19-25% Impact for 1.5s on Hit. Stacks 5 times.
Target receives 1-4 Stack(s) of 10% Damage if already Staggered. Lasts 5s.
20% Suppression and {damage_vs_suppressed} Damage against Suppressed Enemies for every 2.5% of magazine spent during continuous fire. Stacks 5 times.
Gain 7-10% Close Damage for 3.5 seconds after killing an enemy at close range, stacking 5 times.
The Guardian Angel veteran is a high execution build setup with a great payoff.
With smoke grenades, when the team or you get pinned up against sleuths of ranged units such as gunners, reapers, dreg/scab shooters, etc. The smoke grenade can be used to give the team a breather and force enemies to lose track of you in the smoke. Making only melee enemies a concern.
With the exceptionally high stamina and reduced stamina regeneration delay from the talents as shown above. Your stamina begins to regenerate in half the time (0.5s instead of 1.0s) while regenerating a total of 36% faster thanks to the curios! So you can always be assured you have some stamina to utilize.
The high stamina can also be useful when reviving teammates, as we know, as you revive teammates and hostiles try to hit you in melee, you always block enemies in the process. With the high stamina and reduced cost of blocking, you can be assured you will always revive your ally no matter the situation. And with the 36% improved ally revive speed from the three curios, on top of the extra 20% revive speed from the talent "Leave No Man Behind" (totaling 56% revive speed boost) you'll get them up in no time at all, and after they are up, they'll get 33% damage reduction from all incoming sources! Getting shot at while trying to revive someone? Throw a smoke grenade on your downed teammate, run in, and get them up, no need to worry about getting shot!
Need to close the distance to enemies or cover your allies pushing forward? Whip out the Braced Autogun and fire downrange, whether you hit enemies or not, it'll let you close the gap! With its 80% Collateral stat; Ceaseless Barrage Tier IV Blessing; and the Operator Module "Suppression Boost" and passive talent "Keep Their Heads Down" for a total 95% more suppression, you'll force enemies to stop shooting at you in a fraction of a second. It even works on Reapers!
With the high stamina amounts as well you can be assured you have many defensive options available to you at all times to prevent yourself from dying, if you can keep from getting yourself cornered. But even then, you have a Devils Claw Sword! You can parry your way out. With 18 Bars of Stamina and all the block cost reductions afforded to you. You can parry whole hordes to death and come out the other end with stamina left to boot! If you're also getting swarmed by a lot of enemies, chain a Light into a Heavy attack for wide sweeps (when using the shown Devils Claw Sword Mark), rinse and repeat, light -> heavy -> light -> heavy. Build up the Hammerblow Tier IV Blessing. Improving your impact will cause more stagger to the enemies you hit, triggering your Skullcrusher Tier IV Blessing to apply bonus damage to the enemies you hit with follow-ups! Aim for the head/neck of the enemies you swing into. With the Precision Strikes talent, you dish out 30% bonus weakpoint damage. When you click with it, you'll wipe hordes no problem with the sword when using it for horde clear. And if you're being charged at by mutants, simply charge up a heavy strikedown and nail them in the head!
Pair the melee with the Talent "Serrated Blade" to apply stacks of bleed, and the Talent "Rending Strikes" to improve the damage over time tick rate of the bleed stacks to slaughter hordes efficiently even if you don't hit the head!
