the shield is useless, and bad. u need fast ms to close range and evade with sliding. shield might work on heresy sure, but forget about it on damnation. either of the cleavers, or the club for headshot spams elites.
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+1 for cleaver or shovel on heresy, works wonders
Cleaver has like 33 max damage cleave with its vanguard heavies (so you can get a roll of like ~29 currently). Its pretty hard to go back to the anemic rate you clear horde with a shield. +1 for slide, until they make trash shooters instantly tear through 200+ toughness not being in a constant slide state is a horrible way to play high difficulty unfortunately. Shield has way too much sprint cost penalty.
shovel doesnt have + sprint speed. in this game movement is everything. the club is okay cuz you get that nice heavy head shot. the push attack into light is kinda nice too since it will the the 3rd light which does very good dmg as well. its mainly single target dps with losing almost all mobility. i guess the high stam count is nice for cc. the shovels heavy cant quite compete with the club so idk why that that. shield is probably the weakest melee for him.
I have always viewed the situation as simply answering the question of “Do you want to be more helpful for your teammates or do you want to be more focused on killing things.”, and this is not meant to be a snarky comment.
I see the Ogryn as the de facto support class in the game having now gotten him up to level 30 as my last one to finish the set. I did all the other three before I even touched the Ogryn and having had one in my group from the start of the CBT, I have noted that there are two very distinct ways to play the Ogryn, both viable, but heavily dependant on your own ability to either coordinate with your team or just skill in the game in general.
The first one is the one mostly recommended for the Ogryn, the Slab Shield. The reason for it is quite simply its utility for your teammates and how forgiving it is. Many times I have managed to save a run by planting it down and becoming immune to melee damage, or protecting a nearly dead teammate from two Reapers that just popped around the corner and opened up before the rest of team noticed them. It is not necessary, but something I would 10/10 times recommend to a player that is not confident in their own ability to deal damage. You can be highly effective tank, you just need to know how to do it as a hulking mass instead of a tiny dwarf. The key is usually being aware of the lines of fire you are giving your teammates, so for example knowing to advance in a straight line down a corridor, but also making sure that right behind you is not a crate your teammates can use for cover should the enemy switch targets from you. The lack of a Taunt ability does reinforce the fact that the Ogryn is not intended solely to be a tank much like Bardin.
Which brings us to the alternative you have showed here. The things you recommend are very much to be used if you know your class through and through as it can very easily be a slight hinderance and make some players outright wish for another Veteran or Zealot to be there instead. The annoying reality is that an average Zealot will outperform an average Ogryn in horde clearing and still remain useful against Elites with their loadouts compared to the non-shield Ogryn while the Veteran will outperform the daylights out of an average Ogryn in a similar case, though that has a bit more to do with the fact that the Veteran right now is top of the pile due to being the most cared for class by the devs.
Basically I would always say that Ogryn players should learn the class with the shield first as it is incredibly forgiving and will fill a role the other classes can’t do from the get-go. However, down the line, the utility you can provide with an offensive Ogryn is notable and should never be underestimated. I personally prefer the Grenade Gauntlet over the Stubber these days due to it having a high knockdown rate against things like Reapers and it allows you to do the same as the Bullrush from a range to save an ally. More than once I have managed to assist a Zealot or a Veteran about to get overwhelmed by a rushing horde by shooting to the middle of the pack and staggering a huge chunk to let my teammate get much needed breathing room. The Special is also fun against Maulers and Ragers rushing allies.
Heresy is lvl 4 difficulty.
Either Crius meant lvl 4 or you mistook it as such.
I heard Damnation is an entirely different beast.
For reference:
Sedition - Uprising - Malice - Heresy - Damnation
Damnation is barely a step up from heresy honestly. It’s pretty disappointing IMO. Already been doing it on my zealot (second character) even prior to 30.
As to the topic on the whole, already covered it before but shield is mediocre at best.
See: Brogryns, share with me your slab shield secrets - #9 by Zoralink
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Which one is actually the kickback?
I agree, shield is not necessary on Heresy. I use the bull butcher and a rippergun. Ranged enemies can be extremely annoying, but its not like I’m defenceless against them. Shoot them one by one, supress and advance with the rippergun, charge at them, or chill behind a wall or some stacked up boxes while your allies shoot them down. With 60% extra health from curios it gets a lot easier.
Shovel’s no sprint bonus isn’t that actually significant that Ogryn’s mobility is bad anyway unless you use Rumbler to dodge, even then, you can’t dodge like Combat blade Zealot.
(I only used Latrine shovel in Damnation difficulty because of that’s the only weapon that has proper blessing for my build now.)
I want to say the weakest melee is the Club in my opinion, it’s not because of mobility only. It has terrible attack speed and second heavy wind-up, even with my 72% finesse club, it’s slower than shovel. So it’s difficult to control horde.
I had difficult time with club when you are dealing with mass of enemies on your own in Heresy difficulty. (when you are surrounded, and you should deal with one side of horde) And elite killing per se, Zealot is way more faster to kill elites in melee (Maybe for Crusher club will be faster especially with heavy weight talent, but I am sure right blessing combination with Combat axe + ult Zealot is way more faster to kill Crusher), and most of all your Sharpshooter who carries Bolter kills elites, so Ogryn should do your teammates by staggering elites. I usually use Rumbler spam for that.
Shovel is kind of middle of Cleaver and Club now, almost same cleave like Club, but faster, you can actually damage (33% weaker?) to Crusher like Club unlike Cleaver.
And Club’s headshot technique is very inconsistent. It’s okay when your target is at your end of melee range, but when the target is closer, it’s hard to land headshot. I reported it as bug.
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Club is the only weapon I’ve seen with a Finesse modifier affecting attack speed only. It could be swapped to the Crowd Control his shield stat uses that also affects enemies staggered/damaged along with attack speed.
But with the single exception of flak armored enemies its pointless to headshot with his club heavy 1 for the 20-30 extra damage it does. Even in VT2 the blunt weapons at least had a 1.5x increase to damage with headshots even if they still had bad headshot damage relative to everything else in the game.
Duh, every build works great if you stay behind and let others do all the work.
I agree that ranged suppressor Ogryn may work, but I just don’t think it’s nearly as optimal as a shield AND then using suppression on top of it. I also find it a shockingly incompetent statement that “you’re not helping your team” by drawing fire and standing there while they pick them off without any counterfire to worry about.
I’d say Ogryn is more tar pit than tank atm. As long as you have a decent team shooting ranged specials while you herd the melee units it can work fine. It all starts to fall apart quite quickly if your team aren’t playing to their ranged strengths and the toughness change gives you zero wiggle room.
I’ll give the combat knife a go OP, see how I get on with it.
In my opinion:
Best ranged weapon - Rumbler
Best melee weapon - Rumbler
Boom! There it is…
Ranged:
I don’t think there’s much of a point to the Heavy Stubber because every class deals with hordes well. You can’t really deal with Elites or Special at long range because of their HP and the amount of hits it takes to kill them.
Ripper just doesn’t have enough ammo in the mag or the reserve. Bad at anything other than close close/medium range.
Grenadier Gauntlet is his only other viable ranged weapon besides the Rumbler. Deals higher single target damage than the Rumbler but it deals almost no AoE damage. Good stagger. It’s better at sniping Elites and Specials in an open space. Melee attacks are useless after the nerf.
The Rumbler is great in my opinion. Deals high single target damage and the stagger is amazing. Two shots and a horde is pretty much done. Alternatively you can just melee with it. Not a lot of damage but good stagger and attacks are fast and count as heavy attacks for toughness and bleed feats. Great at dealing with elites and specials during hordes because of the arcing shot - shoots over hordes and ogryns.
Melee:
His melee weapons gives you the option of going bruiser or tank. Mk III Cleaver and the Shovel are good options. I prefer the shield just to have the option of dealing with ranged enemies like that. I ise the Rumbler during hordes anyway.
as you don’t have eyes behind your back, it is impossible not to block the LOS of some very important shots from a Veteran who is trying to kill a sniper for example.
This is very partially true.
Sure, you don’t have eyes in your back and in a big room it can just happen, but if you are standing on a door frame or the middle of a corridor you are 100% blocking shots, don’t do it.
I actually find most Ogryn players using shield are a handicap more than an advantage
They plant themselves behind their shield expecting to be useful, but in reality you end up with 3 active players and a wall cosplay, instead of 4 contributing players
Good shield Ogryn players are extremely rare, but just like good players in general are rare tbh
In any case the best Ogryns i’ve played with all used the Cleaver
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Now I’m far from an expert or pro at either V2 or DT, but as a Zealot main I’ve always preferred stagger Ogryns to shield ones. I always feel safer when I have a big man next to me tossing people around.
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Damn right, sir. Any other ranged weapon Ogryn got doesn’t give distinctive benefit to your team, to say exaggeratedly, you don’t need Ogryn in Damnation difficulty if your Ogryn doesn’t bring Rumbler, just bring the most safe range CC giver Surge Psyker, or Sharp shooter to wall hack, Ogryn got terrible aura bonus anyway.
Rumbler shines when your team got ambushed, and there’s 3 ragers, 2 crushers, 2 bulwarks situation. Surge staff is the most powerful CC in this situation, but lightning goes random while elites in the horde, it has limitation to deal with elites in the middle of dense horde. In this situation, Rumbler spam to the ground or knee of elites can save your day.
Kickback’s knock out effect is good, but it’s too slow to reload, and you can’t knock out many enemies when Big guys come to your team, since your pellet cant penetrate them. Ripper gun, and Heavy stubber that can kill horde easily? Zealot’s flamethrower is superior. Power sword, and just melee attacks can do the same job, but slowly. Grenadier gauntlet is good for sniping things, but you can bring one more sharp shooter to give your team wall hack, and Sharpshooter even can kill specials way more faster.
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Ogryns block their team’s shots, but make up for it by being slow, awkward, and lacking in killing power vs rhe major threats in the game.
I loved my foot knight in VT2 - control the crowds and play secondary sniper with the handgun. Sadly, ogryn doesnt seem anywhere close to that utility, and people in VT2 debated that utility over raw killing power.
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