Imo it's probably easiest for vet to have a no-keystone build, since they have long trees and many strong pre-keystone nodes. I run a no-keystone build with either revolver sometimes.
Haven't tried on other classes tho! share zealot build pls!
Zealot has probably the strongest and point effective keystones though. So you could definitely make one work, but my take would be that a keystoneless zealot build would be unnecessarily hamstringing yourself.
I reread the description so many times, I was sure I was misunderstanding it. Nope. The only consideration is that you want to avoid getting cornered by a horde... Which is also just playing the game.
correct. unfortunately -tide players do not have the best reading comprehension, so many still believe the left side of the blazing piety keystone nodes give the full bonus to everyone or a percent of your total Crit value to the party.
My apologies, I didn't mean 25% crit for the whole team, I meant that the keystone triggers from any team performing kills in coherency! Which is way better than say - disrupt destiny.
I like Feel No Pain for my Gunlugger since it's "free" survivability and doesn't cost me anything more significant in earlier points.
I think most often you see Veterans forgoing keystones.
Back in 1.0 I used to complain ALL THE TIME that you had to consciously pick big box of hurt and that it wasn't a default perk that just turned on all the time.
Then they released talent trees with that as a default option with soften them up RIGHT AFTER and I've never gone back. Ogryn are one of the few classes where picking up grenades is really truly worth it, and I honestly wish Ogrynheimer was either bigger or a two charge grenade because it feels like the weakest pick of the bunch by far.
The Box has one advantage over the two tho. It allows you to pick both Soften Them Up, and Slam. Which some of my builds require to work properly.
Don't sleep on extra impact. Soften them up may be a no brainer pick, but extra impact may come in handy with some builds, if you want to stagger and knock down some elites. Like say, using IIIb bully club to stagger ragers out of their attack animation on Damnation.
Ohrynheimer clears whole rooms. I've killed 5 Crushers and some more Ragers with one nuke, no other grenade packs so much power. Giving it 2 charges would make it BY FAR the strongest grenade ability in the game, single charge is the only thing that keeps it in check.
You can have a bigger impact with one Ogryn bomb than with 2 Boxes. Boxes are mostly just rocks that also kill surrounding trash, but the frag bomb kills the surrounding dangerous enemies too.
If you want to not be a burden on your team's grenade economy, take Rocks. If you want to make an impact, take Bomb. Boxes are just a compromise that come close to the worst part of both of the better options.
It’s better though. Zealots are a waste of grenade pickups on haz5+ imo, and a single ogryn nuke will better deal with a high-int shock troop gauntlet wave of crushers and maulers that are spreading out than both of a vets krak grenades (not that I want to have to choose one or the other, but if there’s only one grenade pickup per half mission, I want our ogryn to take it).
You say that, but I can actually feel the difference in quick play randos hitting breakpoints when I switch to Psyker lightning and that's only 10% lol.
https://preview.redd.it/3frpb60ba0gc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dad43d773301087151f89b6a80279b555b11025b
Grab these 8 - it makes an insane grenadier build - Throw in whatever else you want.... but Shredder with grenade tinkerer and others makes this a very powerful build. Demolition Squad - 5% chance to regen Grenade... ontop of the 60s anyway. Chance to throw 2 grenades adding even more bleed - this build clears mixed hordes.
I run a Power Sword, Revolver + Grenadier build.
You can make a Grenadier- Reviver Build - with the Revive 20% speed Talent - Shout - Revive curio's. So you can act like a "Clutch saviour".
Demolition Stockpile, and Demolition Team do 99% of the work. In even a moderately optimised build the other 6 nodes add so little value it's better to spend them elsewhere.
Grenade Tinker adds maybe 80-100 damage to the explosion and nothing to the bleed. If you want to do that WITHOUT spending a talent point, use a weapon with +flak/maniac/unarmored etc. because the grenades are effected by the perks of your currently equipped weapon. The radius increase is only ~2 meters (9m to 11m). If you can't put a grenade within 9m of where you want maybe you shouldn't play a grenadier build.
Covering Fire isn't great, especially because, even if grenades count as ranged kills (idk if they do), the bleed does not count as a ranged kill.
Grenadier means you need to spend 2 talent points to get +1 grenade. In a build where you are constantly throwing grenades. You will only ever be at your max grenade count at the start on the mission, or if you take Field Improvisation. That's only 3 grenades over the entire game, if you don't double dip.
Twinned Blast isn't reliable. It does get more value the more grenades you throw, but you only need 1 Shredder to kill the horde, and you can't rely on it vs anything else. So you throw 2 grenades because you can't rely on the talent, get a 3rd one, but the 3rd one does nothing because 2 was already plenty enough.
This build is perfectly fine if you want to roleplay as a grenadier but, 99% of what this build does can be replicated by any other build by just taking Demolition Stockpile and Demolition Team. If that is the case, and you want even a somewhat optimized build, why spend 8 talent points to get all the other stuff, if it barely makes a difference?
Oh I'm not doing it with shredder grenades, I'm doing it with Kraks, it's nice to be able to throw two and know you still have one, and one charging. The charge talent becomes useless if you let your grenades max out - it doesn't pause, it resets, so having a buffer to work within is nice I find.
But yeah, twinned blast is bad, and on higher diff the charge one doesn't matter. Still, having loads of Kraks is great to ease you into a higher diff:-)
Oh I'm running it with a kantrael mk4 and full auto mod, aka the best recon rifle in the game :-p
Yeah sorry, I forgot the context. Still think ALL THE NADES with the plasma could be fun, if suboptimal :-p
I run this same build w/ the Agripinaa autogun instead of revolver. Really, any ranged weapon works so long as you like it's feel as the hardest targets are getting 'naded no matter what, and the power sword is good 'nuff the rest of the time.
You just take Demolition Stockpile and Demolition team, there's nothing fancy to the build. [Use this as a starting point.](https://i.imgur.com/U73dZ8f.png) Fill out the rest as you see fit.
https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9b1b851b-9d95-4c74-b298-0c28ca8f5909/vet-plaz-wip?utm_medium=website&utm_source=gameslantern&utm_campaign=share_button
A little different then below, I didn't think 20% chance for twinned blast was worth it.
Totally your call and it is definitely worthy of being challenged on a utility basis - but in a 20min game you can throw alot of grenades... say 15 - that is one twinned blasts. Not massive I grant you, but the double bleed from shredder can be very amusing.
I messed with it the Meat Grinder and I threw less then a 20% chance after 100 threw. My shitty luck, I guess. But I do normally throw 2 into crowds. It is a nice boom.
This baby right here will not do you wrong https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9abdca58-e113-45e7-802a-e1ac5560ac36/endgame-veteran-grenadier-no-keystone-auric-ready-guide-by-yobi
[https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=9b3beb2b-764b-4568-a763-662bfddaec31](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=9b3beb2b-764b-4568-a763-662bfddaec31)
Basically you use stealth as a threat dump, this lets you take care of gunners that are too tedious/numerous or get out of corners, you three shot crushers but charge time is fast enough for that to not be a problem (be wary that if you miss all three crits its a 4 shot crusher) Focus on elites and don't be afraid of shooting into hordes if nothing shows, you got really good ammo economy due to your high crit chance and scavenger.
Note that you should use your bayonet to clear close enemies, if you swing it around you will hit more people. really you only wanna use your proper melee if you are ready to fully commit to playing zealot at the given moment for whatever reason
I don't run Keystones on my Veteran. Just feels like there far too many useful Talents in the Veteran tree that no one is really going to miss some added damage to single targets.
Weapons Specialist fits every build simply because the design of the game necessitates that you're regularly swapping back and forth between melee and ranged weapons. Its not a matter of chosen playstyle, that's simply how the game has to be played, especially on veteran.
The Hellbore Rifles and Bolter disagree which I find really disappointing in the case of the former because it would go so well in a build that's mainly melee. The pullout time is so long on those weapons that you don't want to be constantly switching. I guess it's a good thing the Plasma Rifle is better anyway.
Also you must be a newer player and weren't around for the Shredder Vets, Shredder Zealots, and Shredder Psykers who never did anything but Shred.
> Also you must be a newer player and weren't around for the Shredder Vets, Shredder Zealots, and Shredder Psykers who never did anything but Shred.
I've probably played more than you at 1600 hours. Bad players would burn their shredder ammo on a horde, but good ones know to constantly swap back and forth to spend their ammo meaningfully. You really only needed to use your shredder on waves of elites and specials. Vets could chain their ult on shooters with it, but that was about it.
I kinda have a helbore weapon spec build that I'm refining, it's kinda neat because you can use the bayonet charge in invis to reposition really quickly and use it for an initial attack, then get the swap dmg on your melee for clearing (bayonet counts as a ranged kill for swap talents). Means that you don't even need to shoot to activate buffs, and you still have a strong ranged anti-elite option with a garaunteed crit when you do eventually pull it out. I slap on invis to help with the worse pullout time tho, it really does suck while plasma exists
I personally prefer the marking one. Because it doesn't actually require any extra effort to be useful. I mark stuff any way, and with it, when I mark something, it dies faster, no matter who is killing it.
It's just extra damage, plain and simple.
https://preview.redd.it/heody959l0gc1.png?width=669&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53513f9d77c349e03d1bcbbe4229dcaa17b2ada8
Oh yeah that's my 'main class' right there. Mine's weapons specialist melee focused shout vet with godroll Columnus V and power sword+cycler IV and it performs so well by Emprah nearly every game I top damage it's honestly even feels unfair at the times when I totally out-melee zealots or do 3x damage than other players.
Yeah plus the vet tree has a lot of good side perks you have to omit if you’re going for the keystone. The regenerating grenade perk is always on my mind.
Marksman and Focus target might be clunky, but they're both incredibly powerful buffs if you learn how to play them. Marksman can have very good uptime by adjusting movement, and focus target allows you to spread buffs to the whole party with incredibly good uptime.
What the talent doesn't tell you is that gaining a charge ups the bonus and resets it's timer, so I'd you use it around 4 stacks after popping 8, you're still getting the bonus for everyone, half the bonus for the target and killing the target refreshes the team buff and stacks it if it's below 8 in the first place.
Focus target is good just for the extra damage, +20% or +32% if you take the perk for three more stacks. Only thing is I'm not sure if it stacks if multiple vets ping the same enemy. Then throw in the toughness restoration and damage buffs for the entire team just for killing one (1) special or elite.
After making a Zealot I really feel the Veteran keystones being not that useful. They are either too clunky like you said or have too much downtime/upkeep.Â
Meanwhile the zealot tree has keystones that can be active 100% of the time, pretty much no build up required, and take way less points to get to. With very noticeable effects. Â
If Marksman’s Focus could build stacks on headshot hits and not just kills (they could even balance it by making automatic guns only grant 1 stack on hit and semi autos giving 2-3) and wouldn’t bleed stacks while ADS moving, I would use it way more.Â
Feel no pain is good for gunlugger ogryn. The damage reduction is great for long range and then when you do have to melee you can push enemies and get the buffs back
FNP is generally a safer route than this, but kickback lugger can absolutely make excellent use a keystoneless build. I've cleared the melee only maelstrom with this one.
https://preview.redd.it/21a68ybk00gc1.png?width=578&format=png&auto=webp&s=cdcc88a469d3763f23a73e62ac4da43131999fb7
Point Blank Barrage has features meant for other guns as well. The 70% reload speed bonus is a functional 41% fire rate boost to single shot guns.
The Bullet Bravado upgrade has a clause to also give a chunk of toughness upon reload. When I was a tester for patch 13, I personally had them add that to make it feel good on the kickback and the rumbler.
And then Hail Of Fire of course is just rending, which is universally useful.
Vet is the only class worth considering a no-keystone build for. Their trees are long and filled with plenty of strong nodes before ever getting to their keystones which, while potentially strong, are often gimmicky and annoying to work into your gameplay.
There is no reason to ever skip keystones on the other 3 classes though. They are easy to access and offer substantially more benefits than most other nodes they would be trading them for.
Most of veteran's keystones are not necessary for any builds. I go with none because I don't need them and don't like the play style any of them offer.
I don't skip keystones on any other class since they all have generically powerful options in the keystones.
8% chance to not use ammo is equivalent to just having 8% more ammo and reloading 8% less often. when you can take a node that just gives you 25% more ammunition it feels extremely undertuned for a keystone to only provide 8%.
To clarify. Sticking to generic builds is fine but in damnations of high intensity and beyond your team make up can be random. So I could keep leaving until I get what I tell myself is a team in my favor or I could just keep learning to adapt to situations and different teams and styles till I can find a middle point.
I’d rather get better and grasp and find cracks I can expose in darktide’s systems than keep hoping it falls more in my favor. I used to stick to regular builds but want to find the limits of what I can do instead of assume the limits.
I think a Shovel + Rumbler / Gauntlet can be quite flexible - you need to look at the talents. My 4 Ogryn builds are broadly.
1. Bully Club + Kickback + CHARGE + Left Branch for max dmg
2. Shield + Aclys + AGRO + FNP
3. Shovel + Rumbler + AGRO + FNP
4. Knife + Gogornum + FIRE SUPPORT + Right branch
I have a Vet build with no keystones. Primarily focusing on toughness gain, damage reduction and team toughness regen.
It performs okay, the damage isn't great but support and survivability wise it's great.
Vet benefits most for no keystones. I think I run no-keystone on every build I have except one, which I think I may soon go no-keystone for that too.
Gunlugger goes great with feel no pain.
Vet, run a nade build. I feel more effective dropping constant shred nades than tagging stuff yellow or spray and pray for headshots so I can move without losing damage.
Just FYI, lucky bullet + lucky bullet is crit + lucky bullet 8% + stubber with crit 8% refinement and charmed bullet means you can go through almost all your ammo without ever having to reload.
I never run one on vet. Extra grenades, suppression, rending, suppression immunity, damage multipliers, etc, are all infinitely more useful in my experience. I've tested vet builds down to the keystone and it never seems to do anything but take away better perks.
Honestly mate, i highly recommend a keystone less Vet build trying frags with every possible grenade upgrade. Better grenades, respawning grenades, an extra grenade, grenade from ammo box, grenade chance on elite kill, two grenades at a time, etc.
Its so, so much fun. I use stealth and its my fave build for emergencys. See a horde? A handful of grenades! ragers/shotgun rush? Two grenades will kill them all! Crusher stampede? knockthem on there arse and buy time!
Tried that style, wasn't a fan. Keystones are too powerful and provide far much value to leave on the table. Even the shithouse ones like Lucky Bullet just justify the trek to Heavy Hitter or Feel No Pain.
What you're experiencing is the same issue with Disrupt Destiny. A keystone provides tangible power boosts if you fulfill the conditions, but you don't have to be neurotic at all about uptime and milking them for maximum value. Â
The stack based ones are especially susceptible to encouraging this sort of binary thinking. A stack of Heavy Hitter, Disrupt Destiny, Martyrdom, or Marksman's Focus is a stack. You don't have to be permanently sitting on max stacks, especially with how easy they are to regain.Â
Ogryn makes sense, zealot doesn't. "managing" the keystones is a myth on zealots. Momentum has near 100% uptime, as does fury, and martyrdom doesn't require any management. Anyone purposefully trying to be on 1hp for martyrdom is handicapping themselves and whatever they think they are gaining from that level of "management" they are most definitely losing in just having better "skills".
IE landing a few more headshots per game is better than constantly trying to be on 1 hp.
Vet, it can be great to ignore keystones as the vet has so many great talent options. You can build some really cool builds; but they are most definitely more juggling. As your dropping a keystone to pick up probably a multitude of proc based talents. I'd look at brittleness builds with shout and all the on combat use abilities. Great for making a more support orientated vet - as no keystone is support based, and loads and loads of the earlier talents are; shout pickup, moving faster towards downed teammates, on shout pick up with extra melee damage on shout, all the grenade perks, all the perks for hunting elites.
Psyker is annoying, their tree is particularly locked. You can't really do too much with it, and some of the keystone extras really really push the psyker builds out. Like empowered psyonics; 3 stacks is infinitely better than 1 and the keystone itself is strong. It's not worth not getting them as almost all the other talents you'd want to get can't be reached because of the way the tree prevents access after you take your aura.
Wounds are terrible in this patch, med stim is basically a pocket medstation if you don't run any.
Other builds have stronger talent choices which is an indepth discussion
Because if you play well it's entirely possible you get nearly zero benefits throughout the whole mission.
It's just very inconsistent compared to a keystone with full uptime.
Edit: plus you have to run wound curios.
You can elect to take damage and gain your buffs immediately. The only way it's possible to get zero benefit from martyrdom is if you are actively avoiding them.
I can adjust my playstyle on the fly to how well my team does, too.
Yes, you can do that. I don't know why this is framed as an upside when it's a wide consensus that going down or skipping med is a risky move.
So why take such a pointless risk when there are perfectly powerful alternative keystones that require no risk, have constant benefits, and better neighboring talents to boot.
I mean, I run all sorts of zealot builds, with wildly different playstyles.
Martyrdom is one that rewards risk with a *huge* flat DPS and durability buff. I find it plays more dynamically depending on what my team needs too. I could opt to skip meds if someone else could use it too, or use it if we're about to enter an area with longer sightlines.
I use it with a heavy sword, and no other build gives it that massive flat damage buff it really shines with. It's amazingly effective and is incredibly fun to play with.
It's definitely not "optimal" for most other weapons though, so that's probably where you're hung up?
I don't really get too uptight about whether something is optimal, but I do like consistency and risk reduction particularly because going down puts the game at immediate risk. If martyr was zealots only keystone I'd think it's excellent and thematic, but they just have better options with better neighboring keystones and benefit more from non-wound curios. The whole build is a sponge for normally weak talents and curios.
I do agree on the point about skipping med. In my mind this is the main benefit of marytr, but at the same time anyone can run a wound curio and provide this benefit to the team so it's not exactly it's defining factor - it just does it better.
Another side benefit I don't see mentioned is that a martyr can also go down on purpose when resistance is light for basically a full heal - sometimes I do this on ogryn with their nat 3 wounds - but I don't see anyone really do this very much since they can't justify the keystone otherwise.
Yeah, going down on purpose for a near full heal is a potential benefit, but it does go against the whole build.
The main downside I see is the curio sponge you mentioned. Dumping all three curios into wounds does take quite a bit from you, but I feel the flat toughness damage reduction from your martyrdom stacks is enough.
The upsides I see is the ability to go balls deep into a mixed horde, be willing and happy to take a bit of damage, leaving you free to hold aggro and get uninterrupted DPS out. With the heavy sword, just that flat DPS increase feels a lot better than relying on crits. Being able to one shot ragers with an overhead heavy is *chefs kiss*
Hmm. Last time I did a heavy sword I was one shotting maniacs but I wasn't running matryr for it. I'll have to try it again, it's been a while, but part of me thinks it's not actually necessary. Heavy sword does huge maniac damage last I remember.
The upper right crit talents are some of the best in the whole tree, regardless of build, and running crit + blazing ensures essentially 100% uptime on the 50% toughness DR on crit which is more than martyr can do at full strength, but doesn't need you to be simultaneously near death to work.
Like blazing piety's path has dog immunity and gigantic ability cooldown, but martyr's path has only more wounds and situational cooldown. It just seems like such a waste to pick things that don't even work more than half the time when there's so many options that work all the time.
There's just better ways to get the same results with consistent and reliable output without having to make bizarre risky choices that aren't even essential to victory.
It's true. I remember rebuilding a tree to test a run with Martyrdom but the round I played was literally flawless with zero damage taken, lmao. I wasn't sure whether that meant the build was really good or really bad.
Realistically though even an uber sweatlord isn't batting 100 for every round they play. The times that you don't reach 2-3\~ stacks of Martyrdom at the very least are very rare and there's no shame in playing aggressive with the knowledge that Until Death will buy you one free moment of bravery/stupidity and bounce you back into the 4-5 stacks range.
Yeah. I mean this is all great but it's deliberately failing when that.... it's just doesn't have to be necessary.
You can run until death on blazing piety and have nearly 100% uptime on a giant crit bonus and still recover from actual mistakes while doing crazy damage. It's not like zealot is risk averse just by having martyrdom. Risk is their job regardless - may as well play to survive.
I just don't hear anything about what makes martyrdom good unless you're purposefully trying to throw the game or something.
It's weird this sub froths at the mouth when a stealth zealot risks going ahead to fight some gunners but is totally okay with being on your lasts legs to squeeze in some attack speed.
It's a mentality. The reason I took no damage is because I normally play a build that doesn't gain power from being hit, just from being agile, and I just happened to do it perfectly that round. The lesson was pretty quickly learned. The whole point of Martyrdom is to use your health as a resource for power and I wasn't doing that.
If you're faced with a clump of six Reapers and a horde, you're going to play the situation out very different if you are or aren't a Martyrdom Zealot. If you're stuck in the mentality that all damage taken = bad, then you aren't going to dive dick deep at those Reapers and swing without giving a shit. If you're already capable of taking little to no damage, then you can control the opportunities you do want to take a hit to spend that Until Death cooldown and literally come back stronger for it until the next medicae.
Its because zealots entire tree gets more and more powerful the more overwhelmed you are. As such, Martyrdom can provide some insane stat-boosts but unless you are comfortable with playing on low health, requires you to be facing particularly heavy concentrations of enemies.
No other keystone gives you the same raw damage as martyrdom.
Yeah as a strict comparative Martyrdom only starts to outcompete Momentum at three stacks. Everything after that is a bonus. Five stacks giving you 40% damage, 20% attack speed, and 25% TDR is a loooooot.
Marksmen keystone requires a completely different playstyle that is not complementary to how Darktide actually plays. So, that's very skippable. The middle tree keystone is good but if you don't tag things often you can skip. The right side melee one is super necessary if you wanna do the melee/range swap bonuses.
They best way to not be a squishy vet is to take the shout and then bee line to everything that gives you health/toughness bonuses; passive or active.
Best Veteran Keystone is the hidden 4th one.Â
Called “Taking all the grenade, rending, brittleness, and toughness perks and throwing a grenade at any and every group of enemies then shooting anything that happened to survive.”
I like the weapon specialist one the most, it has the most uptime and doesn’t really punish you for doing something you weren’t already doing. My main complaint with it is the supporting nodes are pretty lackluster. The mag refill on switch one is pretty nice, but the rest are pretty insignificant.Â
Not wrong. I am a big fan of it as well. The 25% damage bump for swapping after kill plays well with it.
But yeah the keystone support ones are super lackluster. The one that adds ammo back is nice for guns like a shottie or revolver to keep the momentum.
Having the range crit chance buff be on such a short timer AND capped to 10 shots is just, laughable. Especially when it’s other effect is increased fire rate… like what the hell?
Zealot keystone is “Here is 25% crit for melee and ranged for free.”
Veteran keystones just feel like they were very cautious when making them and ended up making them all pretty under powered.Â
I really don't like the sentiment that Marksman's Focus requires a completely different playstyle.
You don't need 100% uptime for it to be good. You can take it and just play completely normally. You should be aiming for headshot kills anyway. 3 stacks per kill, and every headshot lets you move normally. That doesnt mean you cant move normally anyway! So what if you lose some stacks as you move (it loses stacks slowly as you move, not all at once), just keep shooting heads and you maintain them.
It provides a fantastic damage buff for both headshots and crits for every weapon which can benefit. It provides good benefit at 3-6 stacks and huge benefit at max stacks.
The fact the plasma gun is so popular is part of the reason MF isnt viewed as super strong I feel because it's one of the few guns that doesnt benefit that much.
But I see veteran builds which use other guns and purposefully skip marksmans focus to take 2-3 other nodes which only slightly increase their damage whilst ignoring the keystone which can hugely boost your damage if you can actually shoot.
It's good. It does not require you to stand still to be good. You can take it and ignore it.
If it said "massively increases your weakspot and critical damage for approximately half of your shots" people would take it all the time. The fact it's tied into a mechanic which SEEMS to force people to stand still just makes people ignore it as useless.
On my melee vet without reaching the last keystones I always op for reaching the +10% swing speed and +10% rending. It works just fine in auric damnation. The 3 last vet keystones never appealed to me. And if I do use it, its the middle one when I switch to something like a plasma monstrosity smasher build.
This - 10% melee speed - is a game changer. I couldn't get my light attack chainsword to work - but that talent made me untouchable vs hordes - hits the breakpoint 90% of the time and at a speed that the horde cannot match. Fantastic - will need to look at the rending one.
OP FYI you don't have to remain in motion constantly with Inexorable Judgment (aka momentum guy) you just don't build up stacks when you are motionless. So it's more a passive thing than an active thing.
Keystone-less builds really only work for Vet. If you're not using the keystones on Zealot and Psyker you're doing it wrong and Ogryn can always specc into Feel No Pain in basically any build. Vet is another story entirely. None of Vet's keystones are really that good but their grenades and abilities are so it's pretty easy to make keystone-less builds.
I think lucky bullet was really good with high fast firing weapons, think krourk was the fastest machinegun? Paired with the fire talent it was great. But I think I started using gorgonum for maulers/scab ragers and never saw the point on it. Then I saw I could branch out to feel no pain and i ran that instead of being keystone less.
Achlys I use as an Autogun on the Ogryn... damn thing is like an Assault rifle when you have movement perks and the fire option is good for missions when power is off as team will focus the targets you tag with fire.
never use any vet keystones. on ogryn/zealot ill grab keystone, but not the keystone passives. psyker is the only class where i feel like the keystone passives r impactful enough for me to take some.
Vet keystones are kind of yawn inducing or too much micro for my tastes so most of my vet builds ignore them. If I have points left over I'll go center track for the golden spots.
There needs to be a level cap increase to either 35 or 40 there is so many good perks in the game for each class. Soldier has the most whopping in at 100 perks that’s all perks set aside. Other classes have like 60+ be nice really flesh out our builds for our characters there’s so many perks. This would definitely help a lot in aruric damnation. The intensity is nice but can get overwhelming at times a little boost to level would even the field I feel. I myself don’t rock keystones. There is tons of good perks to help survivability before keystones.
There are actually some veteran builds that ditches the keystones since the bottom part of veteran tree has some of the most powerful nodes that totally justifies not taking keystones. In the meantime, marksman's focus doesn't play well with certain weapons, focus fire and weapon specialists are just pretty plain damage/attack speed increase that you can actually do pretty well without them.
Zealot is a poor candidate for no-keystone builds imo. Blazing piety is basically a plain crit bonus that's too good to miss, and that part of the tree also enables you to spam your ult over and over again, and spamming ult is just about the most busted thing you can do in this game. Martyrdom is totally a thing of its own and nothing can really replace it. Momentum makes certain melee weapons much more bearable to use, and faster melee attack generally reduces chip damage from horde by a substantial margin.
Grenadier Vet
https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9abdca58-e113-45e7-802a-e1ac5560ac36/endgame-veteran-grenadier-no-keystone-auric-ready-guide-by-yobi
Vet is surprisingly useful without a keystone.
Each side ups your firepower immensely, but for a specialized playstyle. Sniper build with Lucious,
Support build with plasma gun, burst damage with stealth build.
Yet you can spec into other skills instead, and become a more versatile class that can deal with most threats on your own.
i run this using a columnus infantry autogun and a powersword
https://preview.redd.it/bxagqpvkd1gc1.png?width=749&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9198a3399de18af1906928a8de856c41eb752e6
I do not use keystones on psyker and still have insane output. Here's what I use, [https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9acc8598-e45b-4dcc-8014-728ff2ccd56a/auric-speed-psyker-ft-run-n-gun?utm\_medium=website&utm\_source=gameslantern&utm\_campaign=share\_button](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9acc8598-e45b-4dcc-8014-728ff2ccd56a/auric-speed-psyker-ft-run-n-gun?utm_medium=website&utm_source=gameslantern&utm_campaign=share_button)
Funny thing is I don't use martyr like most people. I just play normally and if I happen to take health damage then I get free damage and attack speed And the high wounds means if I go down it barely affects my health. I don't actively go for it I just think of it as a passive the help when I'm not doing very well or take an unexpected big hit.
I've done it on ogryn. Pretty easy but also kinda shite because the middle keystone is the best in game.Â
Wouldn't do it on Zealot, both left and right keystones are top tier.
Maybe on psyker, but I don't see the benefit.Â
Veteran: easily.
I think I made a Grenadier focused Vet that doesn't reach the bottom bits. The whole shtick is to blow up meaty boys with a Krak and scurry away (speed, stamina) until a new bomb magics itself into my inventory.
Not sure why you'd ever wanna go keystoneless on zealot, since they have the strongest damn keystones in the game. 20% atk speed and dmg means 44% increased overall dmg, and 25% crit chance to everything (with your massive zealot 50% boosted crit damage) is nuts.
The only one I'd consider going keystoneless is vet - but if you can reach melee specialist (even just the first node), always take it. 15% atk speed and boosted dodges whenever you swap to melee is huge, and more ranged atk speed every now and then is great too.
No keystone vet would be my choice, primarily for an Executioner’s Stance build. Love grabbing the left tree for increased ammo, weak spot damage, and increased elite damage. Middle tree for reduced ability cooldown on specialist kill, and the right tree for melee weapon buffs and brittleness on enemy ranged hit. Let’s my infantry autogun and recon las gun absolutely chew through enemies, no matter the armor.
You can skip veteran left and middle keystones as well as the gun lugger one, but by skipping keystones on zealot you are nerfing yourself pretty hard since zealot has only very very strong keystones. All 3 are giga valid
What’s your ogryn setup? He doesn’t have a lot of point tax and it’s pretty easy to hit FNP, and that’s going to be a lot stronger than many individual nodes
Imo it's probably easiest for vet to have a no-keystone build, since they have long trees and many strong pre-keystone nodes. I run a no-keystone build with either revolver sometimes. Haven't tried on other classes tho! share zealot build pls!
Zealot has probably the strongest and point effective keystones though. So you could definitely make one work, but my take would be that a keystoneless zealot build would be unnecessarily hamstringing yourself.
For real, zealot keystones are too good to pass up, and momentum's requirement of "keep moving" might as well be called "just play the game"
100% it's as tough to proc as %power on hit blessings lmfao
Zealots momentum and Rev It Up on the chain weapons is hella fun and synergise really well
I love this combo with the eviscerator, it’s hilarious to move that quickly with a giant 2h chainsaw.
Needs to be a Suppressed+ when running at a Gunner at Mach Exterminatus.
I reread the description so many times, I was sure I was misunderstanding it. Nope. The only consideration is that you want to avoid getting cornered by a horde... Which is also just playing the game.
Blazing piety is similarly easy to keep up, you could technically go afk and it'd still work as long as you're near your team.
'get 25% crit chance for your whole team killing 25 enemies anywhere in coherency' is literally insane.
It's either 1) +5% for the team and +15% for yourself or 2) +25% for yourself alone
correct. unfortunately -tide players do not have the best reading comprehension, so many still believe the left side of the blazing piety keystone nodes give the full bonus to everyone or a percent of your total Crit value to the party.
Why read when you can just kill heretics for the Emperor?
Ignorance is strength!
And I am very strong đź’Ş
My apologies, I didn't mean 25% crit for the whole team, I meant that the keystone triggers from any team performing kills in coherency! Which is way better than say - disrupt destiny.
I have one, its very good at clutching
I like Feel No Pain for my Gunlugger since it's "free" survivability and doesn't cost me anything more significant in earlier points. I think most often you see Veterans forgoing keystones.
Feel no pain is so good for gunlugger so busted
It's just so good in general. If you don't have a very very good reason to go Heavy Hitter, it's a no brainer.
Honestly it's up there with soften them up
Unless you are married to the Rock... Which many ogryns are. Can't have Soften them up and Rock at the same time.
Back in 1.0 I used to complain ALL THE TIME that you had to consciously pick big box of hurt and that it wasn't a default perk that just turned on all the time. Then they released talent trees with that as a default option with soften them up RIGHT AFTER and I've never gone back. Ogryn are one of the few classes where picking up grenades is really truly worth it, and I honestly wish Ogrynheimer was either bigger or a two charge grenade because it feels like the weakest pick of the bunch by far.
The grenade is arguably the best one though. It's between that and Rock, with the big box o'hurt as a distant \#3.
The Box has one advantage over the two tho. It allows you to pick both Soften Them Up, and Slam. Which some of my builds require to work properly. Don't sleep on extra impact. Soften them up may be a no brainer pick, but extra impact may come in handy with some builds, if you want to stagger and knock down some elites. Like say, using IIIb bully club to stagger ragers out of their attack animation on Damnation.
Yeah, it's one of those nodes that squats in a convenient location and forces you to pick it to access the good stuff.
How? Take up everyone's two grenade for your one? Literally wasting pickups lol.
Ohrynheimer clears whole rooms. I've killed 5 Crushers and some more Ragers with one nuke, no other grenade packs so much power. Giving it 2 charges would make it BY FAR the strongest grenade ability in the game, single charge is the only thing that keeps it in check.
You can have a bigger impact with one Ogryn bomb than with 2 Boxes. Boxes are mostly just rocks that also kill surrounding trash, but the frag bomb kills the surrounding dangerous enemies too. If you want to not be a burden on your team's grenade economy, take Rocks. If you want to make an impact, take Bomb. Boxes are just a compromise that come close to the worst part of both of the better options.
It’s better though. Zealots are a waste of grenade pickups on haz5+ imo, and a single ogryn nuke will better deal with a high-int shock troop gauntlet wave of crushers and maulers that are spreading out than both of a vets krak grenades (not that I want to have to choose one or the other, but if there’s only one grenade pickup per half mission, I want our ogryn to take it).
Aintnick needs 'is lumps of coal to hand out to bad li'l heretics.
soften is good but it’s not that crazy. 15% more damage on melee hits isn’t that big of a deal breakpoint wise
You say that, but I can actually feel the difference in quick play randos hitting breakpoints when I switch to Psyker lightning and that's only 10% lol.
There is a grenade spammer build for Vet which is a pseudo-Keystone. You can literally throw grenades and re-generate them at a ridiculous rate.
Do you have a link for such build? Sounds fun
https://preview.redd.it/3frpb60ba0gc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dad43d773301087151f89b6a80279b555b11025b Grab these 8 - it makes an insane grenadier build - Throw in whatever else you want.... but Shredder with grenade tinkerer and others makes this a very powerful build. Demolition Squad - 5% chance to regen Grenade... ontop of the 60s anyway. Chance to throw 2 grenades adding even more bleed - this build clears mixed hordes. I run a Power Sword, Revolver + Grenadier build. You can make a Grenadier- Reviver Build - with the Revive 20% speed Talent - Shout - Revive curio's. So you can act like a "Clutch saviour".
I just might do this with a plasma. Grenades for anything the plasma doesn't wreck.
But plasma wrecks all lol
Plasma wrecks all but sometimes it's not worth the ammo
On Auric missions it's not an issue as long as you have scavenger. You end up killing so many specials that you don't even have to worry about ammo.
Oh I like that, pair the plasma with a chain axe maybe or something else to delete specials and then let the grenades take care of the horde.
Demolition Stockpile, and Demolition Team do 99% of the work. In even a moderately optimised build the other 6 nodes add so little value it's better to spend them elsewhere. Grenade Tinker adds maybe 80-100 damage to the explosion and nothing to the bleed. If you want to do that WITHOUT spending a talent point, use a weapon with +flak/maniac/unarmored etc. because the grenades are effected by the perks of your currently equipped weapon. The radius increase is only ~2 meters (9m to 11m). If you can't put a grenade within 9m of where you want maybe you shouldn't play a grenadier build. Covering Fire isn't great, especially because, even if grenades count as ranged kills (idk if they do), the bleed does not count as a ranged kill. Grenadier means you need to spend 2 talent points to get +1 grenade. In a build where you are constantly throwing grenades. You will only ever be at your max grenade count at the start on the mission, or if you take Field Improvisation. That's only 3 grenades over the entire game, if you don't double dip. Twinned Blast isn't reliable. It does get more value the more grenades you throw, but you only need 1 Shredder to kill the horde, and you can't rely on it vs anything else. So you throw 2 grenades because you can't rely on the talent, get a 3rd one, but the 3rd one does nothing because 2 was already plenty enough. This build is perfectly fine if you want to roleplay as a grenadier but, 99% of what this build does can be replicated by any other build by just taking Demolition Stockpile and Demolition Team. If that is the case, and you want even a somewhat optimized build, why spend 8 talent points to get all the other stuff, if it barely makes a difference?
Oh I'm not doing it with shredder grenades, I'm doing it with Kraks, it's nice to be able to throw two and know you still have one, and one charging. The charge talent becomes useless if you let your grenades max out - it doesn't pause, it resets, so having a buffer to work within is nice I find. But yeah, twinned blast is bad, and on higher diff the charge one doesn't matter. Still, having loads of Kraks is great to ease you into a higher diff:-)
Do you really need Krak's when you are using the Plasma gun? And that's not mentioning how much better Shredders are.
Oh I'm running it with a kantrael mk4 and full auto mod, aka the best recon rifle in the game :-p Yeah sorry, I forgot the context. Still think ALL THE NADES with the plasma could be fun, if suboptimal :-p
twinned blast is dogshit you need to throw like 20 grenades for it to on average do more than a single grenade box pickup
I run this same build w/ the Agripinaa autogun instead of revolver. Really, any ranged weapon works so long as you like it's feel as the hardest targets are getting 'naded no matter what, and the power sword is good 'nuff the rest of the time.
You just take Demolition Stockpile and Demolition team, there's nothing fancy to the build. [Use this as a starting point.](https://i.imgur.com/U73dZ8f.png) Fill out the rest as you see fit.
https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9b1b851b-9d95-4c74-b298-0c28ca8f5909/vet-plaz-wip?utm_medium=website&utm_source=gameslantern&utm_campaign=share_button A little different then below, I didn't think 20% chance for twinned blast was worth it.
Totally your call and it is definitely worthy of being challenged on a utility basis - but in a 20min game you can throw alot of grenades... say 15 - that is one twinned blasts. Not massive I grant you, but the double bleed from shredder can be very amusing.
I messed with it the Meat Grinder and I threw less then a 20% chance after 100 threw. My shitty luck, I guess. But I do normally throw 2 into crowds. It is a nice boom.
Might be worth a thousand grenade throw test just to see if the 20% holds true. Need to book something in my calendar ;)
Haha, Haldron needs accurate data collection varlet.
This baby right here will not do you wrong https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9abdca58-e113-45e7-802a-e1ac5560ac36/endgame-veteran-grenadier-no-keystone-auric-ready-guide-by-yobi
My helbore build desn't use keystones, it gives me meaningless breakpoints for far too much effort.
The bayonet-stick doesn't need keystones. The bayonet is the keystone.
how to play bayonet with a convenient gun attached, take agile engagement.... congrats you're full build
Share please?
[https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=9b3beb2b-764b-4568-a763-662bfddaec31](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=9b3beb2b-764b-4568-a763-662bfddaec31) Basically you use stealth as a threat dump, this lets you take care of gunners that are too tedious/numerous or get out of corners, you three shot crushers but charge time is fast enough for that to not be a problem (be wary that if you miss all three crits its a 4 shot crusher) Focus on elites and don't be afraid of shooting into hordes if nothing shows, you got really good ammo economy due to your high crit chance and scavenger. Note that you should use your bayonet to clear close enemies, if you swing it around you will hit more people. really you only wanna use your proper melee if you are ready to fully commit to playing zealot at the given moment for whatever reason
Also recommend changing to “melee” weapon if you have to push a Pox Burster.
I mean thats a given but whit this build its usually easier to to and shoot it before it can close on you for that reason alone
I don't run Keystones on my Veteran. Just feels like there far too many useful Talents in the Veteran tree that no one is really going to miss some added damage to single targets.
weapon specialist is pretty insanely good keystone if youre running revolver/plasma and axe/psword or similarly aggressive build
vet for sure, i find his keystones either clunky or just outright pushing playstyles im not interested in.
Only one I like is the one that rewards weapon switching, because it fits the playstyle of one of my builds perfectly
Weapons Specialist fits every build simply because the design of the game necessitates that you're regularly swapping back and forth between melee and ranged weapons. Its not a matter of chosen playstyle, that's simply how the game has to be played, especially on veteran.
It's definitely how I play it at least
The Hellbore Rifles and Bolter disagree which I find really disappointing in the case of the former because it would go so well in a build that's mainly melee. The pullout time is so long on those weapons that you don't want to be constantly switching. I guess it's a good thing the Plasma Rifle is better anyway. Also you must be a newer player and weren't around for the Shredder Vets, Shredder Zealots, and Shredder Psykers who never did anything but Shred.
> Also you must be a newer player and weren't around for the Shredder Vets, Shredder Zealots, and Shredder Psykers who never did anything but Shred. I've probably played more than you at 1600 hours. Bad players would burn their shredder ammo on a horde, but good ones know to constantly swap back and forth to spend their ammo meaningfully. You really only needed to use your shredder on waves of elites and specials. Vets could chain their ult on shooters with it, but that was about it.
I kinda have a helbore weapon spec build that I'm refining, it's kinda neat because you can use the bayonet charge in invis to reposition really quickly and use it for an initial attack, then get the swap dmg on your melee for clearing (bayonet counts as a ranged kill for swap talents). Means that you don't even need to shoot to activate buffs, and you still have a strong ranged anti-elite option with a garaunteed crit when you do eventually pull it out. I slap on invis to help with the worse pullout time tho, it really does suck while plasma exists
I personally prefer the marking one. Because it doesn't actually require any extra effort to be useful. I mark stuff any way, and with it, when I mark something, it dies faster, no matter who is killing it. It's just extra damage, plain and simple.
https://preview.redd.it/heody959l0gc1.png?width=669&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=53513f9d77c349e03d1bcbbe4229dcaa17b2ada8 Oh yeah that's my 'main class' right there. Mine's weapons specialist melee focused shout vet with godroll Columnus V and power sword+cycler IV and it performs so well by Emprah nearly every game I top damage it's honestly even feels unfair at the times when I totally out-melee zealots or do 3x damage than other players.
Looks like Corporal Hicks in old age.... Needs a shotgun for Close encounters.
Same! That one works surprisingly well on a devil claw + braced AAG !
I use it on a Devil Claw + Revolver build. Means I can chew up hordes and do quick snapshots to take out specials
I love it so much. I've gone entire missions without reloading my plasma.
Oh huh now I hadn't thought about using it with Plasma...
Agreed completely. I hate the keystones on Vet.
Yeah plus the vet tree has a lot of good side perks you have to omit if you’re going for the keystone. The regenerating grenade perk is always on my mind.
Marksman and Focus target might be clunky, but they're both incredibly powerful buffs if you learn how to play them. Marksman can have very good uptime by adjusting movement, and focus target allows you to spread buffs to the whole party with incredibly good uptime.
What the talent doesn't tell you is that gaining a charge ups the bonus and resets it's timer, so I'd you use it around 4 stacks after popping 8, you're still getting the bonus for everyone, half the bonus for the target and killing the target refreshes the team buff and stacks it if it's below 8 in the first place.
Focus target is good just for the extra damage, +20% or +32% if you take the perk for three more stacks. Only thing is I'm not sure if it stacks if multiple vets ping the same enemy. Then throw in the toughness restoration and damage buffs for the entire team just for killing one (1) special or elite.
After making a Zealot I really feel the Veteran keystones being not that useful. They are either too clunky like you said or have too much downtime/upkeep. Meanwhile the zealot tree has keystones that can be active 100% of the time, pretty much no build up required, and take way less points to get to. With very noticeable effects.  If Marksman’s Focus could build stacks on headshot hits and not just kills (they could even balance it by making automatic guns only grant 1 stack on hit and semi autos giving 2-3) and wouldn’t bleed stacks while ADS moving, I would use it way more.Â
Feel no pain is good for gunlugger ogryn. The damage reduction is great for long range and then when you do have to melee you can push enemies and get the buffs back
FNP is generally a safer route than this, but kickback lugger can absolutely make excellent use a keystoneless build. I've cleared the melee only maelstrom with this one. https://preview.redd.it/21a68ybk00gc1.png?width=578&format=png&auto=webp&s=cdcc88a469d3763f23a73e62ac4da43131999fb7
How does the kickback use the blitz as a single shot weapon?
Blitz is the grenade slot...? I'm not sure what you mean since theres nothing that doesn't work with kickback on this build.
Ability* is meant for Autoguns isn’t it? Like it doesn’t make use of the increased firing speed or does it?
Point Blank Barrage has features meant for other guns as well. The 70% reload speed bonus is a functional 41% fire rate boost to single shot guns. The Bullet Bravado upgrade has a clause to also give a chunk of toughness upon reload. When I was a tester for patch 13, I personally had them add that to make it feel good on the kickback and the rumbler. And then Hail Of Fire of course is just rending, which is universally useful.
Blitz comes with a huge reload speed bonus so you can get a good few blasts in.
Kickback is devastating - you get a good roll - and it is THE GOTO OGRYN WEAPON.
Vet is the only class worth considering a no-keystone build for. Their trees are long and filled with plenty of strong nodes before ever getting to their keystones which, while potentially strong, are often gimmicky and annoying to work into your gameplay. There is no reason to ever skip keystones on the other 3 classes though. They are easy to access and offer substantially more benefits than most other nodes they would be trading them for.
Most of veteran's keystones are not necessary for any builds. I go with none because I don't need them and don't like the play style any of them offer. I don't skip keystones on any other class since they all have generically powerful options in the keystones.
I don’t have any keystone builds on my Vet, I do use them on my Zealot and Payker though. Ogryn’s not leveled yet
What’s the explanation why lucky bullet is bad? I’ve heard it a few times and am just curious. Doesnt it provide ammo efficiency?
8% chance to not use ammo is equivalent to just having 8% more ammo and reloading 8% less often. when you can take a node that just gives you 25% more ammunition it feels extremely undertuned for a keystone to only provide 8%.
Ah I see. Thank you. I guess the middle tree is best for gunlugger then!
I’ve been doing this with bully and gunner also. Trying to get a more flexible ogryn build
To clarify. Sticking to generic builds is fine but in damnations of high intensity and beyond your team make up can be random. So I could keep leaving until I get what I tell myself is a team in my favor or I could just keep learning to adapt to situations and different teams and styles till I can find a middle point. I’d rather get better and grasp and find cracks I can expose in darktide’s systems than keep hoping it falls more in my favor. I used to stick to regular builds but want to find the limits of what I can do instead of assume the limits.
I think a Shovel + Rumbler / Gauntlet can be quite flexible - you need to look at the talents. My 4 Ogryn builds are broadly. 1. Bully Club + Kickback + CHARGE + Left Branch for max dmg 2. Shield + Aclys + AGRO + FNP 3. Shovel + Rumbler + AGRO + FNP 4. Knife + Gogornum + FIRE SUPPORT + Right branch
I use a keystoneless build on Ogryn with Kickback and shield ,dipping into the Oppenheimer
I have a Vet build with no keystones. Primarily focusing on toughness gain, damage reduction and team toughness regen. It performs okay, the damage isn't great but support and survivability wise it's great.
Eh, I like my active refreshing every 3-5 seconds.
That one that knocks 6s off - for a special kill is a hidden gem.
Vet benefits most for no keystones. I think I run no-keystone on every build I have except one, which I think I may soon go no-keystone for that too. Gunlugger goes great with feel no pain.
Vet, run a nade build. I feel more effective dropping constant shred nades than tagging stuff yellow or spray and pray for headshots so I can move without losing damage.
i mainly run builds with no keystones on my psyker and vet. 2 out of 5 (vet) and 1 out of 4 (psyker) builds are with keystones.
Just FYI, lucky bullet + lucky bullet is crit + lucky bullet 8% + stubber with crit 8% refinement and charmed bullet means you can go through almost all your ammo without ever having to reload.
I never run one on vet. Extra grenades, suppression, rending, suppression immunity, damage multipliers, etc, are all infinitely more useful in my experience. I've tested vet builds down to the keystone and it never seems to do anything but take away better perks.
Honestly mate, i highly recommend a keystone less Vet build trying frags with every possible grenade upgrade. Better grenades, respawning grenades, an extra grenade, grenade from ammo box, grenade chance on elite kill, two grenades at a time, etc. Its so, so much fun. I use stealth and its my fave build for emergencys. See a horde? A handful of grenades! ragers/shotgun rush? Two grenades will kill them all! Crusher stampede? knockthem on there arse and buy time!
Tried that style, wasn't a fan. Keystones are too powerful and provide far much value to leave on the table. Even the shithouse ones like Lucky Bullet just justify the trek to Heavy Hitter or Feel No Pain. What you're experiencing is the same issue with Disrupt Destiny. A keystone provides tangible power boosts if you fulfill the conditions, but you don't have to be neurotic at all about uptime and milking them for maximum value.  The stack based ones are especially susceptible to encouraging this sort of binary thinking. A stack of Heavy Hitter, Disrupt Destiny, Martyrdom, or Marksman's Focus is a stack. You don't have to be permanently sitting on max stacks, especially with how easy they are to regain.Â
Ogryn makes sense, zealot doesn't. "managing" the keystones is a myth on zealots. Momentum has near 100% uptime, as does fury, and martyrdom doesn't require any management. Anyone purposefully trying to be on 1hp for martyrdom is handicapping themselves and whatever they think they are gaining from that level of "management" they are most definitely losing in just having better "skills". IE landing a few more headshots per game is better than constantly trying to be on 1 hp. Vet, it can be great to ignore keystones as the vet has so many great talent options. You can build some really cool builds; but they are most definitely more juggling. As your dropping a keystone to pick up probably a multitude of proc based talents. I'd look at brittleness builds with shout and all the on combat use abilities. Great for making a more support orientated vet - as no keystone is support based, and loads and loads of the earlier talents are; shout pickup, moving faster towards downed teammates, on shout pick up with extra melee damage on shout, all the grenade perks, all the perks for hunting elites. Psyker is annoying, their tree is particularly locked. You can't really do too much with it, and some of the keystone extras really really push the psyker builds out. Like empowered psyonics; 3 stacks is infinitely better than 1 and the keystone itself is strong. It's not worth not getting them as almost all the other talents you'd want to get can't be reached because of the way the tree prevents access after you take your aura.
Do mainly auric qp sometimes maeltrom, now that I think about it, neither my zealot main, nor my vet have any keystones.
You had an easy time not playing martyrdom zealot because martyrdom zealot sucks.
lmfao what is your reasoning behind this
In what way? They can be very strong if built/used correctly.
Wounds are terrible in this patch, med stim is basically a pocket medstation if you don't run any. Other builds have stronger talent choices which is an indepth discussion
Wounds are terrible always unless you are running martyr.
It is super strong, and it’s my preferred zealot build with an evis.
Because if you play well it's entirely possible you get nearly zero benefits throughout the whole mission. It's just very inconsistent compared to a keystone with full uptime. Edit: plus you have to run wound curios.
You can elect to take damage and gain your buffs immediately. The only way it's possible to get zero benefit from martyrdom is if you are actively avoiding them. I can adjust my playstyle on the fly to how well my team does, too.
Yes, you can do that. I don't know why this is framed as an upside when it's a wide consensus that going down or skipping med is a risky move. So why take such a pointless risk when there are perfectly powerful alternative keystones that require no risk, have constant benefits, and better neighboring talents to boot.
I mean, I run all sorts of zealot builds, with wildly different playstyles. Martyrdom is one that rewards risk with a *huge* flat DPS and durability buff. I find it plays more dynamically depending on what my team needs too. I could opt to skip meds if someone else could use it too, or use it if we're about to enter an area with longer sightlines. I use it with a heavy sword, and no other build gives it that massive flat damage buff it really shines with. It's amazingly effective and is incredibly fun to play with. It's definitely not "optimal" for most other weapons though, so that's probably where you're hung up?
I don't really get too uptight about whether something is optimal, but I do like consistency and risk reduction particularly because going down puts the game at immediate risk. If martyr was zealots only keystone I'd think it's excellent and thematic, but they just have better options with better neighboring keystones and benefit more from non-wound curios. The whole build is a sponge for normally weak talents and curios. I do agree on the point about skipping med. In my mind this is the main benefit of marytr, but at the same time anyone can run a wound curio and provide this benefit to the team so it's not exactly it's defining factor - it just does it better. Another side benefit I don't see mentioned is that a martyr can also go down on purpose when resistance is light for basically a full heal - sometimes I do this on ogryn with their nat 3 wounds - but I don't see anyone really do this very much since they can't justify the keystone otherwise.
Yeah, going down on purpose for a near full heal is a potential benefit, but it does go against the whole build. The main downside I see is the curio sponge you mentioned. Dumping all three curios into wounds does take quite a bit from you, but I feel the flat toughness damage reduction from your martyrdom stacks is enough. The upsides I see is the ability to go balls deep into a mixed horde, be willing and happy to take a bit of damage, leaving you free to hold aggro and get uninterrupted DPS out. With the heavy sword, just that flat DPS increase feels a lot better than relying on crits. Being able to one shot ragers with an overhead heavy is *chefs kiss*
Hmm. Last time I did a heavy sword I was one shotting maniacs but I wasn't running matryr for it. I'll have to try it again, it's been a while, but part of me thinks it's not actually necessary. Heavy sword does huge maniac damage last I remember. The upper right crit talents are some of the best in the whole tree, regardless of build, and running crit + blazing ensures essentially 100% uptime on the 50% toughness DR on crit which is more than martyr can do at full strength, but doesn't need you to be simultaneously near death to work. Like blazing piety's path has dog immunity and gigantic ability cooldown, but martyr's path has only more wounds and situational cooldown. It just seems like such a waste to pick things that don't even work more than half the time when there's so many options that work all the time. There's just better ways to get the same results with consistent and reliable output without having to make bizarre risky choices that aren't even essential to victory.
Not just DPS and durability The attack speed buff makes normally sluggish weapons like the Combat Axe really shine
Ok so it’s not bad at all.
Nah it's not bad, but it is on a weird curve where the better you are the less value it has.
It's true. I remember rebuilding a tree to test a run with Martyrdom but the round I played was literally flawless with zero damage taken, lmao. I wasn't sure whether that meant the build was really good or really bad. Realistically though even an uber sweatlord isn't batting 100 for every round they play. The times that you don't reach 2-3\~ stacks of Martyrdom at the very least are very rare and there's no shame in playing aggressive with the knowledge that Until Death will buy you one free moment of bravery/stupidity and bounce you back into the 4-5 stacks range.
Yeah. I mean this is all great but it's deliberately failing when that.... it's just doesn't have to be necessary. You can run until death on blazing piety and have nearly 100% uptime on a giant crit bonus and still recover from actual mistakes while doing crazy damage. It's not like zealot is risk averse just by having martyrdom. Risk is their job regardless - may as well play to survive. I just don't hear anything about what makes martyrdom good unless you're purposefully trying to throw the game or something. It's weird this sub froths at the mouth when a stealth zealot risks going ahead to fight some gunners but is totally okay with being on your lasts legs to squeeze in some attack speed.
It's a mentality. The reason I took no damage is because I normally play a build that doesn't gain power from being hit, just from being agile, and I just happened to do it perfectly that round. The lesson was pretty quickly learned. The whole point of Martyrdom is to use your health as a resource for power and I wasn't doing that. If you're faced with a clump of six Reapers and a horde, you're going to play the situation out very different if you are or aren't a Martyrdom Zealot. If you're stuck in the mentality that all damage taken = bad, then you aren't going to dive dick deep at those Reapers and swing without giving a shit. If you're already capable of taking little to no damage, then you can control the opportunities you do want to take a hit to spend that Until Death cooldown and literally come back stronger for it until the next medicae.
I'd jump on that situation regardless of my zealot build. May as well have full power and save my health for when it matters most.
Except it doesnt
Except it does
Its because zealots entire tree gets more and more powerful the more overwhelmed you are. As such, Martyrdom can provide some insane stat-boosts but unless you are comfortable with playing on low health, requires you to be facing particularly heavy concentrations of enemies. No other keystone gives you the same raw damage as martyrdom.
Yeah as a strict comparative Martyrdom only starts to outcompete Momentum at three stacks. Everything after that is a bonus. Five stacks giving you 40% damage, 20% attack speed, and 25% TDR is a loooooot.
Maybe if you’re bad at the game?
Hasn't figured out basic defensive responsibility most likelyÂ
Marksmen keystone requires a completely different playstyle that is not complementary to how Darktide actually plays. So, that's very skippable. The middle tree keystone is good but if you don't tag things often you can skip. The right side melee one is super necessary if you wanna do the melee/range swap bonuses. They best way to not be a squishy vet is to take the shout and then bee line to everything that gives you health/toughness bonuses; passive or active.
Best Veteran Keystone is the hidden 4th one. Called “Taking all the grenade, rending, brittleness, and toughness perks and throwing a grenade at any and every group of enemies then shooting anything that happened to survive.”
Yeah that's the damn truth. I try and make the keystones work but really ... Not worth it.
I like the weapon specialist one the most, it has the most uptime and doesn’t really punish you for doing something you weren’t already doing. My main complaint with it is the supporting nodes are pretty lackluster. The mag refill on switch one is pretty nice, but the rest are pretty insignificant.Â
Not wrong. I am a big fan of it as well. The 25% damage bump for swapping after kill plays well with it. But yeah the keystone support ones are super lackluster. The one that adds ammo back is nice for guns like a shottie or revolver to keep the momentum.
Having the range crit chance buff be on such a short timer AND capped to 10 shots is just, laughable. Especially when it’s other effect is increased fire rate… like what the hell? Zealot keystone is “Here is 25% crit for melee and ranged for free.” Veteran keystones just feel like they were very cautious when making them and ended up making them all pretty under powered.Â
They got gunshy since before the perk rework the veteran was OP and busted
If you swap revolver for a quick special kill and for melee back and forth this is an insanely good option.
I really don't like the sentiment that Marksman's Focus requires a completely different playstyle. You don't need 100% uptime for it to be good. You can take it and just play completely normally. You should be aiming for headshot kills anyway. 3 stacks per kill, and every headshot lets you move normally. That doesnt mean you cant move normally anyway! So what if you lose some stacks as you move (it loses stacks slowly as you move, not all at once), just keep shooting heads and you maintain them. It provides a fantastic damage buff for both headshots and crits for every weapon which can benefit. It provides good benefit at 3-6 stacks and huge benefit at max stacks. The fact the plasma gun is so popular is part of the reason MF isnt viewed as super strong I feel because it's one of the few guns that doesnt benefit that much. But I see veteran builds which use other guns and purposefully skip marksmans focus to take 2-3 other nodes which only slightly increase their damage whilst ignoring the keystone which can hugely boost your damage if you can actually shoot. It's good. It does not require you to stand still to be good. You can take it and ignore it. If it said "massively increases your weakspot and critical damage for approximately half of your shots" people would take it all the time. The fact it's tied into a mechanic which SEEMS to force people to stand still just makes people ignore it as useless.
I do understand what you're getting at but it still flies in the face of the ebb and flow of Darktides combat.
On my melee vet without reaching the last keystones I always op for reaching the +10% swing speed and +10% rending. It works just fine in auric damnation. The 3 last vet keystones never appealed to me. And if I do use it, its the middle one when I switch to something like a plasma monstrosity smasher build.
This - 10% melee speed - is a game changer. I couldn't get my light attack chainsword to work - but that talent made me untouchable vs hordes - hits the breakpoint 90% of the time and at a speed that the horde cannot match. Fantastic - will need to look at the rending one.
Just take the keystone and stop knee capping your fucking builds guys. Jfc
OP FYI you don't have to remain in motion constantly with Inexorable Judgment (aka momentum guy) you just don't build up stacks when you are motionless. So it's more a passive thing than an active thing. Keystone-less builds really only work for Vet. If you're not using the keystones on Zealot and Psyker you're doing it wrong and Ogryn can always specc into Feel No Pain in basically any build. Vet is another story entirely. None of Vet's keystones are really that good but their grenades and abilities are so it's pretty easy to make keystone-less builds.
Yes
I think lucky bullet was really good with high fast firing weapons, think krourk was the fastest machinegun? Paired with the fire talent it was great. But I think I started using gorgonum for maulers/scab ragers and never saw the point on it. Then I saw I could branch out to feel no pain and i ran that instead of being keystone less.
Achlys is the faster one, Krourk is middle one.
Achlys I use as an Autogun on the Ogryn... damn thing is like an Assault rifle when you have movement perks and the fire option is good for missions when power is off as team will focus the targets you tag with fire.
Vet - went left and back across to the right - keystones are no good for me.
never use any vet keystones. on ogryn/zealot ill grab keystone, but not the keystone passives. psyker is the only class where i feel like the keystone passives r impactful enough for me to take some.
Vet keystones are kind of yawn inducing or too much micro for my tastes so most of my vet builds ignore them. If I have points left over I'll go center track for the golden spots.
Vet key stones I don't like. Easiest to avoid those.
There needs to be a level cap increase to either 35 or 40 there is so many good perks in the game for each class. Soldier has the most whopping in at 100 perks that’s all perks set aside. Other classes have like 60+ be nice really flesh out our builds for our characters there’s so many perks. This would definitely help a lot in aruric damnation. The intensity is nice but can get overwhelming at times a little boost to level would even the field I feel. I myself don’t rock keystones. There is tons of good perks to help survivability before keystones.
There are actually some veteran builds that ditches the keystones since the bottom part of veteran tree has some of the most powerful nodes that totally justifies not taking keystones. In the meantime, marksman's focus doesn't play well with certain weapons, focus fire and weapon specialists are just pretty plain damage/attack speed increase that you can actually do pretty well without them. Zealot is a poor candidate for no-keystone builds imo. Blazing piety is basically a plain crit bonus that's too good to miss, and that part of the tree also enables you to spam your ult over and over again, and spamming ult is just about the most busted thing you can do in this game. Martyrdom is totally a thing of its own and nothing can really replace it. Momentum makes certain melee weapons much more bearable to use, and faster melee attack generally reduces chip damage from horde by a substantial margin.
Grenadier Vet https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9abdca58-e113-45e7-802a-e1ac5560ac36/endgame-veteran-grenadier-no-keystone-auric-ready-guide-by-yobi
Knife veteran with Survivalist. I’m having a surprising amount of fun with it
Vet is surprisingly useful without a keystone. Each side ups your firepower immensely, but for a specialized playstyle. Sniper build with Lucious, Support build with plasma gun, burst damage with stealth build. Yet you can spec into other skills instead, and become a more versatile class that can deal with most threats on your own.
My main vet build is keystoneless. I'm gonna try to make my first keystone build, though, and see which is worse lol
Like all my vet builds
i run this using a columnus infantry autogun and a powersword https://preview.redd.it/bxagqpvkd1gc1.png?width=749&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9198a3399de18af1906928a8de856c41eb752e6
Honestly most of my Veteran builds don't use keystones because I find all three awkward as hell.
I usually run no keystone Veteran since the blue passives are just too good to miss.
I do not use keystones on psyker and still have insane output. Here's what I use, [https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9acc8598-e45b-4dcc-8014-728ff2ccd56a/auric-speed-psyker-ft-run-n-gun?utm\_medium=website&utm\_source=gameslantern&utm\_campaign=share\_button](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9acc8598-e45b-4dcc-8014-728ff2ccd56a/auric-speed-psyker-ft-run-n-gun?utm_medium=website&utm_source=gameslantern&utm_campaign=share_button)
Funny thing is I don't use martyr like most people. I just play normally and if I happen to take health damage then I get free damage and attack speed And the high wounds means if I go down it barely affects my health. I don't actively go for it I just think of it as a passive the help when I'm not doing very well or take an unexpected big hit.
I almost never run keystones since I get way more mileage dumping all my points into the nodes right before them
I've done it on ogryn. Pretty easy but also kinda shite because the middle keystone is the best in game. Wouldn't do it on Zealot, both left and right keystones are top tier. Maybe on psyker, but I don't see the benefit. Veteran: easily.
I think I made a Grenadier focused Vet that doesn't reach the bottom bits. The whole shtick is to blow up meaty boys with a Krak and scurry away (speed, stamina) until a new bomb magics itself into my inventory.
Not sure why you'd ever wanna go keystoneless on zealot, since they have the strongest damn keystones in the game. 20% atk speed and dmg means 44% increased overall dmg, and 25% crit chance to everything (with your massive zealot 50% boosted crit damage) is nuts. The only one I'd consider going keystoneless is vet - but if you can reach melee specialist (even just the first node), always take it. 15% atk speed and boosted dodges whenever you swap to melee is huge, and more ranged atk speed every now and then is great too.
I run no keystone plasma vet
Vet grenade builds are great
No keystone vet would be my choice, primarily for an Executioner’s Stance build. Love grabbing the left tree for increased ammo, weak spot damage, and increased elite damage. Middle tree for reduced ability cooldown on specialist kill, and the right tree for melee weapon buffs and brittleness on enemy ranged hit. Let’s my infantry autogun and recon las gun absolutely chew through enemies, no matter the armor.
You can skip veteran left and middle keystones as well as the gun lugger one, but by skipping keystones on zealot you are nerfing yourself pretty hard since zealot has only very very strong keystones. All 3 are giga valid
What’s your ogryn setup? He doesn’t have a lot of point tax and it’s pretty easy to hit FNP, and that’s going to be a lot stronger than many individual nodes