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Best Darktide Skitarii build
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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.
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.
These are the weapons, blessings, and perks I recommend using for the Skitarii:
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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.