The Wall ™
 Zealot Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

This build was created 12/08/2023.

Summary:

The emphasis of this build is crowd control and tankiness. You stay alive to keep the team alive and flex around to thump the life out of anything that gets too close. I do not recommend taking damage intentionally, for any reason—this is not Vermintide 2. I optimized this build to smack around bosses and large groups of Crushers/Bulwarks/Maulers/Ragers—even better than a Crusher can. The ranged weapon serves the same purpose. It's somewhat inaccurate, but deals high DPS, has large amounts of stagger, and high suppression. Use it to keep dogs/ragers away, mow down specials/disablers, and suppress hordes of ranged enemies. Talents are based on the use of Wounds curios. Thy Wrath be Swift keeps you swinging incessantly. Everything else keeps you from taking damage or aids in damage output from the Hammer. 

• Use Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude to buy the team time to kill large waves of specials/elites, allow the team to rush a large group of ranged enemies, revive friendlies, push bosses off ledges, create space for completing a hacking objective, or save a friend from eating a fatal overhead attack. Being invulnerable is incredibly useful, so get creative and don't "save" it forever.
• Use Stunstorm Grenades for emergencies. If you can't use Chorus, this can serve some of the same purposes. Use them sparingly—particularly for emergency revives.

The Hammer: CC Wall and Power-Bopper

This is crucial, hehe: Thunderous is by far the most essential for this weapon, now that it doesn't have cleave. You can't sweep back entire groups of Carapace armor anymore, but this is the next best thing, so long as you pair it with Hammerblow. By applying Brittleness, you make Carapace armored enemies like Crushers much more manageable and prone to being staggered by the impact applied by Hammerblow. Just keep spamming heavies and juggle groups of Crushers/Bulwarks. Slap them with a charged special attack every now and then if you can to kill them off faster. It has enough power to slap groups of ragers to the ground and keep them at bay. Hordes of trash are a walk in the park. Dealing with bosses is straightforward. Keep charged-heavy bopping them. Once again, the pairing of Hammerblow and Thunderous is necessary if you want to maximize the CC. Neither Thrust nor Headtaker will be as effective, in any combination; I already tried that. Perks are whatever you like (this site won't let me input them correctly). I use +Damage to Unyielding and +Melee Weakspot Damage. Might be worthwhile to use Carapace.

The Gat: Mow Down, Suppress, and CC

I strongly suggest using this specific weapon for the added suppression/CC it provides to complement the Hammer. The other popular headhunter variants don't provide the same stagger or suppression and arguably have less DPS. Revolvers are nice, but again—no CC/Suppression. Use this to burn down dogs/snipers/mutants/ragers (really any disablers/specials) before they get too close or to help your ranged DPS dealers by dropping them quicker in a pinch. The DPS is surprisingly high. It can also be used to suppress a large group of Gunners/Shooters/Reapers in the backline before they can open fire and melt the team. Killing them is optional: you don't even need to be accurate, just suppress them. Sometimes it'll force those ranged enemies to reposition, which buys you more time to get closer with the team and bash them all to death. Mine has Fire Frenzy and Speedload, but you can test with something else. I suspect that Speedload might be something worth switching out. Perks on mine are +Damage to Flak and +Ranged Damage (Specialists). Once again, these are optional and you can mix and match as you like. Damage to Maniacs might be better in place of specialist damage, possibly.