THE BEST BRATWURST
 Hive Scum Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Needlessly Long Comparison to the Dual Autopistols

The most logical comparison to the Braced Autogun on Scum is the Dual Autopistols. Both are fantastic, but I think the community is sleeping on the Brat (content creators for instance are favoring the Dualies, and most people are opinion parrots).

The Dualies have some phenomenal damage ramping. Simply hold the trigger down and gain the benefits of UP TO +40% strength from Blaze Away, +25% strength from Pinning Fire, and an average of +10% damage from the Unload talent. Cool, that's a little under +65% damage from our Blessings. We're also easily maximizing the value of a talent. Note we also get another +55% damage with a standard Scum Vulture's Mark setup regardless of weapon. In total +130% damage, +/- 30% from conditional talents, and SOME further damage dependent on Desperado and/or Stimm uptime.

Now on to the Brat. We'll be discussing the Agrininaa Mark, specifically; we use this mark for several reasons. It's stagger and suppression per bullet are high, it UNIQUELY has ranged cleave values high enough to pierce 2 or 3 chaff and specialist enemies (in fairness: the Dualies can only pierce the single weakest enemy in the game which is 1 fewer than the Brat), and it UNIQUELY has the Stopping Power (more scaling damage) trait instead of Collateral (more scaling stagger).

The Brat's Blessings straight-up do more than the Dualies' for the majority of situations. Fire Frenzy and Deathspitter are gained simultaneously for kills within ~10m, and are not lost on reload, giving the user a window to refresh their stacks for 100% uptime. With cleave you get them in 3-5 bullets. In total +82.5% damage at 100% uptime, ONLY at close range. Importantly, Unload can still be maximized since the generous, 7-second window gives us JUST enough time to magdump even the chunky 53 magsize the Brat gets when used with Ammo Jack. In total +147.5% damage, +/- 30% from conditional talents, and SOME further damage Desperado Stimm blah blah. All this nonsense to convey that the Brat scales SLIGHTLY better with its Blessing portfolio without sacrificing talent or uptime considerations.  

Ok well the Dual Autopistols have a higher DPS so why does any of this matter? The Dualies' DPS is ~2,975, and the Agripinaa's is ~1,375 right? Well... those numbers are misleading. For all the armor types used by tanky enemies, the Dualies DPS is ACTUALLY 2,400, and the Agripinaa's is variable, up to 1,625. Crits are a wash. To make matters more convoluted, the Dualies have FAR worse recoil characteristics AND forces you to magdump while the Agripinaa has practically zero recoil and can be tap-fired. More bullets actually delivered to the target. We're not done. Recall that the Brat has ranged cleave; all chaff enemies and most Specialists can be pierced, leading to more than double damage output when you need it most. It also makes picking Specialists easier as fewer enemies can body block you from just shooting them. 

We're still not done. The Damage-per-magazine (DPM) varies between the two weapons. With Ammo Jack, the Dualies have a DPM of 7,930. Brat is 8,745. Re-scale these for tanky enemies and we get 6,370 for the Dualies and *up to* 10,335(!!) for the Brat. Their reload speeds vary by 0.2s--effectively identical. Effective DPS (eDPS) is a measure of damage per second when reloads are included. Assuming both weapons take Speedloader, the scaled eDPS values can be computed by taking the DPM and dividing it by the time it takes to dump a mag and reload:

Dualies (tanky): 6,370 / (65 bullets / 25 bullets/s + 3s * 0.7) == 1,355 eDPS

Dualies (unarmored): (133 * 65) / (65 bullets / 25 bullets/s + 3s * 0.7) == 1,839 eDPS

Brat (tanky): 10,335 / (53 bullets / 8.33 bullets/s + 3.2s * 0.7) == 1,202 eDPS

Brat (unarmored): (180 * 53)  / (53 bullets / 8.33 bullets/s + 3.2s * 0.7) = 1,109 eDPS

Keep in mind this is without damage scaling. We illustrated previously that the Brat has better damage scaling when dealing sustained damage.

Hopefully all this illustrates how the DPM improves the eDPS of the Brat, bringing it FAR closer in DPS to the Dualies on tanky enemies. It also reveals arguably the strongest advantage of the Dualies: burst damage onto unarmored, single targets. Looking at eDPS instead of just DPS, small benefits and deficits now play a bigger role in determining weapon advantages. Small factors such as: missing bullets due to recoil/spread and losing damage due to letting off the trigger... or alternatively more than doubling damage with cleave, killing priority targets at range faster, better blessing scaling, better stagger and suppression values (contentious but I think they're both useful), better DPM generating more value from Desperado's free reload...

Again, just trying to convey that the Dualies are not a cut-and-dry better option. They're still INSANE and you'd be crazy to think otherwise.

In short, the Brat's recoil and accuracy makes it the superior choice at range. Its cleave, stagger, better blessings, DPM, recoil, and not mandating a magdump playstyle make up for its DPS up close. It's more consistent and versatile, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what we want when looking for a best-in-slot.

Oh, and don't actually brace the Braced Autogun... it's not worth it lol