Overview
“To a Space Marine, the boltgun is far more than a weapon; it is an instrument of Mankind’s divinity, the bringer of death to his foes. Its howling blast is a prayer to the gods of battle.”Starwars has it’s lightsabers, Star Trek has its phasers. 40K has the bolter. It’s translation into Inquisitor Martyr puts it pretty firmly in the middle of the road as far as weapon builds go. Melee remains the meta, and among ranged weapons, it falls short of the grav gun. That said though… It’s a frigging bolter who doesn’t want to have a bolter? This is my attempt to create a solid, effective build using a somewhat underrated weapon. I think it’s pretty decent.My character for this build is at level 61. The build really starts becoming effective at around level 41 when you unlock Augmented Body II so I’ve tried to cover some of the leveling as well, though it isn’t a huge focus.
Preamble.
So the bolter. Far from the ‘best’ weapon in Inquisitor Martyr… If you are looking for optimization? Well throw a two handed close combat weapon on a crusader and go to town. Or better yet twink out a Psyker. I like this build because the bolter is an absolutely iconic weapon in 40K. Star Wars has its lightsabers, Star Trek has its phasers, 40K has Spheeess Mereeens shouting “Fer teh Emperarar!” while emptying boltgun clips into xenos faces. Ergo, I decided to see if I could design a fun build that isn’t super gear dependent and still lets me run at least 5 or 6 above my level with Tarot cards. I think I was pretty successful overall. This one is pretty focused on the Crusader class. It relies a lot on the tankyness inherent in the class to absorb damage and remain effective. I don’t tend to do much group play, but this is a very effective build to throw into situations where you deliberately draw aggro and spend time getting punched in the face and providing effective supporting fire at the same time. It’s not the ‘killiest’ build for sure, but like the Russian army in the second world war you can take a stupid amount of punishment and still remain effective.
Also, it is important to note, just in case it isn’t obvious based on the fact that this is a ‘bolter build’ that I’m far from an ‘optimal’ player. I do silly things like use ancient mechanisms to forge new gear and reroll enchants, when I’m like level 50. I’ll even ‘waste’ Sparks of Glory to add slots to weapons, because I’m stupid like that and I enjoy using all the mechanics of a game as they become available to me. Again, if you want a guide on how to build a ‘perfect toon’ look elsewhere. There is a thunder hammer build and a grav gun build on here that might fit you better. This is designed around what I consider to be fun, not clear times or maxing out the Warzone or whatever.
With minor tweaks it also works well with other physical projectile weapons like Heavy Bolters, Autoguns or… ew… Gravguns and of course the pistol varieties of each.
I designed the class at around level 60, since that’s when you are likely wrapping up the campaigns and starting to get into levelling, but you can certainly work your way into it earlier… I started putting it together at around level 50 or so.
Overview, Perks and Attributes
Here is the overall ‘picture’. Like I said, not optimal, but certainly focused.
The Perks are focused around Augmented Body II, which is pretty key to the build. You won’t have it until level 41 but it is worth the wait. You lose out on the passive healing, but with a good inoculator and some smart skill choices healing won’t be a major concern. The Crusader is tanky enough that.
Next up is Artificer Magazines. They’re an even later unlock at level 53 but moar ammo and 20% bonus damage? I’ll take that with a side of fries. Prior to unlocking this, I ran Crisis Management for the added survivability.
Last up is Designated Marksman. I just unlocked this so I’m still not 100% sold on its effectiveness for the build. I had Armoury of Zeal in the slot before hand, but I found the added healing from grenades, and armour skills just wasn’t necessary though it was extremely useful as I was leveling up. I’ve since switched to using Digital Weapons in the belt slot mainly because crits are always useful and I like the enchants I have on the one I found, but there are a lot of useful belt items out there.
I went for virtue in attributes because it synergizes so well with Augmented Body. The 3rd tier gives you 0.5% healing for every focus point spent. Focus points are my main source of healing, so bumping that number up is fantastic. The 5th tier is +10% damage when suppression is green. Since my suppression never drops… well do you see where I’m going here?
Passive Skills
On to the meat and potatoes. Passives.
Here is the overview.
You can see I’m spread out a bit. Crits, Single DPS, Physical Attacks and Suppression are where most of my points are placed. I’ve been putting points into Ranged Combat, but I’m debating going a little bit into aimed shots just to bump up the effectiveness of my #1 skill on the bolter. I’m at a point now where the ‘vision’ for the class is largely complete so I’m moving onto ‘nice things to have’
I’m not going to show the specific layouts on each tree. This guide is long enough as it is. I will speak to what I picked in the various trees, and I’d be more than happy to upload pictures if people want them.
First off. Right off the bat, it is absolutely critical that you put 3 points in the Support Tree to get to Invigorating Faith. Combined with Vigour from the Virtue path this gives you 1% healing for each point of Focus spent. This means your jump pack or grenade toss with Armoury of Zeal heals you for 20% of your health. This is your main source of healing. Jump around between combats. Jump into combat. Jump out of combat. Toss grenades like they are going out of style. You don’t need more than those three points though. You could go for Perpetual Prayer, but with so many points dumped into Virtue, my Focus points regenerate almost as fast as my jump pack cools down. Likewise with the inoculator capacity/cooldown. I just don’t need it. It also works well with the turrets from the Sentinal Armour. You ‘only’ recover 15% of you HP with that armour ability but the turrets can be pretty useful for drawing aggro while you sit back and let your boltgun do the talking.
Next up, is Crits. I filled this out early on simply because Crits work well with just about any build, and I was still experimenting around and didn’t feel like constantly buying Mind Resets. Berserker Rage offers a nice heal in combat that procs occasionally while Revenge is really nice when taking on spongy boss’ and the like. Even later on… well you can never go too far wrong with crits.
In Single DPS I went for Euphoric Glands and then up to Focusing Module. Euphoric Glands is amazing, especially once you get your damage up high enough that you can reliably one shot the weaker ‘regular’ enemies, Unbound Raiders, Guardsmen ect. Focusing Module isn’t totally necessary, you can stop at Ocular Implants but I have a few pieces of gear that Slow and Stun enemies, and if you are running with Armoury of Zeal it makes Stun Grenades amazingly effective.
Physical Attacks are an obvious choice. I mean a tiny, rocket propelled, armour piercing grenade is pretty much the dictionary definition of a physical attack. I didn’t pick up arterial wounding or mercy kill, but that’s more just because I haven’t really felt the need for them and RNJesus hasn’t given me many items that inflict bleed.
Debuffs are another obvious one. I grabbed Demoralize on the left, and totally filled the right path, just skipping over Strikedown though it is probably worth picking up to synergize with the aimed shot ability. Definitely get it if you are doing this build with bolt pistols though.
Suppression is an interesting tree. I’d only ever take it with Augmented Body II but yowza… Grim Resolve is… yeah. I unlocked this tree late, but churned through a half dozen memory resets respeccing in order to max it out as soon as it was available.
For defense, I got skeletal padding. I actually have my damage reduction soft capped with this active so I should probably dump it and use those points elsewhere. This can be handy if you feel like using Sentinel armour though since the damage reduction tends to be lower. I just haven’t gotten around to resetting it.
As for other options:
The Puritan path has some nice things in it. I’m not using it because I’m playing as a radical, because I don’t like being a jerkface to everyone. My assassin is my jerkface character. Putting points into Radical as a Crusader is pants on head retarded though unless you do wierd and wonderful things with psalm doctrines. Maybe I’ll play around with that at some point, see how it works.
The idea of putting points into Aimed Shots is also growing on me. Rights of Obliteration and Aftershock seem nice but this isn’t a sniper class so it’s hardly a priority.
Gear
Now, on to gear. Like I said this build isn’t super gear dependent. Good gear good, but there is a point where ‘good enough’ is just that.
Kicking it off with The Emperors Wrath itself, the bolter.
As you can see, this isn’t anything too special. The relic enchant is kinda fun when you cause a big chain reaction among horde enemies by dropping frag rounds into them, but there are certainly better relic enchants out there. Crit strength is always nice and I work aimed shot into my attack pattern against bosses and champions so an extra 45% damage ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
Obviously though the real shiny thing about this is the 5 sockets. I’m running the +50% physical damage on it mainly because RNJesus hasn’t blessed me with an Aegis Psalm yet.
Even then, I’m sure there are more effective Psalm Doctrines available. I just haven’t taken the time to dig that deep into them.
As for armour, this is what I’m rocking.
This was a very lucky roll that works very well with this build. The 2% heal per focus point really comes into its own, meaning that any time I use my jump pack I get a whopping 60% of my health back. That’s insane.
That said I have a different suit of sentinel armour that also works pretty well without that enchant so it’s not like it’s essential. I actually like the turrets a bit more than the jump pack generally. I just find them more useful since they will often draw aggro from melee enemies giving me time to let the bolter do the talking. I need to play a bit more carefully with it and rely a bit more on my inoculator rather than just firing off my armour skill whenever I see my health drop.
One thing I would recommend against is using demolition armour. It ‘feels’ like it should work since it is most effective at range, which is also where you are most effective, but the cooldown is too long. Running armoury of zeal would be a must for the healing, and then you are just doubling up on explosives.
As for the rest of the gear it’s a pretty mixed bag. I’ve hunted around for things that drop stuns or do bonus damage on them just to synergize with the psalms I’m running. Enchants that do bonus damage when suppression is green are pretty awesome too. Bleed effects and other DOT’s to spice things up are always good, you know the usual stuff. One thing to look for that I overlooked and was pointed out to me by SteT on the forum is to keep your eyes peeled for anything that reduces the cooldown of you LMB skill. The Fulgurite Shard weill cap out at 5% at level 5 and would make a pretty big difference to your DPS.
My inoculator is running Murderdust, Blood Balm, Quintessence and Extract. Really the big thing is the Blood Balm for that 20% heal over 20 seconds. After popping that I can actually just stand still when I come across those Space Marine Sorcerer Villains that clone themselves and hammer you with 3 of those warp vortex things simultaneously. I heal faster than they damage me.
Only other thing of note is that I run digital weapons though of course the Armoury of Zeal/Grenade combo is pretty potent as well even if you aren’t relying on it for the healing. Really most of the belt items are pretty useful so use what you like and/or has nice enchants.
Conclusion
At any rate, I hope you found this interesting, or useful, or at the very least makes the bolter seem a bit more viable. I’d love to hear any questions, suggestions, or any other feedback.