Warhammer 40K: Darktide – Veteran Class & Build Guide

The Veteran is the ranged specialist in Warhammer 40K: Darktide, boasting complete mastery of any firearm placed in their hands and capable of taking down the toughest enemies on their own with the right build.

If you follow the Astra Militarum’s combat tactics of overwhelming firepower, then this is the right class for you. In this guide, we’ll be going over the Veteran Sharpshooter class in Warhammer 40K: Darktide, covering their abilities and the best build to slay heretics in the Emperor’s name. 

Let’s get started!

Abilities and Playstyle of the Veteran

In Warhammer 40K, the Imperial Guard is the backbone of the Empire. Trained from birth to fight the horrors of the galaxy, these soldiers know only constant war. When your enemies range from nightmare-fueled daemons to soulless technologically advanced robots, anyone who can call themselves a veteran must be skilled indeed.

This combat knowledge is shown through the Veteran’s abilities In Warhammer 40K: Darktide. Much like the other classes in Darktide, the Veteran has an active ability, passive “iconic” abilities, a secondary active “Blitz” ability, and a passive “Aura.”

Active Ability – Volley Fire

The Veteran’s active ability is Volley Fire. Volley Fire causes the Veteran to enter a ranged stance for 5s, instantly equipping your ranged weapon and revealing nearby non-Ogryn Elite and Specialist enemies as Priority Targets. This stance also makes you deal 50% more ranged damage.

Volley Fire is incredibly useful for a couple of reasons. While the bonus ranged damage is always welcome and helps you take out tough enemies in the blink of an eye, its real utility comes from the revealing of Elite and Specialist enemies. Being able to see and mark the most dangerous enemies in a horde will save lives.

Iconic (Passive) Abilities

The iconic abilities of the Veteran are geared towards making you hit harder and shoot longer. Make Every Shot Count gives players a plus 15% bonus to weak spot damage. Be Prepared increases your ammo reserve for all ranged weapons by 40%.

Blitz Ability – Frag Grenade

Next, we have their Blitz ability – Frag Grenade. This ability does exactly what you think it does. Once thrown, after a short fuse timer, the grenade will explode sending hordes of heretics to oblivion with ease. This is the perfect ability for when you need to clear some breathing room for you and your squad.

Aura – Scavenger

Finally, we have the class’s unique Aura – Scavenger. What this aura does is reward you and any allies in Coherency (within a certain range of you), with a small amount of ammo whenever any of you kill an Elite enemy. This works perfectly with all the other abilities that make you an Elite killing machine but also promotes teamwork.

Best Build for the Veteran in Warhammer 40K: Darktide

With all that said, it’s time to turn our attention toward the actual build for this class.

Since Darktide’s power system is built around gear and weapons with randomized stats, we won’t be able to give you exact weapon and feat combinations. Additionally, what you use will ultimately come down to personal preference, as weapons feel and play very differently from each other. 

That being said, we will provide examples of what to look out for, so you can create the best build in the Emperor’s name.

Best Weapons for Veteran

As a Veteran, your job is to take out high-priority targets before they ever become a problem. That, and to mow down anything that attacks. Which means we’re going to need weapons that can do that job.

When crafting a build, you can specialize yourself for either anti-horde or anti-boss. However, fully committing to one or the other requires a lot of faith in your teammates to cover your weaknesses. If you have a dedicated squad of rejects going through Atoma, then you’ll have no issue. But for those of us that go through random queues, we need a good all-rounder build that will help us meld into any squad.

A good weapon combination, and the one we’ll be using for this build, are the power sword and the braced autogun – specifically the MK III Power Sword and the MK VIII Braced Autogun. Aside from being one of the coolest weapons in the game, the power sword is a beast and the perfect pair with most ranged weapons. It’s also unique to the Veteran, so you can make the other classes jealous.

Best Weapon Blessings for Veteran

While the stats and bonuses on a weapon can drastically change how the weapon behaves in combat, our ability to earn blessings by breaking down weapons and re-bless weapons makes it way easier to get our perfect weapon. Praise the Omnissiah!

For our MK III Power Sword, we’re going to want to get the Power Cycler and Slaughterer blessings, which will increase the time our power sword is charged and up our power-per-kill to a stack of five.

For our MK VIII Braced Autogun, we want the blessings Fire Frenzy, which increases our power to a stack of five per enemy killed at close range, and Terrifying Barrage, which suppresses enemies within a 5-8m radius on close range kill.

Best Curios for Veteran

Although not as flashy as the weapons, Curios are no less important in rounding out a good build. They’re a good way to tweak your build to better fit your gameplay and what you face on each mission.

While your Curio choice will depend on the player, we recommend grabbing two with a bonus to toughness on them and one with a bonus to max health. Since the gear is randomized, we can’t predict what level of bonus or secondary perks you’ll get on thess Curios. But as long as you don’t forget to incorporate them into your build, you should be good.

Best Feats for Veteran

Now that we have our weapons, blessings, and curios, it’s time to go over what feats will complement our Veteran build the best in Warhammer 40K: Darktide. While we won’t go over the full list of feats available to us, we will go over the feats we think are best for the Veteran.

Confirmed Kill is the first feat we’re going to take at level 5. This feat replenishes 25% Toughness on an Elite kill and a further 25% Toughness over time. Since we plan to drop as many Elites as we can when we activate Volley Fire, this is an excellent perk for keeping us alive and healthy.

Demolition Stockpile is the next feat we’re going to take at level 10. This feat lets us replenish a grenade every 60s. This is incredibly helpful as grenades can become scarce if you’re unlucky, and they’re very effective against hordes. The ability to get one back every minute should not be overlooked.

Demolition Team is the feat we get at level 15. This makes it so you and your allies in Coherency have a 5% chance to gain a grenade on an Elite enemy kill. This pairs well with our level 10 feat, and it also shares our wealth with our team. They will thank you for it. Hopefully.

Unwavering Focus is our fourth feat at level 20 and grants us +75% Toughness damage reduction from ranged attacks during Volley Fire. Once again, this is a very good feat for keeping us alive and is leagues better than the other options available.

One After Another is our next feat at level 25. This feat gives us +30% reload speed on Elite and Specialist kills. This feat is perfect for making sure you can keep taking down enemies with no interruption. This is even more useful if you decide to use a slow-reload weapon like the Bolter.

Counterfire is the final feat we unlock at level 30. This feat makes it so that you get +25% weak spot damage during Volley Fire. Volley Fire also now designates all Shooters as priority targets and killing designated targets refreshes your Volley Fire duration. Not only does this increase the number of designated targets you can use to activate your other buffs, but it also makes it so you can keep Volley Fire going for as long as you have enemies. For a final level ability, this one is amazing and works well with your other feats.

Join the High Ground!

And that’s it for our build guide for the Veteran: Sharpshooter class in Warhammer 40K: Darktide. This is a good all-around build that can get you through the different missions around Atoma. It also provides enough wiggle room to tweak the build to better fit your playstyle.

Test out different weapons, try out other combinations, and see what works for you. Each weapon plays differently, and you want to use the ones you have the most fun with.

We hope you enjoyed and found our guide for the Veteran useful. Do you have a build you swear by? What’s your go-to weapon for fighting the thralls of Nurgle? Tell us in the comments below and subscribe for content like this in the future.

And remember – PRAISE THE EMPEROR!