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

Potentially the more optimal meta Veteran setup post Golden Toughness nerf and range-focused buffs. Particularly strong for players with good aim.

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

Note: This build can be run with VOC instead of Executioner's Stance but will lose out on damage, situational awareness, toughness replenishment sustain, 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 a taunt ogryn, chorus zealot, break the line arbites, or flamestaff/smite psyker.

Toughness regen / replenishment for team is a key focus for this build and 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 distributes to his team. Sustained toughness replenishment is generally better than VOC for continual damage sources such as gunners, bombers, flamers, and pox gas and with accurate shooting will generate high sustained toughness for the team when in coherency.

Notes on some talent points:

• Deadshot: Critical hits are the single largest increase to damage for this build alongside Weakspot hits. 25% Critical chance for simply ADS'ing is a massive DPS increase with an easy proc condition and is well worth investing into stamina for. I recommend taking one +3 stamina curio, three 12% stamina regen perks, and a +2 stamina weapon perk on the Helbore Lasgun instead of Unyielding since the Helbore is already excellent into that armor type. 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 variant, an additional +3 stamina curio is viable and can justify getting back the 25% Unyielding damage perk or a 10% weakspot/critical damage perk, but it will ultimately reduce Veteran's already challenged survivability as well as the toughness amount he will provide to his team.
• Withering Fire: Cleave is extremely useful to help pick out specials inside hordes since Helbore doesn't have great cleave by default. This issue can also be mitigated by jump-shotting but I generally take this anyway due to Havoc density and since it is particularly helpful for trappers and dogs. Cleave also helps with additional procs for marksman's focus as well as for toughness replenishment from Exhilarating Takedown and Confirmed Kill (and Out for Blood if taken).
• Skirmisher: Sliding is already essential for movement speed, stamina preservation, and avoiding gunners, so the uptime to have up to 25% additional damage is extremely high. Uptime is also easy to maintain by incorporating frequent dodge slides while sniping.
• Duck and Dive: Due to the loss of stamina for Veteran and due to stamina consumption from Deadshot as well as the frequent use of pushes to prevent melee damage, the stamina from this talent is extremely crucial to maintain high crit chance and survivability while also synergizing well with skirmisher.

• Opening Salvo: This 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 for ammocrate blitz refresh with Hive Scum rocket launcher or Ogryn Frag Bomb screen wipe potential as well as the medicrate 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).
• Covert Operative: This is underrated for boss DPS since Veteran generally has low damage with full boss aggro (except when using kraks for dps/stagger) but very high damage when bosses are aggro'ing his teammates. 30% damage is a significant DPS increase (especially for Beast of Nurgle and Packmaster) and is notably beneficial for Helbore due to its high crit and weakspot multipliers as well as the weapon's inherent opportunistic shot selection characteristics. In my experience, the condition to pick shots within a shooting angle of 180 degrees behind enemies' line of sight occurs frequently due to enemy pathing and teammates pulling aggro, this also creates the added benefit of increasing Veteran's DPS when assisting teammates and synergizes effectively with aggro pull from Ogryn taunt while also serving to generally increase DPS to staggered enemies and to enemies when their weakspots are inaccessible. This damage increase also applies across all enemy tags and is especially helpful for problematic enemies such as Crushers, Bulwarks, Maulers, Mutants, Dogs, and Trappers. The latter two primarily due to environmental obstacles limiting shot selection and quick shots under pressure forcing lower charge time for shots.
• Rending nodes could be taken for additional damage but come at the cost of other utilities and generally do not increase DPS as much as other talents which are taken. And the benefit provided to melee weapons and grenades is minimal since those are not heavily invested in as part of this build.

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 value for the Mark IV in particular is difficult to exceed when compared to other blessings such as No Respite, Sustained Fire, Armourbane, and Hot-Shot.

Blitz:

There are trade-offs for each blitz and are often switched per game based on team comp / modifiers but smokes arguably all-around most useful for Havoc.

• Shredder is most useful for crowd control and stagger utility (bleeds also synergizes well with combat blade).
• Kraks are most useful for boss/armor DPS and stagger utility.
• Smokes are primarily useful for countering Havoc gunners / Emperor's Fading Light II modifier but are also useful for the various changes that they apply to AI behavior e.g. for dogs, trappers, bosses, etc.

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 including 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. Power sword is generally not strong for this build due to low investment into melee as well as its low mobility and competition with Deadshot for available stamina.

Curios:

Revive speed not as necessary since pathing to Skirmisher for damage increase and Duck and Dive for movement speed / stamina regen will include Leave No One Behind. Stamina regen is taken for Deadshot and Toughness for survivability / higher 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.

Additional Notes:

• This build is stronger for mouse and keyboard due to the high skill ceiling required for aim but can still be strong on console.
• There are several enemies whose animations and pathing need significant study/practice in order to consistently hit their weakspots to fully capitalize on the strength of the Helbore. These enemies are mainly the dog, mutant, bulwark, rager, crusher. Several bosses should also be studied including the Chaos Spawn, Plague Ogryn, and Captains (mostly the recovery animation and during active melee). Nurgle's weakspots are easy to hit consistently and Packmaster is generally better to aim for the body (especially his back when using Covert Operative).
  • Dogs and mutants animations in particular should be learned since Veteran's Cooldown Reduction is proc'd from specialist kills, and consistent weakspot hits on dogs and mutants will help significantly to reduce ability cooldown while also preventing the significant disruption these enemies will cause.
• A primary responsibility with this build is to avoid shooting poxbursters as much as possible whenever teammates are even partially nearby. Poxbursters can be killed easily when they are far away and in some cases partial charged body shots can be used to stagger poxbursters safely, but in general, avoid shooting poxbursters as much as possible near teammates.
• There are several levels which this build is not as strong into and which more heavily rely on a teammate to provide consistent stagger/horde clear support. Levels which have extremely enclosed spaces will be more challenging in general and levels with wide open spaces will be easier.