The best Darktide Skitarii build for my money is all about the powerful Chordclaw ability. While the Servo Skulls are certainly fun and provide a lot of utility, such as rezzing allies or solving puzzles, if you’re a melee-enjoyer like me, Chordclaw’s skewering hand is too good to pass up, and can brutalize both bosses and tanky enemies.
I’ll explain the build in depth below, but it’s essentially about crit-ing lots for added bonuses like regaining ability energy, and then using Chordclaw lots to murder enemies and gain further bonuses. It’s pretty straightforward, so here’s how to set it all up.
The best Darktide Skitarii build
After experimenting with the Skitarii, the best build I found revolves around the powerful Chordclaw ability and using crits to electrocute enemies and gain capacitance (your ability resource). Chordclaw fires out a stabbing arm, a guaranteed rending crit which, buffed with its sub-talents, Probing Strikes and Slice and Dice, hits three times, applies bleed, and gains extra damage for each successive hit.
This is further enhanced with Electro-Strike Conduit, which makes melee crits apply electrocution (including the Chordclaw). Flux Conduit Build-Up will provide capacitance as you crit to regain Chordclaw charges (which includes Chordclaw uses), plus when you do Chordclaw, Moebian Conductor, Voltaic Restoration, and Enhanced Capacitance Protocols will buff your overall damage, replenish toughness, and regain all stacks for Flensing Protocols.
Flensing Protocols is vital here—this key node and its sub-talents give you eight stacks of +2.5% damage and toughness damage reduction, and +1.5% crit chance and melee attack speed. These are reduced when you get hit by enemies, but you regain them all whenever you use Chordclaw.
Lastly, the Integrated Refraction Emitter gives you a three-charge shield which you can use in tricky spots to avoid ranged damage and electrocute enemies in an AoE for more damage against them, thanks to talents like Weakness Analysis Doctrine and Retribution Conduit. It sounds complex, but the fundamentals are crit lots, use Chordclaw lots, profit.
Best Skitarii weapons and relics
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These are the weapons, blessings, and perks I recommend using for the Skitarii:
Melee weapon: Paired Transonic BladesBlessing 1: Shred (+4% bonus critical hit chance on chained hit. Stacks five times)Blessing 2: Perfect Strike (Critical hits ignore hit mass armour bonus from armour. +10% melee critical hit damage)Perks: Melee crit chance, melee crit damage
While the Arc Maul is a very strong weapon to start with, I recommend hopping to the Paired Transonic Blades when you unlock them. These Mechanicus swords have two different attack patterns that you switch via the special weapon action: a series of horizontal slashes for hordes, and downward strikes and stabs for single entities, so make sure to swap between them if you suddenly spot a Mauler or Crusher amidst the crowd.
Considering this build is all about hitting crits (electrocuting enemies for bonus damage and gaining capacitance), I recommend taking Shred and Perfect Strike, the classic Zealot combo which buffs crit chance, crit damage, and makes crits ignore armour mass for more cleave. If you feel like you’re still not crit-ing enough, swap Perfect Strike for Riposte—if you play anything like me, you’re dodging constantly, so this crit chance buff on dodge is easy to maintain. Perk-wise, I suggest crit chance and crit damage to buff it further.
Ranged weapon: Galvanic RifleBlessing 1: Deadly Accurate (+60% critical weak spot damage)Blessing 2: Headhunter (+20% critical chance on weak spot hit until your next critical hit. Stacks five times)Perks: Ranged crit damage, +% damage to carapace armoured enemies
The Galvanic Rifle is a very satisfying weapon and I mainly use it as a means to quickly snipe troublesome specialists or enemies in the midst of combat. With that in mind, I chose Deadly Accurate and Headhunter. These will ensure that your headshots are more likely to crit and that they hit incredibly hard, letting you quickly deal with dangerous foes.
For perks, I recommend you buff your ranged crit damage and (considering you’ve already got plenty of crit chance via Headhunter) your damage to carapace armoured enemies, who will be the trickiest to kill with ranged attacks.
Curio bonuses: Toughness, max health, sprint efficacy
Lastly, for curio bonuses I suggest the usual combination of toughness, max health, and sprint efficacy. It never hurts to have a little corruption resistance and an extra wound either, but neither is strictly necessary, I don’t think.
Best Skitarii talent and keystone levelling path
This is my recommended levelling order for the Skitarii, but it’s worth noting that you can grab most of these at any point thanks to its radial skill tree, as I do in the video above. So, if you’re struggling with survivability, pick the talents in here that buff toughness, or if you need extra damage, focus the ones that buff that instead.
Talent
Description
Power Redistribution Uplink
Critical hits restore 7.5% toughness and grant +15% toughness damage reduction over 3 seconds.
Last Stand Relay
Gain +6% crit chance. Increased to 10% when at 0 charges.
Auto-Repair Doctrines
Replenish +3% toughness per second. Increased by +0.5% per current charge.
Electro-Strike Conduit
Melee critical hits electrocute the first target hit.
Channelled Motive Force
Spending 1 stamina grants +15% damage for 4 seconds.
Voltaic Restoration
Restore 20% toughness to you and allies in coherency on ability use.
Chordclaw Strike
Perform a powerful heavy melee attack using a Chordclaw. The attack is a guaranteed critical strike and has 50% rending.
Probing Strikes
Your Chordclaw now executes 3 quick stab attacks, that apply 6 stacks of bleed.
Slice and Dice
Using the Chordclaw ability increases damage dealt by the Chordclaw by 20% for 5 seconds. Stacking 3 times.
Augmented Power Cycle
Generate 1% capacitance each second.
Moebian Conductor
Gain +15% damage for 10 seconds on ability use.
Weakness Analysis Doctrine
+10% damage for 8 seconds when hitting electrocuted, soulblazed, burning, bleeding, or toxin-afflicted enemy with a melee or ranged attack.
Retribution Conduit
Gain 10% damage versus electrocuted, increased by 5% per current charge.
Flux Conduit Build-Up
Critical hits generate 5% capacitance over 4 seconds.
Adaptive Combat Calibration
Gain +30% melee cleave while above 50% toughness and +30% melee impact while below.
Uncapped Arrestor
Successful melee attacks grant +2.5% melee attack speed for 3 seconds. Stacking 5 times.
Slaughter Protocol
+25% toughness replenishment on melee kill. Increased to 50% when at 0 charges.
Flensing Protocols
You have up to 6 stacks of Flensing Protocols. Each stack grants +2.5% damage and toughness damage reduction.
Taking damage removes 1 stack. Can only occur every 1 second. Elite and specialist kills restore 2 stacks and 15% toughness.
Servo-Sinew Surge
Each hit also grants +1.5% critical hit chance and melee attack speed.
Enhanced Capacitance Protocols
Using an ability replenishes all stacks.
Honed Dissector
Increase max stacks to 8.
Hydraulic Impact
Uninterruptible while charging melee attacks. Gain +15% heavy melee damage.
Sustained Assault Doctrine
+3% melee damage on successful melee attack for 8 seconds. Stacks 5 times.
Integrated Refraction Emitter
Surround yourself in a shield that absorbs all incoming ranged damage. Lasts 8 seconds. Upon activation, and again when it ends, cause an electric explosion around you, applying electrocution to enemies within 5 meters.
Overcharged Refraction Emitter
Increase the field duration to 12 seconds. In addition, you electrocute nearby enemies an additional time at the midpoint of its duration.
Kinetic Repulsion
Limit all health damage taken while Integrated Refraction Emitter is active to 50.
Foe-Render Creed
Gain +25 toughness. You and allies in coherency gain +15% cleave and +7.5% rending.
Residual Current Buffer
Gain +10% toughness damage reduction, increased by +2.5% per current charge.
Ominissian Recharge Litany
Hitting three or more enemies with an attack restores 10% toughness over 3 seconds.
Progressive Plating Matrix
Hits grant +2.5% toughness damage reduction for 5 seconds. Stacking 6 times. Max 1 per attack.
Skitarii build playstyle
(Image credit: Fatshark)
As mentioned, this build is all about using crits to electrocute enemies and regen capacitance for your powerful Chordclaw ability, which will also provide benefits on use. You’ve also got the Integrated Refraction Emitter shield to keep you alive under heavy fire or when you need to revive an ally. Here are some other tips for playing this build:
Regularly use Chordclaw for tough foes and bosses
Chordclaw murders most enemies and brutalises bosses. Landing three strikes will kill a Crusher from full health in Heresy—I genuinely cannot imagine the havoc a team of four Skitarii with this ability will wreak. Chordclaw also provides extra benefits thanks to this build (including regen-ing Chordclaw because of its guaranteed crit hits), so use it often, especially as it will replenish all your Flensing Protocol stacks if you’ve been hit by enemies.
Snipe annoying specialists with your Galvanic Rifle
The Galvanic Rifle is a great weapon for headshotting foes at long range, and if you’re following this build it’s essentially set up as a headshot crit machine. Use it for snipers, flamers, poxbursters, hounds, bombers, gunners, ragers, and just about anything else you can safely kill at range with a quick cranial plink.
Switch Paired Transonic Blade modes for different foes
It took me a while to get used to this, but make sure to use your special weapon action to swap your Transonic Blades into single-entity mode. I’m pretty sure it changes the weapon’s profile, because it suddenly becomes significantly better at piercing armour for Maulers and Crushers. You can also switch modes mid-combat and I’m pretty sure this move counts as a block, too.
Use the Integrated Refraction Emitter in tricky spots
Though it costs grenade uses, the Integrated Refraction Emitter is absurdly strong against ranged enemies. You can use it to complete objectives or revive allies under fire, and allies can even shelter behind you since it’s an AoE shield. Thanks to its Kinetic Repulsion sub-talent, it also reduces health damage you take in melee and electrocutes enemies around you on use (for increased damage), making it handy for any tough spots you find yourself in.
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