The Build
In Depth Talents
NOTE: any time I am referencing damage, relative time to kill or strategy it is always referring to Damnation/Auric Damnation difficulty.
This build is meant to tackle anything and any special enemy the game throws at you as well as being able to dance all over bosses but it especially excels at self sufficiency and horde clearing. In addition to the passive talents we will also get basic stats just as a result of going down the tree:
45 Toughness
10% movement speed
10% melee damage
10% Toughness Damage Reduction (TDR)Now lets go over the talents in order and why they are a worthwhile pick.
Backstabber
Helps with hitting Bulwarks in the back and when the Ogryn hits his tank Ult but otherwise it is just a tax in order to get to the good stuff.
Scourge
The crux of the build along with Blazing Piety. Allows you to inflict bleed on a crit and then crit more often when you hit an enemy that is bleeding, comboing off itself. Great for bosses, Bulwarks, Ragers and Maulers.
Enduring Faith
Self explanatory, you will be critting a lot.
Blitz Choice: Blades of Faith Probably the worst out of the 3 blitz choices that Zealot gets but not terrible. A throwing knife that can do moderate damage against enemies that aren't bosses or Crushers, you get more of them when you kill an elite or specialist enemy as well as ammo boxes. As far as tactics go, throwing them at a Rager or Shotgunner that is just out of reach for whatever reason can work well but honestly you can pretend it doesn't exist most of the time and be just fine. Your weapon choices will more than cover what this blade offers. The real reason we are picking this blitz is so we can save talent points for better picks beyond it.
Dance of Death
Doesn't offer our build very much unless you are going to use the Agripinaa Braced Autogun (ABAG) for your weapon choice and even then it's pretty niche. Mainly a talent tax.
Good Balance
Along with Enduring Faith it will be giving us loads of toughness DR in order to take a hit or two while in the thick of melee. Note that this talent only triggers when the enemy swings and misses as a result of you pressing the dodge button without outside interference such as getting staggered or dying. Also note that this build has something like 95% toughness DR if everything is ticking at once, this does not mean you will take 95% less toughness damage but will give you less protection per percentage point the higher the DR is. I don't remember exactly how the math works out sadly, but regardless more is better.
Thy Wrath Be Swift
Self explanatory. Allows you to go toe to toe with multiple ragers and other melee monsters without getting stunlocked and dying, the speed buff also allows you to move and dodge in and out melee range with them.
Grievous Wounds
This talent allows you to easily chain stagger Ragers and other heretics that won't die in 2 hits. Great spend.
Until Death and Holy Revenant
Great spend. Every two minutes you can cheat death and go invulnerable at 1 Health and regain health proportional to how much damage you deal while the buff is ticking. Melee damage heals more per, and healing caps at 25% of total health.
Aura Choice: Benediction
Self explanatory, gives us and the entire team more toughness DR. The Psyker and Veteran will thank you.
Ability Choice: Fury of the Faithful and Redoubled Zeal
The main Zealot ability, like all the great Ult ability choices in Darktide this can be used both offensively and defensively. It restores half your toughness and charges you forward 10 meters (or ~25m towards an enemy) and gives you a melee attack speed buff as well as making the very next melee attack you do a guaranteed critical hit. With all your buffs and a later talent you can use this ability just to keep your attack speed 20% higher as long as you have more heretics to hit and therefore crit to reduce the cooldown of FotF. RIP and TEAR for the Emperor Make sure to take Redoubled Zeal for two charges.
The big weakness of this ability is that you can't charge gunners that are shooting you as their shots will eat your toughness and knock you backwards out of it, as well as you can get more easily knocked out of your charge than the Ogryn's charge like with barrels and specials' abilities.
Punishment
We already have Thy Wrath Be Swift. Talent tax.
Faithful Frenzy
Self explanatory. Swing faster, crit more often.
Sustained Assault
More damage on hit. Higher base damage means our crits will be bigger. Unlike most talents and blessings like it this won't fall off if you miss your attack.
Invocation of Death
Self Explanatory. You will be critting a lot allowing you more uses of FotF, a key component of this build.
Keystone Choice: Blazing Piety, Fury Rising, and Righteous Warrior
The crux of the build along with Scourge. After killing and/or critting(Fury Rising) 25 enemies you will gain 15% crit chance (25% with Righteous Warrior) for 8s. Well that sounds kinda lame doesn't it? Well it gets better, those 25 stacks decay slowly one at a time so even if you don't kill enough to hit 25 as long as you are pushing forward you will gain stacks quicker than you lose them
It gets better: Your allies' kills also contribute to your 25 kills
it gets even better: Your kills, your crits, and your allies' kills refresh the duration of Blazing Piety once it is activated. So once a combat encounter starts, you will almost certainly keep this buff up all the time even if you are just standing around in coherency.
Along with your native crit chance and a 5% crit chance perk on your melee weapon this gives us a staggering 35% crit as long as Blazing Piety is up. With the right melee weapon it makes you a beast undefeated in melee.
In Depth Weapons
Here are some good weapons along with relevant perks and blessings that will enable and combo off your build:
Melee
The chainsword swings fast, can rev up to defeat carapace armor, and has an excellent moveset that almost effortlessly hits the enemy weakspot even when you aren't trying. The blessings and perks are very interchangeable here, you can swap your 5% Critical Chance here for a +25% Damage to Flak and still crit for days. For blessings I would pick along with the ones in the image:
Rampage
Savage Sweep
Wrathit's hard to go wrong as long as you are increasing your power or cleave.
For stats aim for a 355+ Base weapon that has Mobility as the lowest stat:
S+ and my first choice of weapon for this build.
The Evi is a go-to weapon for zealot that has a great moveset of wide cleave and hard hitting single target strikes. Once you get the rhythm down you will often forget you have a ranged weapon to fall back on. Just like the chainsword you can rev it up to counter carapace armor. Since the evi swings slower you might want to keep the extra crit chance. Momentum is mandatory on just about any weapon that can take it, it offers tremendous staying power and defensive play while killing hordes mixed with elites and specials. Along with Shred I recommend:
Rampage
Savage Sweep
WrathSame as the chainsword, it's hard to go wrong as long as you are increasing your power or cleave.
For stats aim for a 355+ Base weapon that has Mobility as the lowest stat:
A+ if you could swing it a bit faster it would be S+
The Rashad (or Antax) is a fast and hard hitting (mostly) single target strikedown weapon. You will be chewing through elites and specials at the cost of horde slaying power. For perks you take bonus flak armor damage in lieu of crit. For blessings I like in addition to the image:
Limbsplitter
Decimator
Shred
For stats aim for a 355+ Base weapon that has Mobility as the lowest stat:
A+ if I didn't find myself in the thick of melee with a horde I would probably still be using the axe.
If you haven't noticed just about any fast weapon will work with this build, the faster you hit the more you crit, but if we are being realistic you could use a maul or power hammer in this build and as long as you stay in coherency and or kill something every 8s or less you will keep your crit buff up from Blazing Piety. Experiment and use what you like.
Ranged
For ranged you got two big options:
The Boltgun deletes crushers and that's about all you need it for, it takes a while to switch over to it so keep that in mind. For perks and blessings all you really need is +carapace armor damage and whatever else works for you. I chose reload speed because Crushers rarely show in packs of 1. You can also aim at the belt buckle of gunners and shotgunners and two tap them with the hipfire. If for some reason you don't want to go into melee with 8 ragers + a horde all at once as this tends to happen with patch 15, you can take a few out with the boltgun as well.
For stats you want a 355+ base weapon rating with mobility and/or collateral being the lowest.
S+ the bolter is perfect, thank you Fatshark for making a 40k weapon like we all imagined.
the ABAG is a mainstay of the Zealot arsenal but if I am being realistic you want to help your team take out crushers and bulwarks ASAP. If you just hate how slow and unwieldy it is to use the boltgun then the ABAG might be the better choice. If you need to reach out and delete some elites at medium range but your vet is downed then consider this. For perks I like maniac and flak armour damage but you can swap the flak for reload speed or more crit. For perks you can take the ones in the image for maximum defensive play. (everyone is going to look for you to handle yourself in melee so don't expect top cover while trying to shoot heretics.) You can also take Fire Frenzy in lieu of Terrifying Barrage.
For stats, again you want a high-ish base roll with mobility being the lowest stat.
B+ if only it could kill crushers quickly.
All other ranged weapons are basically versions of these two but either not as good or less damage and longer range. Have fun.
Strategy, Tactics And How To Play This Build
General tips
You always want to be leading the charge, you get to control the flow of the map and have the ability to make a push much easier for the entire team. Don't leave allies behind or go too far ahead but sometimes people don't have the awareness that they should be charging in with you.
This build is very sturdy but you will still want to avoid damage as much as possible, standing still is death. Regular scab and dreg ranged heretics/stalkers can strip your toughness in less than a second (esp after this last hotfix) and they aren't even elite enemies so you will need to recognize whether it is worth using FOTF to charge into them or whether to slide and dodge your way over to them or let an ally snipe them while you loot or chill in the psyker bubble.
Apart from the above there is rarely a bad time to be in melee. Your team will look to you to be able to handle yourself in a mixed horde with no problem so, if you haven't already, you should study the basics of how to survive in melee such as dodging around, leaving and entering melee, and knowing who to target first. There are loads of guides on youtube better than I could do here.
Know your Enemy
The Horde
Your bread and butter, mindless poxwalkers and groaners in huge packs with elite enemies and specialists mixed, you should be fighting the Ogyrn to get to them first. You can use the horde itself to body block elite gunners that are shooting at you.
Ranged elites
Gunners and shotgunners are also going to be yours to deal with most of the time. If gunners are patrolling around you can sprint right up to them before they get a chance to start firing at you. Shotgunners are a bit trickier, you should try to dodge their first shot then use FOTF to tie them up in melee, once you get close to them they will swap out their shotguns for a melee weapon and try to hit you with it. Even if you can't kill them immediately it is worthwhile to get them in melee so they will stop shooting.
More to come :)
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3097633212
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