Kantrael has the best primary shot, who cares about the special shot, it’s easily the best shotgun IMO with very reliable break points aiming centre mass (so much more consistent than Agrip head break points).
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Greetings and thanks for the reply. I’m curious, what weapon is so perfect that your team doesn’t have to replace it? Also tell me if you have the time and desire, which is the best and which is the worst weapon when it comes to Zealot. As far as I can see from the answers here, the opinions are very divided between those who think that the tactical ax can destroy absolutely everything, as well as those who think that the tactical ax is absolute garbage.
Oh no. I didn’t expect to catch others on that bait.
@MunKy @99punk Sorry for confusion, i just wanted to have some fun with the local madman.
As far as your question goes. The best weapon is the one you like.
And i am afraid i cannot give you any objective advice, since i playing zealot only with Eviscerator and nothing else. And doesn’t bother with meta in general.
Don’t always listen to teamplay preachers.
Oftentimes they use it as means to justify their bad behavior and put blame on others,
in order to maintain their fragiale ego.
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There’s already a vast amount of good help in this thread, so I’m just going to ‘respond’ to this and point out that having more toughness in specific is an incredibly good stat and should not be slept on if the Omnissiah blesses you with a 17% curio.
As a ‘one life Andy’ that runs around with such on all my characters, I routinely see myself living things that I otherwise wouldn’t thanks to the extra toughness. Main example I have is my Psyker, who I always run around with 200 toughness on (requiring a lot of min-maxing) and who’s able to take a crushers ‘running maul slap’ to the face with 10 toughness left because of it (not the overhead but nobody but an Ogryn can take that).
I bring this up mainly under the reminder that basically everything in this game perk tree wise gives toughness in percentages, so while having a collective total of toughness isn’t inherently amazing, giving yourself more ‘break points’ while ALSO giving all your regen effects more toughness is incredibly helpful. Bumping one’s toughness from 140 to 190 toughness for instance suddenly gains you 25 extra toughness per charge cast in this case, which can be the difference between an attack seriously hurting you or just grazing off your toughness.
Given the ‘bleed through’ effect of hits that break your toughness too (where the damage will full hit your health if it breaks your toughness), it can be a literal life saver, and worth looking out for if nothing else.
All that being said, while learning more ‘lives’ is probably better. Specially on a zealot, can easily just make a full wound martydom build and just focus on survival first. Then once game mechanics are learned, THEN start branching out into all my word salad above. Just felt it still worth mentioning as one never knows what the armory has and I don’t want one to miss something they might want later!
Honestly no weapon is genuinely unviable in the current state of the game. Just make sure your melee and ranged weapons compliment each other, so that between both of them you have a decent to good option against all armour types. If you’re good on that the rest is mostly just personal skill, positioning, and decision making.
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Work on Dodge, structure in dodging towards enemies. The central idea is you want to revolve around everything. The faster you can get to an enemies side, or rear, the better.
For example, when you approach an enemy to land your first hit, if you do not have a fast attack ready to launch, dodge towards them. This will require you to look to the left or right then dodge to gain ground.
Also, work towards the enemy. Often times people attack while retreating. This is bad. You want to stay glued to as many enemies as possible. Attack towards the enemies, push forward. Do not attack while walking backwards.
Keep at it, you have great slide technique. Work on attacking the enemy and you will do fine!
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Hello!
I’m glad you enjoyed the idea!
I don’t have a video of the build in action, but I can give my talent tree if you like.
It might be the same that most are running; I’m not sure because I didn’t look up he build beforehand, but great minds think alike, usually! 
I hope you have fun playing the game!
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Urp! U caught me hook line and sinker 
I suggest throwning me back out there, Im just a little fish after all.
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Oh I’m not even close to trying it all. That’s kinda the thing I love about Darktide, there’s just so much! But yes, BoF is tricky to learn, and fire nades really are an excellent choice imo.
Also sorry for the abbreviations and acronyms! 
I’m so used to the Darktide lingo here in the forums I sometimes forget not everyone does that. I will try to address everything below!
BAG means Agripinaa Braced Autogun. ADS or braced means aiming, holding RMB, using scope etc.
My point was that BAG weapons an exception in that you practically never want to aiming manually with RMG / scope / braced. They are hipfire weapons, which makes them easy, fast & safe.
Thanks! And yee like I said I experiment a ton, and very few games have as much build variation as Darktide. You can use most blessings very effectively depending on your build and playstyle which is why there is no simple answer to this.
Apologies in advance as this will get long, but since you clearly love shotguns like I do, I have a lot to say I think you might find useful here. Most people don’t particularly like shotguns and I don’t normally either, but in Darktide after spending a 2-3 day spree of testing them out like a madwoman a few months ago and realizing all the crazy fun stuff you can do and build with them, I’ve been a devout shotty fanatic ever since!
First I’ll elaborate on the Kantrael trickiness I hinted at before:
- At mid+ ranges you usually just want to close the gap before firing. But the special rounds can be effective even on sniper ranges if you use ADS (aim / scope) to reduce the spread and then just let the burn DoT (damage-over-time, like burn, bleed, Soulblaze) finish them off.
- Ofc the issue is that middle ground where normal shots are just too weak, but specials are just a bit too slow & too much hassle to be worth it
- Kantrael has horribly low ammo though, so it’s not a gun you want to be wasteful with
- Kantrael more than any other shotty really needs both hipfire for that max spread, and ADS for max accuracy (weakspots, DoT application etc) as the situation requires
- Its special does almost no direct damage, so it’s all about the burn. But it has insane stagger and infinite cleave (note, “infinite cleave” in general no matter the weapon doesn’t include oggies or monsters, outside exceptions like the Perfect Strike blessing among others, even Man-Stopper which does give infinite cleave, does NOT penetrate oggies or monsters).
- But then there’s the many nuances. If you add Flechette (+6 bleed on crit) to Kantrael and use specials, the burn has infinite cleave but Flechette stops on the first enemy hit. But if you also add Man-Stopper & crit, now both the burn AND the bleed have infinite cleave.
I’m sure you can imagine some of the many ways all of the above and more comes together, but to give you some practical Kantrael examples:
- Typically you always lead with a special hipshot or two to burn as many enemies as you can, then switch to melee or regular shots on the front enemies while the burn works its magic on everything else
- With bosses, leading with 2 specials and then refreshing the burn every 8-10 seconds lets you deal massive dmg over an extended fight even as you just use melee or deal with adds or whatever in the meantime
- With Scattershot, you can use the special’s cleave & spread to easily stack that +60% crit on your next shot. But ofc the special itself doesn’t benefit from crits. So in this case, you usually want to combo special > regular > repeat instead. Ofc this depends on how many enemies you can hit with the special, or if there’s oggies blocking it etc, but still. If you add Man-Stopper to this, that special > normal > repeat makes for a build doing burn & heavy dmg to everything in a huge area. Thanks to Scattershot you don’t even need to build for crits to make 2/3:rds of those crit, but if you add zelly’s Blazing Piety (+25% crit, works for ranged) this in practice becomes a ~100% crit & infinite cleave build.
- Due to the insane stagger, the special also works wonderfully in setting up No Respite (+20% dmg vs. staggered). What’s worth noting here is that No Respite actually adds a kind of cumulative debuff of “+20% dmg taken while staggered” on the enemy, resetting when the enemy recovers from the stagger, up to max +~180% dmg(!!) (affected by +Power), and that bonus dmg applies to DoT’s too! Since reload speed affects special speed on shotguns for example vets can go for 50%+ reload speed and just spam back-to-back staggering specials for insane CC & dmg. Full Bore’s +20% Power (power affects dmg, cleave & stagger) makes all that even easier, for even more dmg.
- DoT’s also benefit from some specific talents that aren’t always obvious. For vets Longshot, Superiority Complex, Bring it Down! all work on DoT’s too (many others that you’d think should work, don’t). More importantly the vet stealth talents like Surprise Attack & Close Quarters Killzone (together: +45% dmg “on leaving stealth”) actually activate ON stealth, not when leaving it. So you can throw a few frag nades for bleeds + burns from Kantrael > stealth and do whatever while they all do almost +50% dmg > exit stealth and do it again before the talents slowly wear out.
- More interesting - especially for you I imagine -, is that both zelly & vet stealth have a ~0.5s grace period where it won’t break from attacking. The zelly stealth adds 100% crit chance including ranged, so with a Flechette & Man-Stopper Kantrael you can stealth > fire special instantly after > do whatever for 3-6s > fire another special before the stealth runs out… for 2 infinite cleave 100% crits both adding burn, bleed & massive CC to everything in a huge range & area. Aim this right and you’ll just delete everything except oggies & monsters, while doing heavy dmg to them too. If you’re running this with a crit dagger build, you can recharge that stealth in a few seconds and just do it again. This here is one of my favorite zelly builds btw, and favorite Kantrael build in general.
As for Full Bore & No Respite, they are considered meta and the most popular blessings in the community for a reason. I suggested Fire Frenzy for you in my prior post because I felt it would give it that extra close ranges oomph for a similar feel as your Kantrael. But if that’s not a concern then yes, absolutely, Full Bore is a much better pick especially for Agripinaa. Agri is so crazy accurate that Full Bore is basically always active with it, so it’s a very safe pick.
But when it comes to Full Bore, not all shotties are created equal. Full Bore needs a tight hit, yet Kantrael has a big spread, dmg & stagger (so it also likes to spread, and is most useful when it spreads), especialy the special. So Full Bore doesn’t have the best synergy there, and often even just keeping the blessing running means you have to consciously blast something in particular, because it’s not gonna happen on its own.
This underlines the problem with meta in Darktide. People often think of meta as ‘objectively & mathematically the best and only thing’, yet especially for Darktide that’s not how it works at all. All meta means here is something that’s generally strong, easy, and works well for most builds. But that is often far from what is actually strongest or the best.
For example, like I said Full Bore & No Respite are fantastic basic blessings for Agripinaa thanks to its high accuracy and specials being single shells so they always proc Full Bore. And No Respite’s stacking +20% dmg on staggered is insane for anything that takes several hits to kill. And you don’t even have to do anything special or play in some specific way. It’s easy, it’s effective, it works.
Except… what if, instead of those, you went with an Agri with Scattershot & Man-Stopper on a crit build? Agripinaa has a massive crit / weakspot bonus of +54% dmg on either, +90% on both (other shotties get +30% / 50%, respectively). Man-Stopper adds that infinite cleave on crits.
So if we dumb things down and compare the two in practice:
- Full Bore & No Respite means +20% dmg, and another stacking +20% on chained shots vs. anything staggerable (so doesn’t do much for monsters, mind) that didn’t die from the first one
- Scattershot & Man-Stopper means +54% dmg & infinite cleave on crits, and since it has up to +60% chance to crit + base & build, in reality most all shots will crit
Obviously there are nuances and the two wouldn’t always play the same, but overall, option 2 here is going to be way stronger in almost every scenario. Between Agri’s crazy base dmg and the crits & headshots, nothing will be alive long enough for option 1’s No Respite’s extra dmg to stack enough to overcome the crit dmg bonus in the first place. Meanwhile you wouldn’t have to worry about enemies or teammates blocking your shots against that sniper or gunner in the back row, since you’d just delete everything on the way there anyway. Vets also have Marksman’s Focus, which further adds +75% finesse (finesse means crit & weakspot power), so it specifically needs the crits to really shine and option 1 doesn’t have that. My favorite sniper build on my vet is built like this and is just amazing. This Agri works fine for Zellies too, but ofc I’m not usually looking to play snipers on my zelly.
But I’ll stop here. Again, sorry for the long megapost.
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Look up Tanner Lindberg’s videos . . . he’s kind of annoying, but he makes very good tips videos. I know he specifically has some on how to fight the Chaos Spawn.
Also look up Telopots, he does good stuff. Streams Darktide almost every day (until he rage quits over bugs).
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Tanner is simply a precious and mentally unhinged femboy. I say that because it takes one to know one. 
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Here’s a Zealot game I’ve just played. I’ve posted it deliberately because I made mistakes throughout: I miss a few shots, and I jumped down off the rail station before teammates were in the clear. But I stay up and so do the team!
It’s an average game for me - and a good one to share precisely because it’s not some “l44t player” shite that no-one could replicate.
Some notes that you could take out;
- I move around a lot. But generally not far from the squad. Zealots don’t have to be at the front all the time.
- The knife/pistol combo is considered OP. I think it’s on the better side too. But I’m from a shooter background and the quickswap-knife-pistol-knife move has become my staple on a zealot.
- I bound a mouse macro to light attack. Either that or I’m shelling out £40 every month for new mouse! It repeats slower than I can click (100ms) so I consider that fair game.
- Watch for where I just block an enemy based on sound. That’s just a reflex you’ll get with time.
- If you’re unsure of your positioning, move with block enabled. It’s a 360 block unlike Vermintide 2.
- I’m just programmed to focus on disablers. You’ll notice I pull out the pistol ready to hunt them ahead of time. Most mobs aren’t going to hurt you if you keep moving and dodging, so I ignore them and prioritize a target.
- I spot a LOT. It’s a built in cheat mode that I think 80% of the playerbase just haven’t cottoned on to. I spam “spot” even if I don’t know where an enemy is… but have an inkling. I can’t believe it’s not used more, as it’s almost like a wallhack through special effects like fire.
- For the other classes: your health is paramount and you use toughness to stop that dissipating. For the zealot; other way around. Keep replenishing toughness, and don’t worry as much about health. It’s easy to top up when you need from stims, med kits and terminals. Don’t sweat taking a hit or two.
- Slide now and then. You’re as quick as running (ish). Enemies can’t target you. But don’t do it all the time as you’re committed once you do and it’s hard to hit weakspots down there.
- Throw in a block-push now and then to mix up your defence in a melee scrum. It’s stamina cheap with a knife, and you’ll often save yourself from being hit by a cheap poxwalker swing.
- Stamina on a zealot is underrated. Especially if you like loot.
- If you’re not needed, reload your gun. In fact, if you’ve just got mobs in front, make sure you’ve 5 shots ready to go - because they’re the things that’ll save you in a crutch.
- … and don’t feel like you’ve always got to be hitting things. Trust your team to do their thing. Have a look around to assess. I got to almost 500k damage without being even remotely aggressive in my playstyle. But keeping an eye out for disablers >> scrubbing a few poxwalkers
- You can use grenades defensively. They’re really good for creating a safe area especially with dog packs. Also - they funnel lighter enemies.
- I double-dip on the special. The first one I tend to use if I’ve taken a hit or two to top up my toughness. Or I might use it for the armour penetration ability to remove a rager. Occsionally I’ll use the second too for convenience, or when I’m taking multiple hits. It’s there to be used; use it! The build below soon tops it up.
Here’s my build
Lacerate I think is key on the knife. Synergises with crits, crits on bleeding targets, and the top right and bottom left sides of the tree.
I have another pistol equally as good with HandCannon instead of Crucian which is probably better all in all as it deals with Crushers better, but hey, this is what I ran with in the video.
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Very good advice!
Also note that disablers tend to spawn from areas you’re leaving to try and catch you from behind. So fall back carefully.
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Best advice would be to refund this and get Helldivers 2 instead. this game is dead
Woow man you are awesome, your video is great and you gave me a lot of good explanations that I need to implement in the game. I find your talent tree very interesting, you have a lot of weird choices that I would never have thought to use. The most important thing is how you showed that they work and that is the essence of everything. What can I say but thank you for this awesome explanation of yours, and if you’re in the mood, you can send me your shark ID so we can play a map together. Of course I’m not as good as you, but I’ll do my best to catch up with you.
In my opinion, this is the most important point of the game
Hahahahahaha, Because of you, I’m going to become a shotgun freak… Well, you’re not normal. 
MY advice to you is to start an interesting blog about games when you already love to write so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you… I don’t know what else to say without sounding like a broken record. Lots of useful information that every Dartide player should know. You are very detailed and I like that, and I can see that you have a really good understanding of both blessings and the overall game mechanics. This is a text that I had to read several times, because there is a lot, a lot of information. Thanks again man. There is a saying in my country: If you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask a question on the forum 
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If you like shotguns, 2 builds I enjoy on vet and zealot.
More precision centered vet with Agri (can be adopted for crits with Man-Stopper/Felchette or different shotgun also):
and crit focused, Man-Stopper special attack Lawbringer on Zealot:
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