After the perk rework I started playing tons of Zealot, Ogryn and Psyker, and a lot less Veteran comparatively. Bringing the other classes more in line with the strength of the Veteran before the rework made them much more enjoyable.
But now comes a point I dislike very much and that is how Zealots martyrdom actually works. The perk to support that gives you +2 Wounds, which forces you to spend all 3 of your trinkets into wounds as well, instead of increasing your health/toughness further.
I’d suggest to change it from +2 Wounds, to “Double your wounds” which would have the exact same effect on higher difficulties than before, but frees up some of your Curio slots for something else.
Another smaller point is the perk Punishment. It feels good to actually get it to max stacks, but its so hard to keep it there without killing the entire horde first. And its very difficult to build stacks if they all decay at once with a maximum of 5 stacks, and only getting the “useful” benefit of finally getting uninterruptible.
The perk is great if I get it to five stacks, but before that it feels really terrible.
Agreed. Martyrdom has a LOT of wasted potential as a Keystone, because it’s virtually useless on Damnation or Auric due to the way that it currently works with Wounds. I personally think that Martyrdom should work based on your Health instead!
I felt the same way at first but after playing it a bit more and trying a tankier spec with more team support built in (well just shield of contempt really) I’ve come to the conclusion that martyrdom Zealot really doesn’t need the extra toughness/HP curios to be supremely survivable so I disagree with lessening the need to commit your curios to the build. It’s a very high amount of DPS paired with a still very large amount of survivability, it really doesn’t need to be more “free” to run than it is currently.
I think even though getting yourself down to minimum wounds ASAP is probably the optimal way to play it it’s by no means necessary to be that reckless with your health to get a heap of offensive value out of the build. I feel like assuming you HAVE to get down to 1 HP then stay there as much as possible turns a lot of people off needlessly when that really isn’t required to get a heap of value out of the setup.
Agreed. When I run my Martyrdom build, I don’t go out of my way to lose health. It will happen anyway as you are weaker the more health you have.
And I don’t mind having to dedicate 3 curious to +1 Wounds. Though I wish there were +2 Wounds curios.
That’s my justification too. It irritates me when I see those Zealots who just let the enemies hammer into them early on, because they all try to act as these Edgerunners just to end up dying in one hit because their melee buffs just weren’t enough to save them from a Rager’s slash attack. The Martyrdom buffs are designed so that they kick in when you’re desperate.
Edit: In terms of extra Wounds, I just plainly avoid them - to me they’re usually just a crutch for the players who go down a lot, and even then those extra Wounds can still be a detriment to the players that use them.
True. Extra wounds reduce the utility of the Health Stims as well as the Beacon of Purity aura.
Those are the exact things I had in mind too, actually 
I very strongly disagree with this. Its not great, perhaps, for solo missions compared to Inexorable or Blazing due to the danger factor. But in Auric, even Monstrous Maelstrom I-II-VEG it is excellent. I haven’t been playing as much normal auric on zealot lately because I’ve been running duos to git gud. One of the last scoreboards I have handy is not at all one of my best. I would say I tend towards the range of 750K damage, and it tends to be more melee oriented than this. But have a look. Notice specifically my damage taken.
This is the build.
This was the game I played to go from level 500 to level 501 and it was a fun game. I had 0 downs, which is very common for me when playing martyrdom. The reason for this has a lot to do with toughness gating and health gating. Due to Bleed for the Emperor and Restoring Faith that last wound’s worth of like…30 health, lasts a very long time. Any hit big enough to take me to until death usually only happens 1 time, at which point I can heal reasonably well and just play a bit more conservatively for 2 minutes. I played this entire game at 5 stacks of martyrdom, or around 30HP. I always seek out fire barrels or solo-bruisers to try and drop my HP to 1 or 2 wounds as soon as I can because that’s where the strength of the build lies. I was initially much more worried about playing at low health and saw martyrdom as bad but I have since learned to play at low health and the only things that kill me would have killed me in any build.
We can agree to disagree. The whole thing only works if you play it ONE EXACT WAY and that’s just not viable.
How is it not viable? You have people here saying it works very well for them on top difficulty so that seems like a strange claim.
What do you mean by this? There are several reasonable ways to spec your tree for Martyrdom and you can use it with a variety of melee weapons effectively. Even the curios aren’t really that locked down. I’ve seen people swear by all wounds and others find success with a mix of wounds and other curios. As has also been seen here some like to immediately go to minimum wounds and others like to let damage happen naturally over a match, both sides seem to find success with the keystone. I just don’t understand what you’re trying to claim here exactly.
No idea where you’re getting this from.
Yeah we can agree to disagree, for instance I think your interpretations are incorrect and @Reginald is correct.
You’re gaining a much larger personal and team benefit from getting 3-4 stacks early on; more damage, more DR, more attack speed. Stuff dies faster=good for everyone, and you hit many more important breakpoints with 3-4 stacks. 32% +dmg, +16%AS and 20% DR are not insignificant.
I mean, mama always said noob is as noob does. I’ve seen full HP green players go down to a single rager as well, and the martyr will actually have more passive DR and much killing power. Green stimms are a thing now too. I guess you could say there’s a kill floor involved and I’d agree with you, bad player with martyr stack will still be bad but a “more hp” build won’t help them much.
This is a very simplistic interpretation of the keystone since the tree re-work in update #13.
Edit: derp.
That whole “wound crutch” argument went out the window with the re-work, director update and influx of new players and new bugs.
Packing a total of 3 wounds is a smart move noways, you’re not planning for your own failure but for the greenbeards to run off chasing the netter that nabbed you through a wall, ignoring the dog that bounced off them etc, crates being wasted, stimms left on the ground etc.
If you pay attention you’ll notice the newer players tend to run 2 wounds and often go down, play like chickens when they’re perpetually on their “last life” and suck up all the heals because “last wound”.
Many of the more experienced players run 3 and tend to go down less and when they do, they don’t hide behind the shield ogryn and are still at peak efficiency.
Beacon is the aura that cleanses corruption, Choir is the active ability.
Derp thanks, I always get the 2 mixed up, what I said made no sense either way.
FWIW, I chase corruption as a martyr, so not having it cleansed more is a good thing.
I kinda disagree with taking even 1 wound curio on any non Martyr setup for any class honestly though 1 is fine enough, more than that is memeing. Pretty irrelevant aside anyway since the conversation here IS about martyrdom Zealot for which case wound curios skyrocket in both offensive and defensive value.
Like I would most agree with this statement for any other case but for Martyr Zealot it makes NO sense since you’re directly converting those wounds into a LOT of extra DPS and a good bit more DR.
Oh and not in the keystone for those that forgot this exists:
Tangent, feel free to ignore, trigger warning, beyond here be dragons:
I’ll die on this hill: post director update, 80% of the player base would be better served with a 3rd wound in an average random group. If you’re playing a tanky zealot or with friends, 2 is fine, even most shouty vets I’ve seen could use a 3rd quite frankly. I know one player would could carry a team with 1 wound, and it ain’t me.
The point that I’m trying to make is making only ONE SPECIFIC CURIO viable just to use a Keystone is utterly ridiculous. Not everyone wants to be a Wound Zealot but the ENTIRE Keystone is based around being a Wound build. It should be based on your total health percentage or something of that nature so that it’s viable for everyone to utilise - the very thing that Patch #13 promised.
Wounds are a crutch, just as knives are. I do not care who disagrees because I will die on this hill if I must. Martyrdom shouldn’t ONLY be viable through wasting your Curios on Wounds, because you should only use them if you die A LOT. I’m sorry that I try to focus on staying alive, I guess?
No arguments on wounds being a crutch especially with med stims now also in the mix, but knives (and I’m assuming you mean the combat daggers) are hardly a crutch.
With the number of players I see failing to use them at their most basic level whereas things like power swords while it does get them killed they are undeniably good at clearing out hordes, mixed or otherwise with simple powered swipe spam.
As for it being unfortunate that you need to use it for Martyrdom I guess I agree on that, but my way of interpreting a critical threshold Martyrdom build is that you are finding your lord and savior Fire Barrel * angelic choir sounds * , and standing in it until you are nearly dead. Opening spotify, or your yt playlist to listen to a bumping aggro synthwave soundtrack and basically play HOTLINE: Miami in 3D.
It’s a niche playstyle, but I’ve definitely seen a few zealots really pull it off, and absolutely clean house.
Would I prefer it be based on % health? Yeah, but no issue with it otherwise.
EDIT: Forgot a word.
I’m glad that we’ve come to an amicable conclusion on this 
It’s fine for some videogame mechanics to just be different you know. I think FS did an excellent job with the wound system in Darktide and I’d rather have martyrdom work with wounds than only hp%, since it’s already incredibly strong and you already have to play at low health to get more value out of it. The wound system also doubles as an intuitive visual indicator for your buffs and helps to protect rusty players. Plus it allows FS to make some interesting design choices like Bleed for the Emperor.