Yeah Beacon of Purity is pretty mid as far as any kind of aura is concerned but don’t diss Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude.
It is an INSTANT shut down of anything in the vicinity of the team and then you get right back to violence while they’re still staggered on top of having that +100 bonus toughness. Just because it’s an ability you have to channel doesn’t immediately make it trash.
Having mained Zealot for ~100 hours, the build I most consistently win with is one that abuses the high crit and attack speed of the knife with CDR to spam book as much as possible when needed, 3121 feat setup.
Why stun when you can just kill? I don’t understand. Well, okay, let’s say
I love those dudes who run up with a cross and run around a fallen ally, waiting for someone to run up and resurrect him. Just throw a stun grenade!
Oh, I’m getting absolutely lazy with these pointless arguments that are going nowhere. Do you like a knife and running around with a cross? Play on, have a nice day. You and your team. May the Emperor forgive you.
If you pair Chorus with Immolation Grenades you can easily wipe entire hordes simply by stun-locking them in the fire, which will also give your entire team temporary respite and an overcharged shield.
This sentiment completely overlooks the value of CC. Nice to kill sure, but I’d take alive and CC’d over just alive.
One example is the Ogryn Ripper gun. Say there’s a flamer spinning up by you. You loose a quick salvo in the heat of the moment but miss the headshot. Flamer still gets bodied – sent sprawling on the floor, buying you a few more seconds before they’re a threat.
Yes, death is usually the best status effect you can inflict, but you can’t kill things if you’re also dead. Having a way to remove something that’s making it more difficult to kill enemies is really good, even if it doesn’t necessarily kill them itself.
Psyker’s wall shield protects from Mutants, Hounds, and Poxbursters, making chokepoints way easier to defend
Psyker’s dome shield nullifies all ranged enemies for a time, allowing people to snipe them without being shredded or having to spam dodge
Trauma Staff doesn’t have the greatest single-target damage, but it has amazing knockdown
Ogryn’s charge knocks everything in front of him down, stuffing packs of heavy armor
Ogryn’s Taunt and Veteran’s Shout can be used as an interrupt button to stun enemies for a moment - Ogryns can then use this to control the flow of the fight from there while everything’s aggroed to them, while Veterans can use the bonus Toughness to save people from one-shots
Shredder Frags deal okay damage, but great crowd control, and are spammable
Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude checks a lot of these boxes, but is also far stronger. A good comparison would be against Smite:
Shared traits:
Channeled ability
Stuns enemies
Useful as a panic button
Spammable (CDR from tree vs. Peril quelling)
Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude:
Gives INSANE toughness regen and overshield to teammates, making your whole team extremely durable during and after the duration
Also prevents any ranged enemies in line of sight from shooting
No damage while channeling, but channel lasts a short time and you can get right back to full DPS (potentially more with Ecclesiarch’s Call) immediately after
Full mobility while channeling
Smite:
No bonuses to teammates, minor debuff to affected enemies if talent allocated (why would you)
Very short range
Effectivelo 100% uptime, but deals minimal damage
Extremely bad mobility while channelling
Smite sucks because you’re effectively down a player for the entire mission if the Psyker is ONLY using Smite. With the book, it’s an active ability meant to be used during stressful moments, and it lasts just long enough for your team to get control in those moments before things go south, before giving them a +20% damage buff.
The other Zealot actives are definitely great, but Chorus is easily the strongest active in the game - just don’t bring more than one.
If the psyker is the type to think that spamming smite all game is a good idea, you’re probably going to be down a player for the whole mission whether they use it or not.
I only see people talk about Chorus as a defensive ability… the way I play it (if I do) is a mixture of Panic-Button (yes sometimes it’s needed) but also advancing to the enemie. I might charge into the gunner group and go to work with my “Straight Silver” or I can play “Roman Army Turtle” with the team advancing protected and go to work with their “Straight Silver”. Both are viable, both get the job done, in HIS name.
About the “Loner-Play-Style” - well, I see Zealot more like a satelite taking rounds arround the team to function as vanguard and rearguard wherever they’re needed. Their fast paced playstyle makes them ideal for that.
And about clutch-potential:
I’ve seen a fair amount of clutches from both sides in my aprox 1400h of Darktide. And to be fair, I’ve seen my fair share of really good/near epic clutches as well as … well let’s put it that way: “Nice try - let’s start with malice again, shall we?” from both sides, with all classes …
And let’s be honest: If we would’ve been better the “Let’s try Malice again”-guy would’ve not been the one clutching, would they? Even if we were carrying them, it’s allways our fault if we go down, we took decisions, sometimes the better would’ve been not to help/carry in that specific situation. I think “One does not simply blame worse players for own decision-making” (Yeah I know, there might be some situations where it’s definetly the other one - looking at you, you barrel-destroyers - but well I stood next to that barrel )
And yeah sometimes it’s just bad luck or a bad day.
I don’t know why you wrote that. Okay.
Like I said before, I’m too lazy to argue and tired of explaining obvious points to people, so let’s just call it a day, good luck to your team and you.
Dude, if you can’t come up with a good counter-argument, or even want to argue at all, don’t throw shade thinking you’re high and mighty. This is a forum, forums have long posts. Read before you dismiss.
Book and Psyker Shield are great for offensive plays as well, yes, and I would argue are actually more powerful in those scenarios. I like to walk forwards into a bunch of ranged elites and pop book to lock them down while my team deals with them - similar deal with my dome shield, though in that case it’s more posting it in front of a door so my team doesn’t get shredded the moment they try to walk through it.
I would say this is actually a terrible case for using Chorus, since your team’s DPS should be more than enough to kill the horde themselves without having to use a firebomb. Firebombs are more about creating safe-ish zones when you DON’T have book ready, or get cornered and need to push out. You can also use them in a lane to prevent enemies coming from that direction for a time if you know all the elites are gonna be in front of you, allowing your team to focus more DPS in one direction.
I use throwing knives on my chorus builds as the top-right part of the tree rewards you for playing Zealot properly anyways (lots of extra crit, toughness regen on dodge, TDR on crit, TWBS). They’re definitely not as powerful of a tool as firebombs, but they come in handy for sniping stuff while you’re busy without needing to bring a revolver, and not needing grenades helps other Zealots or Ogryns use theirs more freely.
Compared to the other blitzes, I’d say they’re the weakest out of the Zealot blitzes, but they are by no means bad - but I find in situations where firebombs are useful, a stun grenade would be even more so. Due to how the tree is built, though, I almost always go for throwing knives just because of how well the bonuses above them suit any kind of Zealot playstyle.
I’d use the others and invest points into that tree, but the bottom of the tree is especially hungry for points with all of its powerful nodes. Unless Zealot blitzes get a rework into how you can tag them, 90% of my builds are gonna feature throwing knives. All this said, I’ve still made Zealot builds that feature firebombs, and they’re a lot of fun!
It’s not a terrible case, it’s the truth. If you’re playing with pubs you should always have a backup plan for if they don’t do their job. Chorus can be used for way more than just stunning enemies but you do you, babes. Regardless, I was more so trying to compromise with people who don’t understand the concept of CC.
As an example:
A horde spawns and your team is low on health, so you throw an Immolation Grenade in front of the horde, wait for them to all get burnt and then stun-lock them in the fire until only the big enemies are left. Your teammates should be able to clear out those big enemies but if they’re too busy eating crayons… that’s where you come in when the Chorus runs out.
Of course, this is probably only truly useful on the higher difficulties… but on anything below Heresy, you would be able to just engage said horde in melee and come out with full health.
And I use a Revolver. Blades of Faith are kinda redundant on a Revolver build.
I was worried I’d derail the conversation by defending the merits of CC, but I think at this point it’s safe to say that it feeds nicely into the Zealot stereotype of solo vs. teamplay.
I’ll say it’s a different kind of player that makes use of the Book. The stereotypical Zealot definitely isn’t likely to play that kind of positioning and coordination game…
I reckon it’s almost the opposite – you can be very effective with a lot of effort!
Funny you should say that. I agree, I think. My two faves in VT2 were Shade and Ironbreaker, and the “current” zealot combines both of those in to a ridiculous killing machine. Zealot is my favourite so I’m happy to admit I’m biased.
I think zealot has best clutch potential and you can get away with a lot. That twins solo for one.
That said, the best player I ever saw … was an Ogryn. Just huge melee damage and basically never got hit. I pretty much just followed in their wake.
The thing is noobs are struggle to survive, dealing damage with some plasma isn’t any hard and even a bad player can kill things, but can’t stay alive cause it takes movement and awareness skills.
So Relic (paired with Martyr’s Purpose) basicaly removes pub noob team problem cause noone can die. It’s effortless auto win button almost.
The better use for chorus is pairing it with crit knife zealot and crit+backstab cooldown reduction.
You can basically constantly spam chorus and keep your entire team topped up in the toughness department that it can turn the game even more trivial than having double VoC vets.
I carried a lot of people through auric maelstrom when I was doing the chorus penance that way.
It’s a meme build that is highly effective but not fun to play at all.
So that the team of nubs did not scatter to different corners of the map
To be noticed and rescued if you suddenly get eaten by a dog, because the guys sometimes have tunnel vision and absolutely do not see and feel what is happening behind their backs.
if they get used to you and a fat worm accidentally slaps its tail and you fly into the abyss, they will be left alone and…how long will they live? Roughly speaking, your entire team will be reliant on you alone.
and if even having done the impossible, the team dies and you are left alone, how will you deal adequate damage?(This is not even a question to you, but to the weirdo who runs with a knife and a cross).
On the whole, I agree with you. But counting on the team in pubs, being the dude on the back. Nah, thanks.
Every character here could be in charge of the scoreboard. And if the scoreboard is topped by a fanatic with a knife, I have bad news for the rest of the team, because it’s not about the fanatic at all.
Mmm, I’d say a fanatic, with the right build can make more mistakes and not die than other classes.
I don’t mean offense to Alik, just to point out that the opposing and seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints here on teamplay likely stem from this sentiment.
(Yeah I know, there might be some situations where it’s definetly the other one - looking at you, you barrel-destroyers - but well I stood next to that barrel 
