Darktide is an ARPG game with coop horde elements akin to Left 4 Dead. You experience the game by playing one of four classes, each with its own class theme, passives, a feat to unlock and abilities and weapons. The result is each class plays differently, and one you will naturally progress over a fairly long leveling process to max level. So, picking the right class for you is the correct thing to do. It leads to some people wondering what the best class in Darktide is so that they can get on with performing.

However, Darktide’s classes have roles that grant them unique niches, making them the best at their given role. So rather than pick out a class and call it the best class in Darktide, we will instead point out what the classes are best at. This is something you want to consider when building a team composition for missions, or even playing a role yourself.

Best classes in Darktide explained¶

So, the four classes each have certain playstyles that fit better. In our minds, the classes play the best as follows.

To go into more detail, the Veteran has a few standout aspects of the class. The Veteran’s main ability is Volley Fire, which enters a zoomed instance, highlights priority targets, and increases your range weapon’s damage. The result is that the Veteran can choose to snipe targets it needs to kill, or mow down hordes. It also has the best access to fighting other enemy ranged targets and protecting its team from ranged enemies that will suppress or destroy your allies’ toughness. Moreso, they get a frag grenade option, which is handy for helping to take out many horde enemies.

As for the character’s feats, the class can get better-range damage, priority targeting modifiers, aim sway reduction, better reloading, and other ammunition and frag grenade generation tools. Combine all that together, and it makes blowing up boss HP by hitting weak spots or clearing out specialists and hordes incredibly easy and consistently.

Also, one of the unique passives about this class is that it gets bonus reserve ammo, making it incredibly effective at using ranged weapons more than any other class. While other classes fight to find ammo pickups, the Veteran doesn’t need to worry about that all too much.

If you like the idea of being largely ranged, and being able to kill absolutely everything and anything, then this class is for you. It’s also something you will want on your team no matter the situation, largely thanks to the dynamic build options and fragging power it brings to the team.

Zealot Explained: The Best Flex Class in Darktide¶

The Zealot is a class that is designed for charging into the fray and getting critical hits of with melee weapons. Therefore, the class is best described as a specialist killer with melee. It also has plenty of tools to buff its damage when losing HP, faster melee attack speed, and even cheat death. Therefore, this character makes for a great melee DPS berserker-like class with off-tank abilities too.

The main ability, Chastise the Wicked, grants 50% toughness regeneration (resist damage shield) and a guaranteed critical hit. The zealot’s ability combined a heavy hitting chain weapon or a thunder hammer makes the pairing incredibly powerful. Whatever unfortunate specialist you happen to charge into and then whack will take some of the highest burst damage in the game amongst any class and weapon combination.

Meanwhile, there are feats you can take further to improve your DPS improvements through loss of health, granting a playstyle that makes you one the strongest DPS for melee fights. Some more feats and curios make your HP and toughness better, meaning you can play on low HP, and still not be scared of imminent death.

While that’s the general playstyle, the Zealot can also be a support, and flex for the team. This is due to the ability also allowing you to dash to allies. This can get downed allies up quickly and follow it up with the class’s stun grenades to CC enemies and make life easier all-around.

Therefore, this class has many options and playstyles, making it a solid off-tank, melee support or melee DPS. These build and playstyle variances make it unbelievably effective regardless of team composition.

Psyker Explained: Besrt Support Class in Darktide¶

The main thing players need to know about the Psyker is that it is a mage-type class. The class’s ability has a ranged knockback, which will floor enemy hordes, stagger, and slightly push back most of the Specialists enemies you encounter. The result is that its ability makes it a great ranged crowd controller. You can also combine this with the heavy attack effects from Force Staff, with the Purgatus staff granting flamethrower abilities that can stagger and melt enemies. Meanwhile, the Surge staff that uses chain lightning to stun enemies temporarily and deal damage, or the two other DPS staffs that cause explosions to deal burst damage and stager foes it doesn’t kill.

In addition, the Psyker also grants very interesting Coherency bonus to allies within its range. This grants bonus damage dealt to Specialists and has a feat that can also increase your allies’ damage to Specialists when using a brain burst on an enemy when it survives. Combine that and the coherency bonus together, and the Psyker, and its allies will find specialists and bosses much easier to fight. This is handy for the hardest levels, difficulties, and even specialist-focused map conditions. Sync this up with the Zealot’s critical strike bonus, and things will die smoothly, highlighting a great example of party synergy.

The other thing to note is that the Psyker has a unique blitz called Brain bust. It is a high-damage high-charge-up move which can pop specialists in one or two hits. This comes incredibly handy for finding those annoying specialists disrupting afar, and taking them out while the rest of the team does what they need to do.

On a final note, it is worth mentioning Force weapons, like the Force Sword has some of the better resistance penetration and even work as some of the highest burst against health shield targets, such as assassination bosses. These weapons cannot be under looked for those reason.

If you like the support playstyle, the crowd control, and the long-range sniping with your magical powers, then the Psyker makes for one of the best-dedicated support archetypes in Darktide.

Ogryn Explained: Best Tank Class in Darktide¶

The Ogryn class in Darktide is the best for tanking. Its move set is designed to charge into battles, floor everything it interacts with, and even interrupt monstrosities and other high-speed and high density specialists like Mutants and Unyielding enemies. Meanwhile, the Ogryn has higher base HP, an extra wound, and a special formula that grants Ogryns more Hp with the wounds it gets. It’s easy to come across an Ogryn with over 300 HP, compared to the typical 150-200 for the three other classes.

Its weapon tends to specialize in knockback weapons, or crowd control weapons like the Shield. It’s the only class in the game with a shield, so these fulfill the role of tanking enemies without worrying about taking damage, whether a horde or a boss is wailing on their shield. There are counters, such as flamers, bombers forcing fire around them, or a trapper or mutant grabbing them.

The other thing players need to be aware of is that the Ogryn has feats that grant lots of Toughness. This is done in the form of heavy attacks, making players look for weapons that have some great cleave heavy attacks to generate toughness regeneration or use bleeds. No matter your preference, the Ogryn will find they can maintain their toughness incredibly well, and tackle more damage than any of their class counterparts.

If you want a playstyle that has you in the font and center of fights, staggering everything and everyone, taking little to no damage, and crowd control either in the form of staggers or special attacks, explosions or shield tanking. The Ogryn is the best tank class in Darktide.

Hopefully, you now know why each class is considered the best class in Darktide. Moreso, you now know their roles and what they are good at, and you are now aware of why having at least one on each game is really good. It;s fair to say that each class has its role, showcasing that personal preference and playstyle is respected and viable, no matter the individual.