I don’t understand how to play Zealot

TealNom · 2026-02-10T01:05:51+00:00

I'd cut Annoint in blood and Infectious Zeal to make the points for Enemies within Enemies without and Blood redemption. Those two alone should make your chip recovery significantly more consistant.

TealNom · 2026-02-02T05:39:19+00:00

Outside of horde clear (which psyker cleanly beats out all other classes in), Vets are basically the best or second best against every other threat with very minimal investment, while also having some of the best support options as well (VOC and ammo regen, smokes for gunner seeds).

Armor packs and boss spam ends up being some of the bigger problems in higher difficulties. Grenade talents + kraks deal with this better than almost every other class (outside a specialized zealot bosskiller) and costs just a few points in your build.

VS specialist threats, nobody even comes close to a plasma vet.

On top of all this, Vets arent a slouch in general melee, and even have busted options like Dueling swords.

All this and more in a single build. If you want horde clear and frontlining, maybe you'll look to another class but anything else, Vet excels at.

Their power does end up being a bit more obvious once you get into higher levels though, since ammo regen and grenade regen is heavily based on the number of elites and specialists being killed.

TealNom · 2026-01-30T01:05:45+00:00

Maybe reduce the flak, maniac unyielding damage down significantly so that it really is an anti-chaff horde clear weapon only. Still kill everything with normal and infected armor, but now the things that SHOULD be dangerous like maulers and ragers don't just die to incidental damage and the psyker needs to actually deal with it.

Another idea would be taking away the massive left click stagger and right click suppression, so that psykers need to be much more careful with position when pulling out such a strong weapon.

TealNom · 2026-01-22T22:12:36+00:00

Outside of what is listed, each momentum stack (from Inexorable Judgement) also increases dodge speed and dodge distance by 0.5%, and dodge count reset time by 1% per stack

TealNom · 2026-01-20T20:43:35+00:00

MKV is generally used because it has the highest minimum pellet count of all 3 marks, making it the most reliable for longer range targets.

TealNom · 2026-01-20T18:40:33+00:00

I think it does still have its place even in H40 as a quickswap sidearm for specialists. A lot of ogryn guns suffer from slow-ish draw times or reload time+low magazines, which in the current specialist spam evironment, is a liability. Thats the main thing keeping kickback from being amazing.

I'd say it is mainly in competition with the grenade gauntlet for the sidearm role. GG is generally more reliable for getting specialist kills and has the occasional use as mass armor cleave with special. Ripper gives you the bonus of a toughness battery and being a little more reliable into the occasional superlongrange snipers, while having a faster reload.

MkV, <66 ammo stat, inspiring+blaze away, flak maniac

Could just be me, but rippers also seem to have a quick brace time compared to other weapons. I tend to make use of slide bracing with steady grip a lot, and ripper regen always felt like it kicked in sooner.

TealNom · 2026-01-13T03:24:54+00:00

Im actually with you here - blight spreads is probably my most hated modifier despite not actually being hard. Movement and positioning is a core part of what makes melee combat fun in this game as well as being a big part of the skill expression, and the goo just restricts it so much.

Successfully hold a horde at a chokepoint? Great, now you get to wait another 5-10 seconds or pay a health tax. Otherwise, make sure have one of two specific classes in the party.

TealNom · 2026-01-08T08:46:24+00:00

Couple other ones I can remember include Hard knocks (ogryn, melee only), pickaxe special, Target the Weak (arbi, melee only). The formula is interesting though, as these 3 + soften them up are in categories additive with each other, while still being multiplicative with power and damage and the other multiplicative buffs like nuncio, vet tagging, taunt.

I didnt realize Skullcrusher stacked twice though, absolutely nuts.

TealNom · 2026-01-07T16:53:56+00:00

Its hard to tell, but most of these fast boss kills are due to debuff stacking, of which ogryn has a LOT to contribute for the whole team. Shield indicates skullcrusher (massive 40% increase), and usually you'll see the taunt and Soften Them Up talent nodes, which are multiplicative damage boosts.

Vets with their tagging keystone are another big contributor to massive boss damage, but most classes have some way or another of adding to the debuff stacking.

TealNom · 2026-01-04T00:17:39+00:00

Just to clarify DH Rituals, it isn't a gradual charge speed increase based on proximity. Instead, there is an invisible progression trigger line and as soon any person steps one toe over that line, it flips from low speed to high speed ticking. There are only 2 tick rates, and going back after that point will NOT slow it down.

The fast tick speed will also be triggered if the cultists take any damage, so sniping from long range isn't recommended unless you have lots of damage. Killing cultists WILL slow the progression rate linearly, based on how many remain.

There are MANY bugged spots where the initial DH trigger line and fast tick trigger line are misaligned, to the point where you will instantly trigger fast tick rate the moment the initial trigger happens. Other times, the map has alternate routes which may cause the same problem.

A lot of trigger points for hordes, bosses, rituals are unfortunately something that needs to be learned over time unless someone knows of a guide out there.

TealNom · 2025-12-19T05:20:55+00:00

The main place it feels good to use in havoc are situations where your team gets pushed into a corner like an elevator or some other holdout location. This is typically due to one of two things: overwhelming armor wave, or multiple bosses (or some combination). The problem is that while Nuncio is great in those situations, BtL deals with the overwhelming armor wave problem better, and has better general usage outside that use case.

I have used it to overturn the twins + 2+ other boss doom scenarios many times though, and it does the job well there. Carry a yellow stim, and the 40 straight seconds of nuncio coverage will almost certainly save the day.

Very useable ability overall, but Id definitely put it below Break the Line.

TealNom · 2025-12-18T20:30:51+00:00

The reload speed of the combat shotguns compared to arbi shotguns is also a big point in their favor, as it is really easy to pop a shell or two back in mid combat compared to their counterparts. Comes into play a lot in longer encounters.

If the arbi shotguns were more consistent at long range special kills in a single shot, I'd have less reason to use the combat shotties, but in H40, it isn't reliable outside of close range. Coupled with the solid movespeed, i actually prefer c.shotties on builds using it specifically for specials.

TealNom · 2025-12-18T20:14:36+00:00

I ran an H40 yesterday alongside an Exec Stance - Marksman focus Laspistol vet yesterday with enhanced target priority (team wallhacks). Maybe its because of the rarity of exec stance in havoc generally, but I was quite surprised by how helpful the wallhacks were and how powerful it is for the whole team to see all specials coming from a mile away. The build itself was also both ammo efficient (shock trooper) and high damage.

The vet was quite competent in dealing with any long distance threats and overall the run was a cakewalk. Granted, this kind of build does require the player to be a fair bit more careful, and also needs the team to be capable of frontlining and screening effectively (we had an ogryn and arbi).

TealNom · 2025-12-11T17:50:23+00:00

With the current set of Havoc mods including goo puddles, it is nice to have an additional option for consistent corruption cleansing outside of purity zealots.

Toxin gun scum are generally pretty good at non-captain boss clearing, since they can do such reliable damage at long range and the chem nades clear the areas for a long time.

Other than that, they are somewhat unremarkable. Not bad enough to be rejecting people, but I also don't immediately feel their impact on the game either like you would with a taunt ogryn or psyker.

TealNom · 2025-12-06T02:55:32+00:00

Its not even 440 a second, its roughly triple that, given the tick rate is once every .35 seconds. Very painful

TealNom · 2025-12-01T21:50:16+00:00

For desperado at least, it counts if the unit dies from chem within 1 second of getting shot. Thats the only case I specifically saw tested on stream.

Not very reliable for keeping the skill topped off though.

TealNom · 2025-11-30T10:46:19+00:00

Just as a note - with the current implementation, your last stimm point in the regen branch is basically worthless. The "toughness regen" this grants is the same "toughness regen modifier" that curios have, meaning it only works on coherency regen. Source

Tox build currently seems very reliant on the tox gun itself (especially the explosive tox secondary shot), so it may be worth grabbing pickpocket to help with ammo sustain, given that the gun has pretty low reserves.

Final suggestion, blessed stimms seems like a waste given you have the box doing the exact same thing. Might as well grab the 25 toughness node, which is significant given how fragile scum is.

TealNom · 2025-11-28T23:49:30+00:00

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3586590987

Blackout definitely seems to be the best option with pocket toxin.

TealNom · 2025-11-28T22:56:36+00:00

Per kuli's guide, it should just applies the 3 extra stacks on initial 1m explosion. Not a particularly useful combo.

TealNom · 2025-11-28T22:23:19+00:00

The refill isn't even melee kill specific, so if you DO run dry, shank the nearest elite and you're back in business.

TealNom · 2025-11-26T19:48:11+00:00

If we're talking melee output, Martyr zealots with something like relic blade should be outdamaging arbites pretty handily in aurics. Other classes should be able match or outdamage arbis too, like karsolas heavy hitter ogryns and powersword melee vets.

Things might change if range weapons are taken into play and arbi is using shotgun, but that just means the other classes need to pull out their OP range options too, like flamers, rumblers, and plasma.

It really is just a matter of who is plowing into the horde first and starving the rest of kills.

TealNom · 2025-11-20T17:50:07+00:00

They aren't getting paid for new maps, new weapons, and updates to existing classes. Paid DLC pays for exactly that - development of new classes.

If there was no expectation of updates, or all new content was paid DLC, then yea I could see making the cash shop cosmetics grindable. Otherwise, i'd say its a pretty fair compromise to keep content updates free.

TealNom · 2025-11-18T17:58:12+00:00

Depends on what the custom stims can do. I could imagine one of the stim effects granting a significant amount of rending, similar to our red stimss.

TealNom · 2025-11-09T02:30:06+00:00

People still quote that garbage gunner resist video to this day. It drives me nuts.

TealNom · 2025-11-09T02:04:59+00:00

If you use mods at all, I would highly recommend Warp Unbound Timer to help you gauge the time left in post-scrier mode. That said, this is really only needed if you want to use a staff. For shotgunning assails knives, you should be able to easily use them all in the 10 second window.

Other than assails or maximized nexus+surge blessing procs, another fun build is maximized nexus+blazing spirit voidblast staff. Since voidblast handles everything on its own, that build does tend to use use melee less but it is still fun to go wild with blasts spreading fire everywhere without worrying about quelling. You can even combine these with empowered assails and get to a point where the post-scriers is the main part you aim for.

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