heinrix fighting cultists in warhammer 40k rogue trader
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Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Psyker Origin Guide — Best Melee and Ranged Origins

Wondering which flavor of Psyker to choose? Here's are the best in Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader.

There are five unique sanctioned Psyker Origins you can choose from when creating your Rogue Trader character based on the playstyle you want. They are Biomancer, Diviner, Pyromancer, Sanctic, and Telepath. Here’s my best Psyker Origin in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader.

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What is the Best Psyker Origin in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader?

First and foremost, all five Origins are completely viable in their own way and will end up being mixed and matched as you progress your Psyker Talents. That said, some are slightly stronger, better, or optimize faster than the others at the beginning. That’s why I wanted to recommend options during character creation based on what type of character you want to play. Before we do that, here are all the Psyker Origins:

  • Biomancer: Specialize in melee damage-enhancing abilities and healing.
  • Diviner: Focuses on buffing your allies.
  • Pyromancer: Offers great offensive powers that deal damage over time.
  • Sanctic: Boosts ally Resolve while providing AoE heals, buffs, and melee damage.
  • Telepath: Has a repertoire of ranged damage abilities and enemy debuffs.

With these in mind, here are a few options for the best Psyker Origin during character creation based on your playstyle.

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Best Melee Psyker Origin to Pick in Rogue Trader

If you want to build a melee-oriented character, then I would highly recommend picking up the Biomancer Origin with something like the Warrior Archetype. This will create a powerful close-range combatant with the Iron Arm power that boosts Strength for damage and Toughness for extra Wounds. Be sure to pick up Invigorate or Regeneration when you can for extra healing.

Talents like Subtle Manipulation are great on this starting build to ignore Attacks of Opportunity from casting powers in melee. Additionally, Adrenaline Surge can grant you extra Action Points, which further aids even your Warrior abilities. I would suggest mixing this Origin with the Sanctic later on while picking up Destined and Blade of Light to boost Sword of Faith attacks. Of course, we always want to pick up Psy Rating whenever available which boosts almost all of our powers.

Best Ranged Psyker Origin to Choose

Alternatively, if a ranged Psyker is more your goal, then you can’t go wrong with the Telepath Origin. The Psychic Shriek, scaling with your Willpower and Psy Rating, is one of the most damaging ranged single-target powers you can find in the early game. Furthermore, the Psychic Assault power offers great AoE damage, while Sensory Deprivation is an amazing debuff for bosses reducing their accuracy characteristics.

Useful talents here include Psy Rating, as we mentioned for overall damage boosts. Then we have Second Sight for increased range based on Perception so we can play around cover more efficiently. Aftershock and Pain Channeling will further boost your Psychic Shriek, as well.

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Other Psyker Origins to Consider Based on Your Build

We should mention that those seeking a more support-oriented Psyker should start with the Sanctic or Diviner. On the other hand, the Pyromancer offers great damage-over-time ranged powers, but they’re a bit slow to take off at the beginning. That’s why these Origins are better to pick up later through Talents.

Note that when you start the game, one of your first companions, Idira, will deal slightly better damage than your Psyker. This is because she’s an unsanctioned Psyker starting with Psy Rating 1 while yours is a sanctioned one starting with Psy Rating 0.

Don’t worry, you’ll be able to steadily increase this through talents starting at level 10 which is quite easy to reach. In fact, she’s a Telepath Diviner combo so if team composition is your goal then my recommended melee Psyker Origin might be more beneficial. That said, you’ll later get a melee Psyker with Heinrix so you can pretty much pick whatever suits your playstyle.

That said, this concludes my guide on the best Psyker Origin in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. For more WH40K RT content, check out our guides like how to beat Aurora or our other builds, such as those for Cassia and Argenta.


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Author
Image of Gordan Perisic
Gordan Perisic
From playing RPGs and dungeon mastering for his D&D group to reading novels and scribbling about his fantasy setting, Gordan is a full-time nerd and devoted writer for GameSkinny. He loves to overshare and discuss literature, music, animation, and trees with fellow geeks. Also, he may or may not cook too much food for his friends. Cholesterol is one hell of a drug.