Vet utility H40
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

No frills H40 veteran with bolt pistol. Standard smoke setup with utility and res-shout. Pairs extremely well with flame psyker as you can "extend" bubble range and pick off anything that comes your way. This build is definitely more ammo hungry than the standard lasgun, but will have very fast flick shots and fast fire rate to boot.  

Aim your gun, shoot stuff far away, throw smokes to "close doors" or to act as a mini-psyker bubble. You will need to hit pretty consistent headshots and a lot of your time shooting will be ADS - this is not really a hipfire gun.

Res shout is a new addition to the vet skill tree, due to the skill no longer increasing the CD of the skill. It acts as an instant clutch in those chaotic games where multiple people go down. I found it to be useful at least once or twice per game at minimum and it can save runs instantly if timed right. Having said this, don't hold onto your shout.

Spam smokes - saving them is pointless when your whole strategy is to regen them off Demolition Team and Demolition Stockpile. If your team is ever fighting outside of a smoke, or one half of a big corridor isn't blocked off at all times, you're doing it wrong.
 

The bolt pistol takes flak + elite to hit better breakpoints. I previously had flak + unyielding but it fell short of a lot of 1 shot headshot breakpoints.

I have taken Volley Adept as my preferred "Flex" skill. It is very, very powerful for keeping your uptime with this gun. You can swap it for another node of choice such as Trench Fighter Drill, Exhilarating Takedown or Target Down!, depending on if you want to lean more into melee proficiency, toughness or support. However, I found that using this gun requires a lot of reloading as you'll be blasting very frequently.

You could, in theory, drop more points to get to skirmisher. If I had more points, I'd do that, as it could free up the +elite damage on the bolt pistol. However, I think this setup is most consistent.

Shock maul brings a bit more utility due to Skullcrusher on bosses while still having serviceable damage and horde clear. This is replaceable with the tac axe (prefer Mark VII but you can also use the lightest one for a nice triple special stagger combo), combat blade or duelling sword. I prefer not to use power sword with this build as it lacks the usual melee Trench Fighter, One Motion and Skirmisher.  

Shock maul combos:

• Horde clear: L > H repeating
• Safe horde clear: push attack > H > L repeating. Note that the L can go back into H and you get the horde clear loop, so you don't need to push every time. However, almost invariably you will be getting pushed hard in melee so you should repeat your push attacks on nearly every loop.
• Single target: H > L (double overhead) repeating. Can chain into special if you like for nice stagger.
• Boss: open with special or H > L > special so you apply skullcrusher. Then H > L repeating. Special will shred twins/captain shield.

Pistol combos:

• Anti-elite: hold down right click, press left click. Wait for surgical to proc for better sniping. 
• Horde clear: press swap weapon or dodge button
• boss killing: left click x 4 (max out bleed stacks), re-apply to maintain max stacks until dead