Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Zealot Class Guide

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Zealot Preacher Abilities

Zealot Preacher Feats

Zealot Preacher Strategy & Tips

Zealot Preacher Gear

Every mission in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is sure to have hordes of enemies charging the team. The Zealot Preacher welcomes these onslaughts, as it lets them put their melee and crowd-control abilities to good use. Playing a Zealot isn't all about recklessly charging forward, though – by carefully choosing your moment to rush in, you can help keep your team alive as well!

This guide contains all the Zealot Preacher's progression information in one place, along with winning tips and strategies to make your frothing fanatic a valuable part of the team.

Zealot Preacher Abilities

The Zealot Preacher is all about melee, so any time there's a large group of enemies you'll want to be in the middle of it. Their abilities make this an easy prospect, and help keep them alive while they're in the thick of it.

Base Abilities

Power	Type	Effects
Chastise The Wicked	Active	When activated, the Preacher rushes forward with greatly increased movement speed. If an enemy is targeted, the Preacher moves toward that enemy. The Preacher recovers up to half their Toughness upon activation. The next melee hit by the Preacher is an automatic Critical Hit.
Stun Grenade	Grenade	Deals no damage, but stuns all enemies caught in the blast.
The Emperor's Will	Aura	All allies within Coherency take seven percent less Toughness damage.
Swift Exorcism	Passive	Increases the Preacher's attack speed by ten percent.
Martyrdom	Passive	The Preacher's attacks (melee and ranged) deal five additional damage for every fifteen Health the Preacher is missing. Up to three stacks of Martyrdom can be active at once.
Until Death	Passive	If the Preacher takes lethal damage, they instead become invulnerable for five seconds. This ability has a ninety-second cooldown.

Zealot Preacher Feats

All characters in Darktide unlock a Feat slot every five levels. You can only have one Feat from each tier equipped at a time, but can freely change them between missions.

Level 5 Feats

Feat	Effect(s)
Purify In Blood	Recover fifty percent more Toughness than normal after killing an enemy with a melee attack.
Faith Restored	Whenever you inflict a Critical Hit, you take seventy-five percent less Toughness damage for the next four seconds.
Enemies Within, Enemies Without	As long as there are three or more enemies within five meters of you, you regain five percent of your Toughness per second.

Level 10 Feats

Feat	Effect(s)
Bloodletting	Enemies hit by your melee Critical Hits are afflicted with Bleed. Whenever you hit a Bleeding enemy with a melee attack, you gain a ten percent higher melee Critical Hit chance for three seconds.
Punishment	When you hit three or more enemies with a single attack, your attacks gain thirty percent more Impact for five seconds. Punishment can be stacked up to five times, and if you have five stacks your attacks cannot be interrupted.
Retribution	If your Health is below half, increase your attack speed by ten percent. If your Health is below twenty percent, increase your attack speed by twenty percent instead.

Level 15 Feats

Feat	Effect(s)
Holy Fervour	Whenever you gain a stack of Martyrdom, all allies within Coherency get twenty percent more attack power for five seconds.
Benediction	All allies within Coherency take fifteen percent less Toughness damage. This stacks with The Emperor's Will.
Inspiring Excoriation	Whenever you activate Chastise The Wicked, allies in Coherency restore up to twenty percent of their Toughness.

Level 20 Feats

Feat	Effect(s)
Holy Revenant	After the invulnerability from Until Death expires, you gain Health based on the damage you dealt while invulnerable. Melee damage counts double when calculating healing from this Feat.
Thy Wrath Be Swift	Enemy melee attacks cannot stun you. Whenever you take damage (from any source), your movement speed increases by twenty percent for two seconds.
Faith Restores All	Every time you take damage, you heal for twenty-five percent of the damage taken over the next five seconds.

Level 25 Feats

Feat	Effect(s)
Emperor's Executioner	Your ranged attacks get a scaling damage bonus the closer you are to the target. This bonus caps at twenty-five percent.
Rising Conviction	Whenever you hit an enemy, you deal four percent more damage for the next five seconds. Rising Conviction can stack up to five times, for a maximum damage bonus of twenty percent.
Honour The Martyr	Doubles the number of Martyrdom stacks you can have at once, increasing your damage output when critically low on Health.

Level 30 Feats

Feat	Effect(s)
Invocation Of Death	Whenever you land a Critical Hit with a melee attack, reduce the current Chastise The Wicked cooldown by 1.5 seconds.
Fury Of The Faithful	When you activate Chastise The Wicked, you get twenty percent faster attack speed for the next five seconds.
Purge The Wicked	Chastise The Wicked has two charges, letting you use it more often.

Zealot Preacher Strategy & Tips

On missions with low Threat levels, the Zealot Preacher can usually get by using Chastise The Wicked to rush into battle at every opportunity. On higher difficulties, though, it's important to work with your team if you want to survive. More than any other class, the Zealot Preacher's tactics will change based on the composition of their team.

Your Toughness-boosting powers are a critical part of keeping your team alive, and often get overlooked in favor of the flashier melee abilities the class has. It's important to stay near your teammates, since your Aura is helping them survive (and they, in turn, are keeping you from getting overwhelmed).

If your team has multiple melee characters, such as other Zealots or an Ogryn, fighting side-by-side in close combat ensures that you both have bottomless reserves of Toughness and can make quick work of even the densest horde.

If you're the only melee character on your team, you'll need to be pickier about when you charge. Switch to your ranged weapon and help your teammates thin enemy numbers, then charge in while the enemy is suppressed.

Remember that ranged enemies stop shooting if an Operative gets within melee range. Using Chastise The Wicked to quickly close with enemy shooters can buy your team a lot of time!

Zealot Preacher Gear

Naturally, the Zealot Preacher can make good use of just about any melee weapon they get their hands on. For best results, though, look for weapons with a high Cleave rating. Since many Zealot powers trigger when hitting more than one enemy, you want to be able to slice through hordes with ease.

Your ranged weapon will always be strictly secondary, and it can be useful to have a few mid-level guns of different types in reserve to adapt your loadout to your team composition. In most cases, a trusty shotgun serves to blast charging enemies before drawing your melee weapon, especially if you have Emperor's Executioner equipped.

Since the Zealot can struggle against Elites and bosses, a flamer makes a great choice for a ranged weapon against these foes since it bypasses armor. In these fights, stick to your team to keep their Toughness up and get shots in where you can. If it comes down to it, you can take hits for your teammates and rely on Until Death in order to stay alive!

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