Hyper-Zerker !
 Hive Scum Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Ever yearned for the siren songs of the Blood God ? Hacking down foes axe in hand like an absolute maniac ? Ever wondered why Nurgle followers would even care about Chem toxins ? All that poison sounds like Nurgle talk to me, leave that for the ranged weapons. Khorne only approves of nice clean red blood being spilt !

And more importantly, ever wondered if Hyper-Critical  was actually any good ? Go no further (cuz they fixed it) ! 

- The build :

This build turns your favorite cracked up hobo into a proper crit melee blender with an average crit rate well above outside most fights, instakill crits and melee damage spillover, what's not to love ? It is not optimized for High Havoc unless you are truly cracked since you are a melee build that's a bit less tanky than a dedicated melee psyker, one overhead will instakill you. You've been warned.

This is a full melee crit build that doesn't neglect mobility and survivability. The core of the build is to stack up melee damage, crit chance and attack speed to get the most mileage out of Hyper-Critical while still delivering quite a punch when you fail to crit.

Now you'd think there would anti-synergy between Hyper-Critical and Hyper-Violence since Hyper-critical never overkills but you don't crit on every hit and the build really feels a lot worse without Hyper-Violence since the extra damage from Hyper-Violence on the other hand does help you reach Hyper-critical breakpoints.

We have great Cleave which helps apply our Hyper-Critical to more targets per hit with Pulverising Strikes, Battering Momentum and Battering Strikes.

Adrenaline Frenzy has great uptime if you play aggressive and the 5% toughness per second from Adrenaline Unbound help avoid chip damage in melee.

For survivability we have all the relevant talents save Nimble (which may or may not be bugged idk) and Regained Posture.

Blessed Stimms and the +30% corruption resistance are fairly important and synergize very well. Blessed stimms can easily clear all of your corruption as long as you don't reach a wound, so we take corruption resistance to ensure that won't happen. It really helps you tank a few corrupting hits without reaching 50% corruption and then getting back up to 0 corruption.

Replacement Nodes :

Optional nodes are : Tis but a Scratch, Battering Momentum and Blessed Stimms 

You can switch out one for Pickpocket if you want something more well-rounded and sustainable ammo-wise.

-Channelled Aggression is good against big elites but has low uptime compared to other choices.

-Regained Posture is good to get your stamina back up quickly at the end of Rampage!.

- Forge's Bellow alonside Regained Posture is good to alleviate the downside of Rampage! 

I would not, however, switch Anarchist for Gunslinger Improved since it synergizes very poorly with the Branx MKII Needle Pistol and crits are the heart of the build.

- Why no Chemical Dependency ?

We would waste a ton of points getting there for +15~20% crit chance we don't actually need. At that point we would have to sacrifice raw damage (which we need for Hyper-Critical to actually be useful) or survivability both of which we need more than extra crit chance.

- Why Blackout ? Without Pocket Toxin ?

You can run another option but in my experience the only time this build dies is if you get cornered or end Rampage! in the middle of a bunch of shooters. Now a Boom Bringer or Chem Grenade at your feet can do the trick just fine but you only get so many and the Blinder can easily be weaved into your melee patterns to open up a Bulwark, crowd control armoured elites or make an escape way (or buy you time to carve one out).

Now, there is a bit of anti-synergy there between Hyper-Critical and Blackout because hyper-critical kills won't count towards replenishing your nade. That being said, you still get more than enough for what you need, just don't throw them every 30s just cuz u can.

If you want to replace the Blitz, go for it, all options are nasty.

Pocket Toxin is too much of a point tax to go into.

Melee options :

* Tactical Axes :

- Perks : Unyielding/Carapace since those are the only thing that won't instantly evaporate under your onslaught

- Blessings : Shred is mandatory for max crit chance and Headtaker for the most consistency. You can swap out Headtaker for Decimator as well since you are often just spamming out light attacks or Relentless Strikes for more Elite/Armour killing potential.

These are truly the best choice for melee by a good margin. The knives don't do enough damage to propely synergize with Hyper-Critical and leverage those half-life crits = dead heretic and the other weapons are too slow compared to the Tac Axes, you lose on too much DPS.

In my experience the Atrox Mk VII Tactical Axe does best with a good light pattern and best damage. Only downside are the somewhat unreliable and awkward heavies but that's hardly an issue because our goal is to spam out crits as fast as possible to fish for Hyper-Critical.

For better single target heavies use the Atrox Mk IV Tactical Axe instead.

- Shivs :

The Improvised Mk I Shivs get an honourable mention, they don't really do anything that the Tac Axes don't do better aside from the throwing knives but they are in the spirit and work just fine. Use with Uncanny Strike and more importantly Riposte for the extra crit chance.

Ranged options :

* Needle Pistol :

Use the Branx MKII Needle Pistol for the option of spreading toxin (the Branx MkVI Needle Pistol is just worst). This weapon is great for dealing with Crusher, Bosses and Specials (however be wary, you can't throw a Pox Hound off teammates or interrupt a shooting Scab Trapper with a direct hit, it's the worst thing about this weapon).

But the real hidden gem is that this thing has Stripped Down and that lets you just sprint-slide around the map with your insane base stamina regen while copiously flipping off all the shooters that you just turned into Stormtroopers. Incredible for clutching.

WARNING! : Rampage! kills your stamina upon ending, making Stripped Down useless for 7s, keep that in mind if you need to run away.

I use Point Blank because crits give you one extra stack of Toxin on hit and you are always in melee, Desperado does the same job. You can use Hot-Shot which allows you to hit two light enemies with each headshot (it's too slow for the gameplay), or Run 'n' Gun for maximum mobility.

NEVER use Gloryhunter as it doesn't proc on Chem tox kills (which are all kills with this weapon).

* The rest :

- The Braced Autoguns and Infantry Autoguns are the other options for Stripped Down. The problem with these is that these eat through ammo and don't deal with Caparace which is what you need to supplement your melee, hence the Needle Pistol.

- You can also go for the ol' reliables and bring your Bolt Pistols or Revolvers which will serve you well.

- The Branx MkIII Dual Autopistols and Branx MkVIII Dual Stub Pistols unfortunately don't deal with armour either so are better avoided (the dual stub pistols are still pretty nice for specials, prefer them over the Autopistols since you don't have infinite ammo).

- The Stimm Lab

Two main options :

- Vultoprene II for more crit chance and more damage which means exponentially more instakills with Hyper-Critical, you can either use it during Rampage! for maximum carnage or save it for the downtime, you know the drill.

- Spur V for the attack speed (which means more hits per second which means more crits and DPS) but MORE IMPORTANTLY for that sweet sweet Stun Immunity. Since you are going to be a pretty khornate butterfly spamming your LMB like a coked up Chihuahua in some Ragers' ugly faces the Stun Immunity really let's you keep the DPS rolling even if you get hit every now and then. So I would recommend using it when you are not under Rampage! which also gives you Stun Immunity to maximize your uptime.

TLDR : Tac axe go BRRRRRRRR with crits, run fast, hit faster. Now go stack skulls for the Blood God my little Hobozerker.