Hamdol's Shield Ogryn for New Havoc 40
 Ogryn Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Hello rejects!. My name is Hamdolsun, I am a playtester and a long time Darktide enjoyer. I came up with this build to help you reach Havoc 40 on your Ogryn.

The idea behind this build is simple. Be the frontliner, and the special sniper. We are utilising shield's very powerful moves to make sure nothing gets past us, and using the quick swap of grenadier gauntlet to snipe specials. We are also utilising gauntlet special attack to deal with too much mass.

I hope you enjoy using my build! I am explaining everything about this build later in this writeup, so if you want to know more about Ogryn and this build, go ahead and read it! 

Note: This build should work just fine in Auric Damnation difficulty.
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Movesets Explained:
(The arrows signify the attack that comes next)
 

- Moveset 1: Heavy Attack -> Block Cancel (+ Push)

 This moveset is your bread and butter, you will use this on every elite or special engagement as it deals great single target damage with decent cleave. Incorporate pushes into the combo to control (stagger and taunt) the frontline and weaken caparace / mass flak enemies with our %10 brittleness stacks per push. This is also your fastest way of gaining toughness, so utilise this while advancing into gunners, or recovering toughness in dangerous situations.

- Moveset 2: Push -> Heavy Attack -> Heavy Attack
This moveset is used for massive mixed hordes without carapace in it stopping our infinite cleave on H2 attack. This can be utilised versus mass trash hordes and bruisers very well, it can also be used against mauler waves (aim at their feet, infinite cleave hitbox goes through the flak parts so the attack doesn't stop) and rager waves (aim at the heads of Scab Ragers so carapace chestpiece doesn't stop the cleave, same idea). Don't use it versus bulwarks or crushers, fall back to Moveset 1.

- Moveset 3: Light Attack -> Heavy Attack 
This moveset is used for quickly dispatching trash hordes with bleed stacks from Batter. More effective than Moveset 2 at this because it's way faster. If you see mixed hordes, fall back to Moveset 2.

- Moveset 4: Heavy Attack -> Push Attack -> Light Attack (+another Light Attack)
This moveset is used to quickly dispatch a single weaker armored target like muties or a single rager. Only use it for muties, ragers or specials that absolutely need to die fast. Fall back to Moveset 1 if the target is armoured, or there are enemies around it.
 

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Weapon Choices Explained:

Melee Weapon: Battle Maul & Slab Shield.
 

Shield is our bread and butter, and the best tool for frontlining. It has delicious single target damage on top of extreme cleave and stagger. It has the unique ability to block every unblockable melee/ranged attack (including sniper shots!) in the game. Together with Attention Seeker, it is the only weapon that can inflict taunt stacks on shooter enemies by blocking their shots, pulling most ranged enemies to you (except gunners and reapers), and putting important enemies like Flamers, Trappers and Snipers into a kicking animation lock with pushes. Its special is very useful after taunting to hold a large amount of armoured enemies in the frontline, or giving you time to charge up your ultimate so you can rescue, or holding an important boss on you (don't do this everytime, you will learn with usage when to slam your shield down and when not to). It's overall a S+ tier weapon, and it excels at everything a melee weapon can do.

Important Note: Our shield has %60 Cleave Damage instead of Defences. But why?
After intensive testing (more than 10 hours!), I figured out that there are 0 breakpoints you wouldn't reach with the %6 cleave damage loss after dumping cleave damage. The biggest reason for this is the fact that Batter exists and gives you the bleed stacks to nullify any damage loss you might've suffered.
So instead, we are taking the %20 Defences. By doing this, we consume %10 stamina on push instead of %13, have slightly better dodges and noticeable sprint stamina consumption decrease. This is a worth tradeoff. 

Perk Choices are Flak and Unyielding.
Flak is for overall damage increase on most enemies and needing less hits on tanky enemies like maulers and scab ragers.
Unyielding is for Bulwark and Reaper killing and lots more damage to Monstrosities that you will deal with a lot in Havoc 40.

There is an argument for Carapace damage / Elites damage instead of Unyielding, but imo Unyielding edges both of them out.

Blessing Choices are Skullcrusher and Last Guard.
Skullcrusher is a mandatory blessing, and in my opinion, the strongest blessing currently in the game.
Every move with your melee weapon that you use on an enemy that is currently in a stagger animation, will inflict 4 stacks of Skullcrusher (caps at 8 stacks) to the enemy that lasts for 5 seconds. Every stack of Skullcrusher is a %10 increased damage taken debuff applied to the enemy. The increased damage taken applies to ALL types of damage you can apply on an enemy (Melee, Ranged, Explosion, DoT) for you and all of your teammates. That means on max debuff, everyone deals %80 more damage to the enemy for 5 seconds, and you can reapply it if the enemy is in staggered state. Obscenely powerful blessing, we will utilize it.

Last Guard is a less used blessing, but it is insanely useful. The Block Cost Reduction is so good for countering ranged enemies while dodge dancing to get closer to them, makes bosses a joke by making even a Chaos Spawn do only %3-4 stamina damage with its swings. The stagger bomb attached to it will stagger even Crushers out of their overhead, making it an extremely good safety net. Try it, and you will get addicted to it.

Instead of Last Guard, you can run Opportunist or Brutal Momentum as alternatives, but Opportunist isn't too needed as we have Brittleness on pushes already, and while Brutal Momentum makes your H1 attacks more effective and weak spot damage increase is nice, the increased enemy health pool makes it much less important to the gameplay. It's also needed less since our H2 attacks have infinite cleave already.
 

Range Weapon: Grenadier Gauntlet.

Grenadier Gauntlet has been revitalized after the Ogryn patch. It used to be a weapon we ran in Havoc 40 before the update already, but with the ammo buffs, it is so good. We use GG just like how you would use a revolver, utilizing its quick weapon swap speed to quickly snipe approaching specialists, its explosive properties to one shot bursters, its special attack to deal damage in massive density (especially with bulwark spam), its surpression power to stop shooters from shooting or mass stagger melee attackers and its great breakpoints to one shot specialists if we have time to charge up Pinpointing Target.

We want to dump melee damage to %60, as we won't be utilizing its melee attacks too much. Other stats are needed way more.

Perk Choices are Maniac and Specialists.

Maniac and Specialists together are needed to reach much needed breakpoints like trapper one shot without PT stacks, flamer one shot potential with PT stacks, and just overall requiring less charge up to one shot specials.

Blessing Choices are Pinpointing Target and Disruptive.
Pinpointing Target is the best GG blessing you can have. It allows you to have one shot capabilities on a lot of enemies, and enabling GG to chunk elite HP bars with one grenade. It's an undisputed must have blessing.

Disruptive is also good, because you will most likely trigger this blessing with every shot. If you switch to your melee weapon after getting the buff, it doesn't disappear so it gives you a %30 power increase for 3.5 seconds. Not too shabby.
 

Instead of Disruptive, you can also run Gloryhunter for a quick %35 burst Toughness gain after you kill an elite, but we don't target elites too much with our GG, and we are already running Steady Grip for sustaining ourselves with Toughness so it's not too needed.

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Curio Choices Explained:

We are running 3x %17 Toughness curios with / %5 HP, %5 Toughness and %20 Gunner Resistance.

We are running %17 Toughness Curios to maximize our toughness after our base Toughness gets hit with a -45 in Havoc 40. Toughness is your most important resource and the only one you can replenish consistently. Ogryn is a damage reduction beast, so more Toughness we have, stronger your Ogryn is.

Gunner Resistance is mandatory. Even though gunners aren't as prominent as they used to be in old Havoc 40, they are still the biggest threat to your Toughness and HP bar. Any reduction to incoming ranged damage is great, and this is one of the cheapest ways of getting it. Having 3x of these allows you to advance on these gunners or give you enough time to find cover under fire.
Note that Gunner Resistance only works against Scab/Dreg Gunners and Reapers.

+Toughness is great to have, so we can reach the maximum Toughness Ogryn can get in Havoc 40, which is "158".
 

+HP is a flex perk, and you can replace it with Stamina Regen, Sprint Efficiency, Corruption Resistance, Combat Ability Cooldown etc. But I think none of those are needed, and with the +HP increases we can hit 241 HP, giving our Ogryn a lot of staying power. 

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Ability Choices Explained:

This section I'm going to keep short, because I can type a full book about ogryn's new skill tree (lol). We are just going to touch on key talents here.

Steady Grip is the only talent you can use to generate Toughness out of thin air. It will help you alleviate pressure when you are alone, under gunfire or just aiming at something by keeping your Toughness full. Very good talent, a well deserved pick.

Heavyweight is a must pick. You get damage resistance and damage versus the most important targets in the game. %100 pick.

Smash'em and The Best Defence has to be picked together. They are your lifeblood and will grant you toughness in every situation. %100 pick.

Blitz: You can choose which one you prefer. Frag Bomb is good for area clear and as a panic button. Bombs Away! is a great staller with 3 charges (excels at keeping frontline staggered) and Big Friendly Rock is good for special sniping. In my opinion say you don't need Rock in this build as your GG is more than enough for sniping important targets so choose one of the other two. 

Strongman for small DR with good uptime. You can switch this to Can't Hit Me...Again for consistent DR against shooters if you are struggling with them. 

Loyal Protector for abusing Taunt. Together with Go Again! and Bruiser, you will have this talent up so often it's incredible. 

Batter is the most important talent ogryn has. Bleed stacks on every hit, juicy. %100 MUST pick.

Brutish Strength for applying Brittleness on everyone that gets pushed. Very strong talent for frontlining, and removing carapace. Solid Pick.

Aura: Stay Close! for %15 Toughness Replenishment for you and everyone in coherency (This works for everything that replenishes toughness).

Attention Seeker for its giga synergy with Shield for ranged enemies. This is just taunt ultimate without cooldown lol. This talent only doesn't work against Monstrosities. %100 must pick on this build.

Delight in Destruction for great damage reduction with good uptime.

No Stopping Me! for making Shield so mobile you won't be able to go back to not having the talent. %100 must pick on this build.

No Pushover for completely shutting down a frontline with one push.

No Hurting Friends! for having permanent uptime on TDR and power increases as it's a global talent (no distance limitations) and procs on toughness damage taken. Insanely powerful.

Feel No Pain for %25 TDR (not damage reduction) and the juicy %25 Toughness Replenishment (This works for everything that replenishes toughness). Only the base keystone is needed.


Some Alternative Talent Swap Options:

You can swap Bruiser for Hard Knocks if you feel like your ability regen is enough so you get more damage.
You can swap Brutist Strength with Dominate if you don't utilize pushing but I don't recommend this as Brutish Strength is just much more brittleness and it helps your team as well.
You can swap Go Again! with Valuable Distraction for the %25 Base Damage increase if you have enough ability regen from your teammates or Bruiser.
You can swap Strongman with Can't Hit Me...Again for consistent ranged DR (talked about this one before)

Note: If you find that you can work the build just fine with slide heavy charges and don't need No Stopping Me!, you can swap No Stopping Me! and Implacable for Hard Knocks and Toughest!.
You trade off %15 DR and no slowdown for %15 Melee Damage and %25 Toughness Replenishment. This tradeoff can be worth it.

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If you actually read through these I salute you my Ogryn comrade. I wish you good luck in your future Havoc runs.

If you want to contact me or watch my content, here are some social links:
Reach out in DM's in Discord if you have any questions.

In-game name: Hamdolsun
Discord Username: saldirbey

Steam Profile: https://steamcommunity.com/id/hamdola/
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HamdolsunDarktide