Back to the Boltgun
 Zealot Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

You thought it was dead...

The bolt gun on zealot is back baby! There are a few key talents on this tree that make it extremely powerful in the hands of a zealot, probably even better than on the veteran.

Anoint in Blood: most of the time when you use your bolter in this build it will be at close range, so this is just a flat damage boost.

Knife Grenades: we need these because the bolter is slow as fuck to pull out.  These also will save you a massive amount of ammo when used properly.  

Second Wind/Dance of Death/Good Balance/Inebriate's Poise: the combo of theses skills means you get a lot of value out of dodging.  No, we're not going for Duelist but you could cut some wounds and such to get there.  I don't recommend doing that because it's not required for the Game Plan.  Quick warning: it's critical you use a weapon where dodging is strong and part of the plan. You should never use the devil claw sword with this build, because you will want to parry instead of dodge with that weapon!

Loner: a necessary sacrifice for this build - you can't get the "better" auras.  But it does come in handy.  This makes toughness regen on curios pretty meaningful when it kicks in.

Shroudfield + auxilliary: safe way to help your friends up (just be sure they aren't about to get nailed by an overhead or instakilled right after you do).  Or reload, or get out your gun if a pack of shotgunners appears right next to you.  Get to a pack of gunners (risky), or just get your toughness back up, this is pretty spammable.  Just beware sending too much aggro to your teammates.  Remember that just because you are invis doesn't mean you can't get killed by an overhead.

Faith's Fortitude: in terms of comparing to item value, this gives you the equivalent of +42% health, or +32% toughness.  The attack speed and health on the way are icing on the cake

Pious Cut-Throat: goes great with a high dodge range weapon where you can dodge behind an enemy while charging an overhead.  Instantly regen your ult from small groups of enemies.  Try to kill stuff from behind anyway for the rending and backstab damage bonus!

Inexorable Judgement: this truly shines with the boltgun, especially if you have some recoul reduction, where your fire rate and DPS will be through the roof while you have stacks.  Don't focus on maintaining them, you will get them naturally if you are dodging.

There is plenty more to say about the logic behind each of these, but this guide shouldn't be too long.

Game Plan:

The boltgun has too limited ammo and is too unwieldy to take out for most situations. Think of it almost like a more traditional grenade - an "oh shit" button to be used when you see a pack of crushers, maulers,  or ragers.  If you need to use shroudfield to get it out you can.  If you have recently dodged and you have inexorable judgement stacks up, firing at a close range target, you should be able to kill multiple damnation crushers per magazine easily and in seconds. 

For most specials, your throwing knife will be a much faster option that will also save on ammo.  This completely negates the biggest downside of the bolter in many situations: how long it takes to get it out.  It's also a great tool against mid range gunners and shotgunners, though ultimately you may just want to close into melee against them by spamming heavies.  Haymaker works on heavy attacks, the push attack, and the punch follow up.

For virtually everything else, you should be dodge sliding around and killing it with your combat knife.  Haymaker is very strong on the chained heavies when it builds up to 5 stacks and the stacks last a long time now.  It seems to work on heavy attacks, the push attack, and the punch follow up attack (which is an overhead that does great AP damage by the way - a great tool vs a lone rager).  None of these targets really need duelist.

The survival package for this build is, first of all, that you have a crap load of stacking toughness damage reduction, especially if you are getting some crits and dodges. That's why we are stacking toughness on curios.  The value of health has some diminishing returns when we already have +10% in the tree.  The second layer is shroudfield.  You should be the last one alive if you are using this when you get into shit (of course there is always random trapper net that prevents this).  You should have it up always because backstabs kills are very easy to get with the high dodge range on the dagger.