easy autogun (keystoneless)
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

2025-12-07: Added a youtube demonstration of the build, to showcase how even a low-skilled stack can make this work. It's definitely not optimal (you can see several instances where the IAG's spread/recoil and lack of bullet pen hold me back) but it is nice having lots of ammo and a quick reload. Strongly recommend you don't go beyond Damnation with this unless you're really good with the IAG.

Mk V autogun (IAG) still works. Note that this build assumes you know how to play Veteran already. It's pretty easy, just shout whenever you're in trouble.

Full disclosure, most of this build is carried by the Dueling Sword. It's your primary tool against Carapace and Unyielding (Crushers and Bosses, to a lesser extent Maulers and Bulwarks). The (Mk V) IAG does have enough DPS to vaporize a Crusher if you can hit its head, but this is both ammo inefficient and pretty difficult to perform consistently outside of the Psykhanium.

You can use the Mk I or Mk VIII IAGs if you really want but their reduced ammo count (magazine and total) and reduced fire rate aren't made up for by their increased controllability and damage per shot. Essentially it makes missing far more punishing and gives you fewer rolls to crit on and fewer hits to build Onslaught with.

Curios are just what I run standard, run whatever you want. If you're here you might not know what to run though, in which case 3 toughness relics with those substats will serve you well. If you need to respec anything, replace Stamina Regeneration first.

Why Keystoneless?

The IAG doesn't *really* need Weapons Specialist (the #1 benefit is the reload speed, so if you really miss it swap One Motion for either Tac Reload or Volley Adept, IAG reloads decently fast so it's not much of an issue). It does benefit from Focus Target like any weapon or attack in the game, but it's up to you if you want to give up any of your end nodes for that. You can give up survivability from the top of the tree or DPS from the bottom of the tree but you're essentially just moving that DPS to your Focus Target, target. This means switching targets requires an extra step of tagging, and this power is lost against untaggable enemies. 

Marksman's Focus is not viable for this build, most of the reason I made this is because every IAG guide I opened sorting by recently updated was running Marksman's Focus and if you're here looking for a guide you're probably not going to enjoy having to tap heads with the Mk V and its godawful recoil. 

Other Suboptimal Things I Have Done

-Onslaught is not good. It *was* good and it still works and does what it says it does, but its new position in the tree makes it too much of an opportunity cost in any real build. It is however vital for the IAG to feel good to use against armor. If you want to make a more competitively viable build, consider using your melee full-time for armor and removing Onslaught for an extra point for a keystone.

-This build specs fully into melee while claiming to be a ranged build. This is because melee is extremely important in Darktide. Never ignore melee combat, especially when it procs incredible buffs like Agile Engagement and Exploit Weakness. The Autogun's function in this build is to deal with gunners, annoying packs of ranged chaff that don't require too much ammo, snipers, unarmored rager packs and so on. Unlike other weapons that chaff clear, it does this at range and with enough versatility to handle most types of armor, if you have the ammo.

-On the topic of the autogun's function, the Mk V is pretty annoying to use at range. Gunners and the like aren't a huge deal but Snipers will require some experience. If you truly find you can't handle taking snipers out with the Mk V, try the Mk I. It's much worse DPS but far better for ranged accuracy and may help ease into the Mk V's wild recoil.

-As stated at the top, it's unknown if any other melee weapons really work with this build. I can see Combat Blade working since it's essentially just a small Dueling Sword and has similar crit and finesse. Don't bring a chaff-clearing melee weapon to this build unless it can also kill a Crusher quickly.