Meta Plasma Gun (Havoc 40)
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Your main job is killing ranged threats & specialists.

Dreg GunnerScab Gunner Scab Shotgunner Scab Shooter Reaper Scab Sniper Dreg Tox Flamer Scab Flamer Dreg Tox Bomber Scab Bomber Scab Trapper Dreg Stalker Scab Stalker

Curios

Three toughness as they synergize with your talents. Stamina is bad on vet and trying to fix that is a waste IMO, but if you want a stamina curio a TRUE +3 stamina curio is power 410, anything less will actually be +2 in a real game. One Health curio will allow you to survive a sniper shot, while +5% health allows you to survive a Poxburster.

Perks: 

• 3x Max Toughness. Again, your talents scale off your max toughness and we'll be playing with them in mind. 
• 3x Combat Ability Regeneration. You'll want to be activating your ability as much as possible.
• 3x Gunner resistance, don't be that guy who died to gunners please. They are everywhere and do absurd damage.
• 1x +5% max health (so you can survive a Poxburster) instead of a gunner resistance if you don't have +5% anywhere else.
• DO NOT use toughness regeneration speed, in havoc it's reduced to 4/s with 4 people. Spending 3 curio perk slots to get 6 extra toughness a second is absurdly bad. 
• DO NOT use Stamina Regeneration Speed. 3 gives you an extra 0.34 stamina /s for a total of 1.4/s. Again, it has very minimal impact and wasting powerful curio slots to improve the worst aspect of veteran is a waste IMO.

Why the M35 Magnacore Mk II Plasma Gun? 

• Easy to use
• You don't get suppressed
• It has huge suppression and stagger
• Amazing ammo economy
• Amazing single shot and burst damage  
• Can penetrate terrain killing enemies in cover
• Has 100 cleave allowing even elite hordes to be cleaved

• It's fun & cool

   NEVER CHARGE IT. It actually doesn't do more damage because it uses more ammo, also you'll go BOOM. If you want to ensure a one shot on a stationary unsuspecting enemy like a reaper, it's Justified. The downside is having two awful dodges and the occasional long reload, the reload can easily be animation canceled by just swapping weapons which significantly reduces the reload time. The first weapon swap you do right as the ammo counter changes to 0 when magazine is removed, the second is after the new magazine is inserted and finally the third is when the ammo counter changes to full. 

Perks:

•  +25% Maniac damage for Dreg Tox Flamer Scab Flamer and Scab Trapper enemies. You can one body shot trappers and with damage increases from your blessings and talents you can one body the flamers. 
• +10% Specialist damage is a good all round option but alone won't reach any meaningful breakpoints.
• +25% Unyielding for Reaper and Bulwark enemies, don't waste ammo on bosses, if you have surplus and can't melee go for it.
• +25% Flak damage for Scab Gunner  Scab Shotgunner enemies as they have Flak armoured heads allowing 1 shot weak spots.
• +25% Unarmoured for Dreg Gunner Dreg Shotgunner Dreg Tox Bomber enemies as they have unarmoured heads allowing 1 shot weak spots.
• +25% Infested damage enables easy Pox Hound & Poxburster kills, min/max that Tactical Awareness.
• +10% Elite Damage is great for large elite hordes but also allows you to one body shot the Dreg Rager combined with maniac damage.

Blessings:

• Blaze Away is a staple for weapons that have sustained firing. You'll need to adopt the playstyle of chaining your shots when you can but even if you only do it on elite hordes, it's still more efficient than Gets Hot! with your let's see, oh, ~15% ranged critical chance over the whole game even when using Weapons Specialist. You dump charge rate as max thermal resistance will allow you to fire more consecutive times, even when at high heat getting you more value from the weapon blessings. 
• Optimised Cooling will reduce the heat generated while chaining shots by 10% per stack up to 5 (-40% max, stacks multiplicatively).  You can fire 12 consecutive times with 80% thermal resistance allowing better sustained dps. This allows you to shoot more before having to vent heat off which feels better and keep the strain off your toughness from venting.

Why theAchlys Mk VI Power Sword?

• It's better than the Scandar Mk III Power Sword as it has strikedown attacks that delete single targets
• It's a monster at clearing Hordes
• It's fun & cool
• It takes skill to use properly and feels rewarding

Perks:

• +25% Unyielding damage. Wasting ammo on a boss is just that. Reapers can sometimes be in melee range but if they are shooting you don't melee them. Bulwarks and monsters paired with Bring it Down!turns your push attack into the 2-handed weapon damage league but struggles with sustained dps as stamina is poor.
• +25% Carapace forScab Mauler & Crusher(The things with the most HP that will instantly kill you.) You can one combo them with this and with a buffs a single push attack can kill them.
• +25% Maniac for Mutant & Dreg Rager Tactical Awareness is easy to trigger on them.
• +25% Flak for Scab Captain Rinda Karnak Rodin Karnak. Flak is cardboard to an energized power sword, don't recommend it.

The fourth light attack is a strike down and can be energized if you light swing once then energize and keep swinging but it's not very practical. The energized push attack and the first follow up attack are strikedowns that do high single target damage. These two attacks should be your main attacks for single targets, the third swing is also energized but a cleave attack. Manage your stamina though as it's a defense tool too (like pushing aPoxburster away).

Blessings:

• Slaughterer gives you great cleave for deleting hordes while also giving excellent damage for bosses, elites and specials.
• Sunder is the alternative choice. It uniquely allows cleaving carapace armor when energized. Five Scab Mauler can be cleaved if you have max cleave targets and heavy attack. Light attacks still benefit from the extra cleave but not the damage.
• Power Cycler Obviously a 100% pick rate. I like standing still in this high paced action game to turn on my wet noodle so I can enjoy the game! Thanks Fatshark... Delete this stupid blessing and make 3 the default.

Talents

• Close Order Drill 
  • Stacks multiplicatively with other TDR sources so not as strong as additive but any TDR is strong.
• Confirmed Kill 
  • Instantly replenishes 10% of maximum toughness and also gives you 2% of maximum toughness per second for 10 seconds while stacking infinitely. You'll be killing hundreds of elite and specialists throughout the game giving you amazing survivability during mixed hordes.
• Longshot
  • Damage increase at distances: 15m 3%, 20m 8%, 25m 14%, 30m 20%
  • If you tag enemies like a good vet you'll realize that many enemies are far enough away to give this "wasted talent point" good value throughout a game regardless of the map, but more importantly are the nodes underneath. 
• Exhilarating Takedown 
  • Instantly replenishes 15% of maximum toughness on ranged weak spot kill and gian one stack of 10% TDR that stacks multiplicatively with itself and other sources. If you consistently get ranged weak spot kills the toughness regen and DR is great and the +5% health underneath frees up a curio perk.
• Precision Strikes
  • +30% weak spot damage that stacks additively with related damage buffs and multiplicatively with weapon blessings is a must have.
• Superiority Complex
  • +15% elite damage that stacks additively with related damage buffs and multiplicatively with weapon blessings is a must have.
• Bring it Down! 
  • +20% Ogryn & Monstrosities damage that stacks additively with related damage buffs and multiplicatively with weapon blessings is a must have.
• Kill Zone(Always Active)
  • +15% ranged damage that stacks additively with related damage buffs and multiplicatively with weapon blessings is a must have.
• Tactical Awareness
  • Allows for very fast ability cooldowns when killing the things you should be prioritizing which is a must have.
• Iron Will 
  • Prevents most things from instantly breaking your toughness and makes gunners tickle if Catch a Breath is active and is a must have.
• Fully Loaded 
  • More ammo (Survivalist synergy) = more shooting.
• Field Improvisation 
  • Extremely powerful for both crates. Ammo crates can now replenish grenades for any class, Frag Bomb goes boom. Medical crates now heal 12% of max health per second instead of 6% and depletes when it restores 500 health or 5 minutes has passed, cleanses corruption up to your next wound and regenerates 1% max toughness per second for anyone in the radius, it even works on knocked down players. It works when you are knocked down or waiting for rescue but not when you are waiting to respawn. If you don't see how strong this talent is then you should pay more attention to your teams health and supplies while also assessing what's about to happen when progressing the map.

Blitz

• Shredder Frag Grenade
• Does little blast damage. 
• Does little bleed damage, but Ogryns get DR when near bleeding targets (if they also have a good build).
• Does an exceptional job at staggering and knocking enemies down.
  • This is an excellent defensive and crowd control tool and you should always have at least one available. The other grenades are great as well but sadly cost more talent points.Demolition Stockpile and Demolition Team trigger very often so keep an eye on your grenades. Two is One, One is None.

Aura

• Survivalist

Currently the best option as it increases the whole teams ammo economy significantly throughout the game. It also has easy access to Catch a Breath which was recently buffed making toughness regeneration very good.

Ability

• Voice of Command

The best survival ability for you and your team. Regain all your toughness and staggering all and any enemy around you is powerful. Add Duty and Honour to it and it becomes easy mode. Gold toughness occurs when you overcap toughness and is very strong as it protects you from taking any health damage and prevents corruption, making threats like thePoxburster just an inconvenience.

Keystone

• Focus Target! 

Every 10 seconds your ENTIRE team gets a 20% damage increase to a single target. With bosses appearing frequently and in numbers this talent becomes extremely valuable as bosses can easily cause your team to get separated and overwhelmed. When there are no bosses the extra damage allows you to quickly kill an enemy like a Bulwark ReaperCrusher or take out an The Encroaching Garden buffed enemy. It can also allow you to one body shot most specialists. 

 Auto Tag

https://www.nexusmods.com/warhammer40kdarktide/mods/374. A very nice QoL mod that allows you to consistently apply 5 stacks to targets without having to think about it, but will never be as good as manually doing it as it does erase your stacks occasionally. Be sure to set a delay and don't override manual tags.

MarkersAIO

https://www.nexusmods.com/warhammer40kdarktide/mods/447. Allows you to see all ammo and crates through walls (settings need altered) so you can maximize the amount of ammo you get and ensure medical & ammo crates are looted, just be quick with it, no one wants to wait for you to loot while spawning specialists, though you'll get even more ammo from killing them.

Alternative Talents 

If you don't like something or want to change something here are some good alternative talents that I've tested. 

• Marksman 
  • 20% weakspot strength. Stacks additively with weapon blessings and multiplicatively with damage buffs
• Close Quarters Killzone 
  • 15% damage for 10s against enemies within 12.5m. Stacks additively with other damage buffs and multiplicatively with weapon blessings.
• Focused Fire 
  • Max 8 focus target stacks providing 32% extra damage taken and boosts Redirect Fire! & Target Down! 
• Redirect Fire! 
  • Gives you and allies in coherency for 10s a buff that increases all damage by 1.5% per Focus Target stack on enemy death. Stacks additively with other damage buffs, and multiplicatively with weapon blessings.
• Target Down! 
  • Replenishes a fixed unaffected by anything like pox gas amount of 5% maximum toughness and 5% of maximum stamina per Focus Target stack to you and allies in coherency. (Unsure if the allies receive your max toughness or theirs). 
• One Motion 
  • Useless for anything other than boltgun and the Heavy Helbore Lasgun.
• Out for Blood 
  • Enables ANY of your kills to replenish an additional 5% max toughness giving you easy consistent toughness regen.