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Now, between both of these categories, which ones are the best? There are over 60 different weapons in Warhammer 40k: Darktide, with each one having a pretty deep pool of potential Blessings and Perk rolls. So, let’s pick out the best of the best in each category..
10 Blessing: Deflector
First up is Deflector, a Blessing that only Psykers have access to and that’s for the best as it would likely trivialize ranged combat if it was obtainable by other weapons or classes. In Darktide, ranged units are truly terrifying. Even basic mobs can easily down a full-health player with a barrage or two depending on the difficulty. So, having the Deflector Blessing on the Psyker’s Obscurus MK II Blaze Force Sword, a trait that makes it possible to actually “block” ranged attacks, makes a big difference for the game’s squishiest class.
That said, Psykers will probably want to run the Kinetic Deflection Feat with this Blessing as well, since blocking bullets using Stamina is a surefire way to drain it in an instant.
9 Perk: Damage To Unyielding Enemies
For the first potential Perk on here, let’s talk about Damage and Enemy Types in Darktide. At a glance, players might think that there are only a couple of different ’types’ of enemies in the game, such as basic mobs, Elites, Specialists, and Monstrocities. But, it’s a bit more complicated than that. All enemies in Darktide actually fall under one or more of these categories:
Infested Unarmored Flak Armoured Carapace Armoured Maniac Unyielding
Breaking down which one each individual enemy falls under would take way too long so let’s just focus on the main point, Unyielding Enemies. There are only a couple that falls under this category such as the parts of the Reaper and Bulwark enemies not covered in armour. But, the most important enemies that are entirely in the Unyielding category are Monstrocities, AKA Beasts of Nurgle, Plague Ogryns, and Daemonhosts. So, if a player wants a weapon that deals some truly satisfying damage to these enemies specifically, look out for this Perk.
8 Blessing: Power Cycler
The Munitorum MK III Power Sword is by far the closest thing Darktide has to a ‘meta’ weapon at the moment. By default, the Power Sword has decent swings and good damage, but the real star of the show is its special action. Similar to other weapons like the Force Sword, Eviscerator, Thunder Hammer, Power Maul, Crusher, Chainsword, or Chainaxe, the Power Sword charges up for its next attack when the Special Action input is pressed.
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The Power Sword specifically becomes energized, and while it’s energized it has infinite cleave (or at least used to before patch 1.0.20). Because of this, the Power Sword can honestly carry a Sharpshooter, a class known for its gun-based abilities, through a mission entirely on its own. With that in mind, a Blessing that enables the Power Sword to stay in its energized state even longer is a welcome addition, and that’s exactly what Power Cycler does with every Chained Energized Hit.
7 Perk: Elite Melee Damage
Moving on to a Perk that’s good on its own but used to be absurd because of a bug. Just a few patches ago, weapons with the +6, +8, or +10 percent melee damage against Elites Perk was actually adding a 0 to the end of that percentage (AKA 60, 80, and 100 percent).
But, even after the bug, this Perk is still great, as it does a lot for characters like the Zealot or Ogryn when it comes to quickly taking out priority Elite enemies that appear without warning such as the Crusher, Reaper, or Bulwark.
6 Blessing: Momentum
Here’s the thing, both the Zealot and Ogryn don’t really struggle when it comes to regenerating Toughness. Both of them have a lot of Feats or general buffs that allow them to recover Toughness quickly in a myriad of ways. That said, adding one more method of Toughness recovery, especially one that comes from horde clearing, is absolutely more than welcome. And, that’s exactly what the Momentum Blessing does.
This Blessing instantly grants a Butcher Cleaver, Krourk Cleaver, Bully Club, Eviscerator, or Thunder Hammer user 10-15 percent Toughness as soon as they hit 3 or more enemies in a single swing (with no visible cooldown). This actually makes it so that in a horde scenario a good Ogryn (or Zealot especially) player will be essentially unkillable.
5 Perk: Block Efficiency
Anyone who put their fair share of time into Fatshark’s previous game, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, is likely very aware of how beneficial a Block Efficiency stat is. For those that are a bit confused by the wording of this stat, it basically just reduces the amount of Stamina that’s taken when a player blocks an attack from an enemy.
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And, on higher difficulties especially, they’ll be blocking quite a bit. With the right build and enough Block Efficiency, even Psykers who aren’t using Kinetic Deflection can tank Daemonhosts for their team with no problems. Additionally, it’s one of the Perks that can also be offered on Curios as well, which allows for a player to get upwards of +50 percent more Block Efficiency (if they work for it).
4 Blessing: Lacerate
Technically this Blessing is only ‘amazing’ at the moment when combined with a very specific Zealot build, but in general, the Blessing is also just very handy. Lacerate is simple, it inflicts 1-4 stacks of Bleed on an enemy (based on the Blessing Level) for every non-Weakpot Hit to them. And, considering it can only be found on the Catachan MIII Combat Blade, which essentially functions as a dagger, that’s going to be a lot of hits.
Zealots combine this specific Weapon and Blessing combo alongside their Feats that increase Toughness Reduction, grant extra cooldown to their Ability, and increase their chances of Critical Hits to make a build that essentially allows them to survive forever against any enemy if played correctly.
3 Perk: Melee Weak Spot Damage
Now, it’s not just the guns in Warhammer 40k: Darktide that do additional damage when hitting Weak Spots, melee weapons do too. So, when clearing a horde or even working on taking down an Elite enemy players should try and swing their weapon so that it hits their head.
Thankfully, given how many weapons have a good spread of vertical and horizontal attacks, this shouldn’t be too difficult. And, when a bit of additional Melee Weak Spot damage is added in, this just lets the player clear hordes even faster.
2 Blessing: Shattering Impact
Finally, for the last of the Blessings, let’s talk about ‘Rending’. Now sadly, there’s no in-game codex of terms that concretely explains each of the keywords used in the descriptions of Blessings and Perks such as Hit Mass, Impact, Cleave, or Rending. But, thanks to dedicated fans, a lot of testing, and even some data mining, a lot of these keywords have general definitions now.
Rending is particularly useful, as it works as a sort of ‘armour penetration’ or ‘armour shred’ that can make taking out heavily armoured enemies like the Maulers, Crushers, and Scab Ragers a total breeze.
And, if this Blessing is found on the Locke MK IIb Spearhead Boltgun, it’s basically the best Blessing one could hope for. With it, the Boltgun shreds through Elites like butter (especially on the Sharpshooter) even more than it already did by default.
1 Perk: Reload Speed
And lastly, let’s talk about one of the more ‘rare’ Perks to find on a weapon, Reload Speed. Reload Speed, at least so far, doesn’t seem to pop up often as a Perk. But, when it does, there’s almost no reason to ignore it outside of maybe finding it on a weapon as a Psyker.
The faster players can reload their weapons, the quicker they respond to enemies in every scenario, and the better prepared they are for every mission. Sure 7-10 percent Reload Speed may not initially seem like much, but when combined with some Feats on specific classes like the Sharpshooter, it can really stack up.
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is available now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox Game Pass.
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