Executioner's Glance Havoc 40 Bolter Fire Support
 Veteran Build - Warhammer 40k: Darktide 

Exe stance provides consistent elite and special killing power without needing to spec into Marksman's Focus  or juggle stacks of Skirmisher or Kill Zone . Enhanced Target Priority helps quickly identify critical targets in crowded fields before they can set up and facilitates delegation of special hunting, and proactive use provides positioning data to help plan approaches into tough areas. Focus Target! and Redirect Fire! provide flat damage bonuses for allies that are always useful, particularly for bosses.

As built, this setup tries to maximize toughness regen for allies via Born Leader while still hitting H39+ elite breakpoints.

• Executioner's Stance generates 10% toughness per second (~15/s on H40)
• Exhilarating Takedown instantly restores 15% toughness on weakspot kill (22.65 toughness)
• Confirmed Kill instantly restores 10% toughness, plus infinitely stackable 2% per second for 10 seconds (~15 instant, 3/s for 10s)
• Target Down! and Focused Fire regen up to 30% of toughness to everyone in coherency directly on tagged kill, but average is probably closer to ~15%
• Catch a Breath restores 5% per second (~7.5/s) while active

Example scenario - while exe stance is active, headshot two gunners and bodyshot one rager over three seconds. one gunner is tagged with 2 FT stacks, the other with 1.

Vet Toughness is 120 base +25 node -45 from h40 modifier, plus 3x 17% toughness curios (and optional curio mods, but this one has none as built): 100+100(0.17+0.17+0.17) = 151

T0 - gunner headshot w 2x FT stacks

• 15% from ET headshot + 10% from CK + 10% from TD = 35% recovered
• 151 *0.35 = 52.85 toughness for vet
• Toughness for allies: 52.85*0.2 = 10.57, plus 10% of their toughness from Target Down

T0+1 - second gunner headshot with 1x FT stack: 

• 15% from ET headshot + 10% from CK + 5% from TD + 2% prior CK tick + 10% exe stance tick = 42% recovered
• 151 *0.42 = 63.42 toughness for vet
• Toughness for allies: 63.42*0.2 = 12.684, plus 5% of their toughness from Target Down

T0+2 dreg rager bodyshot kill

• 10% from CK + 4% prior CK ticks + 10% exe stance tick = 24% recovered 
• 151 *0.24 =  36.24 toughness for vet
• Toughness for allies: 36.24*0.2 = 7.248

With an average spread of elite kills in two seconds and suboptimal focus target stacks, the vet recovers their entire toughness bar, and gives a boost of flat ~30 toughness points plus 15% of ally totals to everyone else in coherency. And that's all without including overflow from coherency toughness regen and catch a breath!

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Thoughts  / potential changes below

Talents

• Don't really need more ranged damage nodes or more crits. Question is what auras or capabilities most benefit the team. This build currently prioritizes toughness recovery for allies but in practice I don't know how much that matters
• Skirmisher helps provide some wiggle room with breakpoints and provides a crucial melee damage bonus that makes weapons other than the power sword viable.
• Leave No One Behind helps compensate for lack of revive shout.
• Feels plenty survivable thanks to crazy TDR from Exhilarating Takedown , Iron Will , high max uptime on Close Order Drill from Born Leader etc. on top of high uptime for exe stance and all toughness curios
• I don't always take Fully Loaded on bolter builds since it doesn't increase regen from auras much, but it feels appropriate here since magdumps against bosses or armor packs work out better (and exe stance highlights make impulsive snapshots more tempting)
• 10% TDR gray node is a holdover from the prior patch, but may not be strictly necessary. Least essential node as built imo

Potential alt nodes

• One Motion - always good but not as critical on this build imo since exe stance has pretty low cooldown and wields the bolter instantly. 
• Out for Blood provides even more sustain and Born Leader sharing potential
• Withering Fire may be worth taking to mitigate edge cases where snipers / bombers hide behind hordes. Still can't penetrate captain shields or carapace though :(
• My limited experiments with Covering Fire show that it has miserably low uptime, but I may just not be using it right.
• Kill Zone isn't really necessary for breakpoints but damage is damage.
• Deadshot could be worth a try - Target Down! provides a source of stam regen.
• Desperado is a probably the single best node not already taken for supplementing melee damage

Blitz

• Smoke seems like ideal synergy with stance since stance can:

  * help determine ideal pre-emptive smoke placement

  * allow picking gunners and ranged specials through smoke without obfuscation

• However, having no "get off of me" or good CC options for revives is scary. I like bringing frags if I can swing it

Ranged Weapon

• Undecided between +Flak, or +Maniac for second damage perk (need +Unyielding for 2x weakspot reaper kills on H39+ while stance isn't up). +Flak is best for reliably deleting scab gunners and maulers without stance, +Maniac makes killing walls of ragers trivial and makes bodyshotting less of an issue against flamers and pox bombers.
• Not possible to get Reaper crit weakspot oneshots without Marksman's Focus on H39+, so don't think Surgical has significant benefits over the current blessings for this build - as built it two-shots with or without crits.
• May experiment with Locke Mk III Spearhead Boltgun - lack of cleave might really hurt killing specials hiding in hordes, though (btw - noting that Withering Fire doesn't seem to change burst on-first-contact behavior for the Mk III)
• Stanced bolter m1 bursts or magdumps can shred bosses and middle-weight armor packs in ways that helbore and plasma simply can't match. Something has probably gone wrong if that needs to happen, but it feels great for a backline killer like this to have some burst firepower rivaling Point-Blank Barrage in a pinch

Melee

• I often run this build with Achlys Mk VI Power Sword with Slaughterer, +Carapace and +Unyielding for twins contribution and resource-free boss damage.
• However  - PF with dumped heat management and Overload grants some much needed mobility and a "get off of me" emergency option. Undecided between +Flak/+Elite/+Carapace as second perk. May also experiment with Energy Leakage instead of Cranial Grounding, but having something to speed up cooldown after the burst seems good.
• Tac axes and dueling swords are even more defensive options, but having some decent horde-clear absent frags or shout seems pretty essential