Chudjak Hammer Zealot
Build for Darktide

Often times it is the case in auric level stuff, a monster spawning during hordes & strike teams (and/or any other difficult modifiers) causes losses. This happens because most of the time no one on the team has anything that can actually damage bosses. It is the case that any weapon can kill a monster, but it will take a long time, and other enemies may (will) get in the way. Using this build, you can kill monsters very easily in a few hits. 'Weakened' monsters from the maelstrom die in one hit. By the same token, other enemies die in one hit. 

I think this is the ideal specialized zealot build. Woundmaxxx with curios to get buffs, I recommend toughness and gunner resist perks.  

The blessings I have on the hammer are mandatory, as the hammer is basically used in two contexts, heavy swings (thrust) to kill tough enemies in one hit, and killing small groups of semi-shitter (non highlightable) enemies in one hit each (headtaker). Without the corresponding blessings, it cant do those two things in one hit, so it's bad because the hammer swings somewhat slowly even at max chudrage stacks.

Pros:

Kills everything in one hit

kills hordes

Cons:
NO RANGED

The large downside of this build is that you have NO ranged capabilities, which means you must trust your veteran to be competent until you are really sweatmaxxed. Until then, Ranald be with you (unless you have a friend(s) to queue with)

Tips:

Something you must learn to do is slide while winding up your swing, because you need to get thrust stacks to kill many types of in one hit

Aim to have 5 wounds missing. No corruption, no heal. 

Pay attention to Until Death (resist death) the borders of your screen turn white. remember what the icon looks like and play carefully when it is on cooldown.  

Attack the beast of nurgle from the side and jump to hit its weak spot. if you are really close to its front, you can hit the backstab spot from the front dark souls style, but you're at a risk of getting onara vored; aim to go at it from the side, and remember you swing left first (the priest is right handed)

Health priority: psyker/vet > ogryn > priest

The flamer kills hordes, as the hammer does not cleave very well. The reload blessing is self explanatory. 

Overpressure and blaze away are both great, and are likely the best choices, blaze away being better imo. Showstopper seems bad, but the explosion does a lot of damage and often causes other elites to explode, which can save you during shitstorms, as without showstopper, the flamer does not do much against elites, which are sometimes dispersed in hordes of tweakers (which you should flame) However blaze away is still better.

Ammo priority isn't as cut and dry as grenades but the flamer does not use that much ammo, especially since you only really use it during hordes and in desperation. Rely on the veteran welfare aura for ammo (aeceticmaxxxing).

Ammo priority: vet > priest > ogryn 

Priest and ogryn are both not particularly dependant on ammo, and usually the priest can fully subsist on veteran welfare ammo, so the priest does not often pick up ammo. However if both the priest and the ogryn are low, the priest should get it because he is more helpless without any ammo (hammer is weak vs hordes).

If you do not have corruption, DO NOT HEAL.

if you are at full health, damage yourself using a fire barrel or some other fire effect. In my experience, 5 wounds missing/5 stacks is the ideal mix of damage and tank/dangerously low health. Remember that you get 5% toughness dmg resist per wound, and you have until death as a second life of sorts. If you are not missing wounds, you can't kill some enemies in one hit, which means you're pretty shit and you won't do you duty. I don't know the exact level of thrust for each amount of wounds, but 5 feels the best. DONT HEAL UNLESS YOU HAVE CORRUPTION. If you are in a very desperate situation and until death is on cd, maybe heal, but know you are losing your dmg.