Chorus "Boss Killer" Zealot
 Zealot Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Chorus "Boss Killer" Zealot

So your team wants you to bring a book zealot but doesn't bother to ask anyone to bring boss damage. Well now you can do not one but TWO favors for your ungrateful teammates! With this build you'll be able to NUKE BOSSES and spam book like a monkey. 

Bosses

Take some time in the psyhkanium and practice fighting bosses. Learn a few things, if you cant get Creature Spawner (mod) then just focus on these three things when you have a chance during a game. 

1. Hit boxes - specifically weak spot hit boxes. Focus on how to hit them consistently. 
2. Attack patterns. Spawn grab is the most important to get right. Focus on the eb and flow of dodging and going in while charging heavy attacks.
3. How to safely kite each of the bosses. Focus on what distance triggers the bosses gap close and focus on which attacks CC you even with block.

Elites

This is where you can really leverage precog and duelist. Insert baseline Dueling Sword gameplay here. Insert the occasional cheeky knife on gunners and unarmored ragers. 

• Note about the Spearhead Bolter: We take flak as a perk so that we can hip fire shots into elites and specials to kill them quickly where the ammo economy allows. The bolter is very efficient ammo/damage. So with Survivalist Aura you'll be able to regularly take pot shots like that. 

Specials

• Bolter - While the bolter takes a long time to pull out it still is a great solution to killing approaching specials. (you can use knife to cancel most of the animation for that. Weapon swap button then knife button immediately) 
• Knife - You must be using your knives. Think of knives as a sniping tool. The headshot multiple is extreme. You can one shot headshot anything that doesnt have armor. Even ragers. 

Horde

Unfortunately this is the builds weakness. We take Sustained Assault for the extra 25% (including the travel node) to help with hordes. During hordes it is important to contribute to total damage but its more important that you are focused on specials that are spawning or elites that are approaching to dispatch them before it interrupts the people who have better horde damage. Have your head on a swivel ready to kill specials while you autopilot the hordes 

Fury Rising + Righteous Warrior (+10% Crit) VS Sustain Assault + Melee Node (25% Melee Damage Total)

I decided to compare these two options and found that Sustained Assault (SA) is slightly better than Righteous Warrior (RW). I tested by attacking a plague Ogryn with the dueling sword. I set Blazing Piety always be active. I explored this in two ways

1. Light attack spam the boss down center mass with AI deactivate. I did this a few times (4) with each set of options active and took an average. SA is 7.95% more dps 
2. Heavy attack spam with AI active. The point of this second test was to create a more realistic interaction. The first thing i noticed is that my finger is hurting and im for sure give myself arthritis from this. The second thing i noticed was how much harder the crit hits were hitting (SA), which ofc is a given but seeing it is nice. 4483 vs 5550.

So this is where the more nuanced motivation of the build determines whats better because there is a good argument for either setup and i find it hard to really say one way is significantly better. Having SA means your highs will be higher. Which means more burst. The missing 10% crit means less uptime on the many buffs that proc off crits that zealot offers. With this build we are concerned with hitting hard, with the highest highs. 

Beacon of Purity Alternative

So its important to have two setups for this build, one with benediction (our preferred) and one with purity.

• Take Duelist, Until Death and Holy Revenant
• Take The Emperor's Bullet, Unremitting, Sainted Gunslinger and finally Bacon of Purity.

This setup cannot afford Fury Rising/ Righteous Warrior OR Sustain Assault + Melee Node which honestly is a travesty. This happens because we keep those two nodes at the top of the tree instead of either of those. Those two nodes Anoint in Blood and Purge the Unclean are Nsane boss burst, so make sure you open boss fights with your bolter if you can help it and afford the ammo.