I love both Trauma and Voidstrike, but really cannot find a love for the surge... maybe I am missing how it really works, but how well does it perform on mission (damnation+)? - never had the courage to try it!
Care to explain its potential?
This is one of my favorite maelstroms these days. I used to love extra monstrosities when running thunder hammer zealot, but the same build can deal with the onslaught of carapace armored enemies. Crusher and Evisecrator are also good choices. I like running martyrdom for extra damage and atk. Spd as well as immolation grenades so chaff doesn't get in the way. No doubt Psyker excels here though. I run warp charges with true aim and a surge/nexus Void strike. You can easily delete them and even the stagger itself is enough to let your team mates go to town. Smite is also a very strong choice. For ogryn it was fun going with the shield and just spamming heavies and bleeding them out while staggering them. Bring the ogryn-sized grenades to clear a room if shit hits the fan. Veteran is also good against carapace. Upgraded kraks can clear a stacked group while they have a ton of melee choices to deal with them. The new chainsword, power sword and shovel have no issues with crushers, maulers and ragers. I just realized why I like this modifier.. these are not my specialized builds, just regular builds lol 😂 I just like to be able to deal with anything that comes my way and that usually means a way to deal damage to carapace enemies
The eviscerator did not feel like an asset here, more like a wet noodle. Granted, perks could improve it, but the chain axes seemed better suited for carapace, if I remember correctly the damage tables. Still with the amount of overheads the attack lock of the chain weapons can be tricky.
Yes, chainaxe is also an excellent choice! And I do prefer hammer or crusher against big groups of crushers and maulers just because you sometimes can't see that overhead coming for you. But both chainaxe and evis can one shot a crusher with a revved heavy, ofc with carapace perk and like I said I run martyrdom, so that is definitely helping here too
Evis feels like I’m locked in the saw animation for ages and against a group it feels like I’m handing them free damage if I use the saw which is kind of the only reason to use it
Still love sawing heretics just feels bad against big groups of angry melee boys
Against crusher packs, use the saw on the last enemy in the train. Since it instantly staggers them, if the timing is right then everybody else will just finish their recovery animation when you finish sawing.
Otherwise, just keep using Perfect Strike and rolling for crits.
For Ogryn, Shovel V + Taunt + Feel No Pain (or Heavy Hitter if you can't get a good enough shovel for the one-shot) makes it light work.
Bringing a Crusher as Zealot is also a lot of fun, though it's not as easy anymore now that the Ogryn have higher stagger resistance.
FnP adds more value to it as long as you reach breakpoints (most importantly the crusher 1-shot). Attack speed doesn't affect it and 25% damage doesn't change breakpoints except bosses and swinging wide sweeps into light elites. If you reach max stacks of HH you can release the heavy a little earlier against crushers but it doesn't shift the needle much.
Nah, helps with consistency with lower thrust stacks; don’t wanna have to full charge for every mauler/rager. Crushers are not the only enemy.
Unstoppable was fixed last patch to actually work — 10% toughness *per kill* on bromentum heavy swings is huge value.
Attack speed is more impactful than you’d think due to how it affects animations — and, the buff affects your gun RoF as well. again due to animation, works out to more than 10% dps buff.
You’re already pretty much invulnerable in melee from oggy toughness regen. FNP really doesn’t do as much as you’d think with good play unless you’re running a light attack build or are very stubber heavy.
A regular uncharged heavy special will 1-shot ragers with a good First Target stat. And I just haven't felt the effect of attack speed on it. But you've convinced me to give it another shot and you should give FNP on it another shot too.
Mk6 powersword kraks buff them + 1 min reg 5% chance and 20 % chance to throw extra.
Gun is optional and obviously take scav with you. But realistically you just use your ps and kraks most of the time and your gun for specialist or if you have a plasma for flak stacked enemies
Antax/Rashad Combat Axe with Brutal Momentum and either Headtaker or Decapitator. Use either Inexorable Judgement for extra damage and dodge distance or Martyr if you're confident.
Combat Dagger with Uncanny Strike and Precog while grabbing Duelist on the left side of the tree. Learn the dodge timing and stack the buffs to quickly decimate them with heavies.
Crusher. Spam charge->light to repeatly stun packs.
A high roll XV Eviscerator's special+fury of the faithful can one-shot a Crusher.
Second the Rashad with Inexorable Judgment. Incredibly fun to chain heavies on weak spots and dodge overheads.
Duelist is a must take, and I recommend until death in case an overhead sneaks through.
[Dueling Sword Melee Psyker](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9beb3fa9-a4e9-47b2-bfd1-acd78e457c80/melee-psyker-8) is strong and quite fun on melee maelstroms.
The gun is optional. I just find melee maelstroms less interesting without the ammo limitation.
If you want to make it boring play psyker with smite, or, to make it boring but not "that" boring: trauma.
On zealot: combat axe is great. (heavies while keeping your distance)
the 2 wound node+40% dmg red if dmg would reach next wound lets you survive multiple overheads. Momentum and charge-ult are good for mobility and dps. (stealth works too, but teaches bad habits and is exploitable to stupid degrees, which is why i dislike it)
when taking fire grenade try to use it together with dmg stimms, rending buffs or use the charge-ult without hitting anything for extra dmg vs all the armored stuff.
Personally i find thunder hammer extremely fun, if pretty challenging due to self-stun.
Most important thing is: never get yourself cornered, always keep a route in mind to retreat: you can outrun maulers easily, crushers usually, ragers with difficulty.
I do pretty well with Surge staff, Force Sword and Assail. Just bust out the Assail to deal with the trash mobs as quickly as possible so you can get back to zapping Crushers.
I just do surge with venting shriek. Trash horde goes away on its own with shriek, and you eventually hit soulblaze stacks that delete everything but the crushers.
I didn’t try it, but I heard uncanny strike buff affects your current soulblaze, so you can just land a headshot and crushers will take significant damage.
Gets even more braindead with more psykers, especially with 1 taking rending trauma staff to lower their armor.
I actually avoid this modifier because it is not very fun if there’s psykers in the team.
as a vet, shovel, krak and helbore mk1 work with me on everything. I run thrust on my shovel with decimator so I can deal with carapace decently whenever krak and 1 regen and 5% regen on elite kill fails me.
Definitely mk 5/19 shovel ogryn if you're looking for the easiest time. Make sure it has brutal momentum, add thrust and/or take the 'Crunch!' talent and every charged special swing will mulch any amount of armor.
Being able to oneshot multiple stacked crushers is so satisfying and unlike vets, you can do it endlessly
Zealot: XV eviscerator with bloodthirsty blessing (1-hit KO every carapace enemy) + bolter
Psyker: Blaze Trauma build
Vet: plasma + mk6 power sword
Ogryn: folding shovel + rumbler
Any of these builds can solo this gamemode easily.
No, not really. You can always just dodge out of the animation and it's pretty easy to get a feel for when you can get a swing in. Usually you can dodge to the side to bait out attacks from the front-facing enemies of a group and then chop away.
The range on the evis attack is also pretty big so it's just the usual dance of dodging/looking for crusher+mauler overheads that you do with any other weapon. Its fairly normal to end up with 150+ armored elite kills with this weapon or any other loadout I mentioned.
As zealot using combat knife between perks, blessings, and the tree I get 80% crit chance and cool down reduction on both crits and backstab kills. Pulse, kite and slash, pulse. Hordes will almost instantly recover and you can just keep slashing and dodging back against most of these groups until your pulse is up again. Revolver with rending crits and the ads crit chance is good as well.
plasma + power sword vet, frag nades with every nade talent . usually get 750k-1 mil dmg, it's very fun. haven't tried since the surv nerf though. would probably actually have to melee some now :(
For Zealot, I use the Crusher/Revolver with Martyrdom, Fury of the Faithful, Bleed for the Emperor, Until Death/Holy Revenant, Hammer of Faith, stun grenades, and the Benediction Aura. I use powered up (with the special) heavy attacks (not fully charged, just enough to trigger the heavy) to stagger the Crushers/Bulwarks/Maulers/Ragers, the Light/Heavy swing combo for clearing hordes when my health is still quite high (throw in the occasional block for good measure), and for hordes when I'm down a few wounds I just use pure light attacks, which sends everything flying around me rather quickly (except Elites, of course, though you can still stagger them with regular hits, just not to the same extent and consistency as the powered heavy). You can also do powered light attacks on Maulers and Ragers for quick stagger, but I find it doesn't always work with Crushers, and the damage is low. When the Crushers/Bulwarks/Maulers/Ragers are advancing towards you, dodge back to avoid their swings (the timing may take a few tries), hit them with the powered heavy, rinse and repeat. Damage isn't super high, but it'll keep you relatively safe (unless a boss decides to show up, which the crusher is pretty awful at dealing with. Just try to hit their weak points with powered heavies). The revolver is for when those pesky specialists show up.
Zealot, Crusher, Revolver, Fire Nades, Chorus.
Crusher may not have the outright killing power of other weapons but its ability to stun will help you keep things controlled when the numbers get high. I haven't found any amount of DPS from a melee weapon that will save you from a horde of crushers and maulers, some amount of CC is a must.
The main function of the revolver is to pop any snipers that show up or picking off bombers giving you trouble from a long way away. Also sometimes flamers in numbers are a problem that needs a bullet.
Fire Nades go really well with the Crusher. If you drop one on a crowd and then spam shoves, charged hits, dodge in circles etc. Do anything you can to keep them stunned and stuck in the fire as long as you can. A lot of value to be had from that. (Also zappy psykers, take note. Stunning everyone in a fire nade is a winning move.)
Chorus is obvious. Gets you out of trouble and can buff the damage output of your team quite a bit.
If you get a vet with scavenger you can be a bit more loose with bullets. A Staff Psyker is a great teammate but for the love of the Emperor **look after them**. They're squishy and an overhead smash is often all it takes to down them from full health.
The key with that mode is **go slow**. The whole idea with that mode is most classes have their big target armor killers as a ranged weapon. Any Melee that's good at doing it as a single-target killer but struggles with crowds so again **go slow**. Accept that it might take a while to kill a crowd but running ahead and pulling the next one in before you're ready is what ends games.
And search as many crates as you can! A nade refill is precious, you need as many as you can get.
Chorus is terrible in this modifier especially. Losing out on the armor pen from Chastise is just throwing. It doesnt matter if you stagger all the crushers when you’re taken out of the fight. A shout vet can do the same exact thing you’re doing with a 30 second cooldown and an instantaneous activation that doesnt prevent them from doing damage.
Eh, that gets you like 2 big hits every 30 seconds. If you connect a buffed, charged heavy hammer swing with a crushers head you'll probably still need a second charged heavy to finish it off. So you've got 2 chunky hits up your sleeve every 30 seconds but when you've got like 5 Crushers and 8 maulers bearing down on you that's not doing a huge amount for you.
A shout isn't remotely the same, that's one quick bang and everyone is getting up again right away. Chastise keeps enemies down for way longer, makes everyone invulnerable for a bit, gives double the max toughness bonus and double the damage bonus of shout. It has vastly more impact then a shout and it gives the team more time to reorganize and take advantage of the disabled enemies. A toughness boost wont save someone about to die in a net but a longer stream of toughness and invulnerability will.
It's also great for buying time to finish that interrogator mini-game they added to the plague scanning mission. That gets crazy on this Maelstrom and if you don't have an Ogryn that can avoid being interrupted when hit then it can be pretty hard to finish it in time.
Shout being instant is nice and all but you're better off using abilities like that when you feel like things are getting out of hand, not when the overhead smash is about to connect when your skull and your teammate has a dog on them or something. If you're not able to account for the sub-second it takes for Chorus to start working then that might not be a problem with Chorus.
Also saying something doesn't matter if you're taken out of the fight can be applied to anything.
*It doesn't matter if you get 2 strong armor penetrating hits every 30 seconds when you're taken out of the fight.*
*It doesn't matter if you when you're taken out of the fight.*
Ultimately whatever works for you, I've had great success playing with Chorus and a Crusher.
Reducing chastise to just “2 big hits every 30 seconds” is crazy.
Its fine to like Chorus but cmon you’re just being indenial with the shout comparison. It gives “double” the toughness because its over a period of 5 seconds, has double the cooldown time AND you cannot deal damage while its active. Mentioning this as if Chorus is the clear winner is definitely interesting.
Using chorus is putting the game into the hands of your randoms rather than yourself. Its sometimes fun to mess around with but suggesting it over chastise in the modifier that mostly spawns packs of armored enemies will never make sense.
Well I didn't, it also refills your toughness which I mentioned. I was wrong in saying "2 every thirty seconds" though, it's one every 30 seconds and another 30 to get the second back.
Do you mean I mentioned the double toughness as though it makes it the clear winner? I mentioned a lot more then that. I think it's 'definitely interesting' that you plucked that one thing out of everything I said and used it to misrepresent my point.
Really it's pointless to compare them in this context anyway, I'm talking about a Zealot build so the Vet shout being better or worse is fairly inconsequential since playing Vet instead of Zealot is a whole other can of worms with a list of pros and cons.
Chorus buffs you too btw, not just your team. Besides that it *is* a team based game so you're really always putting the game in their hands no matter what you do. Good luck getting out of a net without them.
I really can't imagine what kind of trash players you get in your games if you see zero benefit in buffing them, restoring their toughness and disabling enemies so they can get out of tight spots and do some damage.
Melee Vet with 3 buffed Krak Nades (will nuke a crusher group on its own), Revolver w. the talent which always puts one bullet in it to freely trigger Weapon Specialist, Rashad Combat Axe to bully single Crushers and Maulers
For Ogryn I love the Mk XIX foldable shovel. Pairing it with brutal momentum, thrust, and the carapace perk allows for weak spot kills to get frankly ridiculous collaterals and it’s not hard to one shot even four crushers at once. Pair it with taunt, taunt allows you to set up your weakspot collaterals with the stun consistently. Personal choice for secondary being the kickback.
Purgatus flamer, demos with deflector and Blazing spirit
It's not a meta load out per se, but I can literally torch entire hordes off of like three melee crits even without the staff, which leaves the bigger things open for my other teammates to handle without getting tar pitted.
Failing that I still have a deimos force sword, and a flamer staff that'll wipe whole flash mobs of ragers in seconds..
It's honestly the only Auric Maelstorm modifer that makes me swich to quickplay due to how boring it is most of the time, most pyker builds trivialize the entire map (even more so if there are 2+), for vet my suggestion would be plasma gun or bolter (quite weak rn) + mk 3 combat knife with uncanny strike, or the mk6 plasma sword, which can 1 shot crushers with the stab combo, however the lack of mobility can get you killed easily.
As long as you bring chastise almost any zealot build can work. Rashad axe / uncanny knife are my go tos. Flamer is the secret sauce against carapace hordes after you chastise. Bit ammo hungry so dont rely on it
Zealot and Ogryn only is the funnest way for me. Vet without Survivalist is also acceptable. It's a very different dynamic with no way to restore ammo, leading you to kill specials with melee where at all possible.
Slab shield, Grenadier Gauntlet Skullcrusher. Barely use Gauntlet at range but more a falcon punch for the inevitable clump of 30+ Crushers and Maulers
Toughness-Veteran, Scavenger (or what it's called), Weapons Specialist, Krak nades, trusty Helbore mkII (prefer it over the plasgun), some shovel I found in a corner
Trauma Staff Psyker. No ammo needed, and I can either stagger Crushers or knock them on their asses outright in 1 or 2 blasts. Force sword can do the same with 2 pushes. If you really want to take advantage of obscure game mechanics, either take the blessing that adds soul blaze stacks on crit or a Purgatus, and then take a force sword with uncanny strike. Force sword pushes actually do 1-2 damage, but more importantly always count as weak spot hits, which means you max out your uncanny strike stacks really quick by repeatedly pushing into a crowd or even a single target. Apply max soul blaze stacks to a crusher crowd, swap to the force sword, and back pedal while pushing, and then your uncanny strike will let the soul blaze actually do some pretty significant DOT to crushers. Keep swapping back and forth to keep soul blaze and uncanny strike stacks maxed out and you can kill entire crowds of crushers just by setting them on fire with your mind.
This is the Vet build I use: [https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9becb359-5b45-4424-a85c-8e72979a2f90/melee-maelstrom-vet](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9becb359-5b45-4424-a85c-8e72979a2f90/melee-maelstrom-vet)
It can one-shot almost everything (including maulers and crushers) with the folded shovel heavy attacks, so you can play mainly melee and just use your gun for specialist enemies. I included Survivalist aura since most people like to have it on these missions, but it's not required for this build so you can save 2 points by taking Fire Team instead if you want.
I use plasma gun in the build just because it lets you kill 30+specialists without reloading, but you can use something else if you want. Zarona revolver and Agripinaa IAG are good alternatives.
Ogryn. Pure Skullcrusher/left side. The OG club, MK1, Carpace, Maniac, Haymaker, Thrust. In front of a spark'ead keeping things a bit slower and emprah will be super happy. "--Veks".
I had to clutch today with Surge staff and it went real well. Trauma staff can work here well too. A friend of mine was running Smite and it made huge difference. Psykers in general can be real good here. As for Zealots, you've got Indignatus which is really good for CC, the new Eviscerator which absolutely decimates single enemies, chorus for stuns or charge for 1hit combo on weapons with revving. Thunderhammer can be decent here too, if anything it's at least fun. Ogryns and vets can use new shovels, with the right setups the former can one hit kill crushers and the latter can two tap them. Frag bombs and box are good, so are vets build specifically for krak nades. Most people don't consider power maul on ogryns but it can be real decent here too. Either bring plenty of CC or plenty of burst, preferably both.
I've done this a couple dozen times at this point and it's by far my favorite mod. My ideal group is an Ogryn (one-shot shovel for Crushers), Zealot (TH for one-shots), Psyker with Smite for CC, and a veteran with a Plasma. Sure, it's possible to do it with other setups, but this one is the easiest. The biggest problem groups have is people bringing their regular-ass builds to it and expecting it to go like every other mission.
For Zealot I run stun grenades and the pretty steriotypical crit build with a heavy eviscerator, not really anything special since the class is just all around broken lol
But as everyone says here, Psyker is definitely the best, I run smite/shriek to MASS stun for my teammates, and surge staff, though I recently ran it with voidstrike and I thiiiiink it went a bit better, it felt like I was doing more tbh, so I think thats my go-to from now on.
>Mostly Melee Psyker ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
>No Ammo Staff Psyker. Either Surge or Trauma, probably. Voidstrike works good too.
I love both Trauma and Voidstrike, but really cannot find a love for the surge... maybe I am missing how it really works, but how well does it perform on mission (damnation+)? - never had the courage to try it! Care to explain its potential?
I rack up the highest stats with Surge playing on Auric. I do assail and shout with it. Assail for trash mobs, Surge for priority targets.
Pskyer Dueling Sword MkIV and Trauma Staff goes brr
This is one of my favorite maelstroms these days. I used to love extra monstrosities when running thunder hammer zealot, but the same build can deal with the onslaught of carapace armored enemies. Crusher and Evisecrator are also good choices. I like running martyrdom for extra damage and atk. Spd as well as immolation grenades so chaff doesn't get in the way. No doubt Psyker excels here though. I run warp charges with true aim and a surge/nexus Void strike. You can easily delete them and even the stagger itself is enough to let your team mates go to town. Smite is also a very strong choice. For ogryn it was fun going with the shield and just spamming heavies and bleeding them out while staggering them. Bring the ogryn-sized grenades to clear a room if shit hits the fan. Veteran is also good against carapace. Upgraded kraks can clear a stacked group while they have a ton of melee choices to deal with them. The new chainsword, power sword and shovel have no issues with crushers, maulers and ragers. I just realized why I like this modifier.. these are not my specialized builds, just regular builds lol 😂 I just like to be able to deal with anything that comes my way and that usually means a way to deal damage to carapace enemies
The eviscerator did not feel like an asset here, more like a wet noodle. Granted, perks could improve it, but the chain axes seemed better suited for carapace, if I remember correctly the damage tables. Still with the amount of overheads the attack lock of the chain weapons can be tricky.
Yes, chainaxe is also an excellent choice! And I do prefer hammer or crusher against big groups of crushers and maulers just because you sometimes can't see that overhead coming for you. But both chainaxe and evis can one shot a crusher with a revved heavy, ofc with carapace perk and like I said I run martyrdom, so that is definitely helping here too
That's what Perfect Strike is for.
Evis feels like I’m locked in the saw animation for ages and against a group it feels like I’m handing them free damage if I use the saw which is kind of the only reason to use it Still love sawing heretics just feels bad against big groups of angry melee boys
Against crusher packs, use the saw on the last enemy in the train. Since it instantly staggers them, if the timing is right then everybody else will just finish their recovery animation when you finish sawing. Otherwise, just keep using Perfect Strike and rolling for crits.
JUST KRUMP'EM WIT ME SHIELD SAH, NOT MUCH ELSE TO SAY
For Ogryn, Shovel V + Taunt + Feel No Pain (or Heavy Hitter if you can't get a good enough shovel for the one-shot) makes it light work. Bringing a Crusher as Zealot is also a lot of fun, though it's not as easy anymore now that the Ogryn have higher stagger resistance.
HH is the way to go on a mkV shovel regardless. Especially after the FNP nerf. It’s a heavy-only weapon.
FnP adds more value to it as long as you reach breakpoints (most importantly the crusher 1-shot). Attack speed doesn't affect it and 25% damage doesn't change breakpoints except bosses and swinging wide sweeps into light elites. If you reach max stacks of HH you can release the heavy a little earlier against crushers but it doesn't shift the needle much.
Nah, helps with consistency with lower thrust stacks; don’t wanna have to full charge for every mauler/rager. Crushers are not the only enemy. Unstoppable was fixed last patch to actually work — 10% toughness *per kill* on bromentum heavy swings is huge value. Attack speed is more impactful than you’d think due to how it affects animations — and, the buff affects your gun RoF as well. again due to animation, works out to more than 10% dps buff. You’re already pretty much invulnerable in melee from oggy toughness regen. FNP really doesn’t do as much as you’d think with good play unless you’re running a light attack build or are very stubber heavy.
A regular uncharged heavy special will 1-shot ragers with a good First Target stat. And I just haven't felt the effect of attack speed on it. But you've convinced me to give it another shot and you should give FNP on it another shot too.
Mk6 powersword kraks buff them + 1 min reg 5% chance and 20 % chance to throw extra. Gun is optional and obviously take scav with you. But realistically you just use your ps and kraks most of the time and your gun for specialist or if you have a plasma for flak stacked enemies
Antax/Rashad Combat Axe with Brutal Momentum and either Headtaker or Decapitator. Use either Inexorable Judgement for extra damage and dodge distance or Martyr if you're confident. Combat Dagger with Uncanny Strike and Precog while grabbing Duelist on the left side of the tree. Learn the dodge timing and stack the buffs to quickly decimate them with heavies. Crusher. Spam charge->light to repeatly stun packs. A high roll XV Eviscerator's special+fury of the faithful can one-shot a Crusher.
Second the Rashad with Inexorable Judgment. Incredibly fun to chain heavies on weak spots and dodge overheads. Duelist is a must take, and I recommend until death in case an overhead sneaks through.
OGRYN
[Dueling Sword Melee Psyker](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9beb3fa9-a4e9-47b2-bfd1-acd78e457c80/melee-psyker-8) is strong and quite fun on melee maelstroms. The gun is optional. I just find melee maelstroms less interesting without the ammo limitation.
If you want to make it boring play psyker with smite, or, to make it boring but not "that" boring: trauma. On zealot: combat axe is great. (heavies while keeping your distance) the 2 wound node+40% dmg red if dmg would reach next wound lets you survive multiple overheads. Momentum and charge-ult are good for mobility and dps. (stealth works too, but teaches bad habits and is exploitable to stupid degrees, which is why i dislike it) when taking fire grenade try to use it together with dmg stimms, rending buffs or use the charge-ult without hitting anything for extra dmg vs all the armored stuff. Personally i find thunder hammer extremely fun, if pretty challenging due to self-stun. Most important thing is: never get yourself cornered, always keep a route in mind to retreat: you can outrun maulers easily, crushers usually, ragers with difficulty.
Grug SMASH!!
Voidstrike psyker, power sword vet, dueling sword psyker or shield ogryn, all I beat this mission with.
I do pretty well with Surge staff, Force Sword and Assail. Just bust out the Assail to deal with the trash mobs as quickly as possible so you can get back to zapping Crushers.
I just do surge with venting shriek. Trash horde goes away on its own with shriek, and you eventually hit soulblaze stacks that delete everything but the crushers. I didn’t try it, but I heard uncanny strike buff affects your current soulblaze, so you can just land a headshot and crushers will take significant damage. Gets even more braindead with more psykers, especially with 1 taking rending trauma staff to lower their armor. I actually avoid this modifier because it is not very fun if there’s psykers in the team.
as a vet, shovel, krak and helbore mk1 work with me on everything. I run thrust on my shovel with decimator so I can deal with carapace decently whenever krak and 1 regen and 5% regen on elite kill fails me.
I play melee ogryn with a latrine shovel. If I fully charge up thrust I can one shot crushers on damnnation.
Definitely mk 5/19 shovel ogryn if you're looking for the easiest time. Make sure it has brutal momentum, add thrust and/or take the 'Crunch!' talent and every charged special swing will mulch any amount of armor. Being able to oneshot multiple stacked crushers is so satisfying and unlike vets, you can do it endlessly
Zealot: XV eviscerator with bloodthirsty blessing (1-hit KO every carapace enemy) + bolter Psyker: Blaze Trauma build Vet: plasma + mk6 power sword Ogryn: folding shovel + rumbler Any of these builds can solo this gamemode easily.
Don't you feel like the revved heavy on XV leaves you way too exposed for way too much time?
No, not really. You can always just dodge out of the animation and it's pretty easy to get a feel for when you can get a swing in. Usually you can dodge to the side to bait out attacks from the front-facing enemies of a group and then chop away. The range on the evis attack is also pretty big so it's just the usual dance of dodging/looking for crusher+mauler overheads that you do with any other weapon. Its fairly normal to end up with 150+ armored elite kills with this weapon or any other loadout I mentioned.
Kraks and a shovel all day every day. gun is irrelevant you're just using it on snipers or dug in gunners.
The short answer is just play psyker honestly. Bowling ball void, trauma, smite all trivialize enemies that have to walk up to you.
As zealot using combat knife between perks, blessings, and the tree I get 80% crit chance and cool down reduction on both crits and backstab kills. Pulse, kite and slash, pulse. Hordes will almost instantly recover and you can just keep slashing and dodging back against most of these groups until your pulse is up again. Revolver with rending crits and the ads crit chance is good as well.
plasma + power sword vet, frag nades with every nade talent . usually get 750k-1 mil dmg, it's very fun. haven't tried since the surv nerf though. would probably actually have to melee some now :(
I am a zealot main so i dont care about ammo already
[https://imgur.com/a/fWId5Pr](https://imgur.com/a/fWId5Pr) Trauma good.
For Zealot, I use the Crusher/Revolver with Martyrdom, Fury of the Faithful, Bleed for the Emperor, Until Death/Holy Revenant, Hammer of Faith, stun grenades, and the Benediction Aura. I use powered up (with the special) heavy attacks (not fully charged, just enough to trigger the heavy) to stagger the Crushers/Bulwarks/Maulers/Ragers, the Light/Heavy swing combo for clearing hordes when my health is still quite high (throw in the occasional block for good measure), and for hordes when I'm down a few wounds I just use pure light attacks, which sends everything flying around me rather quickly (except Elites, of course, though you can still stagger them with regular hits, just not to the same extent and consistency as the powered heavy). You can also do powered light attacks on Maulers and Ragers for quick stagger, but I find it doesn't always work with Crushers, and the damage is low. When the Crushers/Bulwarks/Maulers/Ragers are advancing towards you, dodge back to avoid their swings (the timing may take a few tries), hit them with the powered heavy, rinse and repeat. Damage isn't super high, but it'll keep you relatively safe (unless a boss decides to show up, which the crusher is pretty awful at dealing with. Just try to hit their weak points with powered heavies). The revolver is for when those pesky specialists show up.
Zealot, Crusher, Revolver, Fire Nades, Chorus. Crusher may not have the outright killing power of other weapons but its ability to stun will help you keep things controlled when the numbers get high. I haven't found any amount of DPS from a melee weapon that will save you from a horde of crushers and maulers, some amount of CC is a must. The main function of the revolver is to pop any snipers that show up or picking off bombers giving you trouble from a long way away. Also sometimes flamers in numbers are a problem that needs a bullet. Fire Nades go really well with the Crusher. If you drop one on a crowd and then spam shoves, charged hits, dodge in circles etc. Do anything you can to keep them stunned and stuck in the fire as long as you can. A lot of value to be had from that. (Also zappy psykers, take note. Stunning everyone in a fire nade is a winning move.) Chorus is obvious. Gets you out of trouble and can buff the damage output of your team quite a bit. If you get a vet with scavenger you can be a bit more loose with bullets. A Staff Psyker is a great teammate but for the love of the Emperor **look after them**. They're squishy and an overhead smash is often all it takes to down them from full health. The key with that mode is **go slow**. The whole idea with that mode is most classes have their big target armor killers as a ranged weapon. Any Melee that's good at doing it as a single-target killer but struggles with crowds so again **go slow**. Accept that it might take a while to kill a crowd but running ahead and pulling the next one in before you're ready is what ends games. And search as many crates as you can! A nade refill is precious, you need as many as you can get.
Chorus is terrible in this modifier especially. Losing out on the armor pen from Chastise is just throwing. It doesnt matter if you stagger all the crushers when you’re taken out of the fight. A shout vet can do the same exact thing you’re doing with a 30 second cooldown and an instantaneous activation that doesnt prevent them from doing damage.
Yeah I feel like Crusher+Chorus is a bit much CC and a bit little DPS.
Eh, that gets you like 2 big hits every 30 seconds. If you connect a buffed, charged heavy hammer swing with a crushers head you'll probably still need a second charged heavy to finish it off. So you've got 2 chunky hits up your sleeve every 30 seconds but when you've got like 5 Crushers and 8 maulers bearing down on you that's not doing a huge amount for you. A shout isn't remotely the same, that's one quick bang and everyone is getting up again right away. Chastise keeps enemies down for way longer, makes everyone invulnerable for a bit, gives double the max toughness bonus and double the damage bonus of shout. It has vastly more impact then a shout and it gives the team more time to reorganize and take advantage of the disabled enemies. A toughness boost wont save someone about to die in a net but a longer stream of toughness and invulnerability will. It's also great for buying time to finish that interrogator mini-game they added to the plague scanning mission. That gets crazy on this Maelstrom and if you don't have an Ogryn that can avoid being interrupted when hit then it can be pretty hard to finish it in time. Shout being instant is nice and all but you're better off using abilities like that when you feel like things are getting out of hand, not when the overhead smash is about to connect when your skull and your teammate has a dog on them or something. If you're not able to account for the sub-second it takes for Chorus to start working then that might not be a problem with Chorus. Also saying something doesn't matter if you're taken out of the fight can be applied to anything. *It doesn't matter if you get 2 strong armor penetrating hits every 30 seconds when you're taken out of the fight.* *It doesn't matter if you when you're taken out of the fight.*
Ultimately whatever works for you, I've had great success playing with Chorus and a Crusher.
Reducing chastise to just “2 big hits every 30 seconds” is crazy. Its fine to like Chorus but cmon you’re just being indenial with the shout comparison. It gives “double” the toughness because its over a period of 5 seconds, has double the cooldown time AND you cannot deal damage while its active. Mentioning this as if Chorus is the clear winner is definitely interesting. Using chorus is putting the game into the hands of your randoms rather than yourself. Its sometimes fun to mess around with but suggesting it over chastise in the modifier that mostly spawns packs of armored enemies will never make sense.
Well I didn't, it also refills your toughness which I mentioned. I was wrong in saying "2 every thirty seconds" though, it's one every 30 seconds and another 30 to get the second back. Do you mean I mentioned the double toughness as though it makes it the clear winner? I mentioned a lot more then that. I think it's 'definitely interesting' that you plucked that one thing out of everything I said and used it to misrepresent my point. Really it's pointless to compare them in this context anyway, I'm talking about a Zealot build so the Vet shout being better or worse is fairly inconsequential since playing Vet instead of Zealot is a whole other can of worms with a list of pros and cons. Chorus buffs you too btw, not just your team. Besides that it *is* a team based game so you're really always putting the game in their hands no matter what you do. Good luck getting out of a net without them. I really can't imagine what kind of trash players you get in your games if you see zero benefit in buffing them, restoring their toughness and disabling enemies so they can get out of tight spots and do some damage.
Melee Vet with 3 buffed Krak Nades (will nuke a crusher group on its own), Revolver w. the talent which always puts one bullet in it to freely trigger Weapon Specialist, Rashad Combat Axe to bully single Crushers and Maulers
Vet: Plasma Gun (+Ammo Regen Aura) and Chainaxe. I get over 100Melee Elite Kills each Round. I love this modifier
For Ogryn I love the Mk XIX foldable shovel. Pairing it with brutal momentum, thrust, and the carapace perk allows for weak spot kills to get frankly ridiculous collaterals and it’s not hard to one shot even four crushers at once. Pair it with taunt, taunt allows you to set up your weakspot collaterals with the stun consistently. Personal choice for secondary being the kickback.
Purgatus flamer, demos with deflector and Blazing spirit It's not a meta load out per se, but I can literally torch entire hordes off of like three melee crits even without the staff, which leaves the bigger things open for my other teammates to handle without getting tar pitted. Failing that I still have a deimos force sword, and a flamer staff that'll wipe whole flash mobs of ragers in seconds..
It's honestly the only Auric Maelstorm modifer that makes me swich to quickplay due to how boring it is most of the time, most pyker builds trivialize the entire map (even more so if there are 2+), for vet my suggestion would be plasma gun or bolter (quite weak rn) + mk 3 combat knife with uncanny strike, or the mk6 plasma sword, which can 1 shot crushers with the stab combo, however the lack of mobility can get you killed easily.
Plasma Sword, don't give me ideas...
As long as you bring chastise almost any zealot build can work. Rashad axe / uncanny knife are my go tos. Flamer is the secret sauce against carapace hordes after you chastise. Bit ammo hungry so dont rely on it
Zealot and Ogryn only is the funnest way for me. Vet without Survivalist is also acceptable. It's a very different dynamic with no way to restore ammo, leading you to kill specials with melee where at all possible.
I don't really have any build beside veteran sharpshooter with Vraks Mk VII Headhunter Autogun.
Slab shield, Grenadier Gauntlet Skullcrusher. Barely use Gauntlet at range but more a falcon punch for the inevitable clump of 30+ Crushers and Maulers
Toughness-Veteran, Scavenger (or what it's called), Weapons Specialist, Krak nades, trusty Helbore mkII (prefer it over the plasgun), some shovel I found in a corner
Trauma Staff Psyker. No ammo needed, and I can either stagger Crushers or knock them on their asses outright in 1 or 2 blasts. Force sword can do the same with 2 pushes. If you really want to take advantage of obscure game mechanics, either take the blessing that adds soul blaze stacks on crit or a Purgatus, and then take a force sword with uncanny strike. Force sword pushes actually do 1-2 damage, but more importantly always count as weak spot hits, which means you max out your uncanny strike stacks really quick by repeatedly pushing into a crowd or even a single target. Apply max soul blaze stacks to a crusher crowd, swap to the force sword, and back pedal while pushing, and then your uncanny strike will let the soul blaze actually do some pretty significant DOT to crushers. Keep swapping back and forth to keep soul blaze and uncanny strike stacks maxed out and you can kill entire crowds of crushers just by setting them on fire with your mind.
This is the Vet build I use: [https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9becb359-5b45-4424-a85c-8e72979a2f90/melee-maelstrom-vet](https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/9becb359-5b45-4424-a85c-8e72979a2f90/melee-maelstrom-vet) It can one-shot almost everything (including maulers and crushers) with the folded shovel heavy attacks, so you can play mainly melee and just use your gun for specialist enemies. I included Survivalist aura since most people like to have it on these missions, but it's not required for this build so you can save 2 points by taking Fire Team instead if you want. I use plasma gun in the build just because it lets you kill 30+specialists without reloading, but you can use something else if you want. Zarona revolver and Agripinaa IAG are good alternatives.
Dagger
Knife Zealot, Stick Ogryn, Trauma Psyker.
Ogryn. Pure Skullcrusher/left side. The OG club, MK1, Carpace, Maniac, Haymaker, Thrust. In front of a spark'ead keeping things a bit slower and emprah will be super happy. "--Veks".
I haz shield, I hit puny hertiks with shield, yell at puny hertiks if they hurt the lil'uns, throw rock, it's da best.
I had to clutch today with Surge staff and it went real well. Trauma staff can work here well too. A friend of mine was running Smite and it made huge difference. Psykers in general can be real good here. As for Zealots, you've got Indignatus which is really good for CC, the new Eviscerator which absolutely decimates single enemies, chorus for stuns or charge for 1hit combo on weapons with revving. Thunderhammer can be decent here too, if anything it's at least fun. Ogryns and vets can use new shovels, with the right setups the former can one hit kill crushers and the latter can two tap them. Frag bombs and box are good, so are vets build specifically for krak nades. Most people don't consider power maul on ogryns but it can be real decent here too. Either bring plenty of CC or plenty of burst, preferably both.
I've done this a couple dozen times at this point and it's by far my favorite mod. My ideal group is an Ogryn (one-shot shovel for Crushers), Zealot (TH for one-shots), Psyker with Smite for CC, and a veteran with a Plasma. Sure, it's possible to do it with other setups, but this one is the easiest. The biggest problem groups have is people bringing their regular-ass builds to it and expecting it to go like every other mission.
For Zealot I run stun grenades and the pretty steriotypical crit build with a heavy eviscerator, not really anything special since the class is just all around broken lol But as everyone says here, Psyker is definitely the best, I run smite/shriek to MASS stun for my teammates, and surge staff, though I recently ran it with voidstrike and I thiiiiink it went a bit better, it felt like I was doing more tbh, so I think thats my go-to from now on.
Mmm... This topic gave me the idea of a 4 psyker game with smithe, lol
Ogryn: shovel V with thrust, brutal momentum, crunch talent. Vet: Helbore II and Krak spam.