Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Zealot class guide
Fatshark’s latest horde-slaying game has had its first closed beta, here’s everything you need to know about how to bring the Emperor’s light to heretics with Darktide Zealot class guide.
The Zealot is one of four classes that will be available upon release, alongside the Psyker, Ogryn, and Veteran. The Zealot takes inspiration from Fatshark’s previous Warhammer properties by letting the player get behind the wheel of a religious warrior serving a holy emperor, but this time it’s the God Emperor instead of Sigmar.
Darktide Zealot class introduction
The Zealot is an up-close-and-personal damage dealer who specializes in taking fights on a razor’s edge and bringing the pain to the lost and the damned in melee. The Zealot is equipped with a dash that allows them to close the gap on enemies, making their next attack guaranteed to be a critical hit. The Zealot’s iconic ability is Martyrdom, which gives 5% increased damage for each 15 health missing, stacking up to three times.
The Zealot’s Blitz ability is a Stun Grenade that does exactly what it sounds like, disorienting and staggering enemies in an area, allowing the Zealot to make space or get stuck in. Every part of the Zealot’s kit encourages them to approach enemies and disrupt the oncoming hoard as readily as possible. The Zealot’s job is to take damage and dish it right back, and its kit makes that pretty easy.
Zealot abilities
Chastise The Wicked: The Zealot dashes forwards, refilling Toughness and guaranteeing the next melee attack is a critical hit with an additional 25% damage.
Martyrdom: +5% damage for each 15 missing health, stacks up to thrice.
Until Death: If you receive damage that would kill you, once every 90 seconds you will instead go invulnerable for 5 seconds.
Swift Exorcism: +10% melee attack speed.
Stun Grenade: An AoE grenade that stuns and staggers heretics.
The Emperor’s Will (Aura): Reduce toughness damage by 10%.
Zealot Tier 1 abilities
Purify In Blood: Replenish 100% more Toughness on a melee kill.
Faith Restored: After critically striking, the Zealot will take 33% less toughness damage for three seconds.
Enemies Within, Enemies Without: Replenish 7% of Toughness per second while within eight meters of any enemies.
Zealot Tier 2 abilities
Zealous Rage: +10% melee damage.
No Mercy For the Traitor: +20% damage against stunned heretics.
Retribution: Gain +10% attack speed while below 50% health, this bonus is doubled when below 20% health.
Zealot Tier 3 abilities
Litanies of Hate: Your Coherency Aura grants 1% chance for yourself and allies for each stack of Martyrdom, up to three.
Benediction: +20% Toughness damage reduction for allies who are within Coherency of the Zealot.
Inspiring Excoriation: Using Chastise The Wicked (The Zealot’s Iconic dash ability) replenishes 15% toughess to allies in Coherency.
Zealot Tier 4 abilities
Holy Revenant: When Until Death ends, you gain health based on the damage you dealt during Until Death. Melee damage dealt counts as double for the heal.
Thy Wrath Be Swift: You no longer get Stunned by enemy melee attacks. Whenever you take damage, gain 30% movement speed for 2 seconds.
Faith Restores All: After taking damage you regain 30% of the damage taken over five seconds.
Zealot Tier 5 abilities
Emperor’s Executioner: Deal up to 20% increased ranged damage the closer you are to your target.
Rising Conviction: When you hit an enemy, gain +5% damage, stacking up to five times.
Honour the Martyr: Martyrdom’s maximum stacks are raised from three to six.
Zealot Tier 6 abilities
Invocation of Death: Melee critical hits reduce the cooldown of Chastise The Wicked by one second.
Fury of the Faithful: +20% attack speed for five seconds after using Chastise The Wicked.
Purge the Wicked: Chastise The Wicked now has two charges with separate cooldowns.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Zealot class build
The Zealot is a hyper-focused melee threat that’s meant to be more unflinchingly aggressive than the more protection-focused Ogryn.
The Zealot’s talent tree almost exclusively rewards the Zealot for getting into their enemies’ faces and bringing the Emperor’s glorious vengeance upon them. Our recommended build for the Darktide Zealot is going to be a self-sustaining tanky threat who shreds through enemies at close range.
Lone wolf Zealot build
Tier One: Purify In Blood
Tier Two: Retribution
Tier Three: Benediction
Tier Four: Thy Wrath Be Swift
Tier Five: Rising Conviction
Tier Six: Purge The Wicked
This Zealot build is focused on being as much of a self-sufficient threat as possible. The existence of Coherency and teammate’s auras means that you should still be sticking by your friends, but you don’t have to worry about keeping everybody in your own aura. Purify in Blood and Retribution mean you’re more quickly able to deal with large waves of weak enemies like Poxwalkers and keep your Toughness high.
Benediction will keep allies nearby a bit healthier, while Thy Wrath Be Swift stopping you from being stunned my enemy melee attacks at all will buy you lots of time to run to safety or kill foes. You won’t be as ridiculously tanky as your Ogryn teammates, and you certainly won’t be putting down damage from range most of the time, you are the aggressive Swiss army knife that deals with hordes while the Ogryn tackles elites.
That’s all you need to know when it comes to preparing yourself to play Warhammer 40,000 Darktide as the Zealot. The next Warhammer 40,000 Darktide closed beta will arrive for pre-launch beta play on November 17, so prepare yourselves, heretics.
Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.
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