[Top 5] Warhammer 40,000 Darktide Best Veteran Builds That Are Powerful

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has a rather extensive character builder with a branching skill tree for each class. The Veteran class, while seeming rather restrictive with a lot of range only skills, still has a ton of depth to their full skill tree and this article will show you 5 different ways to build your Veteran.

5. Speed Veteran

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Terror tactics aye.

This first Veteran build has speed being the name of the game. An aura that boosts movement speed, faster reloading, and faster melee swings. The “Smoke grenade” is also a grenade that most people ignore for its lack of damage, but it can save your team by making enemies miss their shots which is good for saving teammates or doing objectives. 

The “Infiltrate” active ability lets you quickly flank enemies or save downed teammates and with the “For the Emperor!” and “Close Quarters Killzone” lets your melees hit lick a truck during “Infiltrate”. Finally the “Weapons Specialist” capstone gives benefits for quickly swapping from melee to ranged with faster swing and firing speed, more critical hit chance, and faster dodges. 

Melee weapons like the “Tactical Axe”, “Chainsword”, and “Power Sword” benefit from the increased melee damage and attack speed while ranged weapons like the “Revolver” and “Recon Lasguns” benefit from the fast fire rate and increased crit.

Use this build if

• You want to quickly reposition as Veteran.
• You want to play a faster Veteran.
• You want to quickly go from melee to ranged and get massive benefits.

4. Sniper Veteran

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Sever the head, the body dies.

This Veteran build specializes in ranged damage and staying in one spot. The “Longshot” skill is the foundation of this being with it both being the first skill in the tree as well as just being absurdly strong giving you up to 20% bonus ranged damage based on your distance from your target. This one skill synchronizes with everything else in the build with that damage boost stacking with the “Executioner’s Stance” active ability which gives you 25% more ranged damage which can also synchronize with all of the skills that trigger upon killing a special enemy. 

The “Survivalist” aura and “Demolition Team” skill gives you ammo and grenades back on a special enemy kill while the “Tactical Awareness” skill lowers the cooldown of “Executioner Stance” by 6 seconds on special enemy kill. The “Marksman’s Focus” keystone further buffs your ranged damage by increasing your weapons’ finesse power (which improves your weapon’s crit) and reload speed per stack to a max of 10. The catch being that you have to stay still or you lose stacks, even so you can pause the timer by getting headshot hits and kills. 

Since ranged weapons get massively buffed you really can use any gun in the game as long as it has decent range and you can aim well which is one of the strengths of this build.

Use this build if

• You want to take Veteran’s ranged damage to its max potential.
• You want to get good damage out of every gun in the game.
• You want to benefit from having good aim.

3. Generalist Veteran

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Eliminating alpha target.

This Veteran build focuses on being a jack of all trades along with a boost to grenades. We forgo the capstones to add more generalist skills to our build. The “Survivalist” aura, “Longshot” skill, and “Executioner's Stance” active ability all make a return for their general use, but we also have the “Grenade Tinkerer”, “Demolition Stockpile”, “Grenadier”, and “Field Improvisation” skills to buff not only the amount of grenades you get but also the damage. 

The flexibility of this build lets you choose any weapon for the job and still have a good time since you aren’t focusing on doing massive damage.

Use this build if

• You want an easy build to pick up and play.
• You want to spam grenades.
• You want to not focus on being the one to do the most damage.

2. Commander Veteran

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Time to earn our pay!

This Veteran build focuses on survival for both you and your teammates as well as being more melee focused. The lynchpin of this build is the “Voice of Command” active ability which we have also given the “Duty and Honor” and “Only in Death Does Duty End” ability modifiers which makes “Voice of Command’s” shout not only push enemies back but restore toughness and revive downed allies. This makes the Commander Veteran want to be in the thick of things and with the “Desperado” and “Trench Fighter” skills our melee is up to the task. 

We finish the build with the “Focus Target” capstone which allows us to mark an enemy for increased damage from everyone, pair that with the “Redirect fire” and “Target down” modifiers and on marked target kill we give ourselves and our allies toughness and damage. 

Melee weapons are the name of this build so “Chainswords” and “Power swords” are your go to choice.

Use this Build if

• You want a tanky Veteran.
• You want to play a more supportive role.
• You want quick revives.

1. Gunner Veteran

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Watch, learn, repeat.

Our final Veteran build takes a bit from every build so far. The specialist shooting from sniper, the marking from commander, and a few grenade buffs from generalist. This makes a Veteran who is a ranged threat while still being able to be on the move. 

The “Focus Fire” keystone really helps to quickly take out targets and with the “Redirect Fire” modifier your guns do more damage to your next target. With the amount of ranged buffs this build provides along with the cooldown reduction and kill skills you can be in a constant state of dealing massive damage. 

Like the sniper build, ranged weapons are your go to but guns like the “Plasma Gun” and “Revolver” should take priority for their high damage.

Use this build if

• You can quickly swap between targets.
• You want to have some speed while still being ranged.
• You want to be self-sufficient.