Tips And Strategies For Playing A Veteran In Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

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The Veteran Class Talents

A ranged nightmare to the corrupted hordes of Chaos in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, the Veteran is a solid all rounder class that most players gravitate to. They’re all about blasting things with their guns either up close with a well-timed volley, or as far away as possible with pin-point accuracy.

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They’re a great pick if you’re looking to just shoot and stab things without too much afterthought, but if you want to really dominate the underhive then it’s worth putting some work into them. There’s some great customization options at play that are often overlooked, especially with the rework, so here’s a handy guide to the Veteran in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.

The Veteran Class

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A guardsman holds his shotgun whilst an ogryn lingers nearby.

Previously known as the Marksman, the Veteran in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a good pick for beginners as they primarily focus on ranged combat. Whether that’s headshotting Elites and counter-sniping, or deluging an angry horde with laser blasts and bullets.

They can lean into weak spot damage with their abilities, as well as identify the main big threats in a horde with their upgradable talents. Their grenades also pack a powerful whack that’ll turn the oncoming Nurglites into chunks of rotten marrow and maggots. If you like a class that leans into the shooter side of the game, then the Veteran is for you.

Veteran Weaponry

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - An imperial lasgun zapping a cultist in the underhive.

The Veterans have quite a varied collection of weapons at their disposal as well as a few that are unique to only them. There’s nothing big and heavy like their large friends the Ogryns, but there’s a lot of medium to light weaponry like the classic Lasgun, Auto and Plasma guns to scratch those Warhammer itches.

Here’s what you can get your hands on:

Lasgun.
Shotgun.
Boltgun.
Bolt Pistol.
Autogun.
Auto Pistol.
Stub Revolver.
Laspistol.
Plasma Gun.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A guardsman with a chainaxe in an elevator.

In terms of melee weaponry, Veterans get a lot of fast moving things to swing. They’re an eclectic mix of knives, swords and axes. Of course, a chainsword and chainaxe are also there because it’s Warhammer and you need to have those classic bits of cool gear included.

Here’s what you can swing around:

Combat Blade.
Sapper Shovel.
Duelling Sword.
Sword.
Power Sword.
Axe.
Chainsword.
Chainaxe.
Shock Maul.
Heavy Sword.

Each one has its own unique fighting style as well as heavy attack swing that you’ll need to get used to. As an example, weapons like the Power Sword can also be charged for extra damage.

The Veteran Class Talents

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The reworked talent tree of the Veteran class.

The Veterans Talents are a good mix of supporting the team with highlighting enemies and wearing down big targets with weak spot damage. You can also become an absolutely invisible sneaky ninja that gets in, does damage, and gets out with a big puff of smoke.

Similar to the other classes after the rework, when the Veteran first appeared they were known as the Marksman. They had three separate ways to upgrade them, but it’s all been melded into a nice big tree that you can go into any way that you like.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Electrified cultists being eviscerated by a chainsword.

Now there’s multiple grenade options known as Blitz’s, big helpful passives called Aura’s, and a metric ton of other minor passives that buff everything from Toughness to Ammo reserves.

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Veteran Abilities

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A reject fireteam of varying experience.

The Veterans abilities are fairly decent. They’re not much to write home about, but they can be pretty handy at certain times in a firefight.

The rework also came with some extra modifications for the Veterans abilities. What they have already focuses on identifying targets, replenishing Toughness, or becoming invisible for a little while to infiltrate an area and set up a firing position. Here’s what they have.

Volley Fire

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - An ogryn watching the veteran fire at cultists.

Your baseline ability when you grab the Veteran, Volley Fire puts you into a Ranged Stance and boosts your usefulness as a sharpshooter. Upon triggering it the Veteran will pull out whatever ranged weapon you have equipped and a 25 percent ranged damage and Weak Spot buff will be applied.

It also significantly tightens up your spread and recoil. It only lasts for roughly five seconds, and it comes with a 30 second cooldown between activations, but it’s good for spewing out a sudden burst of damage when you’re cornered or launching a surprise attack.

Don’t use Volley Fire against armored targets, you’re doing no damage. If you see a blue x appear, shoot someone else.

Executioners Stance

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The veteran swarmed by cultists in a library.

An enhancement of Volley Fire, Executioners Stance puts the Veteran into a Ranged Stance for five seconds. This mode slows their movement speed to a crawl, but boosts ranged damage and ranged weak spot damage by 25 percent each. At the same time it also greatly reduces spread, recoil and highlights any human-sized Elites and Specialists for five seconds.

But that’s not all. Killing a highlighted target resets the whole buff for another five seconds. Once it deactivates it goes into cooldown for a maximum of 30 seconds.

But its Modifiers is where it really slaps, here’s what you can do.

Modifiers	Description
Enhanced Target Priority	Activating the ability now highlights Elites and Specialists for all allies within Coherence.
Counter Fire	The ability now outlines all human-sized ranged based enemy foes.
The Bigger They Are…	The ability now outlines all Ogryn sized enemy targets.

Voice of Command

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The Veteran creating breathing room by using a stagger ability.

This ability is one to use if you’re leaning heavily into the melee side of combat or enjoy getting up close and personal. When it activates, Voice of Command will replenish your Toughness and stagger all enemies around you within a radius of nine metres.

So it’s good for popping when you’re being overwhelmed and need some breathing room, or are caught short in a reload of something big and ideally double-barrelled. With some modifications it can also substantially toughen up your party and act as a pseudo-medic.

Modifiers	Description
Duty and Honour	The ability Voice of Command now grants an additional 50 Toughness to Veterans and their allies within coherence for 15 seconds.
Only In Death Does Duty End	Upon activation, Voice of Command will revive all knocked down allies within. However, it reduces the radius of the ability by 50 percent and also increases its overall cooldown by 50 percent.

Infiltrate

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The veteran activating their stealth mode ability.

This ability is for the sneaky people out there. Upon activation, Infiltrate instantly replenishes your Toughness, making you more tanky, whilst also putting you into Stealth for eight seconds. During this time you are ignored by most threats, and as a cherry on top you also gain a 25 percent movement speed boost. So you can make a daring and expeditious escape right away.

Infiltrate does have a 45 second cooldown, making it the longest cooldown for the Veterans abilities. So you can’t pop it off too often. But the modifiers are where things get interesting as it encourages you to get aggressive after you leave Stealth.

Attacking or suppressing enemy targets whilst in Stealth will immediately remove it.

Modifiers	Description
Low Profile	Leaving Stealth now grants a minus 90 percent Threat level for ten seconds.
Hunter’s Resolve	After leaving Stealth, gain a 50 percent Toughness Damage reduction.
Surprise Attack	Leaving Stealth gives a 30 percent damage boost for five seconds.
Overwatch	Gain an extra charge of Infiltrate, but the ability cooldown increases by 33 percent.

Veteran Blitz

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The veterans reworked talent tree and its blitz options.

When it comes to Blitz’s, the Veterans are very straightforward. They’re essentially three different kinds of grenade that let you further specialize your soldier for the benefit of the Imperium.

From bigger bangs, to armor shredding and even a smoke bomb to make a quick escape for yourself, or your fireteam. Here’s what you get.

Shredder Frag Grenade

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A stony hallway walked through by a grenade carrying veteran.

Your frags now shred flesh like a hot knife through butter. When a grenade detonates, it applies six Bleed stacks to every enemy caught in its blast. So it’s great for shredding a large horde in one damaging hit, or stacking lots of Bleed on one big monster that’s causing problems.

Krak Grenade

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The veteran about to pull the pin out of their grenade.

Those familiar with their Warhammer lore will be grinning quite happily at that name. For those not aware, a Krak Grenade is often used to break open tanks, blow up orcs and Traitor Marines, or make a very big hole in a wall.

In Darktide they’re a little scaled back from that unfortunately, but they’re still just as useful. In the game this Blitz makes your grenade do a massive bang, and they’ll also stick to enemies that are armoured in Flak and Carapace, or are Unyielding.

Smoke Grenade

This Blitz completely overhauls the Veteran’s grenades and turns them into smoke bombs. When they detonate they release a large smoke cloud that lingers around for 15 seconds before dissipating. So you can make a timely getaway.

The cloud also not only blocks line of sight, but it reduces the awareness range of enemies caught inside it. So if you’ve caught the aggro of something bit and nasty, pop a smoke grenade and it’ll instantly forget about you.

Veteran Aura

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The unlockable passives available to the Veteran.

With the rework came an overhaul of the Veterans passives. There’s three main big ones called Aura’s, only one can be chosen at a time, and these are your big rewards for progressing through a specific part of the Talent Tree.

They’re fairly varied and focus on increasing the ammo returns for you and the fireteam, increasing damage of the team, and boosting movement. And all of these are activated by achieving Coherence, so it encourages you to build a character that stays near the team.

The Auras you can get your hands on are the following:

Survivalist: Whilst in Coherence, you and allies regain one percent of your ammunition every five seconds after an Elite or Specialist kill.
Fire Team: Whilst in Coherence, the entire fireteam gains a five percent damage boost.
Close and Kill: Whilst in Coherence, the entire fireteam gains a five percent movement speed boost.

Outside of these three main big passives there are also up to 42 passives to unlock in different sections of the tree.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The fine details of the veterans talent tree.

Some of them provide a small boost to things like movement speed, ammo regain, damage, and enhancements to your grenades and carry limit. There are others that are more substantial like granting healing from ammo crates, or making you immune to suppression.

So it really encourages you to spend your Talent Points as there’s some really great upgrades in there.

The Veteran has less passives than the Ogryn which has 49.

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Veteran Keystones

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The description of one of the keystone abilities.

For sinking a ton of Talent Points into your Veteran you’ll be able to get your hand on the penultimate passives right at the bottom of the tree. These are known as Keystones, and there’s three, one for each particular branch.

Each of these comes with a modifier that substantially boosts your Keystone of choice and they’re considered to be must-haves for anyone daring to go into the endgame. Here’s what you can unlock.

Marksman’s Focus

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A cultist cut down by lasgun fire.

This Keystone is for the snipers amongst you, it rewards and encourages you to be pinpoint with your shots. For Ranged Weakspot kills you’ll gain three stacks of Focus that reach up to a maximum of ten.

Each Focus stack provides a seven and a half percent increase in Ranged Finesse Strength and a one percent speed boost to reload speed. Sprinting, sliding and walking removes the stacks, so you need to stay still for the buff to work, but there’s two ways around this.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A dreg shotgunner cut down at point blank range.

First, if you get a kill via a Weak Spot shot you’ll be able to move without losing the buff for six seconds. But if you hit but don’t kill with a Weak Spot shot, this only applies for three seconds. It’s an odd gimmick to have to remember when you’re in the Underhive, but it does benefit you.

Here’s how it can be modified:

Modifiers	Description
Chink in their Armour	Upon earning 10 stacks of Focus, gain 15 percent Rending.
Long Range Assassin	Increase the maximum capacity of Focus to 15 from 10.
Camouflage	Every quarter second spent standing still or walking, even whilst crouched, gain one stack of Focus.
Tunnel Vision	For each stack of Focus, gain five percent Toughness. Weak Spot kills will also restore 10 percent of your stamina.

Focus Target!

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A beast of nurgle attacking the fireteam.

This is an interesting Keystone as it encourages you to use the tagging mechanic as often as you possibly can. That’s because when you tag a target, this skill applies Focus Target onto it. What this does is stack Focus Target onto something every two seconds up to a maximum of five in the stack.

Focus Target causes something to take an extra four percent damage from all sources for each stack of it applied. It can only be activated on one enemy at a time, but it’s great for helping your team burn through big bosses and other chunky monsters.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A tagged flamer within stabbing range of the veteran.

Its modifiers are also pretty useful as they reward you with buffs if your tagged target also dies. Here’s what they are:

Modifiers	Description
Target Down!	When a tagged enemy dies, replenish five percent Toughness and stamina for each stack of Focus Target that was applied. Only activates if in Coherency with the fireteam.
Focused Fire	Increases the maximum stacks of Focus Target to eight from five.
Redirect Fire!	If a tagged enemy dies, gain one and a half percent damage increase for each stack of Focus Target that was applied. Lasts 10 seconds and only works whilst in Coherence.

Weapons Specialist

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Several elites staggered with a single swing.

This is another interesting Keystone as it turns you into a whirling dervish of damage and a formidable fighter that’s familiar with anything deadly that’s dropped into their hands. It’s a passive that activates in two specific ways depending on the type of kill you get.

For example, if you get a melee kill you’ll earn Ranged Specialist which stacks up to ten times. Whilst if you land a ranged kill you’ll trigger Melee Specialist which only stacks once.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The plasma gun melting cultists into puddles.

Ranged Specialist means that when you use a ranged weapon you’ll earn a two percent boost on attack speed and a 33 percent Critical Hit Chance boost on your next shot when you land ranged critical hits. The crits apply per stack and this buff lasts five seconds.

If you activate Melee Specialist you’ll get a 15 percent melee attack speed buff, as well as a 10 percent enhancement to your dodge speed and distance. This stacks once and sticks around for about 10 seconds. The modifiers for both of these also further enhance your Toughness, reload speed, ammo reserves and generally make you a lot tankier whilst they’re active.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A veteran using a chainaxe to slice up a cultist.

Here’s what the modifiers are:

Modifiers	Description
Always Prepared	When Ranged Specialist activates, gain back three percent of the ammo in your magazine from your reserve.
Fleeting Fire	When Ranged Specialist activates, gain a 20 percent reload speed buff for five seconds.
On Your Toes	Activating either Specialist Buff replenishes 20 percent of your Toughness. This comes with a three second cooldown.
Invigorated	When Melee Specialist activates, gain 20 percent of your stamina back.
Conditioning	When Melee Specialist activates, gain a 25 percent stamina cost reduction.

Veteran Builds

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A veteran using a sword to dice up cultists.

With how deadly the Veteran can become over time, it’s easy to just roll through the Talent Tree in either of the three main directions of the left side, centre, or right. But if you take a gander over at the community forums you’ll find some pretty fun things to do with them.

Squad Leader

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - The veteran leading his team against scab soldiers.

Every good Imperial fireteam is led by a solid Squad Leader that doesn’t quake in the face of Chaos, and this build lets you do just that. This build is primarily to create a Support Veteran that can stagger enemies like mutants and monsters whilst regaining Toughness fast.

It’s great at keeping big horrible threats away from the team to give everyone breathing space whilst buffing the teams overall damage and Toughness. It’s fairly easy to set up, and it requires access to the Keystones to get it going.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A veteran leading their squad toward a building.

To start, select Shredder Grenades and Voice of Command as your Blitz and Ability. For your Keystone you’ll want Focus Target, and in general you’ll be following first the left then middle Talent Tree when you get to the Ability selection. It’s also worth picking up Precision Strikes, Fully Loaded and Superiority Complex from the left tree as well for extra ammo, damage and Weak Spot damage.

Saltzpyre

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A dredge soldier surrounded by his dead comrades.

This one is a fun callback to another Fatshark game, Vermintide. Victor Saltzypyre was the games Witchhunter that was an absolute DPS fiend, and with this build you can run around as him once again but this time in the grimdark future instead of fantasy.

It provides a high dodge rate, enhanced grenade recovery, plus it also focuses primarily on landing big critical hits often. So you end up doing a lot of damage very quickly with a build that’s fun to use. To start you’ll need a Duelling Sword and a Stub Revolver.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A cultists head blowing apart from the veterans revolver shot.

From there, grab a Krak Grenade as your Blitz, Survivalist as your Aura, then Voice of Command as your ability. Then head straight for the Weapons Specialist Keystone. You can also chuck a few Talent Points toward some passives in the middle and left third tier branches as they help with cooldowns, enhance Toughness and boost your ammo.

Kriegsman

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A dredge soldier about to be hacked apart by a veteran with a spade.

There’s no battlefield in the 41st Millenium that hasn’t seen a Kriegsman before. These masked figures routinely, and often worryingly happily, throw themselves into the most dangerous dark holes the infinite warfields the Warhammer universe has to offer.

Iconic and popular for a number of reasons, Kreigsman are an incredibly deadly and violent warrior for the hordes of Chaos to face against. With this build you can put together your own masked murderer fairly quickly.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A chaos cultist about to be shot by two veterans.

To start off, get the Kriegsmans signature Shovel and Helbore Lasgun. Then stick your points in the entire right side of the tree in the first tier whilst also picking up Close Order Drill and Confirmed Kill from the middle. Then grab a Shredder Grenade, Survivalist and Voice of Command.

This is where things get a little fiddly. Grab all three middle Operative Modifiers, then invest in the first three passives on the left side of each branch of tier three.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - A pile of bodies outside of a door in front of two veterans.

So that’s the following:

Precision Strikes.
Fully Loaded.
Shock Trooper.
Superiority Complex.
Born Leader.
Tactical Awareness.
Iron Will.
Demolition Team.
Reciprocity.
Desperado.
Trench Fighter Drill.

With all of that, you should have a pretty solid Kreigsman to run around with. Any additional Talent Points picked up after that can be funnelled into passives of your choosing that may benefit the build in any way. Now enjoy your unstoppable spade swinging soldier.