Hidden gem of Zealot arsenal: Turtolsky VII

Well at least that means we're still getting new players

Somewhat hidden. I don't think I've seen a single Mk VII user in over 1k hours in this game. And most heavy sword users had bad damage for whatever reason.

Yeah, it does. But without martyrdom you can't reach consistent breakpoints on all elites except ogryns. And without crit keystone Perfect Strike is worthless.

It kinda is a known build. Just rare to see, and not discussed much since there's nothing new about it for half a year. Even if you have a maximum performance with this weapon, it is hard to compete with equally competent players using something like the Rashad combat axe, or even the eviscerator 15. If you take heavy sword, you need something for crushers in your ranged slot, or to burn Fury to kill them with whatever gun. Both of those other weapons are easier to use than the heavy sword, so it's no wonder it is mostly ignored.

I use the mk9 because it was the best before patch 13, and I struggle to get familiar with the other two heavy swords' move sets. I put hundreds of hours in with the mk9 heavy sword. Ultimately, the conclusion I came to, is that the heavy swords are really hard to use compared to other weapons, so most people give up on them. They want to spam only light attacks against horde chaff and spam heavy attacks against elites, and ignore everything else. You need to basically land all headshots and a lot of heavy attacks and move set manipulation with heavy swords.

Mk9 especially demands move set manipulation so you get the overhead swing against mutants and specific tankier targets, and the second heavy against packed groups of elites like in the clip (it is perfectly horizontal strike). So there's a lot of times I block cancel or weapon swap cancel into heavy 1 to 1-shot a mutant, and other times I use light 1 on nothing while dashing to enemies so I can sweep their heads with heavy 2.

I find the heavy sword to be one of the most rewarding melee weapons though. I personally find Rashad combat axe to be so busted that it feels like cheating. Heavy sword strikes a good balance of being very powerful if you know what you're doing, with really high potential. You're basically always rewarded with more killing power with more skill with the heavy sword. And ya, jumping into ranged packs and immediately decapitating 4+ shotgunners feels very good to do.

I've been judging heretics with the Mk VII for over a year. But indeed great weapon, although I have different blessings IIRC.

You can block cancel and spam the special attack against crushers.

I wouldn't say HS7 is underrated, I've ignored the HS9 for the longest time due to the fact I can animation cancel the first H1 with the HS7.

I prefer the Crit HS7 dagger though, much more consistent without being downed from a blindspot kill due to having 1 wound. Also you can spam your specials on Crusher heads and keep them permanently stunned till you kill them, the same applies to anything that's not Unyielding

IX is just better b/c of that overhead first heavy. Think of other options you can do not just what you showed. You can do that with follow up heavies but that first strikedown on the IX means you can oneshot bulwarks and reapers. You can even multishot those flak and maniacs when they stack up with overhead strike down

Great post. Appreciate the info. When you say “you don’t need to heal w/martyrdom” you are correct, You don’t need to heal, but I have witnessed far too many martyrdom builds raging quitting from going down.

Special attack ignores armor on heavy swords, btw. It is single target with very little cleave, but spamming it against crushers and maulers knocks them out in a medium amount of time.

Mk9 Heavy sword with martyrdom has been my main build for the better part of the last 400hrs of playtime.

So satisfying.

I just spawned them with Creature Spawner, wdym? There are hotkeys to choose and spawn mobs.

Besides cycling thru mob types, the 3 presets are also very handy to quickly spawn.

I edited the mod to add a "hurt_player" keybind and functions to lose HP and build martyr stacks, look for "heal_player" then add new stuff.

creature_spawner.lua add this function under the heal_player function (I use -20HP, change to whatever u like)

mod.hurt_player = function(self)
  if Managers.ui:chat_using_input() then
    return
  end
  local local_player_unit = get_player_unit()
  if local_player_unit and is_valid_game_mode() then
    local health_extension = ScriptUnit.has_extension(local_player_unit, "health_system")
    health_extension:add_heal(-20, "blessing")
    health_extension:add_heal(-20, "healing_station")
  end
end

In creature_spawner_localization.lua add this function under the cs_heal_player_key entry:

  cs_hurt_player_keybind = {
    en = "Keybind: Hurt Player",
  },

in creature_spawner_data add entry after the entry -- Keybind to heal the player

    { -- Keybind to hurt the player
      ["setting_id"] = "cs_hurt_player_keybind",
      ["type"] = "keybind",
      ["keybind_trigger"] = "pressed",
      ["keybind_type"] = "function_call",
      ["default_value"] = {},
      ["function_name"] = "hurt_player"
    },  

Bolter. It insta deletes the crusher swarms.

Yes, Mk VII

As I said in my comment, you dont need full martyrdom stacks to do that.

The thing is that VII first heavy attack is considered strikedown despite being horizontal sweep, which means same damage as IX overhead heavy. And that in turn means exciting breakpoints. Also, quite easy to follow rotation - heavy-light all day against everything except carapace.