Preacher - Eviscerating Flames
 Zealot Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Important note about Toughness:  ranged attacks hit it like a shield, draining it fully until health is exposed. Melee attacks hit it like a filter, with the toughness absorbing a % of the melee damage equal to the % remaining toughness. So if the Zealot has 113/125 toughness, 90% of the damage will hit toughness and 10% will hit health. 

As such, Toughness isn’t rewarded for stacking it higher than the base 100 as lower amounts can reach 100% again more easily. Instead, making toughness more durable with (Lv.5) Faith Restored and (Lv.15) Benediction multiplies how much punishment the Zealot can take before damage leaks into health.  This durability is then increased further with Damage Resistance (gunner) curio perks to make sure the shield lasts while charging across open spaces. Toughness Regeneration Speed curio perk then helps get some small recovery while ducking into cover, touching up chip damage to quickly get back into the fight. 

All of this toughness boosting is then complimented with two weapons designed to fish for critical hits to trigger (Lv.5) Faith Restored and have toughness restoring blessings. The Eviscerator is the main choice with the Preacher’s abilities having multiple options that all boost melee critical.  The Purgator Flamer has a decent chance to crit thanks to its high rate of fire and AoE.  It also focuses on reload speed to compensate for its problematically slow refueling time.

This is paired with 2 curio health blessings to reach up to 300 health, letting the Preacher take quite a beating before going down. If that does happen, 1 wound curio blessing let’s it sting slightly less and keeps them in the front line for their team. 

**note: one thing not mentioned yet is that last perk slot. This can be filled with a variety of things, but this build personally uses 3 sprinting efficiency to help moving around combat quicker and keeping ahead of the squad so most enemy aggression is focused at this Zealot.  Also, the non-crit Chance perk on the Evicerator is flexible, not impacting the build and making acquiring the weapon a bit easier.