5-8 Bleed Stacks on Critical Hit.
45-60% Finesse Damage for 2s on successful Dodge.
5-8% Strength for every 10% of magazine spent during continuous fire. Stacks 5 times.
Direct hits apply 1-4 Stacks of 1% Brittleness for 5s. Stacks 20 times
With this build, it becomes possible to solo anything from damnation to havocs. Relying on the Combat Knife for mobility and elite clear, Flamer for mixed horde clear, and throwing knives for specials, this build can carry/solo any game.
The Mk VI Knife is the strongest zealot weapon by far. While theoretically out damaged by weapons such as the Relic Blade and MK IV dueling sword, the versatility of the knife allows you to outperform both, dealing with any threat in the game with ease. With its insane innate mobility combined with fury of the faithful, you can out position any enemy the director throws at you, and by using the flesh tearer and precognition blessings, you can still pump out huge amounts of raw damage. (on lower difficulties you can switch out precognition with uncanny strike, but the sheer amount of bosses in havoc puts puts precognition ahead in usefulness)
In high level havocs (and especially solos) the flamer is simply mandatory. There is no other weapon in the zealot roster that lets you deal with the bulwark spam of havocs as quickly and efficiently as the flamer, and it is also incredibly useful at dealing with mixed hordes and bosses. Taking carapace and unyielding is again, close to mandatory for the aforementioned bulwarks (and helps with bosses and crusher hordes). Using the knife to kite and group enemies, then finding a chokepoint to flame them is incredibly effective.
With the zealot tree being as boring as it is, your talents will almost always be the same. However there are some that are completely up to the individual to take. For instance, taking fury rising and righteous warrior over faithful frenzy and the toughness boost would be completely reasonable, or taking sustained assault for the damage build. I've just personally found these talents to be the best for me :P
What you put on your curios isn't a huge deal, but generally I like to take 2 toughness and 1 stamina, with 3x ability regen, 3x toughness, and 3x gunner resist. If you don't find gunners to be an issue, switching one of them out for a flamer resist is also very good. Taking a single block cost reduction is also very viable as it lets you more consistently block chaos spawns and plague ogryn charges without getting staggered.
While not as tech heavy as other builds, there are some basic techniques you can incorporate into your gameplay that make you just that bit better.
- Spamming heavies with the knife boosts your movement speed (sliding at the end of the swing lets you dodge gunners, but generally just heavy attacking is faster)
- Repeatedly pressing one while holding your second heavy attack lets you hold that movement boost for around 3 times as long (only really useful when not in combat as it can reset your attack when you stop)
- dodging sideways off ledges lets you keep your dodge momentum until you land (if you manage to vault on an object at the end of your fall, you can pull off some cool maneuvers :D)
- sliding after a dodge lets you avoid some attacks that might otherwise have hit you, i.e. a beast's vomit or a trappers net, keep in mind this uses 2 dodges instead of 1
