Refreshed Dodge Efficiency on Weak Spot Hit. +{melee_weakspot_damage} Melee Weakspot Damage.
+12.5-20% Critical Chance for 6s on successful Dodge.
+30-60% Rending on Critical Hit.
+10% Critical Chance for every 0.3-0.45 second while aiming. Stacks 10 times. Discharges all stacks upon firing.
Up to date as of Unlocked and Loaded.
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While this is in fact a guide for what I believe is currently Vet's strongest build in the game, what this really is is more so a contrarian blog post about weapon meta, explaining why the Zarona Revolver outranks the Plasma Gun at high level play, and a general PSA on why weapon handling and mobility profiles contribute far more towards performance and skill ceiling potential than most people realize.
Both weapons are monstrously overpowered, and an initial comparison of their performance will easily suggest the Plasma Gun as the clear winner. However, the Zarona is a better choice for a multitude of reasons, as it can essentially do the same thing the Plasma Gun can do, but with an additional element of safety and efficiency thanks to its supreme mobility and swap time.
There are several high-performing ranged weapons in Darktide that turn the game into easy mode, the Plasma Gun being chief among them. The Zarona however is unique in that it is the only one of these weapons that also has been given the maximum mobility and handling profile, allowing a highly skilled player to reach a level of performance that is otherwise artificially limited by the base properties of other weapons.
Unlocking the full potential of the Zarona requires experience though, as it is heavily tied to the ability to dodge dance around close-range threats and kite without switching to melee, facilitating a playstyle where there is very little interruption to your ranged DPS. Without strict adherence to this daredevil playstyle, the Zarona is indeed just a worse Plasma Gun. Conveniently, the Zarona itself is what grants you the ability to safely play this way, you need only learn how to make use of it.
I cannot recall a single game I took seriously on either Vet or Zealot with the Zarona where I was outperformed by a Plasma Vet, but this is anecdotal evidence of course. Either way, both weapons are totally broken and will probably be nerfed, so enjoy the one that suites you best while you still can.
Q: I kill the enemies a lot faster in the Psykhanium with the Plasma Gun than the Zarona, why should I read this?
A: CTRL+F "///"
Key Talents: Voice of Command | Shredder Frag Grenade | Survivalist Aura | No Keystone
Alt Talents Candidates: Focus Target! + Target Down!, Vanguard + Tactical Reload, Field Improvisation
Avoid: Opening Salvo, Rending Strikes, Superiority Complex (Zarona absolutely doesn't need these)
ඞ : Only In Death Does Duty End
The main thing you should remember with this build is that you are using Deadshot. Deadshot consumes your stamina when you aim and fire. Being out of stamina on Veteran is extremely dangerous, it only takes a single stagger at the wrong time to take Vet from full health to downed if you can't properly block. The Zarona is in fact the only weapon I would ever suggest using with this talent. 25% crit chance and 60% sway reduction immeasurably improves the Zarona's effectiveness, while also minimizing the penalty to your stamina due to short ADS target acquisition times and its single-shot, high-damage firing pattern.
To supplement the constant need for stamina, Duck and Dive is a critical talent to pair with Deadshot. You will be dodging in ADS non-stop all mission, from all kinds of threat - both melee and ranged. Any time you dodge a ranged attack, you get 30% of your stamina back. This is the primary fuel for Deadshot, and hopefully will be triggering often enough that even with constant sprinting around, you are never left without stamina for too long.
Voice of Command and Survivalist are the no-brainer picks for your ability and aura, VoC's on-demand stagger and toughness is the single most valuable thing any Veteran can have right now, and the Zarona is somewhat ammo hungry, so the extra ammo generation helps a lot.
Clutch Grenades are for some reason still misnamed Frag Grenades in the current English localization, you take these grenades to make enemies stop doing things for a moment, so you can instead, do a thing. They aren't really for killing stuff, although the bleed can be useful against large packs of certain enemies like Ragers.
If you want to take a different talent, you can try dropping Determined (Suppression Immunity), I personally found Gunners to be far too obnoxious without it, even though I was still consistently headshotting them under heavy suppression. You can also drop Deadshot too if you really don't like the stamina drain. The Surgical blessing alone is more than enough to ensure every other shot you take with the Zarona is still a crit.
Q: No Keystone?
A: Dropping Marksman in favor of Focus Target! would normally be the right call here, I specifically do not do this with this build because...for me at least...tagging distant enemies is crucial for my aim. I tag a LOT. Without the red outline in the distance, hitting the head on a specific enemy is a lot harder for me.
Focus Target! doesn't synergize too well with my tag spam, so I prefer Marksman for ult staggering Crushers/Monstrosities then deleting them with follow-up headshots. But this may not be the case for you, so feel free to take it, and if you do, grab Target Down! as well.
Melee:
or
Ranged:
Okay hotshot, so what exactly is better about the Zarona?
Before writing this, I wanted to be sure my opinion on this matter wasn't biased, knowing full well the Plasma Gun is one of my least used weapons. I feel like I understand tide games quite intricately, and I was pretty sure I had it figured out even without racking up a ton of hours playing Plasma Vet.
After spending over an hour in the Psykhanium letting the entire arena fight me while trying to survive as long as possible with the Plasma Gun, it pretty much confirmed my thoughts exactly.
With the right blessings, the Plasma Gun and the Zarona Revolver are essentially the same weapon. They have the same range, the same cleave, very similar crit rate, similar ammo economy (although the Zarona is a bit better), and - with perfect aim and target acquisition - pretty much the same overall effectiveness against every single enemy, including bosses.
There are only two real differences between them. The first is the Plasma Gun's overheat mechanic, which is now mostly just a gimmick instead of a detriment, so we won't focus on that. The other difference, however, is quite massive, and is something I wish more people would talk about instead of focusing on perks, blessings, and talent combinations.
/// Here's the main breakdown
The Revolvers have a very special property that they share with only 2 other ranged weapons in the game. (Laspistol and Autopistol). It can be fired the instant you swap to it with zero delay. You can even ADS and fire near instantaneously with perfect accuracy straight from melee. This is incredibly impactful when you are under pressure trying to deal with threats at range while surrounded by enemies attacking you in melee. You can swap to the Zarona, instantly one-shot a taggable enemy, then immediately swap back to melee before anything has time to complete an attack animation against you. No other weapon with one-shot capabilities can perform this maneuver even half as fast as the Zarona. The Plasma Gun in particular fails spectacularly at this task.
In competitive FPS games, a skill commonly associated with high level play is the ability to be on-target before ADS. It is desirable to spend as little time in ADS as possible, as it can be considered a vulnerable state, so the aiming is done before the perspective shift, rather than after. This tactic can be used to its full benefit in Darktide ONLY with the Zarona, as it is the sole weapon in the game that can be instantaneously aimed and fired from melee with no delay and perfect accuracy, while also being powerful enough to one-shot enemies.
Higher mobility in general is just extremely valuable for any weapon. You hit the dodge limit after only 2 dodges on the Plasma Gun, and its dodge range is very poor. The Zarona lets you dodge dance around all you want while you reload and fire at more important targets than the trash trying to hit you in melee. This works equally as well against ranged enemies and serves as your primary source of stamina regeneration for Deadshot via the Duck and Dive talent. On Zealot, playing into this strength breaks the weapon even further since it is constantly triggering the Duelist talent, massively boosting the damage of critical hits.
Simplified Visualization:
Zarona Dodges (+4/-4): Great - Great - Great - Great - Good - Okay - Meh - Poor
Plasma Dodges (+2/-4): Okay - Okay - Meh - Poor - Awful - Useless
Another point to consider, the Plasma Gun kills your movement speed every time you take a shot. This quickly adds up to enemies surrounding you while you are on the defensive. The Zarona has no such problem. There is a very slight movement speed reduction while reloading, but even this can be bypassed entirely by simply side-dodging in the direction you want to move while loading rounds (which is something you should always be doing anyway). You can also dodge to mitigate the Plasma Gun's movement speed reduction while firing, but remember, you only get to do this twice before your dodges start to rapidly decay.
The Zarona can also fire twice as fast as the Plasma Gun, meaning you can snap to different targets and eliminate them in the blink of an eye. The incremental reloading does impact this efficiency somewhat, but Vet's reload speed talents mostly mitigate this downside. You will usually have the shots you need to get rid of the most urgent threats before needing to reload. It is also very common for single shots to take out multiple enemies, and sometimes you can take out an entire squad of elites with just two or three headshots.
The end results of my testing in the Psykhanium amounted to pretty much what I expected. When things are fine, Plasma Gun and Zarona perform about the same. I would even say the Plasma Gun does a little bit better. But when things start going wrong...when you are alone and being chased by the worst combination of enemies imaginable...with the Plasma Gun, you are a slug, a very powerful slug mind you, but still a slug, and you die a horrible death as the entire map gradually surrounds and overwhelms you. With the Zarona, you dodge, dodge, and dodge some more, click heads, hotswap between melee and back so fast that nothing has time to hit you, dodge, dodge, dodge, more head clicking, and then maybe, just maybe, you save the run on the class that should never save runs.
Q: BUT BULWARK SHIELDS!!!!!
A: They were already easy to deal with by just baiting an attack and dodging backwards, but now that the shield has an actual sensible hitbox, you can just shoot them anywhere behind it and they will almost always be staggered. A follow up headshot will instantly kill them. You can also knock over packs of them with a grenade, they should almost never cause you any trouble. Yellow barrels also work great.
Q: I feel like I'm missing something, how can you just always be dodging everything and never missing ever, wtf?
A: You probably are missing something. I have mods that let me see my dodge count (Numeric UI) and I have the Laspistol sight on the Zarona (Extended Weapon Customization). My aim is far worse without the sight, and constant dodge dancing is much harder to manage when you can't see the count. Also if you play with a controller you probably should stop reading this guide and just use the Plasma Gun.
Q: Why do you hate the Plasma Gun?
A: I don't hate the Plasma Gun!!!! I simply like to talk about the game's meta, and I just think the Zarona is meta. I also think people should use whatever they want to use, especially if someone else tells them not to use it! My suggestions are "do this if you want to be meta" not "do this if you want to be a valid player". I also don't actually mind Plasma Vets being everywhere, I happen to enjoy turning the match into a score attack minigame.
Melee Weapons:
Your melee weapon needs to do one thing on Veteran: Protect you from melee enemies. My preferred weapon for this job was the OG shovel...but now the Duelling Sword is by far the best choice...by like a mile. In addition to all the other things that make the weapon completely broken, the Agile blessing is probably the single best thing you could ever ask for on a Veteran melee weapon. It effectively nullifies your biggest weakness as Vet, you are no longer defenseless when out of Stamina and dodges...because you cannot run out of dodges...ever. The point of this guide is to be meta after all.
Note: The Mk V Duelling Sword is likely Vet's best option, rather than the Mk IV or Mk II, since it has double the dodge distance, as we are worried more about staying alive in melee vs. killing things.
If you prefer a more reasonable, not completely broken weapon, the Chainsword, Catachan Swords, Sapper Shovels, and of course if you know how to use it - the Combat Blade - are also great picks...just DO NOT USE LOW MOBILITY WEAPONS ON VETERAN, YOU WILL DIE.
M35 Magnacore Mk II Plasma Gun | Gets Hot! + Focused Cooling or Rising Heat or Gloryhunter | Any 25% Perks (Breakpoint Dependant)
I hope you didn't think I would omit this, as it is of course, the single best alternative to the Zarona. You know what it does. It's broken, every Vet uses it, and it's half the reason I wrote this guide. After reading everything I wrote, you can choose this weapon anyway to really stick it to the man.
There are several ways you want to set up your Plasma Gun depending on your selected talents in order to reach certain breakpoints. I prefer to build for the weapon with talents, blessings, and perks that keep it critting and hitting its 1-shot breakpoints as often as possible:
Throwing these all together hits every major breakpoint without needing any keystone talents, and leaves some room for build variation. You can also use the Rising Heat blessing to reach your breakpoints with less talents, but I personally think being able to spam uncharged shots with Focused Cooling is more valuable.
Note: Blaze Away and Shattering Impact do absolutely nothing for this gun. The number of shots it takes to kill something remains exactly the same with Shattering Impact. Blaze Away actually does nothing at all unless you fire as fast as possible - and guess what happens when you do that? That's right, your damage goes down instead of up, because now you are missing half your shots. You should almost never charge the gun either, so Volatile is also a waste. If you see someone recommending these blessings, especially if they are a Vet main, ESPECIALLY if they are on Reddit, tell them they are silly and give them the smiley face with the caret nose :^)
Turtolsky Heavy Swords | Headtaker + Deathblow or Thrust or Rampage | +Flak, +2 Stamina or +Maniacs or +Crit Chance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Heavy Sword is one of the strongest general purpose melee options in the game. Its only shortcomings are its inability to quickly take down Carapace and Monstrosities, necessitating that your ranged weapon be able to perform this function - luckily you are using the best gun in the game for that very function. This weapon will obliterate hordes and Elites that dare to get too close to you. Like the Devil's Claw swords, it is worth taking the time to get familiar with the attack patterns of the different Marks, learn to line up your swings to hit multiple enemies in their weak points, especially if you are using the Deathblow blessing.
Cadia Assault Chainswords | Shred + Bloodletter | +Flak, +Crit Chance or +Unyielding
The Chainsword is a very strong jack-of-all-trades weapon that doesn't really even need blessings or perks to perform well. Ideally you want it to crit as much as possible with Shred, then for your 2nd blessing, you can go with whatever you think suits you best. I am on the fence regarding the usefulness of cleave perks on high cleave weapons, but if you are stuck with Wrath or Savage Sweep, don't let it bother you. Bloodletter is a super fun blessing if you like to melee elites, even if it is a little risky to always be revving. Throwing 14 bleed stacks on something really quick then ignoring it to shoot stuff while it bleeds to death can be very satisfying.
Catachan "Devil's Claw" Swords | Rampage + Shred or Wrath | +Flak, +Crit Chance or +2 Stamina
The Devil's Claw swords are great anti-horde weapons with excellent mobility and a useful special action. The Mk IV has the easiest attack patterns, but with practice you will likely find the Mk VII a more versatile option. Single-target damage on the swords is also quite good. If you want to save some ammo against nearby maniacs, put your gun away and start slashing and parrying. Just don't bother trying to fight Ogryns or Monstrosities with this weapon, use your gun. Taking the time to learn the parry timings and attack patterns of the different Marks goes a long ways towards your overall effectiveness with this weapon.
Munitorum Mk III/Agni Mk Ia Shock Maul | High Voltage + Skullcrusher or Opportunist | +Flak, +Maniacs or +Crit Chance
The shock mauls are a welcome addition to Vet's melee weapon arsenal, offering a balanced mix between crowd control and single target damage. While it won't clear hordes of enemies as quickly as the swords, its special attack is extremely useful for not only damaging more problematic enemies like Maulers and Crushers, but also staggering them out of their animation cycles, providing a very safe and reliable option for dealing with armor if your ranged weapon does not have that capability.
Munitorum Sapper Shovels | Decimator + Skullcrusher or All or Nothing | +Flak, +Unarmoured or +2 Stamina
The shovels are very well-rounded weapons that fulfill the primary requirement of Vet's melee weapon in that they adequately protect you from lesser enemies; offering reasonable cleave, killing power, and mobility. They are simply outshined by some of the better options Vet now has access to.
In my Zealot guides, I have talked about why I think Health is the #1 thing you should prioritize on your curios. The same holds true for Vet, you just cannot allow yourself to be sent into critical health from a single unlucky Poxburster or random stray hit, then limp along for the next 5 minutes too worried about your health to take any offensive initiative. Veteran is a delicate class, a glass cannon really. Psyker is too, but Psyker has options for infinite crowd control and blocking, Vet does not. When you are out of grenades and stamina, and your ability is on cooldown, you are on very thin ice.
I am serious about this guys. I play nothing but Zealot and very rarely even get on Vet. But when I do, I go all Health. I am still always the last one standing. Stop listening to people who do not offer practical insight into the mechanics of this game, there are more things going on than numbers that determine if you win or lose - I see Veterans with max Toughness builds in my games all the time, and without fail, I witness the same thing happen over and over to them. They take zero damage from anything a good long while, strolling through the level high on life confident that they are invincible (and you might almost think that they are at first)...Then suddenly a random unavoidable Poxburster blows up in their face, or a Mutant chucks them into a fiery mess of enemies while trash mobs land stray blows. All that Toughness is immediately gone and the Health damage ramps up so quickly they don't even have time to press the panic button before going down. That one little incident can and WILL snowball into a mission loss if the rest of the team was relying on that Vet hard carry.
The fact of the matter is, you will experience incidents where your health gets chunked and your Toughness had no real influence on mitigating the damage. For these cases, you need Health to not be immediately on the floor.
A good player does not need stacked Toughness to avoid damage from ranged attacks and trash melee mobs. (Especially with the broken ass shout ability) But even the best player in the world is still going to get randomly abused by the director, and stacking Health is the only true defense against director abuse.
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PERKS
For your perks, you have several options to choose from.
Do you want 2x Health, 1x Toughness?
2x Health, 1x Stamina (For Deadshot)? <-- I personally use this, but generally the average player is better off with more Health/Toughness
3x Health w/ 3x 5% Toughness?
The following perks I think you should also consider mandatory:
3x Stamina Regeneration
1x Gunner Resistance (x2 is perhaps not necessary on shout Vet)
2x Sniper Resistance
x2 Corruption Resistance
My setup is what is shown at the top of the build page, but feel free to experiment with whatever you think fits you best.
Perks stack multiplicatively, meaning they offer diminishing returns as you take more of them.
Three 20% perks is not 60%, it is 0.800³ which equals 0.512 and when subtracted from 1.000 ends up as 0.488.
So three 20% Something Resistance perks are actually only providing you with a total of 48.8% resistance. Two provides 36% resistance.
Taking this into consideration, you get much more value out of your perks by not taking a 3rd resistance perk, and instead allocating the slot to something else entirely. The following perks are the ones I consider to be the most valuable and impactful of the lot:
Best in Slot:
x1 or x2 - 20% Gunner Resistance (basically mandatory) [+16% resistance from the 2nd; a 3rd only adds +12.2% resistance - not worth the slot]
x2 - 20% Sniper Resistance (no matter how much you think you won't get sniped, you will still get sniped) [prevents being chunked]
x2 - 15% Corruption Resistance (significantly reduces damage from Poxbursters, tox gas, and all corruption) [3 adds very little, only take 2]
x3 - 12% Stamina Regeneration (Veteran needs all the Stamina he can get to stay alive, especially when Deadshot is leeching it)
Good Second Picks:
x? - 5% Toughness (Toughness is always welcome on Veteran, and we are in desperate need of it with this setup)
x1 - 20% Gunner Resistance (if you find yourself getting shredded by Gunners a lot, taking all 3 for the maximum resistance isn't a bad idea)
x1 - 20% Sniper Resistance (same as above; if you are a Sniper magnet, take all 3)
x1 - 20% Tox Flamer Resistance (both Flamers, applies to melee, fire, ground flame, and tank explosion - but not tank explosion ground flame)
x1 - 20% Bomber Resistance (both Bombers, applies to melee, grenade explosions, ground flame, and damage from Tox Bomber gas)
Questionable:
x? - 5% Health (we have enough Health now, the perk slot is too valuable to waste on a minuscule HP increase)
x? - 10% Revive Speed (can save missions but its hard to justify reserving the slot for something that only helps under rare circumstances)
x? - 15% Sprint Efficiency (some people love this, but I think its a waste of a slot, especially with Duck and Dive always giving you Stamina)
x? - 12% Block Efficiency (Veteran should be DODGING, not blocking. If you have the Duelling Sword with Agile, this is extra useless!)
Completely Useless Wastes of a Slot:Experience
Ordo Dockets
Chance of Curio as Mission Reward
Pox Hound Resistance
Mutant Resistance
Grimoire Corruption Resistance
Toughness Regeneration Speed
Combat Ability Regeneration
