Alright, here to talk about the new oggy shovels.
So, the original was a beautiful hybrid child of a club and a knife, with a satisfying uppercut, good carapace damage on its first heavy, and potent anti-horde abilities, especially in the aftermath of the changes to Brutal Momentum and the removal of the artificial target cap on its second heavy. Nothing it sucked against, and could reliably bully anything but Crushers and Maulers.
Not the best weapon for light attack spam, but we don’t play the big lads to use light attacks.
Mark 5 shovel: attack pattern is fairly straightforward- you can use the L1-H1 combo of the original for anti-horde, or you can just chain heavies. Horizontalish swings with solid stagger, but lacks the original’s ability to handle Carapace with its normal rotation. For that, you need to use the special action, and while I do miss punching things in the face, I cannot stress enough that this shovel is functionally a power axe. Can kill just about anything without a screen-spanning health bar with a fully charged attack, especially if you can land a headshot.
Slow to set up, slow to recover, absolutely hilarious.
Mark 19 shovel: Haven’t used it as much. Feels like more of a traditional Vermintide weapon, with sweepy light attacks and single-target strikedown heavies. Heavies don’t change much in behavior when folded, making this shovel a bit more consistent in its handling than the mark 5, but I don’t like ogryn weapons that can’t use heavies at all to handle hordes. Can handle carapace even while not folded, but that ended up feeling kind of redundant to me- if I want that utility, the original shovel was better for it and allows me to punch heretics in the face.
Probably the only shovel I don’t want Thrust and Brutal Momentum on- Thrust is still viable on it, albeit less so as its heavies lack versatility(again, synergizes with the magnificent damage on the folded strike), but Brutal Momentum takes second place to Confident strikes: no horizontal heavies means poor ability to line up mass headshot kills, and the lack of heavy use in hordes highlights the value of Confident Strikes in keeping you intact in those situations.