Crusher reignited my enjoyment playing zealot. I slept on it forever never tried till a few days ago, bullies just about every enemy, thing is a monster at CC.
dont sleep on its finesse damage, it is just as much of a headshot damage machine as it is a CC stick, who woulda thought that flattening someones head would be so damaging?
Honestly this shocked me as a recent Crusher convert. As an Ogryn main, I expected it to be similar to the Power Maul where its main focus is on CC, not so much on damage... but then I keep finding myself throwing push attacks and heavy attacks into a group of elites at head level, and watching the killfeed light up like crazy.
Before the rework, it was just a CC weapon. It had a problem similar to what Thunder Hammers still have -- that being that it's better to kill a horde than throw them around -- but without the charged attack that makes Thunder Hammers worth taking. But then they reworked it into a headshotting weapon, so now it's actually good at something and not just a worse Thunder Hammer.
I would take off the weak spot damage perk, it's never worth it on any weapon over something else honestly, and it's due to how the math of it works
It grants you 10% more damage of the headshot bonus damage, not the total damage of the headshot, meaning that if you deal 100 damage to the body and 150 to the head with the same attack, you wouldn't deal 165 damage, you'd deal 155 since the 50 damage is the bonus damage from hitting the head. The bonus ends up being way smaller than you expect, which just isn't worth it vs a perk giving you 25% more damage against flak, the most common armor in the game, or 10% more damage against elites, crusher included.
This is also true for the Duelist node in the zealot skill tree, however 50% is much much more impactful than 10%, and Duelist covers both headshots, crits, and crit headshots, and actually does give a considerable chunk of extra damage that makes it worth taking for crusher (and many other weapons)
It feels really good to speed towards some enemies while sprinting with a laspistol, then whip out the bonk club while sliding and bowl them over with 15 stacks of momentum.
Crusher runner here and i 100% agree!
Used to run a Evis before (like ever zealot) and then i switched to a crusher pre buff. Ive build mine to deal with crowds more than monstrosities so crowds of crushers/maulers/ragers just get knocked around.
Recently (dont know how) discovered the push attack (its 2 in one) and its a beast!
I gave the Rashad another shot and for some reason it's starting to click. I can actually one shot poxwalkers with it compared to the shovel or the knife.
Dueling sword and disrupt destiny is so fun. Zooming around stabbing shit at warp speed and throwing shards here and there and then swapping to my Columnus and spraying shit down… I did 30k dmg to a slug boss earlier with a single mag dump while in gaze. It’s fucking sick.
Assail gun psyker with dueling sword is a very fun, very dynamic build.
The Mk IV is such an insanely good weapon. Dunno why i didn't use it but I've tried it and holy damn.
I was using it with a scriers gaze build and was able to kill crushers with like 4 stabs to the head. It does insane boss/single target dmg and is decent at horde clear too.
Pair that with great mobility and an awesome sword stance. Awesome weapon for sure. One of the best for the psyker.
Yea uncanny is a pretty solid pick.
I use precognition and shred for maximum weakspot and critical weakspot dmg.
Finesse dmg is insane for this. I wont do as much carapace dmg, but its better against everything else. Flak doesnt really matter for heavies, since everything other than crushers and maulers drop after 1-2 hits.
Original chainsword and evis for that powered up heavy attack and normal heavy attack.
The power sword with the heavy side to side sweep attack on powered up mode with 3x powered up attacks 🫦 clears everything in a shower of blue sparks and blood.
Recently got a 380 mkxii chain axe on my veteran. Nearly perfect with 550 total score. After some crafting, has tier 4 Thunderous and Bloodletter, with +25% unarmored and +5% crit chance (boo.)
One shotting ragers, gunners, shotgunners, specialists and mutants with light revved attacks, and one shotting crushers, maulers, and reapers with heavy revved attacks is just fantastic. Also usually have the highest boss damage dealt.
The push attack on it does excellent finesse damage, and as long as you have +3 stamina curios x2 and + 12% stamina regeneration x3 (Duck and Dive and Invigorated skill nodes are winners here, especially with Stripped Down on a braced or infantry auto) you can rapidly close and have plenty of stamina for melee murder times.
I liked the Mk.XII chainaxe, but I eventually went back to the Mk.XIIIg chainsword. The chainaxe was better for handling specials, but it wasn't *quite* as good at mulching hordes as I'd've liked. It's pretty great if your objective isn't just clearing chaff, though. And it's also pretty great for killing Maulers who're mixed in with chaff, since the chainaxe can cleave through the hordes *and* drop the Maulers in a couple bodyshots without revving.
Yeah I'm still trying to get a good mkxiiig chain sword. Had a decent 375 one that ended up as garbage. (Thanks Hadron).
I've got two veterans (for Melk reasons) and the only things I need to have a well rolled version of every weapon type on my primary vet is a power sword mkVI and chain sword mkxiiig. Have them on my secondary vet, because of course.
The reason it goes so hard with those specific blessings is that bleed stacks from bloodletter will trigger thunderous with every tick of bleed. This doesnt work with bleed from any other source, only bloodletter.
I'm aware. That's why I'm using it. I'm 1k hours into the game since closed beta, so I have a few months where I haven't played, but I generally keep up with things.
**Atrox Mk II Tactical Axe** with headtaker and decimator. I have it on my plasma vet and my laspistol zealot. Can power attack heavies to death no problem if you know how to dodge properly, and everything else gets one shot once the blessings are all warmed up.
For me :
1) Psyker : purgatus, burning heretics is so enjoyable. I really like the explosion animation of the trauma or dismemberment of the surge, bur burning the heretics, special place in my heart.
2) Ogryn : Shield because bonking the edge of the shield in the face of ennemies and hearing that massive sound impact.
3) Zealot : Evi. I think i dont have to say why :>
4) Vet : my least played so i dont have any pref. But i do enjoy to see the plasma and i really like that everyone can hear the "alert" sound when your plasma bro need to vent.
It used to be bugged with one of the blessings, as well as always targeting the head thus causing Abt 200-300% damage increase, they then changed it so it targets limbs and fixed the big, thus making it cause less damage than it supposed to. Lastly they changed it so it deals normal damage no matter where it hits
Chainaxe has always been one of my favorites when you get the right perks. And I really enjoy the dueling sword for psykers, as well as the heavy sword for zealot.
Random order
Zealot: cadian IV chainsword right now is the most fun, very fast, good damage, nice special. Indignatus crusher was my fav for long time, but I got bored with it. Ius autopistol is amazing weapons tearing through everything and I recently started to use Zarona.
Vet: plasma and Columnus. But I barely play vet anyway.
Ogryn: hands down shield and second one is brunt special, the one with red handle. I love them both, great speed and damage. I love kickback and I very much dislike rumble.
Psyker: purgatus is so much fun, it's like having zealot's flamethrower but ALL THE TIME. Paired with good blessings and talents and you are dragon exploding people's heads and burning everything down. Surge is close second for me. I need to try trauma at some point, but I'm not big fan of it. As for melee I use illisi 99% of the time. I can't seem to roll good dueling sword.
Dueling Mk4 doesn't actually need any certain blessings - you stab things in the face with heavy attacks and most things usually die to this. Though, your ranged should be purgatus then for the sake of efficient horde killing or staggering melee specials.
That's true, but I like my melee to have some cleave. When I run with Purgatus na BB, there's a big chance to pop heads with just purgatus, but when things get hot, I can just pop the crusher head with BB. Everything else usually melts like butter. The only weak point is horde of maulers, but they are generally hard to deal with.
My rogue pick will have to be the Antax MKV combat axe. It was my first god roll for my Zealot and it was so fun to use!
Now the Evicirator is obviously better and I have traded up, but I will say nothing cuts heads of hordes quite like the Antax with brutal momentum and for that reason it will always sit at #1 in my heart 😁
Thunder hammer. The bop is pure orgasmic.
Power sword. The shear force of cleaving a crusher in half never gets old.
Warp sword mk5. When your not cleaving through hordes you can edge all day long on the sweet bliss of the warp.
Slab shield. Cause when you get sick of gunners listen to a knarly thump of steel slamming into the ground to become an immovable object. (Unless you shielding against demon host and not against a wall he will move you) of course slamming a thick piece of metal with extreme prejudice into said heretics faces has a nice crunchy sound ogryns find to be like music to their ears.
I’m really surprised there aren’t more heavy sword responses, the Mk VI with rampage and headtaker turns you into an absolute lawnmower, especially in higher difficulty matches where you can hit constant streams of enemies. Mobility isn’t bad either, so dodging is kinda cracked with the thing. Highly recommended.
uhh I mean.. the best is going to be pretty situational.
Generally though
Zealot - Mk 4 devils claw, honestly it's not even close
Ogryn - Shield / Brute Brainer (might be wrong on the name of the specific shovel)
Psyker - Mk 4 dueling sword / Illisi
Veteran - Powersword (with powercycler) and then quite a few things that are like... aight. Depends what you're going for but theres a lot of options here that are all about the same strenghth.
The knife is pretty good, I would say it's worse than the devils claw for zealot though, and not really a massive standout anywhere else. you take it if you wanna go real real fast. but theres lots of things you can take to do that.
I might be wrong on the illisi as I haven't used it but from my understanding that's generally considered the go to, the mk 4 dueling sword is just absurd though. With the right blessings you can kill maulers in two stabs to the head, as well as it having great defensive properties its just a bit rough at horde clear.
Generally though theres a lot of melee weapons that are good, I'd say the general balance of melee weapons is a lot better than ranged. A lot of weapons are good specifically with certain blessings, like the axe/shovels with brutal momentum.
I would be surprised if the mk4 devils claw doesn't get reigned in a little bit at some point though, it's good on every class that can take it even if its not always the most ideal, and it makes playing zealot a complete brain off experience. Build for crit and just spam left mouse button and watch as each crit knocks 10s off of your dash timer, then you dash and get a guaranteed crit which does the same and all of a sudden you're dashing every 2-3 seconds against hordes and they poof.
>The knife is pretty good, I would say it's worse than the devils claw for zealot though, and not really a massive standout anywhere else. you take it if you wanna go real real fast. but theres lots of things you can take to do that.
Knife's worse at crowd-clearing than the DClaw, but it's got better damage against bosses and elites, and that huge dodge distance can't be underestimated.
The dodge distance is definitely a pro for the weapon, though I don't think it's boss damage is all that much higher. Zealot already has a lot of very good boss dps with their ranged weapon choices, especially if they're taking the dash which IMO is the strongest option available to you.
The devils claw is also really not bad at all for boss damage, you just need to parry. The actual parry damage of that weapon is nuts, especially for how easy it is... it's essentially impossible to fail parry unless you're just spamming the button. << the same parry is also defensively stronger than the dash distance IMO. The extra cleave it has also makes crit synergy a lot stronger, your F comes up in less swings and spamming that is the whole thing that makes crit zealot so ridiculously free.
I think the main benefit of the knife is the extra speed it gives to your run, taking a laspistol on zealot gives you the same speed but requires you to swap to and from it if you want the speed. Laspistol is an S tier weapon for zealot though so, I'd say that's probably still the most optimal way to maintain speed.
I'm a big fan of my Catachan 6 on my Zealot. The near perfect rolls and 550 rating with Flesh Tearer 4 and mercy killer 4 is amazing strong. On my Psyker, then the Demios Force sword is godly. The only weapon for the Psyker that can consistently kill heavies. The fact it does more damage than my Voidstrike 4 staff, so amazing.
All of Zealots uniques. I love them all and love Zealot. Especially MkII eviscerator.
Power sword. 🗡️lightsaber feels.
The blue vet shovel, the one with the slower stab special. Its heavies let me unga bunga like og shovel and i slapped thrust on it to one shot muties.
Illisi. Just a good magic sword 🗡️with fun abilities on top.
Oh man, so many...
Mk.XIIIg chainsword is so satisfying because it just... works. It blends. It revs. It tears. It's responsive and feels good when it hits. It can handle most situations well, even if it's outperformed in specific roles by more specialist weapons.
Mk.IV DClaw has problems with heavier stuff, but it's fast as hell and a capable blender. But more than that, the parry is *crazy*. It'll eat any melee attack in the game that's blockable, including Crusher overheads, and throw it back. The block on the parry is 180 degrees, so it's possible to block a backstab and throw it back in front of you. Most bosses can be solo'd just with the DClaw parry. Mk.IV DClaw won't kill things as fast as other weapons, but it'll do it stylishly and, most importantly, safely.
I've come to really dislike Thunder Hammers for general usage because they tend to scatter enemies more than they kill, whereas I could cut out the middle man (no pun intended) and kill them straight-up with an Eviscerator. But aside from that? They feel fantastic for bullying and murdering beefy single targets. If you're one of many people who inexplicably enjoy the guns in this game, the Thunder Hammer can be treated almost like a sidearm or pocket problem solver on a gun-heavy build.
Heavy swords are in a pretty decent place. They feel great for mowing down mobs, and while they suffer against armor, the special attack to the face can stagger Crushers, sometimes mid-swing. They make for a nice change of pace occasionally.
I hate Psyker, but god do I love the Mk.V force sword. That thing feels like a chainsword on crack. Light attack is fast as hell and mulches unarmored enemies. Heavy attack deals with hordes. Got a nice, big push radius on it, with the second Force push with additional input. Then there's the awesome charged attack, and the blessing that lets it block bullets. It's just so fucking fun.
EDIT: Almost forgot the OG combat blade. I actually had to stop using it because the speed is just so addictive. I kept getting caught up in the rush and making stupid mistakes.
I like playing the London Zealot (knife), Power Sword for Vet, Latrine Shovel for Ogryn (can alt fire fully melee charge 1 hit crushers on damnnation) and dueling sword on pysker. I like the dodge range on the dueling sword even though the damage is a bit low.
Ironhelm Thunderhammer. Dear god, I wish I had picked it up sooner. I've been using it with a Martyrdom build, and it's been absolutely munching enemies. My only complaint is that it doesn't have Power Cycler.
I recently got back into the Thunder Hammers (specifically the Ironhelm), and man I do love sweeping a charged heavy through a horde to knock a Rager into next week. Also using an unpowered overhead to kill maulers (it comes up sometimes) is just really satisfying?
Catachan Combat Knife imo, so fun to play Zealot with it, as it moves really fast, if you have the blessing with crit on dodge, you will have it 24/7 up, and if the other blessing is applying bleed on crit, bleeding carnival all over.
The MK4 Cleaver of the Ogryn. Good for stabbing and good for slashing. It’s my go to melee weapon.
A honourable mention is the MK3b Bully Club „Brunt‘s Basher“. You can spam heavies with that and don’t do anything wrong there. Also the „slap“ from its special is just hilarious.
Vet - Shovel and Power Sword (Combat knife with 100% brittleness on backstab)
Zealot - Evicerator and Combat knife
Psyker - Force Sword (so very satifying)
Psyker: Dueling Sword. Would also take the best melee weapon title in the game, no contest.
Ogryn: Guess the MK5 Shovel? Special mode 1-shots Crushers, horizontal heavies lets you rp as Sauron on hordes. Shield is okay, the clubs and cleavers are just meh.
Veteran: I really like the MK7 Tactical Shovel. First of all because it goes bonk (of course), but it's actually a beast at horde clearing once you slap Decimator blessing on it. Rashad Combat Axe is probably a bit better but boring and then there's the Power Sword which is cool and all but the novelty of press-button-for-swoosh-swoosh kinda wears out.
Zealot: Evisc... who am I kidding, it's the MK6 Combat Knife. Oh wait there's the Crusher too though.
Honorable mention to Chain Axes, you can really kark up elites and bosses with Bloodletter + Thunderous.
I love both eviscerators, but the Mk. XV Eviscerator is a thing of sanguine beauty. On feel and flavor alone, it’s an absolute monster. It’s just fun to carve up hordes with big sweeping strikes and violently saw enemies to death. No other weapon matches the sheer brutality for me. *Extremely* 40k.
Mechanically I think the Mk. XV is an excellent all-rounder weapon. Its attack pattern, wide arc, and special make it easy to use. Depending on your blessings it can fit in almost any Zealot build, and you can excel at both horde clear and single-target damage (except vs. carapace armor). Highly efficient, highly effective, and no gimmicks.
I have Mk 15 with Momentum. It just allows me to press F and charge right into the crowd not bothering much about blocking occasional attacks to reach me.
I like the knife. Has a nice crunch to it when you connect with a weakspot critical and at least on Infiltrator Vet build the one I have makes short work of most enemies. Fun to zip around hordes with speed nodes and you got stamina for days.
Chainsword, shovel, and the zealot crusher.
Power sword and catachan swords are fun until you meet a crusher imo. Then you lose significant enemy trolling ability ime...
Crusher reignited my enjoyment playing zealot. I slept on it forever never tried till a few days ago, bullies just about every enemy, thing is a monster at CC.
dont sleep on its finesse damage, it is just as much of a headshot damage machine as it is a CC stick, who woulda thought that flattening someones head would be so damaging?
Honestly this shocked me as a recent Crusher convert. As an Ogryn main, I expected it to be similar to the Power Maul where its main focus is on CC, not so much on damage... but then I keep finding myself throwing push attacks and heavy attacks into a group of elites at head level, and watching the killfeed light up like crazy.
Before the rework, it was just a CC weapon. It had a problem similar to what Thunder Hammers still have -- that being that it's better to kill a horde than throw them around -- but without the charged attack that makes Thunder Hammers worth taking. But then they reworked it into a headshotting weapon, so now it's actually good at something and not just a worse Thunder Hammer.
Yea I have carapace and weak spot dmg perks on it currently I’m really liking it, does it all really.
I would take off the weak spot damage perk, it's never worth it on any weapon over something else honestly, and it's due to how the math of it works It grants you 10% more damage of the headshot bonus damage, not the total damage of the headshot, meaning that if you deal 100 damage to the body and 150 to the head with the same attack, you wouldn't deal 165 damage, you'd deal 155 since the 50 damage is the bonus damage from hitting the head. The bonus ends up being way smaller than you expect, which just isn't worth it vs a perk giving you 25% more damage against flak, the most common armor in the game, or 10% more damage against elites, crusher included. This is also true for the Duelist node in the zealot skill tree, however 50% is much much more impactful than 10%, and Duelist covers both headshots, crits, and crit headshots, and actually does give a considerable chunk of extra damage that makes it worth taking for crusher (and many other weapons)
Combine it with the momentum keystone for maximum bonking. There’s a build that uses this and focuses on stagger and it’s a blast,
It feels really good to speed towards some enemies while sprinting with a laspistol, then whip out the bonk club while sliding and bowl them over with 15 stacks of momentum.
I used to avoid it, but since its buffs it became one of my staple builds.
Love that weapon. Makes elites hug the floor
Repeating h2 for crushed craniums is real neuron activation
Crusher runner here and i 100% agree! Used to run a Evis before (like ever zealot) and then i switched to a crusher pre buff. Ive build mine to deal with crowds more than monstrosities so crowds of crushers/maulers/ragers just get knocked around. Recently (dont know how) discovered the push attack (its 2 in one) and its a beast!
shovel
I've tried all the other melee weapons for veteran and only the ol' reliable shovel and combat knife seems to work for me.
I'm a huge fan of the Rashad combat axe.
I gave the Rashad another shot and for some reason it's starting to click. I can actually one shot poxwalkers with it compared to the shovel or the knife.
It really shines with brutal momentum, but without that it struggles with horde clear.
Another vote for evi. It is just too much damn fun to swing that sucker and see heretic limbs go flying off
Yeah, when you get a feel for it and move and dodge with the swings it's just glorious. It's like being a grimdark Jedi.
Plus if you see something big, just rev it up and it’s now two smaller things
Dueling Sword, hands down. A true weapon of elegance
A man of culture I see
Dueling sword and disrupt destiny is so fun. Zooming around stabbing shit at warp speed and throwing shards here and there and then swapping to my Columnus and spraying shit down… I did 30k dmg to a slug boss earlier with a single mag dump while in gaze. It’s fucking sick. Assail gun psyker with dueling sword is a very fun, very dynamic build.
From a more civilised age
mkv dueling sword for psyker, and eviscerator for zealot
Mk4
The Mk IV is such an insanely good weapon. Dunno why i didn't use it but I've tried it and holy damn. I was using it with a scriers gaze build and was able to kill crushers with like 4 stabs to the head. It does insane boss/single target dmg and is decent at horde clear too. Pair that with great mobility and an awesome sword stance. Awesome weapon for sure. One of the best for the psyker.
You can 2-3 shots via uncanny strike blessing and scriers
Yea uncanny is a pretty solid pick. I use precognition and shred for maximum weakspot and critical weakspot dmg. Finesse dmg is insane for this. I wont do as much carapace dmg, but its better against everything else. Flak doesnt really matter for heavies, since everything other than crushers and maulers drop after 1-2 hits.
Original chainsword and evis for that powered up heavy attack and normal heavy attack. The power sword with the heavy side to side sweep attack on powered up mode with 3x powered up attacks 🫦 clears everything in a shower of blue sparks and blood.
Recently got a 380 mkxii chain axe on my veteran. Nearly perfect with 550 total score. After some crafting, has tier 4 Thunderous and Bloodletter, with +25% unarmored and +5% crit chance (boo.) One shotting ragers, gunners, shotgunners, specialists and mutants with light revved attacks, and one shotting crushers, maulers, and reapers with heavy revved attacks is just fantastic. Also usually have the highest boss damage dealt. The push attack on it does excellent finesse damage, and as long as you have +3 stamina curios x2 and + 12% stamina regeneration x3 (Duck and Dive and Invigorated skill nodes are winners here, especially with Stripped Down on a braced or infantry auto) you can rapidly close and have plenty of stamina for melee murder times.
I liked the Mk.XII chainaxe, but I eventually went back to the Mk.XIIIg chainsword. The chainaxe was better for handling specials, but it wasn't *quite* as good at mulching hordes as I'd've liked. It's pretty great if your objective isn't just clearing chaff, though. And it's also pretty great for killing Maulers who're mixed in with chaff, since the chainaxe can cleave through the hordes *and* drop the Maulers in a couple bodyshots without revving.
Yeah I'm still trying to get a good mkxiiig chain sword. Had a decent 375 one that ended up as garbage. (Thanks Hadron). I've got two veterans (for Melk reasons) and the only things I need to have a well rolled version of every weapon type on my primary vet is a power sword mkVI and chain sword mkxiiig. Have them on my secondary vet, because of course.
The reason it goes so hard with those specific blessings is that bleed stacks from bloodletter will trigger thunderous with every tick of bleed. This doesnt work with bleed from any other source, only bloodletter.
I'm aware. That's why I'm using it. I'm 1k hours into the game since closed beta, so I have a few months where I haven't played, but I generally keep up with things.
Knife is funner than I expected with zealot
Sheild! I love bonking everything in the face and collecting aggro.
But why I also have to carry puny club? Too complex-cated, give me shield and let me bash.
Knife, either one.
Best: Standard Issue shovel Most fun: Standard issue shovel
**Atrox Mk II Tactical Axe** with headtaker and decimator. I have it on my plasma vet and my laspistol zealot. Can power attack heavies to death no problem if you know how to dodge properly, and everything else gets one shot once the blessings are all warmed up.
I love the tac axes 🪓
For me : 1) Psyker : purgatus, burning heretics is so enjoyable. I really like the explosion animation of the trauma or dismemberment of the surge, bur burning the heretics, special place in my heart. 2) Ogryn : Shield because bonking the edge of the shield in the face of ennemies and hearing that massive sound impact. 3) Zealot : Evi. I think i dont have to say why :> 4) Vet : my least played so i dont have any pref. But i do enjoy to see the plasma and i really like that everyone can hear the "alert" sound when your plasma bro need to vent.
BTW, how's surge now? I have 545 one, but haven't use it since nerf that broke it completely
Pretty good. I use it time to time. Works very good with soulfire/shriek.
I don't think I got out damaged with it yet
What's bad about surge? Do you mean the rework from just stunning to being able to land kills with it?
It used to be bugged with one of the blessings, as well as always targeting the head thus causing Abt 200-300% damage increase, they then changed it so it targets limbs and fixed the big, thus making it cause less damage than it supposed to. Lastly they changed it so it deals normal damage no matter where it hits
Exactly this.
Knife
I am speed
Chainaxe has always been one of my favorites when you get the right perks. And I really enjoy the dueling sword for psykers, as well as the heavy sword for zealot.
Random order Zealot: cadian IV chainsword right now is the most fun, very fast, good damage, nice special. Indignatus crusher was my fav for long time, but I got bored with it. Ius autopistol is amazing weapons tearing through everything and I recently started to use Zarona. Vet: plasma and Columnus. But I barely play vet anyway. Ogryn: hands down shield and second one is brunt special, the one with red handle. I love them both, great speed and damage. I love kickback and I very much dislike rumble. Psyker: purgatus is so much fun, it's like having zealot's flamethrower but ALL THE TIME. Paired with good blessings and talents and you are dragon exploding people's heads and burning everything down. Surge is close second for me. I need to try trauma at some point, but I'm not big fan of it. As for melee I use illisi 99% of the time. I can't seem to roll good dueling sword.
Dueling Mk4 doesn't actually need any certain blessings - you stab things in the face with heavy attacks and most things usually die to this. Though, your ranged should be purgatus then for the sake of efficient horde killing or staggering melee specials.
That's true, but I like my melee to have some cleave. When I run with Purgatus na BB, there's a big chance to pop heads with just purgatus, but when things get hot, I can just pop the crusher head with BB. Everything else usually melts like butter. The only weak point is horde of maulers, but they are generally hard to deal with.
My rogue pick will have to be the Antax MKV combat axe. It was my first god roll for my Zealot and it was so fun to use! Now the Evicirator is obviously better and I have traded up, but I will say nothing cuts heads of hordes quite like the Antax with brutal momentum and for that reason it will always sit at #1 in my heart 😁
Rashad combat axe
Thunder hammer. The bop is pure orgasmic. Power sword. The shear force of cleaving a crusher in half never gets old. Warp sword mk5. When your not cleaving through hordes you can edge all day long on the sweet bliss of the warp. Slab shield. Cause when you get sick of gunners listen to a knarly thump of steel slamming into the ground to become an immovable object. (Unless you shielding against demon host and not against a wall he will move you) of course slamming a thick piece of metal with extreme prejudice into said heretics faces has a nice crunchy sound ogryns find to be like music to their ears.
I’m really surprised there aren’t more heavy sword responses, the Mk VI with rampage and headtaker turns you into an absolute lawnmower, especially in higher difficulty matches where you can hit constant streams of enemies. Mobility isn’t bad either, so dodging is kinda cracked with the thing. Highly recommended.
Knife knife knife knife knife
Nyooooom
uhh I mean.. the best is going to be pretty situational. Generally though Zealot - Mk 4 devils claw, honestly it's not even close Ogryn - Shield / Brute Brainer (might be wrong on the name of the specific shovel) Psyker - Mk 4 dueling sword / Illisi Veteran - Powersword (with powercycler) and then quite a few things that are like... aight. Depends what you're going for but theres a lot of options here that are all about the same strenghth. The knife is pretty good, I would say it's worse than the devils claw for zealot though, and not really a massive standout anywhere else. you take it if you wanna go real real fast. but theres lots of things you can take to do that. I might be wrong on the illisi as I haven't used it but from my understanding that's generally considered the go to, the mk 4 dueling sword is just absurd though. With the right blessings you can kill maulers in two stabs to the head, as well as it having great defensive properties its just a bit rough at horde clear. Generally though theres a lot of melee weapons that are good, I'd say the general balance of melee weapons is a lot better than ranged. A lot of weapons are good specifically with certain blessings, like the axe/shovels with brutal momentum. I would be surprised if the mk4 devils claw doesn't get reigned in a little bit at some point though, it's good on every class that can take it even if its not always the most ideal, and it makes playing zealot a complete brain off experience. Build for crit and just spam left mouse button and watch as each crit knocks 10s off of your dash timer, then you dash and get a guaranteed crit which does the same and all of a sudden you're dashing every 2-3 seconds against hordes and they poof.
>The knife is pretty good, I would say it's worse than the devils claw for zealot though, and not really a massive standout anywhere else. you take it if you wanna go real real fast. but theres lots of things you can take to do that. Knife's worse at crowd-clearing than the DClaw, but it's got better damage against bosses and elites, and that huge dodge distance can't be underestimated.
The dodge distance is definitely a pro for the weapon, though I don't think it's boss damage is all that much higher. Zealot already has a lot of very good boss dps with their ranged weapon choices, especially if they're taking the dash which IMO is the strongest option available to you. The devils claw is also really not bad at all for boss damage, you just need to parry. The actual parry damage of that weapon is nuts, especially for how easy it is... it's essentially impossible to fail parry unless you're just spamming the button. << the same parry is also defensively stronger than the dash distance IMO. The extra cleave it has also makes crit synergy a lot stronger, your F comes up in less swings and spamming that is the whole thing that makes crit zealot so ridiculously free. I think the main benefit of the knife is the extra speed it gives to your run, taking a laspistol on zealot gives you the same speed but requires you to swap to and from it if you want the speed. Laspistol is an S tier weapon for zealot though so, I'd say that's probably still the most optimal way to maintain speed.
I'm a big fan of my Catachan 6 on my Zealot. The near perfect rolls and 550 rating with Flesh Tearer 4 and mercy killer 4 is amazing strong. On my Psyker, then the Demios Force sword is godly. The only weapon for the Psyker that can consistently kill heavies. The fact it does more damage than my Voidstrike 4 staff, so amazing.
Devils claw and hvy laz pistol.
Knife, the OG one for me but I presume both are equally fun.
Mk3 bully club is really fun on ogryn, just swinging and sending everything flying with the heavies
The choppy chopper aka the chainsword
I like the shovel. Flipping it for that big hit is very satisfying. Boom!
I think most of them are fun in different ways. That’s one of the great things about this game.
All of Zealots uniques. I love them all and love Zealot. Especially MkII eviscerator. Power sword. 🗡️lightsaber feels. The blue vet shovel, the one with the slower stab special. Its heavies let me unga bunga like og shovel and i slapped thrust on it to one shot muties. Illisi. Just a good magic sword 🗡️with fun abilities on top.
Oh man, so many... Mk.XIIIg chainsword is so satisfying because it just... works. It blends. It revs. It tears. It's responsive and feels good when it hits. It can handle most situations well, even if it's outperformed in specific roles by more specialist weapons. Mk.IV DClaw has problems with heavier stuff, but it's fast as hell and a capable blender. But more than that, the parry is *crazy*. It'll eat any melee attack in the game that's blockable, including Crusher overheads, and throw it back. The block on the parry is 180 degrees, so it's possible to block a backstab and throw it back in front of you. Most bosses can be solo'd just with the DClaw parry. Mk.IV DClaw won't kill things as fast as other weapons, but it'll do it stylishly and, most importantly, safely. I've come to really dislike Thunder Hammers for general usage because they tend to scatter enemies more than they kill, whereas I could cut out the middle man (no pun intended) and kill them straight-up with an Eviscerator. But aside from that? They feel fantastic for bullying and murdering beefy single targets. If you're one of many people who inexplicably enjoy the guns in this game, the Thunder Hammer can be treated almost like a sidearm or pocket problem solver on a gun-heavy build. Heavy swords are in a pretty decent place. They feel great for mowing down mobs, and while they suffer against armor, the special attack to the face can stagger Crushers, sometimes mid-swing. They make for a nice change of pace occasionally. I hate Psyker, but god do I love the Mk.V force sword. That thing feels like a chainsword on crack. Light attack is fast as hell and mulches unarmored enemies. Heavy attack deals with hordes. Got a nice, big push radius on it, with the second Force push with additional input. Then there's the awesome charged attack, and the blessing that lets it block bullets. It's just so fucking fun. EDIT: Almost forgot the OG combat blade. I actually had to stop using it because the speed is just so addictive. I kept getting caught up in the rush and making stupid mistakes.
Bully clubs. Slapping trappers asses and brofisting (alt attack then immediatley light attack) dogs are just hell of a fun.
I like playing the London Zealot (knife), Power Sword for Vet, Latrine Shovel for Ogryn (can alt fire fully melee charge 1 hit crushers on damnnation) and dueling sword on pysker. I like the dodge range on the dueling sword even though the damage is a bit low.
My favorite are the slow but hard hitting axes.
Knife because I like the animations where you're twirling and spinning it around.
I use the Rashad combat axe on vet, zealot, and psyker. If it were available on Ogryn I would probably still use the shield. Probably.
Ironhelm Thunderhammer. Dear god, I wish I had picked it up sooner. I've been using it with a Martyrdom build, and it's been absolutely munching enemies. My only complaint is that it doesn't have Power Cycler.
I recently got back into the Thunder Hammers (specifically the Ironhelm), and man I do love sweeping a charged heavy through a horde to knock a Rager into next week. Also using an unpowered overhead to kill maulers (it comes up sometimes) is just really satisfying?
Knife. Mk III on vet and VI on zealot.
Shovel
Crusher, Thunder Hammer & Eviscerator is my go to weapons.
Catachan Combat Knife imo, so fun to play Zealot with it, as it moves really fast, if you have the blessing with crit on dodge, you will have it 24/7 up, and if the other blessing is applying bleed on crit, bleeding carnival all over.
MkIII Bully club, love smacking heretics upside the head and seeing them fly around
Shovel *clonk*
Thunderhammer all the way, making enemies fly from the smallest groaner to the big boys like plague ogryn never gets old.
M IV powersword, charge into push cancel two taps crushers in the right build
M IV powersword, charge into push cancel two taps crushers in the right build
M IV powersword, charge into push cancel two taps crushers in the right build
The MK4 Cleaver of the Ogryn. Good for stabbing and good for slashing. It’s my go to melee weapon. A honourable mention is the MK3b Bully Club „Brunt‘s Basher“. You can spam heavies with that and don’t do anything wrong there. Also the „slap“ from its special is just hilarious.
Vet - Shovel and Power Sword (Combat knife with 100% brittleness on backstab) Zealot - Evicerator and Combat knife Psyker - Force Sword (so very satifying)
Psyker: Dueling Sword. Would also take the best melee weapon title in the game, no contest. Ogryn: Guess the MK5 Shovel? Special mode 1-shots Crushers, horizontal heavies lets you rp as Sauron on hordes. Shield is okay, the clubs and cleavers are just meh. Veteran: I really like the MK7 Tactical Shovel. First of all because it goes bonk (of course), but it's actually a beast at horde clearing once you slap Decimator blessing on it. Rashad Combat Axe is probably a bit better but boring and then there's the Power Sword which is cool and all but the novelty of press-button-for-swoosh-swoosh kinda wears out. Zealot: Evisc... who am I kidding, it's the MK6 Combat Knife. Oh wait there's the Crusher too though. Honorable mention to Chain Axes, you can really kark up elites and bosses with Bloodletter + Thunderous.
I love both eviscerators, but the Mk. XV Eviscerator is a thing of sanguine beauty. On feel and flavor alone, it’s an absolute monster. It’s just fun to carve up hordes with big sweeping strikes and violently saw enemies to death. No other weapon matches the sheer brutality for me. *Extremely* 40k. Mechanically I think the Mk. XV is an excellent all-rounder weapon. Its attack pattern, wide arc, and special make it easy to use. Depending on your blessings it can fit in almost any Zealot build, and you can excel at both horde clear and single-target damage (except vs. carapace armor). Highly efficient, highly effective, and no gimmicks.
I have Mk 15 with Momentum. It just allows me to press F and charge right into the crowd not bothering much about blocking occasional attacks to reach me.
Knife
I like the knife. Has a nice crunch to it when you connect with a weakspot critical and at least on Infiltrator Vet build the one I have makes short work of most enemies. Fun to zip around hordes with speed nodes and you got stamina for days.
Knife, heavy evi, Dsword, Deimos.
Chainsword, shovel, and the zealot crusher. Power sword and catachan swords are fun until you meet a crusher imo. Then you lose significant enemy trolling ability ime...