Devil's Claw Scum
 Hive Scum Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Devil's Claw works really well on Hive Scum. The class has lots of relevant bonuses for the weapon while also being able to counteract its weakness to carapace armor through the needle pistol and Boom Bringer. While the Devil's Claw will typically have lower DPS than a comparable shivs build, it has way better cleave and the parry special attack is very powerful defensively. It's also a lot of fun to use.

You can dump either Mobility or Cleave Targets on the sword. You gain 1.0 cleave mass on heavies and 0.6 on light attacks going from 60% to 80% Cleave Targets, whereas going 80% Mobility significantly increases your movement speed; I prefer maxed Mobility. I take Skullcrusher instead of Rampage blessing because the build has power bonuses from Rampage! ability and cartel stimm, as well as 2 stagger pulses from Forge's Bellow per ability cooldown, so it's decent at staggering most enemies and Skullcrusher is a much larger damage bonus when it's active. Forge's Bellow even staggers monstrosities, so it's great to stack up Skullcrusher for a quick beatdown. With the recent addition of Street Tough you have yet another way to stagger enemies too.

Needle pistol is the answer for crushers and anything you need to kill from range. It's also good for preloading toxin stacks before going into melee with bosses/monstrosities. Since the build is melee-oriented, you will be able to easily maintain ammo with Pickpocket. Boom Bringer is the answer for groups of armored enemies or general death-ball situations.

You can swap one or both of the +3 stamina curios for toughness or health if you want more defense. Stamina scales your attack speed through Swift Endurance, your maximum potential parries before block break, and how much stamina you get back from Regained Posture. Ability cooldown perks can be replaced with health, especially for Havoc.

Nimble can be replaced with either Sample Collector or Slippery Customer if you want to lean more into parrying, since the increased dodge linger from Nimble will delay enemies hitting you after a dodge and therefore delay your ability to parry attacks. Nimble is very useful in general though, so I prefer to have it.

Channelled Aggression is tempting, but Catachan Mk VII "Devil's Claw" Sword relies more on light attacks than heavies for single-target DPS. I believe parries also count as heavy attacks, but the rending is mostly important against crushers and you're probably not waiting around to perfect-parry crushers very often during Rampage. If you were to use Catachan Mk IV "Devil's Claw" Sword instead, then I would recommend swapping a point from somewhere to take Channelled Aggression, and possibly the +15% rending path on the cartel stimm also.

In the stimm lab, all of the strength capstones are good. +35% finesse gives about +30% overall damage on the Devil's Claw assuming you consistently hit heads and have ~40% average crit chance. +15% crit chance gives about +11% overall damage, but it has added value from proccing Hyper-Critical more often and has synergy with Precision Violence and Adrenaline Frenzy. Rending is probably the weakest path since chem toxin has high baseline armor penetration already, and 15% rending isn't going to be enough to make the Devil's Claw strong against crushers. On the other hand, rending is the best pre-buff for the rocket launcher if you want the juicy killfeeds.