KRAMER'S DAEMON POUNDER
 Zealot Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Big Swingin' <<<REDACTED>>> Daemon Pounding Bonkmeister

Build Objective - This is definitely not a beginner build, but it's my favorite Zealot loadout, geared towards a versatile jack-of-all-trades that can horde clear, deal with specials, take out bosses, and gun down shooters from afar.

Melee Mechanics, Crucis vs Ironhelm - I've played a great deal with both the Crucis and the Ironhelm, and greatly prefer the Ironhelm due to its versatility with the cleaving charged attack.  By the time you're playing Damnation or either of the Auric levels, one of the most common (and challenging) scenarios you'll confront is a horde of mixed trash and elite.  The Ironhelm shines here because you can charge a heavy attack and let it swing through the horde, delivering damage to trash while picking up stacks of Headtaker, terminating with a powerful charged heavy attack to an elite within the group.

Also, although the Ironhelm is the less powerful of the two Thammers, it is no slouch either.  With this build it can 1 shot a DH and BoN (back pimple) on Damnation, and if you land your hits correctly, dispatch a PO and CS in just 3 hits.  I've once taken out a full health CS on damnation in just 2 hits, but it's pretty hard and involves arching the swing of the hammer just right to both hit its head and register as a backstab.  At least I think that's what happened?  lol.

I do like the Crucis' horizontal only horde clear animation set better though, so to get the most out of the Ironhelm while horde clearing, the best animation set is charge -> heavy -> heavy -> push attack -> repeat.  The vertical third swing can be mixed in as the third heavy attack option to strike a nearby elite directly on the head with an uncharged heavy attack which still does great weak spot damage.

At any rate, whether you pick the Ironhelm or the Crucis depends on whether you decide that the additional single target damage of the Crucis is better than the versatility on the Ironhelm.  Considering how powerful a well-rolled Ironhelm already is in this build, the extra incremental single target damage is not a good tradeoff for the cleaving ability, in my opinion.  Regardless of your choice, you're sure to be team's designated GigaChad once Daemonheads start getting their backs one shot blown out by your mighty Thunder Hammer.

Edit: After the Ironhelm delivers a heavy hit, there is a short ~half second downtime where your movement speed is greatly decreased.  This makes you somewhat of a sitting duck, so you need to get in the habit of blocking immediately after a swing when you are completely surrounded, and also make sure that brief downtime does not coincide with a sniper locking on to your position or a mutie about to run up on you.  While you are blocking, you can also still charge/activate the special of your Thammer simultaneously, then subsequently dash away from the horde and start charging the heavy attack, and let it swing once they approach and line up.  It is a bit of a dance that I think is hard to learn at first, but easy to master once you start to get it.

Melee Attributes - First you'll need a powerful base hammer with max Damage, First Target, and Penetration stats.  The next most obvious choice is max Crowd Control, however Defenses is also important.  As you're charging your Thammer, you're going to be dashing back and forth to be in and out of the enemy's strike zone and also to close distance on nearby high value targets while charging to land heavy attacks.  Defenses will increase the speed and distance of these dashes allowing you to move farther, quicker.  So in the end, both are really quite useful and a solid balance of the two would be ideal.

For perks, definitely level 4 Unyielding to maximize output on bosses and enemy Ogryns.  Carapace is the next best as Flak enemies really don't present the same challenges to the Thammer, but Flak would not be the worst thing in the world to roll especially for crowd control on tougher, armored commons.  Last, weak spot would also be a good #2 if you're consistently trying to land headshots, which you definitely should.

For blessings, anchoring level 4 Thrust is going to increase your charged heavy damage to help deal with high health targets.  Coupled with good modifier rolls, the right perks, and the right talents, the whole thing scales to do god like single hit damage.  Slaughterer and Headtaker are the next best blessings.  Headtaker is objectively better.  As you are swinging away at the mixed trash/elite, everytime the hammer cleaves through trash on its way to an elite, it will build Headtaker stacks within the swing for each piece of trash it hits, delivering extra buffed damage to the elite destination target.  Slaughter would be slightly better for a long spout of horde clearing but take longer because it relies on kills, not hits, to fully stack.  Not terrible, in fact slightly more powerful, just not nearly as immediately useful.

Talents - The talent tree is obviously oriented towards the Thammer, but that does not make this a slow and bulky kind of build.  You will have to be well practiced as this talent tree relies on speed to quickly move in and out of the danger zone, delivering heavy blows while also avoiding enemy strikes.  I won't breakdown every talent here, but the most critical for maximizing the Thammer's output are Backstabber, Purge the Unclean, Shroudfield, and Perfectionist.  Shroudfield is useful in a lot of scenarios, not just for the extra damage buff against bosses, but also for escaping dangerous situations.  With the additional Invigorating Revelation, you have +40% toughness and -20% damage reduction almost on demand.  I've clutched with it many times.  The cooldown is long however (~45s?), so you do have to use it judiciously; concentration stims are helpful.  Two other must haves are Until Death and Holy Revenant for durability.

Ranged Weapon - So, the Thammer has you pretty well covered for a lot of situations.  Used correctly, it can punish almost any hordes, elites, and bosses that dare come near you.  The best secondary weapon will therefore be something that complements the Thammer and can quickly eliminate ranged enemies.  The Columnus Mk V is the current meta and there's many other guides out there that will tell you why.  But, I also like the Bolter and the Zarona Mk IIa revolver, and to a lesser extent the Agripinaa Brauto.  These can also effectively target ranged enemies and do excellent damage, but their ammo economy is relatively poor in comparison.  I equip these for fun sometimes or depending on the map.

I do like to have a ranged weapon with a high mobility modifier, as it can be equipped even for just a helpful speed boost to cover a lot of ground quickly.  In fact, the only players faster than me running this Thammer build with the Columnus Mk V equipped seem to be using all out knife/speed builds.  My Columnus is maxed on everything with ammo as the dumpstat, but because it is so efficient, ammo reserves are pretty easily managed.

Curios - Nothing crazy here.  I run 1 health and 2 toughness, with each having an additional +5% health and +5% toughness perk.  Other good perks include stamina, toughness regen, etc. or do like me and get more Ordo Dockets to play with at Quartermaster Brunt's slot machine armory.

Note on Backstabbing - The backstab hit boxes can be tricky, so I'd recommend downloading the creature spawner mod and practicing in the Psykhanium if you're new to this.  To kill a DH, spawn one and tag it.  Stand 9 meters behind it and active the special of your Thammer.  Simultaneously enter Shroudfield, move forward, and start charging your heavy attack.  By the time the heavy attack fully charges and releases on its own, the stars in the build should align and you should be at the correct distance to deliver a fatal, 1 shot backstab.  The most important thing here is to move up quick enough to hit the back, or if necessary, jump up to hit the DH's back.  If you aim too low and hit dat ass or legs, it won't register as a backstab.  At that point, you should back off immediately after landing the strike, and you should still have time to evacuate before agro.  Then you can decide on whether or not to charge and slide in with a 2nd blow of fully stacked thrust, and then it's just about done, or abandon the attack altogether depending on circumstances.

Other Mods - I would also recommend custom HUD so you can remap just the Thrust blessing box near your crosshair.  This will remove some guesswork and let you easily see exactly how many stacks of Thrust you have to let you take out a variety of targets (gunners/shotgunners 1 stack, Ragers/Reapers' heads 2 stacks, etc.) very consistently and efficiently.  A great example of this is Bulwarks; once you are familiar with their swing timing, you can charge and start building your heavy attack to have 2 stacks at just the right time; as they swing at you and expose their back, dodge left to be behind them and let it swing.  Instant death.  Also, whatever mod shows your dashes/dodges available is helpful overall, but especially so in this build as your survival will often depend on you efficiently moving in and out of harms way while charging swings and vulnerable to enemy chips.

Update 5.23

I haven't updated the tree here but have traded out Retributor's Stance (very bottom of tree; replenish 2% toughness for each spent stack of momentum) and Invigorating Revelation (Shroudfield add-on; replenish 40% toughness over 5s on leaving stealth, also gain +20% damage reduction) for +15 toughness and Second Wind (near the top; replenish 15% toughness on successful dodge).  It's just a different way to manage toughness.  The original build is still very strong and has its own advantages, but if you get consistently good at avoiding damage, you won't really have to rely on stealth to escape and instead just build toughness all the time by capitalizing on dodging in and out of the thick.

Also really been enjoying the pistol.  The ammo economy is not amazing, but the shear sniping ability is a great value add if you can consistently land head shots.  I run a crit revolver with Surgical and Croucian Roulette, +5% Crit Chance and +10% Reload Speed with near max modifiers for Damage, Penetration, and Crit Bonus, and around 70/80 for Mobility and Reload Speed.  It works very well, especially so in a team comp when nobody else has a solid long range weapon in place.