Welcome!
Welcome! My name is Mr.Muddy i have been mostly a Veteran main in Darktide! I have over 900+ hours in this game and i saw some of my fellow veterans make some rookie mistakes and struggle with higher difficulties. I will go in depth about weapon choices and offer multiple weapons and talent choices and will explain the veterans role in the higher difficulties!
Veteran's Role In The Party
Veteran is a class regarded by many to be overpowered in Darktide at the moment. And they are not wrong! If given space veteran can quickly melt away elites and specials with ease! It can be seen as veteran can do everything by themselves and don't need help. While it is true its better to focus on veterans role. That being taking out specials and ranged enemies so that our melee specialist can rush in easily. It can be tempting to pull out a powersword and rush into the horde but as a veteran priority should be staying back and try to take out those trappers flamers poxwalkers or even snipers which can sneak into the horde and end a run! so TL:DR: Shoot the Elites Specials and ranged shooters leave the melee enemies to the melee specialists
Ranged Weapon Choices
Kantrael MG XII Infantry Lasgun
To nobodies surprise Kantrael XII is a very solid gun over all! It can do everything! Aside from deal with crushers but that is alright! What makes Kantrael very usefull is that is is very easy to pick up and use thanks to the red dot sights and non existent recoil!
Damage and stopping power are the most important stats in this weapon since its very ammo efficent! For Blessings i recommend Opening salvo which gives us %15 damage boost in our first shot! Which after waiting half a second we can regain this buff. Makes it ideal to deal burst damage to the specials and elites! And Infernus in the other hand gives us much needed boss damage. We can apply burns to the bosses! It can also help us to deal with the reapers! Ah also not the mention using our volley fire we can bring down a mutie in about 4 to 5 shots!
Lucius Mk I Helbore Lasgun
Helbore lasguns have a pretty bad reputation due to them having iron sights but they are pretty much underrated! And they have gotten much more better since the launch. Charging shots can be bit hard to get used to but trust me if you can aim this gun is a beast!
Benefits of this gun is that thanks to the recent buffs when dealing with the normal shooters we don't have to charge our shots. A simple shot to the head will kill them easily enough! Or if you are not that good at aiming you can charge your shot to one shot body! In addititon to these you can destory everything with hellbores i mean everything!
Helbore deals great amount of damage to the Crushers Reapers even the bosses! noting is safe from this gun! Only down side i can think of is the lack of red dot sight and not being able to burst down a charging rager! also has a good ammo efficency!
Blessings i recommend are Onslaught and Sustained fire! Sustained fire does work with the charged shots and Onslaught makes it so that we charge our shots faster!
Lucius Mk II Helbore Lasgun
Ah MKII Helbore! It is similar to the Mk1 only difference is it shoots faster and deals little bit less damage but don't judge it by its damage! It's over all dps is much better than MK1! Both Helbores are a solid choice in my opinion its up to you which one you choose. But i prefer MKII due to it having faster rate of fire!
Due to MK II having a good rate of fire we don't need onslaught on it! So Infernus with sustained fire is my go to blessings this will give us good boss damage over all and help with the taking those crushers and reapers!
Ah one more thing before somebody says "Helbores arent good for clearing rooms" Here is a old footage i recorded clearing a room in damnation games this was pre-buffed Hellbore! ( Also don't mind the background noises for some reason my software recorded music + the youtube video i had on the background apologies! )
Melee Choices!
With the nerf to the overpowered powersword many veterans felt like they were out of options. This is not the case! Melee in Darktide is much more than pressing "activate special" button and swinging your weapon. Learning how to dodge block push will make you a over all better player and help you with clearing the damnation runs!
Standard-Issue Munitorum Sapper Shovel
Our first choice of weapon is the Shovel! It's not a joke it is actually a pretty decent melee weapon. Has good block and good dodge distance and fairly good amount of impact that will let us deal wtih the hordes pretty effectively.
Although heavy attack leaves much to be desired light attacks will help us stagger and clear the hordes if we need to!
With the Uncanny strike blessing and if you have the 4th level of it you can get up to %100 rending on enemy weak spot hits! This means we can deal damage to the Crushers! And good part is that its on any enemy weakspot hit. So if we hit a poxwalker in the head buff activates and carries through to the crusher. Buff doesnt reset when we switch targets and decimator is all around good damage buff!
Catachan Mk IV "Devil's Claw" Sword
This weapon is one of my favorite melee weapons for veteran! It does lack high damage to the carapache armor but makes it with the insane good cleave and horde control capabilities! with Mk IV having a good amount of damage on heavy attacks we can mix our heavies with lights to devistate horde's even aganist mutants and ragers this weapon can do work.
A tip aganist ragers is to if you find your self alone with a rager spam the parry ability! Rager will kill it self by just attacking you!
For Blessings Rampage and Savage sweep is a great deadly duo! It will give us more cleave and more damage when we are dealing with hordes!
Atrox Mk II Tactical Axe
Our last Melee choice is MkII tactical Axe! This thing is a beast and in my opinion very underrated in veteran. Due to having access to headtaker and decimator when used correctly it will make short work of hordes. And deal respectable amount of damage to the maniacs and crushers only downside is that having low stamina but that can be managed!
As mentioned before Brutal momentum and headtaker is a must in this weapon. With brutal momentum this weapon gains insane cleave and thanks to the attack patterns you will be activating your brutal momentum quite easily!
Talent Choices!
This will be our go to talent's for this build. But i will explain our choices and give alternatives depending on your play style!
Confirmed Kill and Exhilarating Takedown
These two feats are great! It's definelty a personal choice! If you can score headshots easily you might want to go with the Exhilarating takedown for examle if you sue MK XII you might want to using this feat since it will be easier to headshot but if you go for a helbore you can make use of the Confirmed Kill since you will be mowing down specials and elites much better.
But in the end its personal choice as for "At Arm's Length" its not worth picking it up its outshined by the other two feats
Demolition Stockpile and Sniper
Sniper will give extra damage to our shots which can be usefull if we want to take down bosses or bigger targets faster meanwhile Demolition stockpile will give us much more cc and potentially more damage if paired with frag strom. Both talents are viable but if you want to spam your Grenade's pick stockpile and tactical reload isnt needed since both weapons already have a faster reload speed
Demolition Team Covering Fire Bio-Optic Targeting
Run Demolition Team if you want to supply your ogryn's and zealots with extra bombs if not go for the covering fire with the recent buffs it is actually very good talent giving our melee specialist toughness regend and some damage on top of that! Bio-optic targetting is usually is not my choice for a veteran but there are some exceptions.
If there are a Lights out mission or a ventilation purge Bio-Optic targetting can be a huge benefit to the team. Aside from these you really shouldn't be picking it since other two feats offer greater benefits to your team
Unwavering Focus
While Camo Expert can be tempting and Duck and Dive seems nice Unwavering focus is so much better. Camo while makes you not the target for the ranged enemies it screws over your team. With Unwavering focus we can tank the ranged damage thanks to your huge pool of toughness!
Frag Storm
Deadshot is good on paper but we will have to manage our stamina much more and it will leave us with no stamina if we are not carefull. Having extra crit isnt worth the risk. One After Another is not needed due to reload speeds being faster.
Frag Storm will help us stack bleeds on bulwakrs reapers and bosses. You can use your Greanades to deal with reapers even if you cannot get a good shot on them.
Throwing two greanades will cc them and will apply bleed stacks shortly after they will die to your bleed. It is also a good defense aganist bulwarks. If you see your self be pushed by bulwarks throw couple of nades and watch them bleed!
Counterfire
Best feat in this feat tree in my opinion not only for the weakspot damage but it will help us to have our volley fire much longer! Other options are fine but this is my go to!
Curios!
Curios are mostly personal preference including the ressistances bonuses they give! But general rule is to have at least one +1 wound and +2 toughness. Due to having huge amount of toughness it will be better for a veteran to have high amount of it since if played correctly veteran will be tanking most of the ranged damage and will stay away from melee!
Thank You!
Thank you for reading my guide! This is not be all or end all build for veteran! This is a simple guide line for people who want to get into the damnation! Experiment with different weapons and find your playstyle! There is no "one build " for everything. Every build will have its weaknesses and strenghts.
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below or contact me in discord!
Darktide Convicts is a community server where we usually tackle damnation games! Feel free to join ask questions share your thoughts! Newbies and veterans are welcome!
https://discord.gg/ZnkckfzjCB
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2962254348
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