Havoc/Auric BRANX M1 MERCHANT
 Ogryn Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

PREAMBLE YAP

After lots of testing in many, many matches I have come to this final variation of my own setup for pickaxe Ogryn. I think this is about as good as a melee focused Ogryn can get, assuming you don't want to run slab shield; and in my opinion, this out-performs slab shield in pretty much every way. 

This will be a fairly comprehensive guide where I'll touch on every aspect of the build including weapons, curios, talents, blitzes, and abilities. I'll also go over alternatives to lots of things and explain why I might like or dislike them. This is a perfectly fine template for a melee Ogryn if you'd like to start with my setup and season it to your own liking. 

ABSTRACT

The BRANX M1 MERCHANT is an all-rounded, melee leaning build created to be useful in practically any situation on any mission and with any team composition. It banks most of its build power on some of the most important fundamentals in team composition: tanky front-lining, anti-armor DPS, and incredible cleave through the Branx Delver’s Pickaxe. This creates a rock solid foundation that can serve as a vital core to any team composition. 

With the Achlys Heavy Stubber as a ranged backup, or potentially even a main weapon if needed, you have access to long range, precise special/elite sniping capabilities to take pressure off your team while being very ammo friendly. You can also watch your own back because of the recently buffed swap speed talent, enabling you to use it as a pocket sniper.

Indomitable fills the gap in mobility that Ogryn usually lacks and adds even more potential DPS to an already stacked build. This ability pick also comes with free talent points, which will be explained later.

Because all corners of gameplay are covered by your weapons and ability, your blitz can freely be held exclusively for reviving allies, letting you save missions by getting people off the ground with the incredible crowd control that ‘Bombs Away!’ provides.
 

WEAPONS

Branx Mk 1a Delver’s Pickaxe

This is the meat and potatoes of the build. If you don't like melee, this is absolutely not the build for you. The Branx pick is a crazy strong work horse that pulls a ridiculous amount of weight. 

• It cleaves through any amount of trash that you can see on your screen because of its innately high amount of cleave combined with Great Cleaver.
• It has a fantastic base penetration of 90% on the light attacks versus Carapace which means with the small Rending node on the talent tree you essentially ignore armor with all of your swings.
• This weapon has a bit of a mixed opinion with players but I'll explain how to use it effectively in every situation. You'll get the feel for the weapon, don't worry. 

One of the most common complaints about the Branx is the slow swing speed and the lack of horde clear compared to its sister, the Karsolas. While the swing speed is slower, that's something that you'll easily get used to, and is mitigated thanks to the attack speed buffs from ‘Just Getting Started!’ and ‘Frenzied Blows’. As for horde clear, the Branx is just as strong as the Karsolas for trash and is even stronger when it comes to armor. 

PERKS

• Because you're primarily using this as the main weapon of the build, you want to run Carapace/Unyielding. This gives you the highest damage values versus the most dangerous enemies. There's no wiggle room here, this is by far the best combination. 

BLESSINGS

• Headtaker and Slaughterer. This is a divergence from most Branx builds, as they tend to run Thrust. 

RATIONALE: So, why no Thrust/Crunch!? First, the DPS of the pickaxe when light attack spamming versus heavy charging with Thrustis very close. Yes, you can get some chunky hits off, but by the time you finish charging and swinging one heavy you could have used multiple light attacks. The Branx has devastating light attacks; it's deceptively efficient to light attack spam after using a single heavy to proc Beat Them Back. Second, Ogryn’s talents as a whole benefit individual fast hits more than single heavy hits. I have a very strong feeling that the reason why Branx never clicks with most players is because they're running Thrust. When you're charging up a swing, you're not hitting anything. When you're not hitting anything, you're not killing anything. Not killing, not gaining toughness or proccing talents and blessings. Every swing on Ogryn packs the benefits of Smash 'Em!, The Best Defence, Batter, Frenzied Blows, and Heavy Hitter. The former two talents are arguably Ogryn’s strongest Toughness gaining talents. By not hitting frequently you're essentially trading off all of Ogryn’s natural tank synergies for a mediocre DPS increase. Not only this, but charging all your damage into one attack simply increases the variance of high versus low damage. We all make mistakes. I make lots of mistakes. Miss one light attack? Eh, not a big deal. Miss one fully charged heavy attack? I'm crying. Not running Thrust and Crunch!also saves talent points and a blessing slot which gives us the opportunity to get an even more reliable benefit from the freed up resources. 

WEAPON COMBOS

SINGLE TARGET

• Use H1 to proc Beat Them Back, afterward just spam light attacks until you need to refresh Beat Them Back. You can also alternate H1, L2, repeat. This is around the same DPS but gives you less hits overall so it's less toughness efficient. It does, however, offer more impact if you feel the need to stagger something more often. 

HORDE CLEAR

• It depends on what your goal is. Branx is an excellent horde clear weapon. Alternating H2 and L4 is going to be your bread and butter for clear. Branx does not have immediate access to horizontal swings on its L1 or H1. When leading into horde clearing, there's a few options to start the chain:

PUSH ATTACK

• Pushing is excellent at controlling hordes on any class. The push attack does a right to left sweep that has good damage, cleave, and impact. From here you can go directly into H2 and chain L4 after. H2 and L4 can be repeated indefinitely.

WEAPON SPECIAL

• A deceptively wide point blank AoE attack that has excellent impact but mediocre damage. While the push attack is usually more useful overall, this can be good if you're looking to be stamina efficient. From here you can also go directly into the H2 and L4 chain.

COMBOS FOR HORDES/MIXED HORDES OR SPECIFIC ELITES

TRASH/CHAFF

• Lead in either with a push attack or weapon special and start alternating H2 and L4. This combo will effectively cleave through an infinite amount of chaff, so don't be afraid to commit to melee. Mix in push attacks or weapon specials as needed.

RAGERS

• The push on the Branx will stagger both dreg and flak ragers out of their combos. From here H2 can be used to stagger chain them to death. Alternate push attack into H2 to minimize risk of taking damage. Aim for heads! Pickaxe will bounce on carapace. L4 does not have enough impact to stagger ragers out of their combos, so we omit it.

MAULERS

• This depends on the situation and how many maulers there are. If there are a few or a manageable amount taking them out with single target head shots from H1 or the light chain is viable and usually faster than trying to cleave them. If there are lots of maulers together you should use push attack into H2 then repeat or H2 into L4 and repeat but aim for the legs/low torso! 
  • The flak bodies of the maulers let you cleave essentially an infinite amount of them as long as you don't bounce off the carapace helmets. 
  • H2 will stagger maulers out of their attacks, so push attacks aren't as vitally important as with ragers. 
  • Push attack into H2 is much safer overall but lower DPS. If you can safely alternate H2 and L4 while hitting legs/torsos and keep everything staggered, that is optimal.

FLAK RAGERS + MAULERS

• Unfortunately, you're going to have to play more safely and utilize your single target heavies and light attacks to chip away at the armored units. Carapace will make your attacks bounce even if they still do good damage.
  • If you feel like you can get away with a sweep from H2 or L4 without bouncing, go for it. 
  • Pushes are your friend! You can push and cancel the push attack and go straight into H1 for a single target spike if needed. 
  • Feel free to use H1 and cancel the combo with a block if you feel you can only get into small openings. Blocking is a good tool and should be used regularly on a slow weapon like the Branx.

Achlys Mk II Heavy Stubber

This weapon does everything you'd want on a primarily melee build like this. It's very accurate, has incredibly long range, does very high single shot damage, and is very ammo efficient. This weapon can be used as a pocket sniper to take out the odd special or ranged elite as needed or it can be used as a more dedicated weapon if you feel your team is lacking in special sniping. 

• This weapon by itself is good enough to make you a fantastic secondary ranged DPS and special sniper. Yes, you're not gonna be as cracked as the vet, but you have the ability to one shot headshot every special other than mutants. Depending on party buffs you can one shot headshot gunners. 
• Steady Grip makes this gun a ranged trading machine. While casually dodging side to side you can easily tank multiple gunners for short bursts without your toughness breaking. 
• The Achlys has great impact, so even if you miss a headshot it'll stop the target from attacking. With 120 total rounds that basically one shot everything gunner and under you need very little ammo over an entire mission unless you're using it as your dedicated main weapon. 

As for drawbacks, the weapon has a slow draw speed and slowish reload. The reload isn't a big issue. If Plasma Gun can be the strongest vet ranged weapon, a slow reload essentially doesn't matter. The draw speed, however, is pretty annoying. Luckily, the buff to Dedicated Practice largely fixes this issue. 

• To combat the slower draw speed over something like the revolver, pre-draw your Achlys when you hear an approaching special if it's safe to do so. 
• Because of Steady Grip you can take small hits from chaff while bracing and take no health damage if you space them out appropriately by doing some dodging.

PERKS

• Maniac is needed to hit the one shot headshot Flamer breakpoint in Auric. From there, Flak, Unarmoured, Elites, and Unyielding all have decent use cases. The first three change around different break points for one shot headshotting things like Gunners. Even with Flak, you will not hit the one shot headshot breakpoint for Scab Gunners without some sort of additional damage buff. If you don't care about one shotting elites, you can drop Flak for Unyielding for higher ranged monstrosity DPS.

BLESSINGS

• I prefer Opening Salvo and Overwhelming Fire. Opening Salvo helps one shot breakpoints and Overwhelming Fire massively assists with single target DPS against monstrosities in situations where you can't safely damage them in melee. 
  • Achlys is actually pretty solid at killing monstrosities by default, a 50% damage buff blessing on top of that helps buff out one of the weaker points of the build, ranged monstrosity DPS. 
• Other than those, Deadly Accurate, Pinning Fire, and Surgical are all good and all have use cases. Surgical with Deadly Accurate is a classic combination and is excellent, I just prefer to not play around crits.

CURIOS

Triple toughness, like most builds. For stats, I prefer 2x Gunner Res, 2x Revive Speed, 2x Stamina Regen, and 3x Toughness. 

• 2x Gunner Res is a main stay on every build I play and is arguably most important on Ogryn of all classes. 
• 2x Revive Speed can make or break runs and is a strong option. 
• 2x Stamina Regen is useful as Ogryn has slow base stamina regen speed. This helps a little bit with that deficit. 
• 3x Toughness is for maximum tank. Of all of these, only the Gunner Res and Toughness are really required. 

Feel free to swap out ones you dislike for ones you like. I try to avoid taking 3 of the same stat as the third same stat has significant diminishing returns. I don't take ability recharge as Indomitable isn't a strong enough ability to warrant running it and the cooldown is already low. 

BLITZES

Bombs Away!

• The strongest option, in my opinion. Can be used for an, essentially, free revive in almost any situation. Can also be used in an emergency to create space if needed. This is not a tool for damage, it's purely for crowd control

Frag Bomb

• Fulfills a similar niche to ‘Bombs Away!’ but it actually kills things in a massive radius. It can be incredibly valuable but in my opinion doesn't accomplish much more than ‘Bomb’s Away!’ in most cases. This, combined with the fact that it only has one charge, means I only really run this on Enhanced Blitz missions. Absolutely not a bad pick, though. 

Big Friendly Rock

• Unnecessary because of Heavy Stubber.

ABILITIES

Indomitable

• Why no taunt? Taunt is a good ability but it has opportunity cost. It requires two ability modifiers in order to be strong, which is two less talent points for you to use on an already really tight tree. 
• Indomitable is a relatively good ability that fills a niche that is usually Ogryn's weakness, mobility, and is already good by itself. 
• Indomitable does not need any modifiers to be good, it already has great range, speed, and impact. The ability modifiers on it are alright but not build defining, so I opt to skip them. 
• Think of Indomitable like it instead says, “gives two additional talent points”. It's all opportunity cost. Those two extra talent points give extra power that can be used elsewhere.
• Indomitable is excellent at controlling hordes by cancelling it early and is devastating to monstrosities. Because of the gigantic amount of impact it has, Indomitable stuns monstrosities for a silly amount of time on hit. They will literally stand up and just stare at you for a few solid seconds before they start moving again. This, combined with the massive attack speed buff, lets you annihilate monstrosities by yourself.

Loyal Protector

• It's good. If you want to run it, feel free. Drop Batter and the precursor talent and take Too Stubborn to Die instead of the bleed damage reduction talent. Boom, you have taunt and the build is still almost as powerful in every way.

SOME EXTRA TALENT RAMBLING

Steady Grip 

• Absolutely mandatory. This lets you regenerate Toughness by yourself with no coherency and no enemies around. It lets you tank pox gas without issues. You can brace your weapon while sprint sliding to recover Toughness safely while playing defensively. 
• It's a mainstay in every good Ogryn build and you should use it as a litmus test whenever you're researching Ogryn builds.

No Stopping Me! 

• While you can play without this and ‘Implacable’, it adds so much quality of life, ease of use, and safe maneuverability to the build that I never want to take it off. If you find you can play without it, you get two extra talent points to spend wherever you want.

Pumped Up / Strongman 

• Both of these are good. I think Pumped Up is generally better but it can be swapped for Strongman if you prefer and I don't really think it would be that much worse overall.

Batter 

• Why run this on pickaxe? It's because Ogryn's strongest damage reduction node, Delight in Destruction , functions around bleed. That's the only reason why. 30% DR is no joke.

Get Stuck In 

• The movement speed buff is applied at the start of your charge, not at the end. If you use the full length of your charge, you'll have about two seconds of the buff left after. It's just not impactful enough. 

Don't Feel a Thing / Unstoppable 

• TDR has diminishing returns, 10% on paper TDR after the math is just so little, it's not worth the talent point. As for the other pick, if you're actively killing enemies enough to the point where this is providing you with a significant portion of Toughness, you simply don't need it. If you're killing, you're winning, for the most part. I've played with both of these on and off and I've never felt any difference whether I've had them or not. 

Feel No Pain 

• I really don't recommend running it. In my opinion it needs a complete rework. You could run it but it's just going to make you much weaker. You're already ridiculously tanky. FNP is not worth it for the opportunity cost of losing Heavy Hitter.