inferno's range you already have 4 stacks applied to them when in tense, Auric Damnation/Havoc 25+ situations due to enemy density being stupidly high. That is 1/4th of Inferno's max stacks, which is significant and really helps Inferno stack all that quicker and kill quicker, helping Wildfire spread more. On top of that, Wildfire helps eliminate chaff (4 stacks doesn't kill alone but can kill with Blaze Away and other buffs) and manage your sides/back without you doing anything. You won't be killing hordes with Wildfire, but when you turn around to face a threat you'll find enemies nice and pre-toasted. It also helps you gain more Warp Siphon stacks through In Fire Reborn, and get the first stack of Soulblaze so that your Blaze Away blessing always applies even if other Soulblaze Psykers are around. I wholeheartedly support Wildfire on an Inferno build in the game's current state (and it's still very good on a lot of other staff builds with Creeping Flames too).

The man, the myth, the legend. Psykinetic's Aura is what enables Creeping Flames Shriek to be so devastating, and combos with Perilous Combustion to great effect. This is one of the most valuable nodes on the tree as long as you aren't running Scrier's Gaze. Havoc and Auric elite/special densities allow you to sometimes skip your cooldown near instantly with this single node, occasionally multiple times per a single fight with a particularly dense elite group.

This is one of those nodes you never, ever take. It's useless. Utterly, completely useless. You can move faster by sliding and dodging. There is never a reason to take this.

Not a bad node and very powerful on builds that constantly swap weapons such as Gunker/Meleeker/Assailker (all 3 of which are often all rolled into one build that swaps between them constantly), but Inferno wants to hog the limelight and not be swapped away from, so Malefic Momentum is not a good choice for the staff.

A bad node for Inferno. Inferno's damage does not come from primary attacks. It comes from the secondary attack and Soulblaze (mostly Soulblaze).

Wield speed is swap speed. Psyker has no weapons with slow swap speed. This node sucks, and would suck even if it was maxed out at all times at 10x the current max value.

A decent node for melee, but not useful for staff builds that generally want to staff everything with a few exceptions.

A surprisingly-bad node for a staff that spews Soulblaze. For one, it's on the wrong side of the tree and would cost a whole 3 points just to get on most normal Inferno builds. For two, +5% crit chance isn't that huge and Souldrinker doesn't refresh the buff's duration while it is active, meaning you can only get another 5 seconds of +5% crit chance after the buff has expired. To make matters worse, the toughness is only generated when a target dies on a Soulblaze damage tick. This means you regenerate toughness only from killing the target at the same moment as Soulblaze does damage, so you will mostly get toughness from Soulblaze kills and the occasional kill at the right moment from a target affected with Soulblaze. Thanks, Fatshark.

Empyric Shock isn't a great node. Why bother using the primary to deal more damage when you can just use more of the secondary to deal more damage? This is true for every staff (except a primary-spam build) and is still true for Inferno. Empyric Shock only helps against single targets, and the only targets Inferno needs help with are bosses and crushers, and Empyric Shock isn't going to do much for crushers. There are better ways to spend 2 talent points.

The worst of the auras, it working only against elites is pretty sad. Veteran's Fire Team aura is mostly an upgrade over this Psyker aura. Generally not recommended unless you have Psykers running the other auras (as auras do not stack).

A very good, all-rounder pick. This aura is especially useful for builds that want to spam abilities, such as any build with Shriek. Still useful on Bubble builds to spam Bubble more and keep your team immune to ranged. It's not amazing, but as the Psyker auras go it's pretty good.

The best aura in my opinion, but not by a huge margin. It is definitely not worth spending an extra point just to get if you're on the left side of the tree.

One of the worst nodes Psyker has. This isn't even a crutch, it's just not usable.

Psyker's best toughness damage reduction (TDR) node. Psyker is pretty poor at stacking TDR, sadly. Still a good node, and generally something to take outside of high level Havoc.

Often overrated, Empathic Evasion (EE) is very useful as it can make you completely immune to ranged attacks, but only if you're critting quickly enough. Very few weapons crit that quickly, and it's completely replaceable with enough sliding. Inferno is actually one such weapon (Recon Lasgun and Infantry Autogun being others), so Empathic Evasion is generally a good pick if you stack enough crit.

A good alternative to Empathic Evasion if you're on the right side of the tree (which Inferno generally is not), it's not incredibly useful but neither is EE if you have a slow weapon such as Voidstrike.

A useful node that increases quell speed, meaning the rate at which you quell. It is generally better than Puppet Master.

Coherency is generally not that important, so this node is generally not that important. It can be useful with certain builds, but it's easier just to save the point and stick a little closer to your squad. You should be doing that anyway on Havoc.

The king of nodes, generally the most valuable node on the tree. I know of no good build that doesn't take this. It's free damage for Psyker, and all you have to do is not over-quell. Take it.

I wish this node did something interesting, but it's just a bad crutch. It doesn't even heal you like you would be if you went down and someone picked you up, so it can be actively detrimental. Do not take this node.

My favorite node in the whole tree, and one of the best nodes if you know how to use it well. It comes in very clutch in situations where you would ordinarily be entirely screwed, and gives you time to readjust and figure out what is going on when things have happened too fast. A good node I never go without, personally, but some do not take it. I think they're crazy.

This node doesn't make any sense unless you're using Scrier's Gaze, and even then doesn't make any sense for a staff build because you need a gun for it to do anything. Do not take this with Inferno or you will literally just be wasting a point.

Empyric Resolve (ER) is a great node for every other staff. It helps a lot with peril generation, which enables you to spend a lot more time dealing damage rather than quelling. Its malus is significant (and affects all toughness generation except coherency regen and toughness weapon blessings), but on Auric difficulties Psyker tends to die if they get hit in rapid succession, which is the only scenario in which the toughness replenishment would matter (because at other times you would have the time to regenerate to full anyway). Basically, if you have trouble with ER's malus I recommend working on your dodging/sliding until you don't. You can definitely feel ER's malus, but if you're good enough then it's practically not a malus at all. The issue is Empyric Resolve is too good for Inferno, which will have trouble generating enough peril to constantly Shriek with ER involved, and Shrieking constantly is far more important than an extra charge or two of Inferno before quelling (especially when Inferno spends less time quelling than other staves). At the high end of skill, ER is still a net positive, it's just a big hassle on Inferno. Only take Empyric Resolve if you are fine working through that hassle of peril management, or are not taking Shriek (in which case ER becomes very good again).

Penetration of the Soul (PotS) is a bad node. Veteran gets 10% rending at a similar point in their tree with no conditions whatsoever. 10% rending at 75% peril is mediocre even if you are a great Psyker that constantly stays above 75% peril. The only reason to take PotS is because it's not ER.

This node used to be very good with Voidstrike, but nowadays this node is pretty mediocre since it now only works once per attack. This node does little for Inferno, though.

Inferno doesn't reload.

Inferno does not make good use of any keystones other than Warp Siphon. Empowered Psionics is for blitzes, which is good for a Brainburst-focused build, but does nothing for Inferno. Disrupt Destiny interacts with and cares about weakspots, which Inferno doesn't do very well. Thus, this guide (for now) will only go over Warp Siphon.

The typical (and really, only) choice for Inferno staff, Warp Siphon pairs very well with Creeping Flames Shriek. It's also useful in Havoc with Telekine Dome due to how often you need to use the ability. Warp Siphon is not very useful with Scrier's Gaze, as Scrier's Gaze does not need the cooldown reduction. By default, you gain a stack of Warp Siphon when you kill an elite or specialist (anything taggable that isn't a boss), stacking up to 4 times. When you use your ability, your cooldown is immediately reduced by 7.5% per stack of Warp Siphon, and all stacks are consumed.

This node sucks. You should constantly be using your ability, which means you will constantly be losing stacks, which means this node will constantly be bouncing up and down in value, and its value isn't even that great since Empyric Resolve is both better and more consistent. Stacking both nodes is entirely unnecessary, and even detrimental if you are using Creeping Flames Shriek.

Free damage with very little reason to ever not take this node. Yes, it bounces up and down like Inner Tranquility, but damage is far more valuable than peril generation reduction.

A good toughness subnode, but rarely needed as it is outclassed by on-demand toughness nodes like Soulstealer and Quietude. It is better than Warp Expenditure, but worse than Mettle (on fast crit weapons). The main reason to not take it is it's out of the way and by the time you get it, you have better nodes (which are at the beginning of the tree).

A lovely node that pairs extremely well with Inferno. As you will always be using Warp Siphon stacks, this is essential to replenishing them.

Not a terrible node, about on-par with Wildfire if a bit worse and less consistent, but the main reason this isn't better is because it only raises your maximum warp siphon stacks, and since you will always be using your stacks to use your ability you will only sometimes make use of this talent.

A worse version of In Fire Reborn for Inferno, but a better choice for other staves. Not a bad node, just not a match for Inferno.

Curios are often very personal, as they are used to shore up your personal weaknesses. Get sniped a lot? Use sniper resistance. Get shot to death by gunners? Use gunner resistance. So on and so forth. That said, there are combinations generally agreed upon.

It is generally recommended you acquire at least 201 HP, as while toughness is very valuable on Psyker some things inevitably ignore toughness, such as poxbursters and snipers. After acquiring 201 HP (most easily acquired with 1 curio that has its main stat as HP and a single HP substat) it is recommended to put the rest in toughness, taking a stamina curio if you prefer (it is not recommended to take any stamina-related substats, as Psyker has a very good stamina regen delay and can thus almost always push. Blocking is taken care of with Kinetic Deflection).

High Havoc (25+) hurts toughness a lot, and in Havoc you most often want a coordinated team, of which Zealots and Veterans will probably be providing a flat amount of gold toughness regardless of your investment. Thus, it is recommended you invest heavily in health and not at all in toughness. Toughness in Havoc is only there to give you a free hit before you start taking damage, it is not going to meaningfully reduce the damage you take on Psyker. It is also recommended you bring Combat Ability Regeneration, as defensive abilities are heavily relied upon in Havoc.

Combat Ability Regeneration, while useful, isn't a necessity. It is especially valuable in Havoc due to how reliant you are on abilities, but outside of Havoc it can often be worse than just taking other defensive substats and playing more aggressively. It is only 12% for 3 slots, but it also happens to be the only actual potentially-offensive substat. I don't recommend it for beginners, but as you grow more comfortable with staying alive at higher difficulties it can be useful.

Toughness Regen Speed is a controversial stat, and to make matters worse it's not even named properly. It should really be called Coherency Regen Speed, because it only affects toughness regenerated from coherency. However, it is also exponential, boosting both the amount of toughness regenerated and reducing the delay before regeneration. Coherency Regen also has the issues of not scaling to your max toughness and not being active in melee, but the latter is often easily solved by just dodging backwards, as stacking enough regen speed lets you immediately start regenerating by doing so. The former is less of an issue than you may think due to how large the bonus from Toughness Regen Speed is.

So, here is my personal verdict. Toughness Regen Speed is useful and actually quite good (even on Havoc) even on a melee build, but it is not for clutching and it is not for people who wander off or can't rely on their allies. Due to how it works exponentially better the more you have, if you are going to use Toughness Regen Speed stack it as much as possible (i.e. have the substat on each curio, or don't have the substat at all).

Use secondaries against all enemies in most cases. Primary fire is reserved for immediate stagger, which is useful against poxbursters (if you have Kinetic Flayer, it can trigger on poxbursters so either only push poxbursters or reserve primary fire for when the burster is far away or Kinetic Flayer is on cooldown), ragers, and surprise enemies in melee range. Primary fire does not stagger crushers. You will not blow yourself up from peril as long as the start of the attack is below 100% (charging is not the start of secondaries, you have to start shooting flame).

You generally want to always use your staff. The only time you switch to melee is when there are a low amount of enemies and it would be quicker to just stab them, you want to run faster (since your melees let you do that) to reposition or keep up with the squad, or you are fighting carapace (and nothing else, as it is beneficial for you to burn the whole group of enemies while your allies deal with the carapace). You also switch to your melee to deal with bosses (provided you are running Uncanny on the melee and not Penetrating Flame on the staff) once you have applied Soulblaze stacks to them, only occasionally switching back to refresh Soulblaze (provided nothing else is around as, again, it is beneficial for you to deal with all the other stuff while your allies deal with the boss).

Note: Crushers are the only carapace the Inferno staff currently recognizes. Scab Ragers are still treated as flak for the Inferno staff (despite what the Psykhanium may say) as of Hotfix #56. This is probably a bug.

You need only pull out your Blitz (provided it isn't smite) to deal with ranged enemies you cannot reach with the Inferno staff (or sliding closer), such as snipers. You can also use Brain Burst as an opener, using the secondary to charge it early to immediately pop a distant enemy the moment you see them.

The best way to maximize your DPS is to start an engagement with a fully-charged secondary attack and then to charge secondaries just enough that Blaze Away doesn't expire. However, the benefit of this is very minimal over just spamming fully-charged secondary attacks (or low-charge secondary attacks to maintain Blaze Away).

None. You don't need to maintain Blaze Away. Positioning and coordination is far more important, and I don't bother with staff-specific tech in Havoc 40 or Auric Maelstrom.

Note: Curios are generally highly debatable, and these are just example builds. You are free to change any aspect to suit you, curios most of all.

This build is for beginners. It is focused on keeping you alive and not building any bad habits while you are learning (such as overly-relying on bubble). Just try not to overly-rely on shriek getting you out of exploding from too much peril.

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I really like Penetrating Flame. It helps the whole team, and stacks on top of other brittleness.
You may be wondering where the curios are on this build. For full honesty, I don't have a second set of curios for Havoc and just use the curios from my Auric Damnation build. Is it optimal? No. Does it work? Yes.

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Build images taken from https://darktide.gameslantern.com

Mods Used in Screenshots:
Enhanced Descriptions[www.nexusmods.com]
Name It - Rename Weapons and Curios[www.nexusmods.com]
Red Weapons at Home[www.nexusmods.com]




Special Thanks to:
Me, for spending way too much time testing and discussing with others on the Darktide Discord.