ME HAVOC
 Ogryn Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

WARNING:

BUILD FALLS APART PAST HAVOC LEVEL 30 DUE TO INCREASED STAGGER THRESHOLDS FROM THE EMPEROR'S FADING LIGHT (2) SEVERELY HAMPERING THE POWER MAUL BLAST'S EFFECTIVENESS AT STAGGERING HORDES AND GUNNERS

• Swapping in the Slab Shield for the Power Maul with almost the exact same build can actually work just fine past Havoc 30
• Will probably make a copy of this build and slightly edit it in the future

Havoc Modifiers

• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3375980903

This build is made specifically to support a coordinated Havoc team consisting of the following 3 specific classes:

• Plasma Gun Dueling Sword Shredder Nade Shout Vet
• Flamer/Bolter Dueling Sword Throwing Knife Chant Zealot
• Flame Staff Dueling Sword Brain Burst Bubble Psyker

You will effectively be filling in the support slot usually taken by a 2nd Chant Zealot that would be able to cycle CC with the first Zealot and grant the team gold toughness which means you have huge boots to fill. It's tough out here being the big man.

The main focus of this build is to keep mixed hordes under control for your team, passively maximize the damage of your and your team's DOTs, and disrupt Gunners from a range to make them less of a threat to your team. You will also assist the Veteran in dealing with Gunners and other high value targets while your Psyker's bubble is up.

The hidden Havoc modifiers that scale up based on your Havoc level (health, hit mass, and stagger threshold) heavily impact breakpoints and your ability to control mixed hordes effectively with the usually reliable Ogryn mainstay weapons. The build's specific choices are based on maintaining a level of stability similar to lower Havoc levels while supporting your team's ability to kill with all of the buffs you provide and debuffs you inflict:

• Skullcrusher: 4 stacks of +10% damage taken debuff on enemies that you stagger for 5 seconds
• Soften Them Up: +15% damage taken debuff on enemies that you deal damage to for 5 seconds
• Loyal Protector: +25% damage taken debuff on enemies that have been taunted by Loyal Protector for 15 seconds
• Supercharge: 4 stacks of +5% brittleness debuff on enemies hit by a powered up Power Maul attack for 5 seconds
• Coward Culling: +20% damage team aura coherency buff against suppressed enemies that is always active, but applies only when the enemies are in the "cowering" animation

Still currently testing if it is worth taking anything other than extra toughness on curio perks. The extra stamina and extra sprint efficiency does come in handy when taking space with your team without falling behind, but Gunner Resist may be worth it against massive Machine Gunner spawns in higher Havoc levels due to the overall reduced Toughness you'll have to deal with.

GENERAL STRATEGY:

• Power Maul
  • Empower your weapon and use the gigantic energized blasts to stagger and suppress hordes while also inflicting brittleness and bleed thanks to Batter and Supercharge
    • The blast will cause enemies to be suppressed which give teammates in coherency a +20% damage boost against those cowering enemies thanks to Coward Culling
  • Focus your energized attacks on high value targets to make them easier for your teammates to melt if they make it deep enough into the Psyker Bubble
  • It is your job to keep close ranged enemies at bay while your Veteran's Shout and Zealot's Chant are on cooldown
  • Your kills will primarily be coming from your bleed DOT, but you will mainly be setting hordes up to be swept by your Psyker's Flame Staff and Veteran's Shredder Nades
    • Bleed damage is affected by the damage stacks on stagger from Skullcrusher and brittleness stacks against heavily armored enemies from Supercharge
    • Coward Culling also passively gives your Psyker and Zealot (if using the Flamer) more raw damage without you needing to do the supressing yourself, since the fire also causes enemies to enter the suppressed state
  • For some reason, only energized Heavy Attacks have their range enhanced by Big Boom, so keep that in mind since the range boost is massive
  • When closing in on Gunners and taking space with a forward-placed Psyker Bubble, try to be hitting enemies near the furthest forward edge of the bubble with energized attacks to force Gunners at the tip of your blast range to stop shooting
• Loyal Protector
  • While not as powerful as Veteran or Zealot CC abilities, Loyal Protector can be used to stagger crowds and provide a +25% damage boost to your team's DOTs in a pinch thanks to Valuable Distraction
  • With the ability to apply brittleness with energized attacks and the bonus damage from Soften Them Up, Skullcrusher, and Coward Culling, even your own bleed DOTs will disintegrate the chonkiest enemies with ease when you throw the damage bonus from Valuable Distraction into the mix
  • Similar to what can be done at the edge of Psyker's bubble with the Power Maul's blast, Loyal Protector can also be used to force enemy Gunners to stop shooting
    • Not only do they stop shooting, they also drop their guns and start running at you to engage in melee instead of staying in cover which makes them even easier to deal with and a lot less of a threat to you and your team
    • This is probably the only unique thing that sets it aside from Veteran and Zealot since it can be used to assist in taking space and advancing safely while still being able to attack
  • Can be used on reaction to Dogs, Bursters, Muties, and, thanks to Big Lungs, the sound of a Trapper from any direction
    • Try to communicate with your Veteran in order to hand off these Specialist kills to them so that they have more uptime on their Shout thanks to their Tactical Awareness talent
  • Try to stay in Coherency with your team at all times so that you benefit from the cooldown reduction that all Elite kills by you or your teammates provide thanks to Bruiser
  • The +20% movement speed and stun/suppression immunity for the team from Get Stuck In can be very helpful for coordinated forward pushes as your Psyker places their bubble or just for generally helping your team move out of a bad position
  • If you encounter a Shotgunner, Rager, Crusher, or Bulwark squad, don't be afraid to initiate with Loyal Protector as your Psyker's Psykinetic's Aura will bring your cooldown reduction up to 9% per Elite kill
    • You only would need ~11 Elite kills to completely refill your Ability in this case
    • Seer's Presence will also help with this due to its +10% cooldown reduction for allies in coherency
  • Keep track of the 8 second cooldown of No Pushover in order to supplement CC against high stagger resistance targets/hordes with the "big shove" while Loyal Protector is on cooldown
    • The "big shove" is also great for making an opening to charge up your Power Maul if you find yourself in a difficult situation that doesn't offer you a safe way to do so
    • Also great for instantly opening up the shields on a pack of Bulwarks or knocking over a pack of Crushers/Maulers/Ragers
• Heavy Stubber
  • Why the Gorgonum?
    • You will mostly be supporting your Veteran in taking out primarily normal Gunners, Machine Gunners, Bombers, Tox Bombers, and Snipers
    • The Achyls kills a lot of things in 1 hit, but on Gunners this is definitely overkill, so you end up having to deal with a low ammo count and slow weapon switch speed
    • The Krourk doesn't kill some things even with 1 crit headshot, so even though it has the fastest weapon swap speed and the most ammo, having to sometimes take 2 or 3 shots to kill a normal Gunner can feel bad
      • Deeper into Havoc, the Gorgonum's 1 shot breakpoints start falling off and becoming inefficient, so swapping between these 2 based on how close to whole number shot breakpoints on primary targets may be necessary
      • I usually bring the Gorgonum by default, but if there is ever a mission that doesn't have Pus-hardended Skin, then I sometimes swap to the Krourk
    • The Gorgonum may not hit 1 shot breakpoints on normal headshots for Machine Gunners, but crit headshots will do the job (and you'll be getting a ton of these thanks to Headhunter); it also is able to take out normal Gunners with 1 headshot or even body shot with ease, so it really is the sweet spot for damage/ammo while having a faster fire rate and faster weapon switch speed than the Achyls
  • Why Headhunter instead of Surgical?
    • Surgical requires you to brace the weapon and wait before being able to take advantage of the increased crit rate or guaranteed crits which actually makes a huge difference in Havoc where getting deleted in a split second is the norm
    • Since this weapon still has a fairly long weapon swap animation, you may sometimes find yourself in situations where you'll have to hip fire in order to take out enemies that are closing in or targeting your teammates; Headhunter is still active even outside of bracing
    • Headhunter bonus crit rate stacks persist infinitely so long as they are not spent and do not go away when you switch weapons, so you guarantee yourself higher value per round without having to sacrifice time between shots
    • Being able to tap heads quickly instead of waiting for Surgical to charge up makes a huge difference when 5 billion Gunners and Machine Gunners can manifest themselves out of nowhere at any time
  • It's a toss-up which stat is the dump stat here since the damage fall-off difference from Range barely comes in to play on most maps, but the difference between 60 and 80 Stability is barely noticeable, so it's really up to you
  • It is very very easy to suppress ranged enemies with this weapon, so your teammates can take advantage of the +20% damage boost from Coward Culling against enemies at longer ranges as well
    • You can sometimes hit breakpoints on the remainder of a normal Gunner grouping after killing one of them or even whiffing an initial shot that ends up suppressing them all thanks to this damage boost
  • You are there to help the Veteran save ammo by decreasing the total amount of targets that they need to spend their ammo on
    • Don't pick up any ammo unless the Veteran on your team is already full or gives you the okay since you will be dividing up your tasks and generally not shooting as much as they will throughout a mission
    • Your primary targets will be Flak and Unarmored, but if you sense that your Veteran is occupied, it is still worth taking out Maniac armored disablers like Trappers
    • Do not waste ammo on enemies that you can engage safely in melee or disrupt with the Power Maul; so don't shoot Elites pretty much, but I can understand trying to take out stray Shotgunners if they are just barely out of the range of your energized blasts
  • Depending on how bad the situation or part of the map is when a boss spawns, you may need to unload on a weak spot to take it out as quickly as possible, so be ready to do so if necessary
  • Take advantage of Steady Grip's currently bugged +17% toughness per second regen to rapidly regain toughness or help with surviving a few stray Gunner shots
    • Keep in mind, even though this regen is ridiculous, with how quickly and often Gunners fire in Havoc, you will definitely still get absolutely shredded while bracing your gun, so make sure you are still actively dodge sliding
• Frag Bomb
  • Psyker doesn't use grenades, Zealot will have throwing knives, and Veteran will have grenade regen, so you will generally be free to pick up grenade boxes when they are available
  • Thanks to Big Boom, you will almost always get a lot of value out of throwing one of these
  • While it is a good idea to save these as insurance for when things go bad, it can sometimes be worth just chucking them at a Gunner horde if they surprise spawn out of nowhere and your Psyker doesn't throw down a bubble fast enough
    • Your team can get deleted within seconds by a Gunner horde, so better to prevent the bad situation from happening than wait for the situation to get bad and then use it