25-40% Cleave on Hit. Stacks 5 times.
65-80% Cleave for 5 seconds on Critical Hit.
10% Critical Chance for every 0.2-0.35 second while aiming. Stacks 10 times. Discharges all stacks upon firing.
Target receives 1-4 Stacks of 2.5% Brittleness on direct projectile hit. Debuff lasts for 5 seconds and can have a maximum of 16 stacks.
The primary aim of this build is to shred elites and bosses. Your role is to pick out the special targets from the rest of the chaff and systematically take them down. The bolter is EPIC in this role. In most cases elites are gone in one weakspot hit, especially if you take advantage of the aiming perk and standing still talent. Some people don’t like the left-hand capstone, but I find it works well; you just need to time this right. Ground yourself, hit a target or two, move, stop again, hit a target, move, repeat. Just like a real marksman would.Monstrosities will go down VERY fast on full auto - again hit the weakspot for maximum effectiveness. Draw the mouse down slowly as you fire to combat your recoil.
If you do get into a horde fight, you will never be without frag grenades thanks to the regen talent, and the shredder talent will make your enemies bleed, so any that don’t go down in the initial blast will do soon after. When backed into a corner, the chainsword’s high basic attack damage and cleave perks mean that rank-and-file enemies go down easily. Block, push and swing - until it’s done.
This build is also designed to be highly survivable. Lots of toughness and perks for toughness damage reduction, plus additional curio perks that increase toughness regen and reduce the damage taken from most elites will help you stay in play. If your toughness is at risk of being broken, get out of attack range, and fast. Use cover, especially when reloading.
The build works best when you have at least one ally with good crowd control abilities such as the flame psyker, to give you space to do your thing. Because you have the talent that boosts your damage when your allies kill stuff, you want them to be clearing hordes at a high rate to increase your damage.
I had one spare point at the end, which I put into the improved ammo/medipacks. I know this one isn’t often taken, but I like the extra support this provides in a difficult situation. Call out to your team to let them know you want the pack. If you don’t want this, you can take the extra 5% critical chance, health or melee damage instead.
