Krieg Anti-Tank Sniper
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Potentially the more optimal meta Veteran setup post Golden Toughness nerf and ranged focus changes. Good for aiming enjoyers.

Summary: Helbore antitank and target prioritization for elites, specials, and monstrosities with high sustained toughness replenishment for Veteran and team.

Note: This build can be run with VOC instead of Executioner's Stance but will lose out on damage, situational awareness, and target prioritization ability. There are many variations which are viable but the focus of this setup is to optimize for gunner/special prioritization and armor/boss DPS while balancing survivability, and team utility. This build (and the Veteran class in general) is not optimal for horde clear and so is best paired with taunt ogryn or flamestaff/smite psyker.

Toughness regen / replenishment for team is enabled by replenishment synergies with born leader including tunnel vision, executioner stance, confirmed kill, exhilarating takedown, catch a breath, and other sources of toughness regen / replenishment. Ranged weakspot kills will optimize toughness replenishment for both Veteran and the replenishment he distrubtes to his team. Sustained toughness replenishment is generally better than VOC for sustained damage sources such as gunners, bombers, flamers, and pox gas and with accurate shooting will have high sustained toughness provided to team.

Notes on some talent points:

• Deadshot: 25% critical chance is a massive DPS increase and is worth investing in stamina for. I take one +3 stamina curio, three 12% stamina regen perks, and a +2 stamina weapon perk on the helbore lasgun instead of Unyielding which the Helbore already has excellent damage into. With those and the synergy with tunnel vision and the fewer shots used with Mark IV helbore, I find I generally have sufficient stamina sustain to offset stamina consumption. If running a glass cannon build, an additional +3 stamina curio is viable but will reduce Veteran's survivability and the toughness he distributes to his team.
• Covert Operative is underrated for boss DPS since Vet generally has low damage with full boss aggro (except when using kraks for dps/stagger) and high damage when bosses aggro his teammates. 30% damage is a significant DPS increase (especially for Beast of Nurgle and Packmaster) which applies to all enemy types and is notably beneficial for helbore due to high crit and weakspot multipliers as well as the weapon's inherent opportunistic shot selection. In my experience, the condition to have a shooting angle within a 180 radius behind enemies' line of sight occurs frequently due to enemy pathing and teammates pulling aggro, this also creates an added benefit of increasing Veteran's DPS when assisting teammates and also synergizes effectively with aggro pull from Ogryn taunt and increases DPS to enemies Ogryn staggers.
• Withering fire is extremely useful for Havoc 40 density to pick out elites / specials through hordes which sustain Executioner's Stance and to ensure consistency of elite / special kills.

• Opening Salvo synergizes with lasgun/crit builds since high crit is key for damage and ammo economy from shock trooper. This synergizes with Mark IV helbore and surgical blessing since DPS and Crit chance are dependent on charge time and also benefits Weight of Fire since you will need less charge time in order to reach high damage and crit.

  Crit chance breakdown:

  • 10% base critical chance for Veteran class
  • 5% critical chance for helbore ADS
  • 25% critical chance from Deadshot during ADS
  • 10% critical chance from opening salvo
  • 10% critical chance for every 0.3 seconds from surgical

  With the additional 10% crit chance from Opening Salvo, you can shave off 0.3 seconds from charge time to achieve the same crit chance without Opening Salvo. So for example, 1.8 seconds to proc 100% critical chance would instead be 1.5 seconds. Increasing your fire rate is an increase to DPS as well as toughness replenishment and helps the helbore with enemy density and faster target acquisition. This also offsets the negative synergy between Weight of Fire and Surgical weapon blessings, since critical hits do not spend ammo and you can stay within the 20% ammo limit indefinitely so long as you charge your shots consistently and reload when below the 20% ammo cap.

• Field improvisation is useful for Havoc 40 when paired with Hive Scum rocket launcher or Ogryn Frag Bomb for screen wipe potential along with healing/toughness benefits but this can be swapped out for grenadier, grenade tinkerer, demolition team for additional grenades with minimal trade-off if teammate blitzes do not synergize (zealot knives, ogryn rock, etc).
• Rending nodes could be taken for additional DPS but come at the cost of other utilities and do not increase DPS as significantly as many of the other talents.

Blessings:

• Surgical is essentially mandatory for Helbore for DPS and ammo economy and is especially suited for Mark IV. The synergy with Mark IV is optimal due to the coincident incentive for longer charge time to increase both damage and crit chance.
• Weight of Fire is frequently noted as having a counter-synergy with Surgical due to opposing incentives which is true, however, fire rate increase is still DPS increase, and running Opening Salvo for the additional 10% crit chance will help offset the downside of this counter-synergy due to reducing charge time required for crits. In high intensity situations or just due to shot-picking opportunities from obstacles / enemy animations, you often don't have time to charge longer and will just fire where shots fit best. Weight of Fire significantly improves DPS in these situations and its benefit to the Mark IV in particular is hard to beat with other blessings such as No Respite, Sustained Fire, Armourbane, and Hot-Shot.

Blitz:

There are trade-offs for each blitz. Shredder for crowd stagger utility, kraks for boss/armor dps and stagger utility, smokes for Havoc gunners. Often switched per game based on team comp / modifiers.

Melee:

Shovel for good horde clear / stagger utility with minimal talent point investment as well as being thematic but can be swapped for several other weapons such as dueling sword, combat blade, tactical axe, heavy sword, power falchion, or assault chain sword. Due to Deadshot your stamina will generally be low when dealing with hordes so 40% Strength from All or Nothing is useful but could be swapped out. I prefer Mark I due to the more useful stagger utility for crushers, maulers, ragers, and mutants and good horde clear heavy chain.

Curios:

Revive speed not as necessary since pathing to Skirmisher and Duck and Dive includes Leave No One Behind. Stamina regen is taken for Deadshot and Toughness is to optimize survivability and team toughness distribution. Ability Cooldown Reduction is taken to maximize uptime for Executioner's Stance since it is Veteran's core survivability tool for this setup and will also provide a significant damage increase from the Marksman ability modifier with every activation.