Thank you, these are really helpful!!!
Iāll preface this with saying Iām a major fan of getting absolutely stuck in when it comes to zealot, so a somewhat standoff build like yours seems to be is a bit out of my typical zone. Also have a tendency to ramble since I peruse while bored at work.
That said, Iād recommend swapping at least one weapon. Evis already shreds crowds and would be more complemented by a snappier secondary for ranged counter fire such as the Zarona or an infantry autogun, meanwhile the bulky flamer thatās meant for lots of close, lighter targets might benefit from a faster single target removal tool (I donāt use the flamer so thatās personal discretion tbh).
If you arenāt running shred on that evis then donāt run scourge, your crit chanceāll be too low to proc it enough to matter compared to the alternative toughness on kill boost, even if thatās not super crazy either. Disdain sounds good on paper, but swings buffed by disdain donāt grant it which makes it clunky. Iād swap that for the heal after revenant ends, which is kinda mandatory if youāre running revenant imo. Lastly, as far as no crit goes, youād be better off ripping the three points you have at the top of the blazing piety tree and just picking up the momentum keystone and itās buffs for just some general damage bonuses.
Now, if you do run shred, or do wanna do crit, that changes a lot. Disdain still sucks, throw it on revenant healing. Take the point from toughness on dodge and pass it to toughness DR on crit and keep scourge. Take the points you have on sprint to dodge and itās preceding node and push it over to crit CDR and the first piety keystone. The crit increase and cooldown reduction plus DR makes you much harder to kill while killing more thanks to bonus damage while easily refreshing scourge and chorus. There are other suggestions but lunch ended and this reply is long as is.
- I didnt want to change the whole feel of his build. 5% movement speed can feel pretty impactful.
- Disdain only effects every 2nd attack and while the heavy chainsword can benefit with its big cleave sacrificing the one point to gain crit regen or 20% attack speed is entirely worth it.
I just swapped out Disdain for Holy Revenant and reworked a bunch of other stuff!
Big pain point I have with yours is Born Leader over For the Emperor.
You seem to be going for a burst style build with Marksman, but give up the 10% for a node that requires you to have almost no toughness left to gain anything.
Max youād have with this build which involves sacrificing stats you shouldnāt would be 200 or so meaning youād have to wait to be at zero toughness to give allies an additional 30 for a total of 80.
Not bad on paper, but in practice it means you are saving the CD instead of using it proactively to avoid overhead one shots, sniper health damage, burster damage, etc AND ontop of that it will provide zero value when also used offensively.
FS pissed me off with this node. Zero thought on their end.
My modified version of your build doubles down on the burst damage of a quick duel showdown theme.
1 point into Focus Target so you can single out your enemy. 20% more damage.
1 point into Marksman, and 1 into For the Emperor for 30 more damage when you shout to stagger your marked target opening them to easy headshots.
Once you are done shooting your stamina will be low from using Deadeye, but your shovel has All or Nothing so your depleted stamina becomes more raw power.
One final note for any Vet build is to get over 150 health. Bursters do 75, and between silent bursters, bursters through walls, and simple āaccidentsā involving trigger happy teammates Iād say itās a health breakpoint worth considering.
Update: Fixed it to be what I actually have in game.
Devil is in the detail, I would post links to the saved builds at if I was you:
I posted them above, but I do have to update them based on the feedback that Iāve gotten so far!
I dislike this combo because it encourages a team to be less mobile than it should. If you want to keep your team safe then itās more optimal to do more damage. If thereās a dozen gunners shooting at your team then staggering and burning them (and everything else within a 30m cone) with your Venting shriek will allow your team to close in instead of shooting them one by one from behind your shield.
what the hellā¦
Iāll just assume people already told you to get your keystones so I wonāt do that. But Iād love to hear the thought process behind these builds.
Btw. @Khorne_Dawg mind if I cut in with my Fumbles?
Iāve been unhappy with firepower Iāve got with this little fellow even to a degree Iāve been accused of being carried and frankly I myself am not so sure about muh skill anymoreā¦
Soā¦ what the hell am I doing wrong with Fumbles?
Iāve been moving point between Kinetic Resonance, Kinetic Flayer and Solidity.
Solidity feels best, but it makes BB useless or very situational.
It looks like itās very confused as to what it wants to be. The build that is. Itās trying to be everything, and thus becomes nothing.
What it seems that you are going for is a sort of support artillery psyker right?
Iād also drop the 1 wounds for a toughness trinket. Psykers really need toughness, and worst case scenario we now have medi stimms as another form of healing making wounds even more redundant.
You said yourself BB is pointless yes? Try assail would be my suggestion. Voidstaff has your anti-armor covered in spades.
Alternatively for someone with clout, and way more experience than me (but the build is purely offense)
he has the build in the very first few seconds of the video
Ahem āall-rounderā is what I was going for. I do just fine on Damnation without Keystones, as I usually top-frag and I very rarely go down.
Skill issue.
No problem!!!

You seem to be going for a burst style build with Marksman, but give up the 10% for a node that requires you to have almost no toughness left to gain anything.
Pretty sure that issue got fixed, the talent should be able to feed toughness to your teammates now even if youāre topped off on it.
Really? I gotta test that then. Itās not completely awful anymore.
Should be able to see if it works on some bots once Iām home.

OK, everyone! The builds are up!
Late to the party, but as a sweaty vet hereās my take on your vet set up:
-
Firstly, shame on you for not realizing the glory of the A1 IAG or the K1a LG, you have brought great dishonor and shame upon yourself and your kin. Please be prepared to be visited by your local party official, they shall promptly escort you to your local reeducation center (j/K)
-
Firstly, Iād drop the following talents:
5% Health tax node, Grenade Tinkerer, Serrated Blade, Twinned Blast, Field Improv, Grenadier, Killzone -
Then Iād pick up:
Deadshot, Stam Regen 0.25, For the Emperor, Tactical Awareness, Iron Will, Reciprocity, Desperado, Opening Salvo
These change will retain the flexibility you seem to be going for while also allowing you to rack up some DeePS.
Breakdown:
-
Deadshot, this + Gets Hot (Blessing) will be your source of DMG, Deadshot + Opening Salvo starts you off, and as you build heat, the blessing should take over once youāre dry on stam. This helps you maintain a relatively high and consistent crit rate throughout the fight. Both +5% crit (perk and the node) further feed into this. Reciprocity also supports this when youāre inevitably dancing in the middle of a horde trying to keep your knife zealot from becoming an-hero by protecting him from getting focused by every disabler on the map as he zips and zooms around picking up plasteel and pissing off crusher packs.
-
0.25 Stam Node, more Melee surivability, Deadshot uptime, and easier Stam management, get stam regen on your curios too if you can afford it, the more the better. Even non deashot builds benefit from all this stam too since it makes you more survivable in melee, especially with high Def stat shovels. Makes block efficiency picks on the shovel or even your curios pretty viable, especially in VoC + Iron Will set ups.
-
For the emperor is meh on VoC, but it helps, and is pretty ok relatively speaking for low RoF high DMG guns like the plasma. Functionally though itās just a tax node to get to the two talents you truly need, at least IMO, Tactical Awareness (TA) and Iron Will. These two should be core to any and all vet builds. TA will let you spam your shout to mitigate DMG for yourself and the team, it also allows you to use it both offensively and defensively to interrupt disablers and elites, bully mixed hordes and death walls, breakout of corners, and protect the team from being overrun. Also, gives you the luxury of just spamming it to get that 10% extra oomph when opening engagements. Without TA VoC is just a mediocre āOh sh*t!ā button, and at that point, especially for a low RoF build like this one
you might as well just run Infiltrate + Low Profile + Overwatch. Youāll get a better safety net than a TA-less VoC (Caveat: is outperformed by TA+ VoC even when you use the set up with TA though). -
Then thereās Iron Will (IW), this + VoC + Duty and Honor will be what allows you to tank nearly anything except, maybe crusher overheads when sh*t hits the fan or the director decides to drop double bursters on you.
-
Given the vibes of your builds, Iām guessing youāre going for generalist set ups, so thatās why Iām recommending you nab Reciprocity, and Desperado, these plus TA + VoC, the +5% crit node, and a +5% crit perk on the shovel will make you a force to be reckoned with in melee too. More so than simply having Serrated Blade, and reciprocity also benefits your plasma too. Similar synergy here to running Precision strikes in autogun and lasguns builds (benefits melee, especially Brutal Momentum set ups). If you run Thrust + Uncanny Strikes on your shovel you will even be able to bully elites, ragers, and atomize mutants in CQ. This set up will do you so well that you may often need to remind yourself to use nades since youāll have some ridiculous horde clear with your shovel heavies.
-
If youāre not that into melee, or are struggling to get used to deadshot, then consider dropping Reciprocity and Desperado for Duck and Dive and the other 0.25 stam regen node. These will benefit your melee survivability, but you will need to rely on your grenades to actually kill hordes. Although Uncanny + Thrust is powerful enough that the losses in BPs shouldnāt be too jarring. The downside here is that you wonāt be able to offensively flex into the melee frontline whenever your gun lugger ogryn forgets that he has a melee weapon, or your zealot(s) is/are playing in solo mode. You will have to be in the center or backline and only go into CQ for self defense. You can still hold the line just fine, but youāre going to need help actually clearing hordes, especially if mixed, before the director starts spamming you with disabler spawns in your blindspots and snipers with sawed off shotguns (point blank spawns behind hordes).
Update, everyone! Iāve finally updated my builds by utilising your feedback and I wanted to thank you all very much for the honest criticism!
Now, youāll notice that my builds still donāt have Keystones, and to justify that Iāve got to tell you that I honestly experimented with them and it just really wasnāt for me - but that doesnāt make your Keystone builds any less viable or fun for the rest of yāall!
Youāre all able and welcome to see the updated builds via the original links that I posted