Games with Dagger Zealots feel a lot different than games without. It feels like some big “who cares?” vibes of the grandfather, including from the Dagger Zealots themselves. Both sides just kinda detach from the game and each other, until its over.
Being aware of where you are doesn’t really benefit them, and visa-versa.
Well yeah Zealot has a 10% nerfed precognition that lasts 50% longer as a node. That literally destroys the non existent balance of the knife letting you 2 shot crusher/mauler and still have uncanny/bleed.
I dislike playing with knife users as much as plasma and voidstrike these days, for slightly different reasons. I never was in the camp of “knife zealot” haters, but had few serious offenders, taking advantage of mobility to speed run the map, ruining the pacing, often aggroing and dumping packs of enemies on other players through stealth and / or mobility alone.
I often hear complaints about psyker and vet being overpowered due to few specific weapons and some build options. Both classes are far more squishy than zealot, and the margin of error on them is far smaller.
I play zealot a lot, it’s easily the most overtuned class in the game in terms of power AND surviability. It’s a class I play if I feel like going full re…rd and not care about smart play. Your talent tree swims in both damage, toughness regen and DR options. Insane damage, stagger (if you even want that), ignore death, self-heal and stealth. Do you want more? Ability cooldown reduction is totally broken (as it is on vet) and one of the keystones has a hidden buff to dodge cooldown reset. Add to that whatever remains from the hidden passive class bonuses.
Then we can add weapons with their insane cleave, damage output, stagger potential and often broken levels of mobility. Knives can deal with any type of enemy and situation. If you screw up, you can simply run away, often forcing someone else to deal with your mess. A knife stealth zealot is a perfect set up for a pub game griefer also. Even I had some of those clowns in my games.
Mobility in general in Darktide needs to be tone down. I’m not sure if I want the VT2 experience, where with few exceptions in most cases you could not run away from a fight, but mobility nerfs, removal of move tech, should be part of future changes.
Power creep has been real since Patch 13/14, and some poorly thought out mechanics persisted and were introduced to the game. Mobility which allows you to easily outrun enemies with no real cost, ability cooldown reduction with no real limiters, overall power, global rending buffs, abundance of ammo and too much of a shift towards ranged combat, multiple overtuned weapons with broken levels of cleave and damage.
meta builds are for people with less skill 
I main zealot and hate the knife it actually bad other than you are faster…great. if u have a zealot with a knife running ahead then the 3 ppl left should stop progressing and stick together hold off all the enemies until the zelot dies. He cant go through airlocks alone and cant get objectives to start alone just let him die then call him out for running ahead. Its very satisfying lol
Works with new players who look at knfe zealots who know what they are doing, and think “I want that”, but not those who actually know how the game works. Knife zealot melee damage output is more than respectable. If you don’t mind all that attack spam, it has no real downsides. Knife mobility is plain broken, but that’s hardly knife problem alone.
Not to defend dagger zealots, but I am one.
The vast majority of my 240 hrs in darktide is on zealot and I run pretty much the dagger build this thread is about. Rending on backstab blessing, tons of bleed on crit, stealth, and the braindead crit keystone. I never run the loner aura, but the build still works without a team anyway.
I only play Darktide with friends in private sessions, and they aren’t as good at the game. Whatever zealot build I’m running (or often even if I’m playing a different class), I end up being the last one standing at some point in most damnation missions and almost every mission with harder modifiers. The stealth dagger build makes it far easier for me to clutch up and rescue them and maybe even complete an objective. I’ve reworked my builds time and again and it is hard to make a build without at least 4 of: dagger, revolver, stunstorm, stealth, and crits.
The dagger is way to strong with hardly any downsides. Where it lacks against some enemies, I can swap to a revolver and solve that problem 9 times out of 10.
EDIT: I played a bit today post patch with this thread in mind and used axe, autopistol, throwing knives, chorus, and crit. Would have been nice to have the stun grenades and/or stealth in a couple instances, but overall felt okay even if we didn’t complete the auric maelstrom mission we tried. Probably wouldn’t have even with the dagger build, but almost certainly would have made it farther.
Even in Vermintide 2 (still very playable and fun), there are some weapons that can “deal with any type of enemy and situation”, but it doesn’t quite have the same effect.
Huh? What?? Since when?
As a knife zealot user myself, I’ll pitch in with my two cents: Zealots running ahead with the knife are idiots. It’s a far more powerful tool for spamming your cooldowns with your team due to being able to get a near-100% crit chance. Book spam, stealth backstab spam, anything you can think of is possible.
It really is a perfect Zealot weapon - the only crazier thing would be giving them a Psyker duelling sword. High crit bonuses on the crit-based class, excellent mobility on the melee class, and bleed-stacks on the class that gives you 30% crit chance while you have bleed stacks on basically anything.
Compared to the mk2 Eviscerator, I think it’s less fun, but it’s easily one of the strongest options available. I can see why people tend to rush ahead, and I’m tempted myself.
Yeah I agree, it is less fun.
If I were you, I would switch back and forth between a dagger build and something else, to see how it feels for yourself and friends.
I would bet that they’re tired of watching the enemies follow you around across the room, realizing that you’re not actually in trouble, and that there’s no reason to help or be alarmed. It’s gloomy.
And as a dagger zealot, it’s also gloomy to realize that you haven’t been aware of where your teammates are for the last 2m. Not that it matters, for you.
I’ve been having a good time running the Crusher more. I’ll still definitely be running dagger from time to time, especially when I’m just trying to keep uptime on the Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude.
My group had a run that ended abruptly when the Ogryn got split up from the group and then the Zealot and Psyker were getting cornered by elites. I was able to regroup, but not quickly enough to help them or run over to Ogyrn before it fell apart entirely. That has helped wake me up from some tendencies to stray a little too far, and I think going back to some other melees could reinforce that.
Since this is a confessional, I too am a knife zealot. Worse still, knife and pistol.
The only “running ahead” I do is to the first airlock or drop point as it’s really fun. But I wait there.
Then I really use its abilities for the dodge and speed in horde thinning. I liked the shade in VT2, and it’s the closest I’ve got to that… though, and I’m only thinking about this now, I don’t ever take the cloak. I guess because I grabbed this build back in Jan23 and got used to it on the old mechanics, I just stuck with FotF (with redoubled zeal 
)
I don’t think I’ve got lvl4 backstab rending, at least not on a knife with any decent stats, so I still struggle a bit with crushers, especially in twos and threes. I’ve tried the crusher (weapon) - I quite like that, but it’s not the same. I’m not a chain sword/eviscerator lover - again - tried those. Tactical axes - meh. Combat axes - okay, but a bit slow on the zealot (fine for my Vet). Catachan - the riposte is fun, but I dunno, I just don’t like it as much. Turtolsky IX, fine, but it doesn’t have the speed feel I prefer.
I think being able to rend any form of carapace with a knife is ludicrous, but then I can’t personally bypass it anyway. Would if I could! Probably one for a balance patch methinks.
*edit Just looking at the tree, was Invigorating Revelation always there as a shroudfield spin-off?
Sounds like you guys have problem with certain players more than the knife-zealot build itself.
When I play Zealot I play a knife zealot and I never run away/ahead from the group and always try to play cooperatively.
After finishing the ‘‘behind enemy line’’ pennance yesterday i’m done with the counter-productive play that comes from the loner perk. feels shitty to leave behind your team so you can go and grab like what… 20-30 kills a match.
I’ve also played dagger zealot since beta, and its is and always have been one of the strongest builds in the game, specially when they introduced crit ability reduce builds, its alot of fun, and works really well for clutching and quick saves, but i’ll always prefer the crit build with a evi without the shroudfield/dagger.
Things will settle once the majority of people farm their stupid anti-teamwork achievement and go back to using Loner “normally”.
If knife zealots are out-killing you and leaving you in the dust you just need to work harder tbh. Any class can top the damage charts easily and it doesn’t take a meta build to do it.
I don’t think anyone said anything about damage charts. And most the folks here seemed to be Knife Zealots.
Anyway, had a strange experience with one in my lobby. They basically finished the mission alone. The two other team mates I carefully escorted to the exit. Zealot was just chilling at extraction. One of the guys in the lobby said to the zealot “omg, again? what are you on???”
The zealot smoothly replied “I’m on the Big D of the Pression” and left the lobby.
I got no answers for you, but eh… I wasn’t bothered. Nor did my team mates seem fussed.
(Pretty sure it was Enclavum Baross, and the Zealot finished it in 12 minutes. Auric Damnation.)
Knives are overtuned. They shouldn’t cleave like they do now and shouldn’t let you W+M1 trough hordes (even if there are elites among them), and it has hilarious single target damage as well…all this while it also lets the user run at the speed of light.
It’s more than just the players themselves. Other games, like Vermintide 2, have game designs which help prevent the issue. Darktide could do the same.
For example, daggers could have slightly less stagger and push range.
Move speed should be nerfed.
That acceleration on the knife heavy should be killed, it’s ok in V2, cause you can’t sprint there.
It’s unhealthy when you can disengage fights without any effort - especially when it’s paired with high attack and speed damage on TANKY CLASS.
If you pulled agro - kite and fight, or die. And by kiting I mean timed blocks and dodges, paying attention, not just running around effortless.
Like if you are agile and swift crits’n’backstabs loving assassin you should be squishy, it’s the trade.
Another factor - you can skip hard to fight locations - don’t want to fight in this room/on this bridge - just fly through it. Pu$$y gameplay.