**TL;DR Ogryn is OP. Gorgonum needs a nerf, BB is insane. **
Disclaimers:
- Due to the increased number of seemingly invincible Ogryns (Running BB and Ripper MK V) running ahead of the team and decimating everything without much damage taken basically solo, I’ve decided to try it out myself.
- Because I promised @Reginald, I collected some end-game screens to provide some data and due to @Geadly’s suggestion that Gorgonum Stubber might be more powerful I decided to go with that instead of Ripper MK 5.
- I’m aware that on the forum some weapons (and most melee weapons) are considered underpowered. I don’t have experience in them (apart from leveling Ogryn with Power Maul) so I’m not commenting about that, and this thread shouldn’t be taken as a post about those weapons.
- I did talk with @Reginald prior to posting this about my experience, and while I kinda felt like posting this would be a bit uncalled for due to @Reginald pointing out that most players aren’t really that proficient with Ogryn, and Ogryn being incredibly easy to play might not be problem, after giving it some rest and some time to think about it I changed my mind.
- While I still find Zealot above Ogryn’s power level, the amount of effort required to play Zealot to overtake Ogryn is way higher, although maybe if I put in as much effort into figuring out Ogryn as I did with Zealot it would even eclipse the current king of DT… Although Ogryn’s damage output is still higher than a Zealot’s which is weird.
Here are my experiences and feedback from someone that is pretty new to the Ogryn class, but has 200+ games in each other class (close to 1000 in total).
Ogryn as a Class:
Survivability:
Ogryn offers some ridiculous amount of survivability and staying power to the player. Due to the class’ inbuilt (and partially bugged) damage reduction, I was sitting at 140 Effective Toughness and
588 Effective Health (base values 104 and 471) that would jump even higher with Hard as Nail whenever a teammate got downed for some reason.
With the added power of Lynchpin (with Toughness Regen curios) and Confident Strike, I was able to stay in melee indefinitely even under fire by ranged enemies. Any chip damage getting through toughness was minuscule compared to the huge health pool available. As long as either a teammate was somewhat nearby or there was an enemy to hit I had absolutely no reason to reposition. The times I’ve taken considerable damage was when I tuned out hitting stuff mindlessly and didn’t react to several elites attacking me from behind.
Even with the pretty subpar Curio setup Ogryn’s survivability felt super overtuned allowing me to not think that much about positioning or damage taken.
Offensive Power:
Admittedly this topic is somewhat colored by my choice of weapons, but…
With Ogryn I was able to take considerable risks engaging almost any situation due to the incredibly high stagger values of both ranged and melee weapon and the very reliable and incredibly strong toughness regain.
My setup lacked killing power on Bosses which is probably because of the subpar blessings I was running, and TTK was pretty low on Crushers which was less of an issue due to the Gorgonum permastunning 3 Crushers at once and slowly dwindling their health.
Other targets (including elites and specials) I could deal with in a timely manner pretty safely both in melee and at range due to the insane stagger provided by the weapons. Hordes were basically a joke that got destroyed faster than any other class, with any weapon.
Weapons:
Bull Butcher MK III:
I think this is the most braindead light attack spam weapon I’ve ever come across. Combat Axes don’t even come close. Due to the big arcs of most attacks, it’s usually enough to slash away in the general direction of the enemies I’m targeting. There might be a more optimal rotation of attack mixing in the vanguard heavy attack, but because I was running Lynchpin and Confident Strike I didn’t see the point, and I wasn’t pushed into experimentation due to not really being challenged in melee.
The weapon has incredible CC, very strong damage, wide arcs of attacks, fast movement speed, good pushes, and very small damage fall off with the best survivability blessing (Confident Strike) and one of the best offensive blessings (Slaughterer) making it probably the most powerful weapon in the game (if paired with a ranged weapon capable of taking down the non-ranged elites).
PS: Compared to Heavy Sword the closest weapon in design it’s way better at fighting shooters (be they flak or unarmored).
Gorgonum MK IV Twin-Linked Heavy Stubber:
Where do I even start with this thing…
This weapon offers more effective range than Braced Auto guns while having a larger ammo supply, feels more accurate, and has more CC.
This thing can take out elites, specials (including snipers at extreme ranges), and hordes. It has some insanely good ammo eco and high base count and due to the slower fire rate, it never seems to run out. The only thing this weapon can’t do is stun Bulwarks when the shield is facing your way. Probably I could just equip this weapon with better blessings compared to the one I tried out and just never pull out my melee weapon.
Admittedly mine didn’t do great damage against bosses, but based on what I’ve seen other Stubber Ogryns doing damage-wise to Bosses I think I’m just missing some Blessings and Perks to make it good against them too.
I don’t know how it compares to the other Stubbers, but the Gorgonum MK IV is broken OP beyond belief.
The BOX:
This is one of the most fun weapons in the game. You can easily take this thing out, aim at a mutant and take it out even while fighting the horde or any other special. In a pinch, it can be used against crushers, Bulwarks, and some other targets. I had the opportunity to play with Vet using Demolition Team and it was glorious.
To all Ogryn players not using this weapon enough you are missing so much.
Gameplay:
The high survivability and damage and previous experience with Zealot allowed me to play aggressively taking encounters head-on. I favored drawing agro from enemies and killing any threat in range. I didn’t feel the need to pay attention to my teammates at all, apart from helping them out when caught by a disabler or ressing them when they are down (both of which were easier to do than on any other class). Having at least one other player somewhat nearby was neat due to Coherency Regen, but that’s it.
I feel like Ogryn should be more team orientated, but after playing it for a bit with my setup it was more like a big bulky Zealot on crack stim.
Games and equipment:
Equipment is whatever I got my hands on after reaching level 30.
Here are some end-game scoreboards to anyone interested.
All games were played on Damnation High-Int, most of them with either Lights-Out or Hunting Ground mods. They are consecutive games, and not in order. Some games were played with a duo partner.
Some other notes:
- I don’t use Healtbar mods.
- I’m not bragging about damage numbers here. Misplays were made, bugs happened, and most importantly damage should be taken in context. I play very aggressively and almost always top damage charts in pugs due to favoring a more aggressive playstyle (than most others) and high-damage weapons. When it doesn’t happen it’s usually because there is someone playing even more aggressively (BB Ogryn, Auto Pistol Vet/Psyker, and a few Zealots).
- Damage isn’t the end-all be-all. It’s okay that certain classes, and loadouts have differences in damage output. There is other stuff that is just as important, like survivability, mobility, and clutch potential.
- Compared to my other game Ogryn produced slightly higher damage numbers compared to my usual games with similar pug teams… My other games where I play with much better loadout optimized to my personal preference on classes that I have far more experience in playing.
- Scoreboard doesn’t seem to notice the new boss, and I think damage numbers from Chaos Spawn got lumped into “lesser enemies” inflating some numbers on TH Zealot in a few games.
- The player quality wasn’t great, but what can I do… There were some very good players at least and also managed to play with a good ogryn too. Only the last posted scoreboard is from a team where I would consider everyone highly skilled.
My Conclusions:
With the (beginner) loadout I used Ogryn seems to be incredibly overtuned both offensively and defensively. While the weapons I tried provided some ridiculous damage output on a class that should probably be more defense/CC orientated, the Survivability by itself was way too high.
I now get why Ogryns with higher skill tend to “go solo” caring little about the team, and I’m quite confused about older posts that were considered the Ogryn’s survivability too low.
My main issue is that this power pushes Ogryns into playing less around their team since if their personal skill can keep the disablers and chip damage in check (which isn’t that hard to do) they don’t need much if any support/input from their teammates. It also felt (at least with the weapons I used) to be very simple to play, but maybe it was just not pushed into doing better/trying to master the weapons that much.
I have no idea how to tackle this issue. Both Bull Butcher and especially Gorgonum seem incredibly OP and should be adjusted, but how to balance out Ogryns offensive and defensive strength properly so it both feels good and isn’t over/undertuned is currently beyond me.
PS: This took way more effort than I was first willing to put into it. I think I won’t join in on the discussion about the topic apart from answering questions and clearing up any potential misunderstanding. The next stop for my ogryn experience will be Ripper which seemed even more op than Gorgonum from the outside.
