Crackhead John Wick (High-Havoc build)
 Hive Scum Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

What does this build do? 

Your primary job with this build in Havoc, or any Desperado Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols / Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols build for that matter, is taking out Specials, Disablers and Ranged Elites almost as fast as they appear, keeping them off your team. That is where this build really shines. You do also have the tools to deal with any other enemy in the game though. The weakest part of the build is Monstrosity damage, in the guide here i will show you some ways to get more Monstrosity damage (at a cost) if you want it.

This build and some tweaks you can make to it that i talk about below, has been tested and tweaked over tons of Havoc 40 games. If you want to, you can of course use this as just a template and modify it as you see fit.

Melee Weapon:

• Use your melee for Carapace armor, Scab/Dreg captains, Twins, Monstrosities, Mutants etc. And also use it's very long dodge distance bonus and +2 stamina to get out of bad situations while holding block, these knives paired with the dodge talents in the talent tree make you extremely slippery and able to get out of most bad spots if you have some room.
• The Improvised Mk I Shivs have high Weakspot damage, so do try hitting Heads/Weakspots.
• Remember to use your throwing knives. They do pretty good damage, especially against Monstrosities.

If you want a lot more Monstrosity damage, at the cost of some Carapace killing potential: Swap the Precognition blessing for Flesh Tearer When fighting Monstrosities with Flesh Tearer just spam some light attacks when you first start fighting them to get them to max bleed stacks (16 stacks is max, so you just need to hit 2 crit attacks, with Float Like a Butterfly active we have 40% melee crit chance so you crit often) and then try to keep the boss at max bleed stacks while trying to hit Weakspots with heavy attacks/bullets for some extra damage. If you want to, you can also swap Precognition for Riposte  (has a lot higher uptime than Precognition ) I recommend testing out which one feels best for you personally.

Ranged Weapon:

• Use your ranged weapon pretty much all the time against anything in the game. If your ability and/or stimm is not active use your melee against Carapace though.
• Thanks to the Pickpocket  talent you will almost never run out of ammo and will never need a single ammo pickup in an entire Havoc 40 game, if you do run out of ammo you can just use your melee until your Enhanced Desperado is back up. 
• The Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols have extremely high Weakspot damage (Over 2x damage compared to bodyshots, and over 3.1x damage with crits) so you really want to try aiming for heads, they do kill Specials/Disablers very fast with bodyshots too though so you can just spam shoot and correct your aim as your are spam firing.
• Take advantage of the instant reload on Enhanced Desperado  Use up your current magazine before you activate it, you can deal a lot more damage and get more kills this way.
• Something to note with the Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols and the Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols is that you should very rarely use the braced fire mode, just hip fire them 99% of the time. 
• I have gotten some questions about why i use the Run 'n' Gun blessing on the Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols  and the answer is mostly just for the -30% bullet spread reduction paired with the extra -30% bullet spread reduction from the Sticky Hands talent. The pistols go from being inaccurate to becoming lasers with these 2 paired together, and with how much extra Weakspot damage the pistols have it is, In my opinion, the best setup on Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols This setup really helps a ton with doing your job in the team better, which is deleting all Specials, Disablers and Ranged enemies. I have tested many other blessings instead of Run 'n' Gun in Havoc 40 and they all feel a lot worse to me personally, even though you get some more damage with something like Desperado or Pinning Fire Accuracy is important with the pistols. Use any blessings you personally prefer though. 
• If you pop your stimm and your Enhanced Desperado at the same time, you get 30% Rending and can kill Carapace with your guns. Though the Crusher damage is not the best, takes around 1 magazine worth of headshots to kill a Crusher  in Havoc 40 but it is a safe way to deal some Crusher damage if you can't get in melee.

The Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols are generally better and more DPS in most situations over the Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols So definitely use those if you prefer. The Stub pistols do have some advantages over the Autopistols though, as they kill Specials/Disablers and Ranged elites a lot faster and more reliably at medium/long range.

• If you take the Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols instead of Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols  I recommend keeping everything the same as i have on the Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols above and keeping the talent tree the same, but you NEED to swap Run 'n' Gun (or Speedload) for Blaze Away as Blaze away is just an insanely strong blessing for the Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols  You could also swap the other blessing for Pinning Fire  for even more damage if you want to. 

• The Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols do significantly more Monstrosity damage than the Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols (Just for your information.)

   

Some other fun (and strong!) ranged weapons (that are good in Havoc too) you should check out: Vraks Mk V Infantry Autogun (With Dumdum and Fire Frenzy ) and one i really like a ton: Agripinaa Mk XIV Quickdraw Stub Revolver (With Hand-Cannon and Speedload or Run 'n' Gun ) The Agripinaa Mk XIV Quickdraw Stub Revolver especially is tons of fun to use with this build, you really melt Carpace and Bosses with it. 

Grenades and Aura talents:

• You can swap to any of the other Grenades and Auras as you see fit. Note that Gunslinger Improved is only ever worth it if you have 2 or more very ammo hungry players on your team, i hardly ever take this one even with something like 2 plasma Veterans. You don't take any ammo at all yourself so there is plenty to go around for 2 players. If there is 3 Ammo hungry players though definitely take Gunslinger Improved 
• Boom Bringer is an excellent choice if you prefer. I find it's very team composition and map dependent on which one is better, though the Chem grenade is quite hard to beat. The Boom Bringer can help you get rid of Monstrosities a bit faster if you need to. The Chem Grenade is good boss damage as well but it can sometimes be a challenge to keep the Bosses standing inside the grenade ground effect. 
• Try showing some restraint with using your Chem grenades/Rockets. They are very high value grenades and should only be used if you have to, treat them kind of like the Ogryn Frag Bomb 
• Blackout grenades are quite weak on this build, because we don't take Pocket Toxin So i  recommend against taking this Blitz, pick it if you really want it for some reason though. (They are not bad at all but compared to the Rocket launcher and Chem grenades they are quite low impact.) 

Curios:

• You can swap 1 +Toughness curio for +HP if you want to. You could also swap to a +3 Stamina if you prefer, and then change the +2 stamina on the Shivs for something else like Unyielding. I do recommend the setup i have here though.  
• You can flex 1 or 2 of the +5% Toughness nodes for something else if you prefer, some people really like extra revive speed or ability cooldown reduction for example. 
• The +60% Gunner damage resist is a Havoc classic for those that don't know, makes a massive difference VS Gunners. For Havoc you want this on every build for every class in the game pretty much. It makes gunners way less scary to you if your Enhanced Desperado is not active, just make sure to dodge as well and not tank any shots if you can avoid it ofc. Remember slide dodging makes you 100% immune to ranged fire during the slide. You can flex 1 of the 20% gunner dmg resists for something else if you want, as they do have diminishing returns, 40% is fine. 

Talent tree and Stimm lab:

• You can flex Vulture's Push and/or Vulture's Dodge for something else if you don't want them.
• All the bugs have been fixed for the (previously) bugged talents on this class for this build, the only "Bug" left to be aware of is that Hyper-Critical does NOT work for ranged attacks, this is probably intentional by the developers though, but it might not be. It's still an excellent talent worth taking though.   
• In the Stimm lab if you want more DPS and don't care about longer cooldown, get Spur IV for 16% more attack speed/fire rate (Could get Reflex   too if you want.) A nice DPS boost. I find this is really great for getting rid of Captain bosses faster as well with your melee, the Improvised Mk I Shivs have very good Captain damage on this build.
• In the Stimm lab you could also get rid of Barrage I and get Klay  or Kalma V (Whichever you prefer) if you want to, and then use your Stimm only when Enhanced Desperado is down to get it back up faster. If you do this though you should maybe cut some talents (Probably the 2 keystone passives and something else) and get Sample Collector (and Extra Pouches ) 

General info about the Hive Scum class and this build:

• This class lives and dies (literally) by your ability to dodge and avoid damage, with wayyyyyyy less room for error than some other classes. It is not an easy class to play at all, especially with a Desperado & Improvised Mk I Shivs build. Probably the hardest class in the game honestly, so you should get really good at dodging and avoiding damage.

   

  EDIT (06.02.2026):

  Replaced Like the Wind and Slippery Customer for Vulture's Push and Vulture's Dodge (Feels a bit better to play with, can stand your ground a little bit more with these talents instead of slide dodging around so much.) 

  Changed +25% Maniac damage on Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols for +5% Crit chance.