Inquisitorial Preacher | Immolation Grenade | Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude | Blazing Piety | Auric Ready
Build for Darktide

The Preacher

With Invocation of Death no longer proccing multiple instances in a single swing (In fact any new proc in under 4 seconds only resets the cooldown timer), a few changes were in order for this build. It is no longer necessary to build crit in the blessings, as we do not benefit from it proccing every swing. It's possible to get our critical chance up to 60% without taking Shred, freeing up more blessing choices. The Tigrus Mk XV Heavy Eviscerator was initially taken for its ability to deal massive cleave and proc multiple instances of Invocation of Death. That is no longer necessary, so I have instead changed to the Tigrus Mk II Heavy Eviscerator. which boasts a faster swing speed and arguably a better moveset. We swap out Faithful Frenzy for Duellist. The former is no longer as necessary as the with our faster swing speed, and the later perk has recently been buffed, and works well with the new Eviscerators vertical strikedowns.

Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude is one of the most busted abilities in the game. It applies a massive overshield to you and your team, is a damage buff, and suppresses all enemies in range. It is essentially a 'pause the game' button, stopping all action and giving your team time to deal with the threats. This ability is normally balanced by a lengthy cooldown time. This build aims to shorten that as much as possible. The recent nerf to Invocation of Death means that each swing can now only crit once per swing, rather than once per hit. Whilst you can no longer start chanting whilst your previous shield is still up, you can still lower your cooldown significantly. Turn that ragged horde into a free shield for you and your team and stun every heretic with the emperor's holy light. 

Playstyle

Trash clear is your speciality. When a fight breaks out, your job is to clear through the trash horde and start refreshing your ability Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude. This build is all about stacking as much critical chance as possible, which combined with Invocation of Death, works to drastically reduce your cooldown.  This is your primary purpose. Protect your team with shields, suppress enemies with your chorus and keep up the 20% damage buff from Ecclesiarch's Call for as long as possible. 

The Tigrus Mk XV Heavy Eviscerator is a versatile weapon, however, and trash clear is not the only thing we can do. Charging up our shred and using heavy attacks allows us to do heavy damage to Monstrosities. We will never be able to match the damage output of a thunderhammer in these scenarios, but our damage is not too far off, whilst being much better at dealing with other tasks (and not needing to charge up Thrust). Owing to the amount of damage reduction this build packs in, even without our ability, we can deal good damage to all target types and help to stem the flow of dangerous targets reaching our backline. We are predominately a melee-focused class and build. But that does not mean we should forget about the ranged option entirely. The Zarona Mk IIa Quickdraw Stub is a favoured weapon of Zealots for its ability to quickly be drawn and dispatch priority targets our teammates might otherwise miss. 

Build Path

We start by moving down the right tree. Backstabber does not come up very often, but the extra 20% damage to targets not facing us can be a nice boon, and help to carve through Monstrosities that are focused on our teammates. But the real reason to it pick up is to grab Scourge and Enduring Faith. Critical hits cause enemies to bleed. Hitting bleeding enemies also increases our critical change. Every time we hit a crit we gain 50% Damage reduction, which helps us survive in melee combat. Second Wind is just generally a great node on Zealot. We will be weaving in and out of combat a lot in almost all Zealot builds, so proccing that extra toughness regeneration occurs frequently.

Heading down the Middle tree, we pick up Anoint in Blood to improve our revolver damage at close range and Purge the Unclean increases damage to infested (helps us to 1-tap poxhounds), and deals increased damage to Monstrosities and reapers. Our goal is to avoid getting hit in the first place, so I don't think Restoring Faith is a great node, but still does provide more benefit than The Voice of Terra, as we will be using our ranged option sparingly. This allows us to pick up Immolation Grenade. This is my personal favourite of the blitz options for Zealot and allows us to create a ring of literal friendly fire. Especially useful when fighting packs of poxhounds. If you fight the dogs inside the ring of fire, then even if they jump on you, they will quickly get knocked off by the fire. It can also help to thin out hordes and add extra damage in prolonged fights. Immolation grenades last 13 seconds and have a fairly generous radius. If an enemy is caught inside this radius for the duration, only Crushers, Maulers and Mutants can survive. Maulers will be left with left than 10% HP, Mutants about 33% and Crushers...Ok they don't really take much damage from this, but it is useful to thin out the horde so you can focus on these larger targets. 

We move over to the left-hand side to pick up Until Death and Holy Revenant, Zealots' patented second chance perks. We will be trying everything in our power NOT to have these proc, but they provide a nice safety net if things go safe. There are also times when we can rely on these to do things that other classes cannot, such as a clutch teammate pickup under enemy fire. Benediction synergises well with the type of support build we are going for. The lynchpin of this build is Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude. With Banishing Light we can suppress an entire room full of enemies whilst providing a powerful +100 toughness to our entire team for a significant period of time. Benediction adds an additional damage reduction, allowing our shield to go further. Ecclesiarch's Call is preferred over Holy Cause. Most enemies will be suppressed for the majority of our channeling and our teammates already have a beefy shield. Adding extra defence is seldom necessary, and it is more beneficial to buff our team's damage so we can more quickly carve through the foes in our path. 

 Punishment does not benefit this build, but is a necessary pick-up. The invocation of Death is where everything starts to come together. Blazing Piety provides the massive crit bonus we are looking for, and allows us to start our critical hit chains, which will be amplified by by Scourge. We opt for the right keystone modifiers Fury Rising & Righteous Warrior to further increase our critical chance and make sure we have Blazing Piety active as long as possible. It's more selfish than going for the support skills of Stalwart & Infectious Zeal, But as it is in service to a cooldown that benefits the whole team, It still serves to buff your strike team more overall.

Weapons

The Tigrus Mk II Heavy Eviscerator is a surprisingly fast weapon given its sheer size. With brutal fast strike downs and horizontal heavy swings to deal with hordes, it is a highly damaging weapon, whilst still being surprisingly versatile. take extra damage to flak and maniac, as these are the most common threats you will come across. Some people will run the extra +5% crit chance. I don't find it necessary or something that makes much of a difference. Let's crunch the math. All weapons have a 5% crit chance.  We can +25% Crit chance from the combination of Blazing Piety & Righteous Warrior, putting it up to 30% crit chance.  Then from Scourge, we can get another 30% Crit chance, putting our crit chance up to 60%. At this point, what is going to benefit you more? An additional 5% crit chance, or +25% damage to an enemy type that is giving you grief? I like to grab both Savage Sweep and Rampage to more quickly deal with hordes, however, momentum is a viable side grade if you want more toughness replenishment when your shield is down. 

The Zarona Mk IIa Quickdraw Stub is a tried and tested firearm to dispatch distant targets that our team miss. It can be pulled it quickly, can penetrate multiple targets, and can one-shot a great variety of enemy types. I opt for Flak to increase our breakpoints against Scab Shooters. Surgical paired with Hand-Cannon with headshots allows us to 3-shot Crushers with headshots, 2-shot Maulers and 1-shot Dreg ragers.  

Curios

After 1,000+ hours in Darktide, I have a few simple rules when it comes to Curios. Melee classes (Ogryns and Zealot) should take 2x Toughness and 1x Health Curios to give a good mix of defensive stats. Veterans should take 3 Toughness Curios, as they benefit more from Toughness than other classes, owing to their larger toughness pools and skills such as Iron Will. Psykers should run 2x Toughness and 1x Stamina curio to make up for low Base stamina, and to benefit from their faster stamina regeneration. Obviously, there are some caveats to that. A melee centric Veteran might want to run 1x Health Curio and certain knife and stealth builds might want to run a stamina curio. But for the most part, I find this a good rule to stick to ensure you have curios that are effective for the vast majority of your builds, especially when starting out when it is difficult to find any curios, much less good ones. Oh and Wound Curios should only ever be used on Zealot Martydom builds. Having Wound Curios actually means that health stims will now heal less on you. I know some people like to take a wound curio 'just in case they go down', but in higher difficulties, there is no guarantee your team can pick you up. It's far better to invest in defensive abilities which prevent downs as much as possible. 

For Perks, Always take Extra toughness and gunner resistance. Gunner Resistance is the most useful resistance node as it applies to Scab Gunners, Scab Shotgunners, Dreg Gunners, Dreg Shotgunners and Reapers. This is the largest collection of enemies out of any of the resistance perks. These enemies can absolutely shred you in seconds, and make up a significant portion of the enemies encountered in Auric Maelstroms. The ability is multiplicative, so does have some diminishing returns. 0.80×0.80×0.80=0.512 meaning that we end up with a total gunner resistance of 0.488, just below 50%. I can certainly see the argument to only running two gunner resistance curios (with an overall damage resistance of 36 %) and opting for something else (potentially sniper OR Flamer), but I still value that extra 12.8%. 

For the final perk, it depends on your build. If you are using a build which relies heavily on your ability, then run cooldown reduction to more frequently make use of said ability. I find this to be especially powerful on builds which make use of Voice of Command for instance. If your build is not too heavily reliant on your ability, then run for extra health. Again you can tweak this to suit individual playstyle (and the mercy of the RNG-gods as Hadrons bricks yet another piece of equipment), but this is a pretty good rule to aim for. 

Strengths

The preacher is a support character. As such it works as a force multiplier, and gains extra benefits the better your team is. That's not to say that you can't do things by yourself. The Eviscerator is a versatile weapon, benefitting from one of the best horde clears in the game, whilst still doing respectable damage to heavier targets. Our revolver is fantastic for sniping specials and either killing or weakening elite enemies so they can be finished off. With a dense enough horde, it is possible to pop your second chorus before the shelf from the first has even faded away. In this way you can prevent chip damage to your team, and keep even mediocre players alive and in the fight.

Weaknesses

Beasts of Nurgle I find to be an issue. Both Plague Ogryns and Chaos spawn can be chunked down by our eviscerator, but the Beast is difficult to get into Melee without suffering corruption damage, especially when a horde is also harassing us. I did experiment with running a bolter to deal with this situation, but the quick pull-out time of the revolver is just too good to pass up on.

Questions & Answers

Question: Why do the stats, weapons, and abilities in the video not match what's written in this guide?

Answer: I am constantly evolving and refining my builds. As patch notes are released, certain weapons and abilities may change in effectiveness. Additionally, as my skill and knowledge grow, my preferred builds can shift. I aim to provide videos demonstrating the effectiveness of my builds in a Damnation level Auric run as proof of concept. However, these videos may sometimes be outdated. While I strive to keep everything current, Darktide is my hobby, and I may not always have the latest updates in the videos. The information in these guides reflects my most recent thinking and should be considered more accurate than what is shown in the videos.