What is the best build for zealot in damnation?

[lemoncurdman]

Title, currently i got a combat knife with laceration, but idk what othr perk to put on it, me feats are faith restored, bloodletting, benediction, holy revenant, rising conviction and invocation of death. Any tips on my ranged weapon as well?

[Silverquick]

I haven't seen anyone running a knife zealot in ages.
People kinda figured out they weren't all they cracked up to be.

[Who trains thy hands for war?]

Really enjoying Eviscerator + Kantrael Shotgun

Eviscerator with most other ranged just seems boring, but comes to life somehow with Shotgun. Eviscerator also does well with Braced Mark VIII Agripinaa Autogun

https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=98cc26a7-1a05-4d65-9371-67b55ace8b75

Spec is here ^
regen Toughness in close combat / +impact on 3 enemies hit / reduced Toughness damage taken / heal from damage dealt when reaching 1 health / melee hit increases damage by 4% / double charge

[Who trains thy hands for war?]

Learn Eviscerator movesets, vs horde it is generally heavy + light + light mixed with push attack + light

Look for cover. Sprint and slide a lot, into cover and directly into melee combat. Shotgun makes it really easy to advance

Can sprint slide, and during the slide switch to the shotgun and shoot, then switch back to Eviscerator to sprint slide again

[Yasahi]

Best is quite subjective really.

If you want to go with the Combat Blade, get Mercy Killer as the second Blessing. It adds quite a lot of damage with Lacerate. Just remember to hit bigger enemies first in the body to get them bleeding. Haven't really seen that many knife builds for a while. A flamer goes well with it for some horde clearing utility.

Antax Mk V Combat Axe with Brutal Momentum and Headtaker is great. Others love the Thunder Hammer for 2-shotting Deamonhosts etc. and some others swear by the Eviscerator, Heavy Sword or one of the Tactical Axes.

Zealots can run several efficient builds.

[xDaunt]

I don’t know that there is an optimal zealot melee weapon for damnation. You just need to find something that fits you and is comfortable for you to use. The only thing that I think that the weapon needs is good armor piercing ability. I really like the mk 2 hammer and use it to great effect.

Ranged weapons are a different story. I think you have three main options: flamer, bolter, and the mk IX shotgun (the incendiary one). Of the three, I’m pretty sure that the mk IX is the best all around weapon and will soon be the “meta” pick.

[Saltgrind3r]

Melee weapons I use on Damnation:

1. Combat Axe mk5 (Shred + Brutal Momentum OR Headtaker + Brutal Momentum)
   
2. Tactical Axe mk7 (Shred + Brutal Momentum; still looking for more blessings here)
   
3. Combat Knife (Lacerate + Flesh Ripper)

Ranged Weapons I use on Damnation:

1. Agripinaa mk8 Braced Autogun (¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
   
2. Boltgun (Pinning Fire + Shattering Impact)
   
3. Ius mk3 Shredder Autopistol (Pinning Fire + Blaze Away)

All of these weapons allow for a pretty mix and match approach depending on what I'm in the mood to use and/or what the team needs.

[J.P.]

Mk. IX Heavy Sword with Headtaker & Deathblow
Bolter pinning fire & shattering impact
3-2-2-1-2-3

been working really good for me on hi int troop

[DLCI]

best knife blessings once you have lacerate

#1 - riposte b/c it gives you a 10-15% crit chance buff for 2 seconds after dodging, and with knife u will be dodging almost constantly
#2 - the rending blessings, either 'ruthless backstab' or 'uncanny strike' b/c it will let u kill crushers very fast if you can get an angle to back-of-head stab them
#3 - executor, which gives +5% power / 5 stacks off weakspot hits


altho it depends if haymaker on knife still has the bug where it builds stacks on both light/heavy hits

mercy killer is still good, normally the math on weakspot/crit damage buffs is sketchy and makes it add a lot less than you might think

but knife has such a huge finesse bonus that it still adds up

knife is 55 base light and 150 base heavy with 155/400 on light heavy weakspot hit

so you get 95/250 weakspot damage

T4 mercy killer is +50% weakspot damage vs bleeders

this adds ~45 damage on light headshots and ~125 damage on heavies which is about +25% total weakspot damage across the board, quite significant for a blessing

Originally posted by Silverquick:

I haven't seen anyone running a knife zealot in ages.
People kinda figured out they weren't all they cracked up to be.

tbh there were a lot of factors

biggest thing was the nerf of faith restored from 75% TDR to 50% TDR

it got a whole lot harder to dance around a poxwalker horde slowly wearing them down for hours if you can no longer ignore any/all hits

another big part of that was that power blessings didnt work right, knife doesn't rely on those, but relative to the weapons that do rely on broken power blessings, it worked a lot better.

as soon as they fixed +power buffs so that they added cleave/stagger in addition to damage, things like tac-axe or combat axe with strong +power blessings immediately became much better choices

i think the other thing was the speedrun spawning penalties they added to punish players who ran too far ahead of their teammates, but off the top of my head I do not remember when that was, it may have happened while people still tried to rambo damnation regularly

knife can still do a lot of damage but you can't play the invincible solo zealot with it anymore and was the major appeal of it

[Grr. [SG CMD] Majah Lazah]

Originally posted by lemoncurdman:

Title, currently i got a combat knife with laceration, but idk what othr perk to put on it, me feats are faith restored, bloodletting, benediction, holy revenant, rising conviction and invocation of death. Any tips on my ranged weapon as well?

If you're running a knife you need both bleed perks or mercy + bleed, and you need to how to do the push flick one shot.

[Who trains thy hands for war?]

the new Mk IV Thunder Hammer + Shredder Autopistol looks promising as well

With Hammer I would spec attack speed increase with less health instead of +impact on 3, and +ranged damage at close ranges rather than +4% damage on melee hit.

I have Slaughterer on Hammer (+power on kill) anyway, and with the +ranged damage at close range the Shredder plays almost like it's on a Veteran for close in Ragers and Mutants, and innately staggers Flamers and Dogs, blasts away Trappers, etc

[ThePaleHunter]

I usually run Eviscerator for melee and have been bouncing between Bolter and Agrippa Braced Autogun for ranged. Flamer is great too but if you've got the Eviscerator down it should handle most hordes nicely.

[derp face]

agripinaa shotgun is good on zealot too

[lemoncurdman]

Originally posted by Buff Carnage:

Really enjoying Eviscerator + Kantrael Shotgun

Eviscerator with most other ranged just seems boring, but comes to life somehow with Shotgun. Eviscerator also does well with Braced Mark VIII Agripinaa Autogun

https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=98cc26a7-1a05-4d65-9371-67b55ace8b75

Spec is here ^
regen Toughness in close combat / +impact on 3 enemies hit / reduced Toughness damage taken / heal from damage dealt when reaching 1 health / melee hit increases damage by 4% / double charge

Ive tried using eviscerator before and its not worked well for me, am i using it wrong, when u use the ability does it make one attack revved and then go back to normal combos,, or can you hold it and do more than 1 revved attack?

[ThePaleHunter]

Originally posted by lemoncurdman:

Originally posted by Buff Carnage:

Really enjoying Eviscerator + Kantrael Shotgun

Eviscerator with most other ranged just seems boring, but comes to life somehow with Shotgun. Eviscerator also does well with Braced Mark VIII Agripinaa Autogun

https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=98cc26a7-1a05-4d65-9371-67b55ace8b75

Spec is here ^
regen Toughness in close combat / +impact on 3 enemies hit / reduced Toughness damage taken / heal from damage dealt when reaching 1 health / melee hit increases damage by 4% / double charge

Ive tried using eviscerator before and its not worked well for me, am i using it wrong, when u use the ability does it make one attack revved and then go back to normal combos,, or can you hold it and do more than 1 revved attack?

I use it this way; on hordes it's heavy then light swing, no rev. On specials you rev then heavy swing - one or two will kill most anything besides Ogryn - those take a few more but it's so great to chop them in half on a kill.

For the special ability a heavy swing will use the full rev up - maybe you can get two light swings when revved up? I never rev it unless I'm heavy swinging a special in any case.

[ChisaiiNeko]

I like using Crusher + Fire shotty.

Crusher works well against hordes, deals with elites well enough. The shotty can blast apart packs of ragers and shooters + shotgunners. At long distances, it can stagger hard enough to matter. For hordes, if they are far enough away, use two fire rounds to melt a bunch away. If they are close, one round to soften then use the crusher. Do not keep firing dragon's breath past the initial shots. You can pump a few normal shots in if you want but keep an eye on ammo.

Regen talent to bring is the passive regen when near 3 enemies or more. Last talent to use is double ult charges. Also bring the ranged damage increase based on proximity to target. the fire round can bypass Bulwerk shield and it appears to also stagger them so set it alight then blast the soft spots. If up close to one, use the Crusher.

Last thing to make note of is to use the sparkle nades to keep shooter crowds heavily staggered if they are not being removed quickly enough. Also use them mid horde if they are starting to overwhelm. Do keep 1 handy for revives though. There is enough nade pickups scattered around so they can still be used somewhat liberally. Just be sure to make full usage of the sparkle duration.