A quick guide for veteran penance On Overwatch

A guide for veteran class players who didn't attend the beta test or haven't figured out how to deal with the penance.

Intro and the concept of this penance

This penance requires player to finish a round with at least malice or higher difficulty and suffer no melee damage. Whoa sounds crazy innit?

The melee damage refers to the actual HP of players, that white one, and thus as long as melee damages only reduce your toughness (blue) it will be fine. That being said, a melee attack from behind will most likely damage both the toughness and health bar. It is also highly possible that the second and the third strike from poxwalker will also have similar effect if player is being attacked by multiple poxwalkers.

UPDATE 12/07/2022: SEVERAL PLAYERS ENCOUNTERED PROBLEMS THAT DAMAGE TO TOUGHNESS OR FROM FLAMER IS CONSIDERED AS BEING HIT.


Poxwalkers in The Meat Grinder

The greatest threat is the poxwalkers and the horde, please watch your back and keep distances with the horde unless have to engage.


Renegade guardsman in The Meat Grinder

The renegade guards with melee weapons and their counterpart of the dreg are also able to ignore the toughness. Avoid being attacked if possible, use your melee weapons to defend and push when encounter too many.


If you are attacked by the hound or mutant and luckily enough a teammate kill them at once you would be safe. Any other sources of attack that are from ranged enemies will be fine, but I’m not sure about the bomber and trapper.

Choices of weapons: Ranged

High damage Mk XII lasgun

This is perhaps the best lasgun series weapon for the penance, and for me it is also the best ranged weapon choice. Your focus is the damage and ammo. It might be hard to find ammo in game because you need to stay relatively rear in the team.

Another option is the bolter

For bolter build the important things are damage and reload speed.
Bolter is able to provide the best suppression and the ability to clear the incoming horde without aiming. You always need to save ammo and also keep your mag full.

Agripinaa Mk VIII Braced Autogun might be useful but consumes ammo really quick.

Choices of weapons: Melee

My choice is the power sword, when activated you can clear hordes like a knife through butter. Arguably Mobility is the most important one, then Finesse and Damage. Or perhaps Finesse the first.

You might also try shovel or Catachan Mk4

Antax Mk V or similar strike pattern weapons are NOT RECOMMENDED, which is due to they are too slow for handling multiple targets (unless you are confident with this) . Crowd control weapons with good ability to defend are the best bet.

Core part: FEAT

The most important one is the CAMO EXPERT. As long as you equip this one and do not leave your teammates too far, you will not be targeted as priority by the AI. This feat is truly very broken but it doesn’t represent you are safe forever. You still need to keep close to your rest team (coherency is not important but not too far) cuz trait is useless when not doing so.

The rest is not that important, really depending on your preference.

Go with the first option for the last feat (unlocked at lv30) might be useful if you are doing the bolter run.

Core part: THE CHOICE OF MAP

Enclavum Baross Habzone HL-19-24 “Throneside”

Special condition for low-intensity engagement zone is the most helpful one but not extremely necessary.
Keep in mind you need to do this with malice or higher difficulty and thus I suggest you to try with three other friends or with character level at least 25 for better weapons.

Core part: IN-GAME STRATEGY I

The reason why you want to play on this map is because you can easily skip the brutal hordes in last stage. There’s a position where you can stand next to but never enter the station.

And you just wait here (and by providing overwatch with ranged weapon supports) until your teammates purged all the heretics and the time to board valkyrie has finally come.

You can even put a ammo box for better camping experience.

This place is really great and I really recommend to not only the sharpshooter but other ranged classes to try because you are lessly targeted (since you are not vet, you might get a mutant) by the enemies but also able to provide firepower over the both enemy spawn points.

It is also optional that ask a teammate to stand in the place shown in the marked blue circle where is right above you in the map to attract the enemies, but not really necessary cuz almost every enemy ignores you.
This is the most effective way of using your camo feat but may also weakening your teams' firepower since there are two people on overwatch.

You still need to check your back once you start to defend the station

. A six people squad of melee will be spawned further behind you, routine shown in picture and patrolling in slow speed but eventually they would notice, other than that you are safe. Funny fact, never met this squad in my psyker run with malice difficulty. Perhaps Fatshark knows what they are doing lol.

Core part: IN-GAME STRATEGY II

Another place that players need to be more cautious is the bridge stage where you need to carry batteries and hold a bridge from the hordes.

It is recommended to have two ogryn teammates or at least a member with decent melee skills so they are able to camp the sides of the bridge where the enemies are spawned.

Technically the safest place in this scene is where a Leman Russ Demolisher tank located, but as I said you need to stay closer enough to at least one member that is not a veteran with camo feat. Suggest to ask a zealot with bolter or flamer to bodyguard you, ogryn with crowd control weapons works as well.

Another safe place (relatively) is next to the fence on the bridge where will be opened shortly after you finished defending the bridge. The only reason for here is when your teammates are able to control both two spawn points. Or you can stay somewhere next to those who are spawn camping and provide some ranged supports.
Once you are able to pass through the bridge, if there are already too much walkers when defending, leave at once and wait your team in the middle. If hordes are cleared, proceed with the team.

Do not stay in the very rear of your team when proceeding to the next places, try asking a guy to stay behind you (perhaps a poor psyker) . Always check your back and your surrounding environments. Jump off any high ground if your teammates already did so, especially there’s are hordes incoming. Hounds, mutants and pox walkers are easily spawned next to those who are alone.

Trivia: THE BETA TEST STRATEGY

Before the game was released, in Beta test version people were able to finish the penance by disconnecting the game with alt F4 and reconnecting back. Most people got the achievement by asking teammates to wait them to do so in the final stage of a game. Reconnecting back was considered as a new round but dev apparently fixed that.

However, I haven’t tried if you can also get the penance by disconnecting at some point of time you are not damaged by melee and wait til the final scene to reconnect back. You are not able to hop back after five minutes since you disconnect tho you can try this multiple times, considering the game length of a malice difficulty usually takes 20 to 30 minutes by judging on the strength of your team. It is also unconfirmed that whether the damages taken by the bots before you are considered as the melee damage taken by you or not.

Another option is jump off a cliff and get yourself killed somehow and wait people to rescue in the end. The thing is it might be hard to do so in Malice Threat because every player is important.

Notes: According to several players, it seems fall and flamer damages are considered as melee now.

Conclusion

Outcomes? Train go boom On Overwatch and the second stage of helmet penance.

Honestly other maps work as well, just be sharp and careful. I hope this guide helps and if you have better ideas or enjoy my method,

feel free to leave a comment or like

Thank you!

[Nuris]

disconnecting even once voids the whole penance, even when the bot didn't receive any damage.

[Uga buga buga]

I got bumped, when he jumped on the guy next to me, he didn't jump on me, just to clarify.

[XDemonR]

Strange: I passed penance when I was hit by a dog on 1 hp and touched a barrel.

[Zeraphy]

yes

[XDemonR]

Does damage from dogs and mutants count?

[Uga buga buga]

Just completed it, took a bump from the hound, did 1 hp dmg, but it didn't count as melee. Lots of toughness dmg, and a barrel to the face, still counted towards the achievment.

[[14e] Rigolax]

Done it with Bolter and Power Sword. As mentioned, Camo Expert feat is a MUST for this penance. Stay in a corner and most enemies will leave you be.
BUT you have to help your team. SO good weapon to fire while standing still and
Demolition Stockpile feat(+1 Grenade/minute) is great for those hordes and rough spots.
I confirm that the map Enclave Baross as shown in this guide is perfect for this penance.
A lot of room to breathe and a lot of visibility.
Been able to get On Overwatch and Untouchable (plus On Target (2)).
Great guide.

[^9Emaiky]

Thanks dude. That helped a lot. Did my penance first try after reading guide. For the Emperor.

[Zeraphy]

Already stated disconnecting only worked during beta, but another few similar tricks haven't been tested yet. For toughness somehow people found it work while sometimes not; hope there will be a clearer answer from dev in the updates this Wednesday

[Asphyxion]

I've done all the penances for veteran now and this was by far the hardest one (way harder than the heresy ones too imo).

Disconnecting doesn't work anymore so you should add that to the guide. Also toughness damage counted as taking damage for me when I did this at least.

Another map that I personally found very good was the raid one where you have to deactivate skyfire defenses and then hold for extraction. Can't recall the exact name.