Darksiders II

Completing Darksiders II on the Apocalyptic difficulty setting during your first playthrough can be extremely challenging and unnecessary in my opinion. This is due to the fact that the level cap on your first playthrough is 22 which ultimately means if you're seeking to acquire every achievement in this game you will be forced to play through it a second time to reach level 30. I suggest commencing your first playthrough on the Easy or Normal difficulty setting in order to level up, create a build more suitable for Apocalyptic and gain knowledge on your enemies combat styles. Additionally, during your Easy or Normal playthrough you should target every side quest seeing as it'd make your Apocalyptic journey far easier since you'd only need to handle main quests.

The build I used throughout the multitude of my Apocalyptic playthrough focused heavily on dealing critical damage while also focusing on health/wrath regeneration. My scythes were possessed so I did sacrifice a variety of weapons to create it rather than use a pre-made scythe. As for my secondary, I used Absolution (awarded for completing the story). I constantly altered my character's armour, so there was no actual foundation for my armour. I'm sure that this build isn't the greatest, but I can assure you that it will get the job done.

When playing on Apocalyptic, value every point of health you possess, remain vigilant during combat situations, and always be prepared to dodge incoming enemy attacks. Be patient and have fun!

Note
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You are only permitted to begin one new game+ per save file.

If, like myself, you messed up your new game+ and find yourself having to start a new game from scratch to get this cheevo here is a tip that may help, it certainly makes it a shade easier for me so far on my run.

What to do is, if you have a scythe with Health Steal on it in your original playthrough, gift it to a friend through the serpent tome then have him/her gift it back after you start your apocalypse run (or just get them to gift one of their own weapons), either way you will have a health steal weapon waiting for you.

Granted, you will not be able to use this high level item but you can sacrifice it to the first possessed scythe you collect, as long as gifted weapon triggers the "weapon level up" box, you can then select health steal to go on your freshly picked up scythes, you can continue to do this with every possessed scythe you pick up as you go (this is what I have been doing and it has so far worked every time).

It should be noted that the steal percentage will drop dramatically when this is done and this tactic will not make you unbeatable, certainly not in the beginning, but as you go on the percentage will increase a bit nearly every time you feed a new possessed weapon. What this means is that you will fare much better against standard enemies allowing you to save your health vials for use against the bosses because on an apocalypse run you will likely still need them

(Edit)
Just got this today, predominantly Necro build with Ghouls and all ghoul related enhancements maxed, plus Harvest maxed, only got health steal up to 17% but it was vital on a few occasions, most effective when heavily outnumbered, use after summoning ghouls and enemies are drawn to them then use RB and X to throw your scythe into the crowd, your health will replenish quite rapidly.