Up to 5-20% Strength based on the charge time of your heavy attacks. Stacks 3 times.
5-8% toughness on Chained Hit.
18-30% Strength for 5s when every pellet in a shot hits the same enemy.
30-42%Melee Strength for 3.5s on Hitting 3+ Enemies with a Ranged Attack.
The Best Defense/Smash 'Em both guarantee 25% toughness back per heavy swing.
Indomitable will recharge 10% toughness per enemy hit. As long as you are swinging, you should be able to regenerate to full toughness nearly every swing, as the enemies tend not to have time to reduce your toughness beyond the 25% you regen in that time. Just keep swinging and your toughness will come back reliably. Save "Indomitable" for extraction if the situation deteriorates.
3x 10% toughness damage reduction nodes.
Total so far: 30% Toughness, 0% Health reduction
Delight in Destruction will give 10% overall damage reduction per bleeding enemy, up to 60%. You will be able to keep this at maximum indefinitely in a fight.Total so far: 90% toughness, 60% health reduction.Implacable will give 15% overall damage reduction while you are charging your attack. Every attack should be charged for this purpose. I would estimate around a 50% uptime for this effect in combat, so I will half its addition to the statistics.
Total so far: 97.5% toughness, 67.5 health reduction.
Feel No Pain will give 2.5% damage reduction per stack. I did not have any trouble keeping this above 8 stacks (usually 10) in Auric Damnation except for a couple of instances. This was while choosing to play riskily to test the build. Average 8 stacks for your math.Total: 117.5% toughness damage reduction, 87.5% health damage reduction. (I am certain these cap below 100% but you will be hovering near that cap for most, if not all, of the game.
Batter lands 4 stacks of bleed per heavy swing, which should be every swing, and should be landing constantly.Indomitable will bleed everything it hits. This is less reliable than Batter, as it should be reserved for an emergency.
With the above build, the shovel will 1 hit mutants and below on a fully charged attack. The odd rager will survive but they will bleed out. The shovel will 2 hit maulers and all ogryn on a fully charged heavy attack. It will also stumble them, so you will win every 1v1, and you will be able to bully small groups of ogryns/elites. I would not get into sustained melee with maulers/crushers if there are more than 3, though a fighting retreat should quickly reduce any wandering patrols to 3 or less quite rapidly. The kickback does what the kickback does. It flattens groups of enemies, and anything left alive is knocked prone.
This build deletes elites, and handles hordes with no problem. You will absorb enemy bullets as if they were spitballs. They will fire into you as you cleave through a horde, constantly replenishing toughness, and you will barely feel it.
This build is highly susceptible to disablers. The dodge range is incredibly small, and trappers may frustrate you. Use the kickback, even at a distance, to knock them down and buy yourself time in a horde. Parry and kill dogs.
