Deadshot Gunzerker - [Havoc 40][Guided]
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

   PRIMER CURRENTLY BEING REVAMPED!!!

                                                 FOR ATOMA!!!

     This build's aim is to bring a different kind of outlook into what can be done on the class and what it can bring into Havoc settings. This is by no means something to be classified as META, and is just something that can work due to it using a very basic Veteran template. The Veteran kit normally lacks an abundance of survivability in the kit but with this set up the class is allowed to deal tons of ranged damage to Monsters, Specials and Elites while also providing the team some necessary resources for survival, also giving itself quite a bump up. You can hang back in the group playing rear-guard just laying down cover fire and tags or go guns blazing as a core, hunting down every enemy on screen. The talent tree focuses on a decent hybrid style of play that sets up your team to kill highlighted targets as fast as possible,  providing them resources in return as the team takes out enemies. Marking targets frequently provides the team with toughness and stamina which will be fueling our own damage via Deadshot while generally making it easier for the rest of the team to stay alive. 

With Deadshot you can easily land kills on snipers and gunners in the back of the map. Everything else from mid to close range gets completely shredded by you and your team due to this set up -- including Crushers and Monsters. This is a scaling build in the sense that it's mileage gets better and better with the higher the difficulty goes up due to the share amounts of Specials, Elites and enemies in general. The tree is also designed to take good advantage of any of the 3 Combat Abilities. Voice of Command being more support  and Executioner's Stance being more core focused. These are the Combat Abilities specifically recommend for Havoc when using this set up.

In Darktide, builds tend to fit into 1 to 2 of the three loose military combat role categories: Cores, Anchors (Vanguard included) and Support (Rearguard included).

Cores are basically the just damage, the builds designed to the most of it that are generally exceptionally good at removing all targets in comparison to others builds: Specials, Elites and Monsters if they exist, they exist to be another tally on the scoreboard for these builds. These have a lot more damage output that other builds and have among the best Blitz coverage and Crowd Control. The Hive Scum, Psyker and Veteran easily fit this role due to the larger amounts of damage output and capability to deal with hordes using a plethora of area denial.

Anchors are the more survivable, beefy builds designed to stick around, the ones that can clutch the easiest due to damage reductions and toughness generation. A lot of the time anchoring requires you to forego some damage, or is just a default due to not being able to stack a lot of it on the class without skimping out defences. The Zealot, Ogryn, and Arbites fit in this role comfortably as they have lots of built in survivability and melee focus for those clutch situations.

Support IS and isn't what the general consensus that people have from other games. This role doesn't mean you do not deal damage, it means that alongside damage you are providing the the team with more necessary resources: Making space with lock down abilities and decent add clear, which we like to call Crowd Control and also giving the team damage or survivability bumps via things like applying brittle to enemies or giving damage buffs in general to the team while also amplifying their survivability on the side. Suport is more utility focused and is meant to be a backbone of the team, helping in essentially all areas. Most of the classes can fit a small to even a large support role in the base game -- usually leaning a bit more into the other roles in the upper difficulties. Think of Taunt Ogryn, or Bubble Psyker, and even Chanting Zealot along with Shout Veteran build, they are all support builds at their core due to the main thing that their Combat Abilities can provide. 

In a lot of my builds you will probably see comments on the build designs being something like an "Anchoring Support" or "Supportive Core." The explanation above is what I am describing. While arbitrary in nature, the explanations in my opinion, help with understanding how you should play the class and game just to make things easier. (Maybe a video on that in the near future)

                                          THE BREAD AND BUTTER

     The original setup deleted Carapace very easily, but as of the health changes, I moved it away from attempting this at range. Before, the goal was to apply debuffs to enemies with our tags as well with Onslaught as all melee and ranged damage dealt to enemies benefitted from this, but now the build is geared to more coverage between survivability and hoard clear while also being able to snipe key Specials and Elites within a decent range given the gun chosen. The damage done in this build still happens in very short bursts and in high volume, it's just that Monsters and Crushers will now actually have to be dealt with specifically through the use of grenades and melee. 

     We are still focused on stamina in this build so you'll want either Bonus Stamina Bars, or Stamina Regeneration on curios. This is because we will be using a lot of it and having more, more frequently, means we can do the one cool thing we're here for --- shredding Elites and Bosses. Sprinting and Shoving already takes away our resource that we will be needing for damage and that's why we want to make sure we have more of it more frequently. (The revised version of this build had removed a +3 Stamina Curio, but still has a good Stamina Pool to keep up it's damage.)

     Time to explain all the stamina usage in the build: Deadshot. This talent FEEDS off of stamina, and requires more bars to get more shots and time aiming down the barrel. Deadshot drains .75 Stamina while aiming down your sights to reduces your gun sway. When shooting while aiming it will consume another .25 Stamina per shot, this drains our bars because of our RPM. Naturally this means if we have the base 6 bars of Stamina we get with the weapon out we don't have much wiggle room to use Deadshot . Dedicating a curio to extra stamina can be a general boost to the build over all because the extra toughness curio slot will only benefit the build by 23 flat toughness (The trade-off is up to the user as 23 is a pretty big amount of toughness in Havoc 40).

     Because we are using an automatic gun the talent eats through our Stamina but causes the gun to do massive damage with a huge accuracy boost. The main use for the tag system is for our stamina, as tagging enemies will aid us in generating stamina via hip fire and melee or even just out team killing pinged targets as well. Getting back the stamina also helps us with our melee too which makes the build feel really nice since it's focus is to aid our shooting but our melee benefits from it passively giving us stamina for shoves and blocking.

                                          LAY ON THE DAMAGE

    There is a pretty sizeable amount of damage in this build for our ranged weapon in particular.

Here is a list of our static damage nodes.

• Longshot (Useful for sniping targets and is otherwise a flat 10% ranged damage buff)
• Superiority Complex  (Decent damage bump into Elites)
• Precision Strikes (Big boost in damage for both melee and ranged)
• Bring it Down! (Damage for Monsters and Ogryn)
• Onslaught* (This was removed from the build for more defense and coverage, but can still be taken at the cost of 2 points)
• Rending Strikes* (Optional if still taking the path to Onslaught this will give the guns significantly more damage into armor)
• Ranged Damage Boost 

And then we have the dynamic damage buffs being

• Focus Target! (Spammable Damage bonus to help with sniping and bossing)
• Deadshot (Dynamic DPS increase when ADS)
• Reciprocity (Massive Crit Boost mid combat)
• Skirmisher (Big Damage boost while maintaining movement)

Lastly the damage from Blessings

• Dumdum
• Sustained Fire

   The play style for  the Columnus and the Vraks Infantry Autoguns with these blessings will be more burst oriented since to get the most out of our ammo for damage we have to burst fire 4 shots minimum. All this really takes is a tiny pause when firing and isn't required to do 100% of the time if you don't want to or can't find the rhythm for it. The two Blessings pair really well for boss fights as it causes you to melt down monstrosities in your face. Generally speaking though we have our melee option for this which this build manages to also focus on a decent amount as well

Melee focused nodes include

• Trench Fighter Drill 
• Desperado 

Melee also benefits from the other generic buffs that the build has access to as well: Superiority Complex, Precision Strikes, Bring it Down!, Onslaught, Rending Strikes, Reciprocity, Skirmisher and Focus Target!. I will also like to note that while attack speed is ALWAYS good to havei n Havocs, if you would prefer to drop Trench Fighter Drill for Duck and Dive it is completely valid as the stamina uptime translates into almost an equivalent amount of damage and safety.

 Since Vanguards are a thing now, I am putting more importance onto the Sunder* Blessing again. These enemies stop your energized attacks in their track and can be annoying. Sunder has been increasing in value for a long time now on this weapon and I think more players should try it out given how smooth it makes melee feel on this weapon. The boss damage value is not to be forgotten at all either.

                      DEFENCE, SURVIVABILITY AND CROWD CONTROL

   For Defense, I didn't bother getting too much total toughness because it seemed a bit unnecessary and a bit stifling to have it challenging more stamina bars or health on the Curios. For toughness and survivability we first should aim for +30% baseline via curios. The higher you go into Havoc, the less toughness increases will matter. Most of the survivability in this build comes from "Iron Will's" damage reduction and toughness regen from 'Confirmed Kill' procs coupled with Focus Target! and Target Down! . Voice of Command is also you're "oh shit" button option if you take it. Voice of Command is probably one of the better CC tools in the game at the Veteran's disposal, and alongside our grenade of choice (you can take ANY ONE OF THEM), it provides a good amount of Crowd Control giving us a decent amount of breathing room. Aside from that, you should have a good amount of stamina to start shoving and mowing down hordes with melee. 

As the recent edition of this build now take Executioner's Stance , it is important to explain how valuable this Combat Ability is. Executioner's Stance is active even when using melee and thus provides and very nice amount of toughness generation when in melee. Executioner's Stance also provides an undisclosed stun immunity when it is active that is not explained at all by the game, this makes it provide a very nice balance between offense and defense and is a very welcome addition to this build.

*Sunder technically helps with Crowd Control and this is why I take it over Brutal Momentum sometimes. Each enemy that you hit with the power up special will be stunned. Mowing past Bulwarks and the new Vanguards will still allow us to stun everything else and is something I find valuable. Swap between Slaughterer, Sunder and Brutal Momentum and see how you like them on the weapon.

Ultimately Deadshot, Trench Fighter Drill, Focus Target! and Target Down!  are the 4 flexible talent points in this build as pretty much everything fits the general best talent points on the tree for template Veteran Builds*, giving you the most possible damage and survivability past say a Keystone path. Options to take are Serrated Blade, Agile Engagement, One Motion Out for Blood, Fully Loaded and Shock Trooper which all fill out all the major build choices for other Havoc capable Vet builds. The 4 aforementioned talents, given the tree, still allow for a lot of flexibility on what to take if they are not your cup of tea and this Veteran tree serves as the best case template for Vet in the game as you are not missing out on any access to important Keyston pathing or preferential talents aside form MAYBE wanting 1 more point to take a Marksman's Focus upgrade.

*the generic Veteran Tree Template can be found at the very bottom of this primer.

                                               THE ARMORY

Achlys Mk VI Power Sword : This is going to be our secondary answer to approaching Specials and Elites only really needed for when we get rushed into close-range combat and have no space to reload. This weapon 2 -3 taps Crushers in the head even without Brutal Momentum, or either bonus from the other Blessings. And yes I am talking about 2 tapping crushers in Havoc 40 consistently.

• Carapace + Unyielding: The weapon mows down most chaff in the game as long as we aim head height so our perk choice aims to cover the main problems Specials and Elites. Crushers and Bulwarks are our biggest melee threat so taking Carapace and Unyielding for them is a MUST [Aim for the head: Power Up > Bash Attack > Light Attack 1. Follow through and/or Repeat]. For monsters your combo slightly changes [Aim for the head if you can: Power Up > Bash Attack > Heavy Attack 1 >Heavy Attack 2. Repeat. This is amplified by Sunder].

• Power Cycler + Brutal Momentum /Sunder /Slaughterer : Power Cycler is the Bread and Butter choice for the weapon. Sunder was my choice in 2nd blessing but you can also go Brutal Momentum if you don't value the cleave from Sunder. I personally don't like my attacks stopping in thick hordes of mixed infantry. Sunder makes attacks feel like they have infinite cleave regardless of kills. It also powers up heavy charged attacks if you ever want to use them, I personally use a heavy melee at the end of the 2 hit string on Monsters in my face for a bit of extra damage. You can lean into heavy attacks vs Monsters, just make sure to hit the weak spot. I recently included Slaughterer into one of the choices because it is easy to maintain while mulching through hordes and is what gives us the easy 2 tap scenario into Crushers. Between the buffs from Slaughterer and other damage stacking you will be able to deal with Crusher Packs pretty fast. I think Slaughterer is a great choice for this weapon ever since trying it more.

   

  [With the new changes to armour on Armoured Ragers and the addition of Havoc I would value Sunder even higher than Brutal Momentum]

Vraks Mk V Infantry Autogun/Columnus Mk VIII Infantry Autogun : You can take a Grey Vraks into Auric and never worry about killing anything with this skill tree. Maulers die in 1-2 seconds of shooting them and Crushers maybe survive 2-3 in mid to close range [Down to 1 with an actually built up weapon] if going the Onslaught+ Rending Strikes route . The blessings we are taking will supplement killing power on Monstrosities while helping with target prioritization. I personally dump ammo in place of mobility because you realistically won't run out of ammo much sooner as the total difference between 60 and 80 in the stat is pretty negligible (about 2/5 of a mag). Mobility helps with moving hip fire accuracy and dodges. A new edition to this build is also swapping in the Columnus Mk VIII in place of the Vraks for more sniping capability. This only slightly decreases your damage against Crushers with the brittle set up but enhances the sniping capability of the build. Crushers are ultimately just a bullet sink after the HP update. The Crusher kill time on the gun is still decent but is no longer one of the main targets when using the gun --  it was fun while it lasted.

• Elite/Flak/Unyielding/ Carapace: The gun struggles against Armour, Ogryns and Monstrosities, so we cover our base of choice.
• Sustained Fire + Dumdum: There are a million blessing combos to go on the MK 5, but since we are focused on special killing and want more consistent damage sources for Monstrosities I went these 2. Deathspitter is valued way too much and players really don't realize that the damage it gives require you to dump ammo into enemies PRIOR to the actual threat you care about using the bonuses on, and that this means you aren't shooting at the same target that you will want to be using said damage on. Not requiring kills to feed damage for only 3.5 seconds is more than enough reason to not care about DeathSpitter. Burst firing while being close is perfectly fine for us when killing Monsters.

    For the Curios the list of perks is ordered in terms of priority. Health is always going to be nice but more Toughness means we are less likely to take Health damage if we can keep it up. To be honest Vets get carried by Iron Will so you can forgo Health as much as you want: 

Toughness > Health/Stamina

CDR > Gunner Resistance > Stamina Regeneration Speed > Revive Speed

-You can and should replace Sunder with Brutal Momentum if you value that Blessing more. It is more damage for add clear, but less cleave for mixed hordes -- either way you aren't struggling too hard with hordes. Make sure to implement shoves during hordes to reduce some of the pressure on you as you will eventually find yourself needing to block because the mobility of the Power Sword is abysmal.

Havoc 40 modifier -> Total Toughness = 123 || Total Health  = 127

Link to the generic Veteran Templating: https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/a23fadf8-059c-4073-b92e-3a2de4f76730/the-generic-veteran-templating