This is by no means a definite Guide. Plus this is still a work in Progress as i am at this time and date (18.02.25) (10:02AM) still doing grind for Equipment...

plus i am giving you examples what to use and why, still not sure which is "better" both works well...


Note: i will add picts as i get noteworthy equipment, but i don't think you need picts of purple Equip or Equip that is not 90+ or optimized !

While work in Progress :

Physical/Ranged Hierophant --> Level 100, grinding gear
Heat/Ranged Hierophant --> Level 85 (Seasonal Character)
Physical/Melee Hierophant --> Level 80

Physical ranged


These will be :

Squad Leader
+0,25% devotion gained every 2 seconds per active retinue member

Blessing of Saint Victorious
Can't lose more than 30% of max HP to a single hit

Redemption from Grief
Gain 0,1% HP whenever a Retinue Member takes damage


This will make you tankier and allow you to use your prayers + armor ability more often.

Heat ranged

Physical Melee

Heat or Physical ?

That is the main Question we ask ourselves here. To maximize what our retinue can do damage wise, they should all do the same damage type to profit from the same boni, psalm doctrines and otherwise...

Heat, as the first option, requires us to do a (mostly) ranged build for the retinue members

Physical gives us the choice between melee weapons (force staff for the psyker) or ranged if we choose so.


Same for ourselves, too. i would always go ranged for the Hierophant myself even if melee is perfectly valid. In my eyes my survival chance is way better if i am not in melee range.

Heat

Inferno Pistol /Plasma Pistol
Dialogus Staff

The Inferno pistol gets you heat vulnerability, requires you to be rather near the enemy, the plasma pistol gets you more range but your retinue needs to debuff then. Make your choice...

The Dialogus Staff gives you the target designator, aka lets you choose whom your retinue shall attack without changing to orders and more precisely too.

Physical (Ranged)

Bolt Pistol
The Range and the Damage

Dialogus Staff
still the target designator

Physical (Melee)

Force sword
Libram


This combo gets you more prayers , no target designator but you will do the melee and therefore can kill the important targets while the retinue mops up the rest...

The armor is a choice of taste.

For me it is the Hierophant Vestment as the armour skill heals me, buffs me and my retinue, plus tends to reset my most used prayer.

If you think your Inoculator is doing the job and you trust in the refill of "Rush of Triumph" in the retinue passives tree though, you can choose the Militant-Apostolic Armor to get 40 Berserk tokens for your retinue at the cost of generating less devotion for 20 seconds. As they tend to do the damage that is quite nice too.

The Confessor Robe is more niche and gives burn and explode to your retinue which can be utilized in a heat build, but both of the other armour skills are by far superior in my eyes.

4 Points in Health for "Field surgery" ASAP so have your Inoculator ready when you really need it

4 Points in Defence for "SkeletalPadding" and "Shock Dampening for Damage Reduction

depending on your decision going Physical or heat you should train the respective trees

aka

Heat/Ranged

Physical/Ranged

Physical/Melee

Retinue tactics down to the key, the last 3 passives are what we seek

"no time for death" for an instant revive if a retinue member dies (120 secs colldown)

"The rush of triumph" to genrate inoculator (champion kill)
and/or belt charges (Boss/villain/Commander/Elite kill) retinue kills only !

and last but not least "Rampaging assault" which makes kills by the retinue member count for Killstreaks, plus the retinue member get the boni from them too.

Rest are a few buffs and a 30% heal for the retinue from us using the inoculator...

The blessings tree gets you faster prayers small boni to get faster devotion (aka class ressource) and if you chose heat damage "Scorching Heat" for 30% extra heat damage. That can be quite handy for melee too, but for a heat build this is a must .
for a ranged build i would put a few points in Utility for "Hail of Bullets" (10% Life drain every 5th kill for 5 seconds with pistols) and "Refurbished weaponry" (20% increased ammo capacity for pistols)

If you use the dialogus staff "Holy Replenishment" will give you 1% Devotion per second for as many seconds as you channeld it. Quite good for boss fights !

Another gem is "Intervention" Which saves you from an otherwise deadly strike, lets your retinue rush to you and taunt the enemies for 10 seconds. (60s cooldown)

Rest is more or less your choice, i would advise using more points in Health for survival and Supression if you are ranged and search for a few buffs

The main theme here will be : What do i want my retinue to do ?

You have already chosen Heat or Physical, now we have to decide which kinda weapons and armor compliment the chosen playstyle for each of the retinue members...

Crusader

Physical Melee: Greataxe

Physical ranged : Shotgun

Heat : Multi Melta

Melee Armor : Assault

Ranged Physical Armor : Demolition

Assassin

Physical Melee : Power Sword

Physical ranged : Shotgun

Heat ranged : Longlas Rifle

Heat Melee: Arc Sword

Armor : Fabricatus Distortion

Psyker

Physical ranged : Force Staff

Heat ranged : Pyrokinetic Staff

Armor: Empyrean

Battle Sister

Physical Melee : Power Maul

Physical ranged : Boltgun

Heat : Hand Flamer & Brazier

Armor : Seraphim for the Jump, Dominion for the Dash


Note: The Psyker can't really Melee (please do not try, you have been warned) and the Battle Sister will per Armor choice still end up in Melee range (dash or jump) so keep that in Mind !

Yes you have to skill them too. thank the emperor their skill trees are rather small and easy to manage. In most cases you have melee or ranged options, for the pskyer you choose the spells and therefore which damage he does when not using the weapon skills.

There are several viable choices, but because i chose the Dialogus staff i do not have many slots and therefore prayers i can use...

I chose the Staff for the Target Designator as i found out with the tech adept it can be wise to send everyone at a important target or else they'll all die or to get bosses down way faster...

Attributes do play a role here for several key reasons

Serenity has to be at least on 15. Each point of spent devotion heals your retinue members... so if you use devotion to cast prayers or buff the retinue with your armor they will get healed.

Max if you can...


Purity at least 15 to get shield drain for you and your retinue, , you see the synergy here...

Jugdement gets the leftovers, not much in this tree that helps...

My dear friend Schroedinger for :

- beeing a guinea pig

- asking a lot of questions about the game i had to really think hard about to answer

- doing silly things like using melee as a Hierophant (That works ? Can't be !)

- testing weapons

- drinking shots and beer til 02:00 AM keeping me company grinding and leveling

- asking me "Did you already...?" all the time !