Boss Deletion
 Zealot Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Loosely Organized Ramblings On Running The Build

With the Bound By Duty update having just rolled out, zealot has become even more of a power house than before. However, with scab enemy health pools getting bumped (and crushers receiving a notably large health increase), thunder hammer users may have initially found themselves in despair. Crushers can't be one tapped on a full windup anymore!

Lucky for all you fellow evangelicals, shroudfield is a goddamn nuke now lmao. 

This build is fantastic for just deleting bosses and elites, and also excels at keeping you alive. Vicious Offering helps you shrug off hordes while using the crucis heavy swings for dealing with crowds (and also really helps you stay at whatever wound you're comfortable with for Martyrdom. We'll touch on that a little later). However, the name of the game here is to go for backstabs whenever possible. There's already heavy incentive for this, with Unseen Blade, Time to Kill, and of course Shroudfield. These all work towards giving a massive boost to backstab damage. The idea is that you're already getting most of your damage in going for backstabs, but now you're getting some returns on ability cool down with Pious Cut-Throat and Perfectionist. The nice thing is, stealth isn't even necessarily needed for elite one taps. You can still one tap crushers with just a simple special activated heavy wind up from behind. Stealth just makes this easier to pull off. 

Now, you may be wondering about what the Martyrdom is for, if the build can deal with elites just fine. Here's the fun part: bosses. When one spawns, you're going to want to book it straight to the boss. This specifically is where Desperation comes in, because if you're getting the full benefit from Martyrdom, then the damage from that, all the backstab damage, popping Shroudfield, and getting a heavy wind up specifically on the bosses back, then you'll either do some extreme chunking, if not outright one tap. Sure, it takes a little set up, but goddamn does it pay off.

Other Options

Not everything in this build is hard set. You can swap out Beacon of Purity for Benediction if it suits your tastes. However, you want to stay away from Zealous. Zealot still moves super fast at 0 stamina with the rework, and we want to reach that as soon as possible for Desperation. 

Blitzes are up to personal choice, but I find that unless you build into making the knives able to punch above their weight, the inferno grenades are a nice all-rounder. 

Ranged weapons are also up to personal choice. I like the Zarona Mk IIa Quickdraw Stub Revolver because it's a convenient weapon to swap to for quick popping elites, and I'm already built into toughness regen for dealing with hordes with the crucis hammer. However, the Artemia Mk III Purgation Flamer is of course a very solid option for crowd clear. Really, at the end of the day it just comes down to preference, ranged doesn't need to fill any specific role for the build to work.