+7.5-15% Weak Spot Damage. Weakspot Kills also ignore Enemy Hit Mass.
+3.5-5% Strength for 3.5s on Hit. Stacks 5 times.
Critical hit chance scales by your current heat level up to 27.5-50%. Also increases critical ranged attacks damage by 4-10%.
+5-8% Strength for every shot fired during continuous fire. Stacks 5 times.
Auric-viable stealth Veteran build. Versatile and likes to get up close. Plasma gun is more of a sidearm to be whipped out to blast a couple elites/specials or to make space, while the axe is your primary weapon.
Shredder frags should be thrown often to make space and deal horde damage, as you have a lot of regen from Demolition Team. Blast radius is HUGE with grenade tinkerer. If you have a problem, throw all of your grenades. If grenades don't solve the problem, or you don't have any, it's plasma time. Spam that thing until you're at max heat, then go back to axing. If you still have a problem, you are probably boned.
Horde clear combo for axe is Push Attack > Heavy > Light. Good horizontal cleave on all of them and Brutal Momentum will help finish the job. Charge 3 stacks of Thrust for Maniac specialists or Ogryns - don't bother trying to get into a melee scrap with Ragers or Maulers, that's a bad idea.
The former version of this build used the Achlys Mk VIII Combat Axe as its melee weapon, but having experimented, I believe the Atrox Tactical Axes are the superior fit. Perk/blessing distribution is the same regardless of which one you use - if you are using the Mk2, horde clear is heavy spam, single-target is light spam. Invert this for the Mk4. Moveset is personal choice, but I prefer the Mk2.
The TacAxe bonk special attack can instantly stagger literally anything on a headshot, even Mutants, making it more viable to get into melee with Ragers. Remember that Ogryns receive a grace period of a couple of seconds where they cannot be staggered again, so make the most of it.
Plasma gun is ammo efficient due to its relatively uncommon use. Feel free to whip it out whenever you need to shut down a special or group or elites. Don't shoot it at trash mobs unless you absolutely have to. Always Prepared isn't a needed talent due to the plasma reload trick (go look it up, it's really useful and not hard to do!)
Use Stealth either offensively or defensively, dealer's choice. Surprise Attack's damage bonus is huge and can be exceptionally useful when popped with the plasma in dire situations. Don't pay too much attention to your Weapon Specialist upkeep, attack speed and guaranteed crits on plasma is mostly moot and if you do switch to plasma, odds are you're gonna kill something with it, so you'll have melee specialist ready to go when you're done with it. The dodge boost is bigger than it sounds on paper.
