Table of Contents
Class
Weapons
Curios
Talent Tree
Description
I play this on Auric Maelstrom, and it does quite well. After 30 + 110 levels in Ogryn, this is the best version that I've played, and it's incredibly fun with how much single target damage you can get out of the Branx. Some people say it's bad at horde clear, but I guess they don't know about the push attack + heavy attack combo.
This build has both Thrust and Crunch, so you are rewarded for holding your heavy attacks and timing their release. Often, you can start holding an attack from a safe range, only to release it with bonus damage when moving in to attack.
Notes:
Holding heavy attacks delete crushers and bosses. You can also L1 spam for softer single target damage.
Horde clear by using push attack and follow up heavy attack for two horizontal swings. You can then chain light-heavy for more horde clear or reset with another push.
Often, for both horde clear and single target, when using heavy attacks, you can often start them out of range and hold until you get into range, then dash back out of range. For example, while a plague ogryn is charging his stomp attack, you could dart out of range and charge your heavy overhead, releasing it when you dart forward after he stomps.
Heavy stubber is your anti-special and anti-gunner weapon. It comes out slow, but can usually one shot any special or disabler, definitely if you get a headshot. Get used to crouching for long range targets, since the accuracy is deceptively poor unless crouching. With crouching, you can almost always hit anything while moving. For very far away snipers, you may need to crouch and stay still for a brief moment, but it's laser precise if you do. It also has a long reload, but a 20 round magazine, so you should usually have enough ammo to get to a lull to reload.
Steady Grip allows you to regenerate toughness while aiming, which is incredibly useful when trading with gunners, or for some situations in which your toughness is broken and there just isn't anything around to melee. It can also help you tank through tox gas if it becomes a big problem.
Blitz is your choice. I found I didn't use many rocks with the heavy stubber as my anti-special, and heavy attacks also delete muties, so I went with the emergency giant frag option. Box of nades is also fine
Your taunt ability is both a team "oh shit" button, and a personal "oh shit" button. Use it when your team needs you to pull the heat off of them, or if you need emergency toughness, or to stagger a group of crushers or a boss. Generally, if I see a pile of ragers or crushers or something running towards the team, I pop it. Play a bit defensively and your team will mop them up.
Optional: Can swap Giant Cleaver to Impactful under heavy hitter. You'll be a bit worse at hordes, but it may give you enough stagger to matter on some mobs, I'm not sure. You can also swap out Bruiser for Attention Seeker to trade more uptime on your taunt for push-taunt, but I tend to think the ability taunt being up more often is more useful.