How are you supposed to use the Ripper Guns?
I find them incredibly bad.
I’ll hold on more descriptive thoughts of how utterly unimpressive I find them.
I feel Ripper Guns are relics of the old Darktide combat philosophy really, and don’t compare well to lets say Arbis shotguns. Mk V is the “best” if you learn how to one tap enemies at range. Blessings which make sense:
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Blaze Away + Fire Frenzy if you just want to unload at mixed hordes
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Blaze Away + Can Opener, to special stab against armoured enemies like Crushers or Monsters, combos well like cleavers
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Blaze Away + Inspiring Barrage, if you want an emergency toughness regen
In general the trick with Ripper Gun is to dump Ammo, so you have 19 max in your mag. This way blessings like Blaze Away and Inspiring Barrage stack to their max power far quicker.
Shot them without bracing to pick off some up close specials, or gunners. If you learn to tap with MK V you can pick off enemies at longer ranges, due to its higher minimum pellet count (the amount of pellets in the shot the game “assumes” you hit the enemy with as long as you hit it at least with one. Brace the gun if you just have ammo to spare, into mixed horde. As many other Ogryn weapons they combo well with Steady Grip and Dedicated Practice for better toughness regen / quicker swapping.
powercreep will make every weapon feel bad eventually, just give it time.
but ive been using a mk5 ripper as my sidearm for a pretty long time now, its not so much a ‘gun’ as it is a ‘utility tool’ if that makes sense.
if you have line of sight to a dogged teammate, you can knock it off usually with a single shot, oh you can time a weapon swap just right to cancel the rest of the burst to save ammo. same thing with flamers/trappers/bombers, if theres one within like ~15 meters you can usually knock them to the ground in a single shot which gives you time to walk up and melee them, or 1-2 bursts will kill em depending on how close they are how many shots you land etc, the mk5 ripper has very high recoil 
the mk5 can also be decent at taking out snipers if you can land a couple shots because of minimum pellet count, but i would not rely on it too heavily, your pinpoint accurate teammates with infinite ammo should be the ones dealing with snipers ideally
also the ripper special stab is very good now, with can opener and a standard melee build the ripper stab turns into the perfect way to set an enemy up for huge damage taken, can opener applies 40% brittle per stab, its counted as a heavy attack so the enemy gets 4 stacks of bleed per stab, you also apply soften em up and hard knocks if you stagger them, perfect step up for a pickaxe overhead etc.
I mostly used it for fun on low AP builds with can opener you can weapon special then blast crushers. Also have to pair with rock for consistent snipes.
i find if i want to make a lot of noise and throw a huge amount of lead down range but not actually hurt anything thats when i reach for the ripper gun
its a relic from another time
outside of gunning a boss really never. even then the scum needle pistol does that far better with far less input. rippers suck. link stubbers suck. single stubbers are useable. kickback is decent. rumbler is decent.
Works wonders on Specials and fun to use Can Opener on Carapace Armor
Then go switch up to using favorite bonk stick wor whatever lol
One day FS will release a Dreg Only Mostly Horde Soulblaze Resistant modifier that fills out the enemy roster gaps dregs have with fat zombies and daemons. There won’t be a single carapace enemy in sight and the other hundreds of dead non-meta weapons that are only good at horde clearing will have an excuse to live.
You don’t need to do that anymore the ogryn rework made braced have the same minimal pellet count as hipfire, there are still reasons to hipfire but you don’t need to at long range.
There’s quite a few changes from that rework that simply didn’t stick in the player’s consciousness.
Probably because Fatshark pulled an Arrowhead, barely tweaking weapons and then significantly buffed all enemies shortly after.
Honestly I just think people aren’t even prepared to try things out, everytime a underperformer gets buffed you would expect to see a bunch of people in games trying them out but thats never what happens. It took a REALLY long time for people to actually wise up to how good the paul is and I would claim it’s even now still underrated.
Nah, I totally missed those changes. Ripper Guns used to feature a lot on my Ogryn builds, also GG. I just don’t play Ogryn in Havoc, so didn’t bother much with Ogryn patch notes.
Sorry I didn’t actually mean to imply that you are one of the people that don’t try things out, it was just a observation I have made that whenever some underperformer is buffed I never see anyone trying it out in game.
One of my favourite parts of the gun is the incredible stagger, it’ll body any specialist at any range. I love using it, though the kickback is probably better in most ways.
Ping sniper → shoot sniper → sniper dies/falls over → shoot again/rock followup. Same for most specialists, just be ready for the followup. It will buy you time which is always nice for Ogryn.
It’s no revolver but it’s got a lot of utility, sounds amazing, and the magdump with extreme prejudice feels amazing!
Also I’ve heard you get a lot more accurate shots if you are standing still while firing.
No harm done. I know few people who like trying out non-meta picks. Variety is the spice of life, right?
I can see Ripper Gun being a decent utility pick in Havoc both for toughness sustain and for applying Brittleness. Damage maxing isn’t probably worth it due to ammo economy issues.
I mean, ammo is only an issue because y’all specifically dump ammo to maximize Blaze Away, Cavilcade, and Inspiring Barrage. That’s a conscious choice made.
At risk of sounding like Ripper is in a good place, PBB and a normal-built Ripper has a ton of uptime. Not Hive Scum uptime or even Veteran uptime, but it’s still enough to last more than one room if you’re willing to melee.
Mk II can spread around more dots than the mk V by virtue of a wider spread and more controllable rate of fire. The mk VI actually has real people finesse modifiers which means it actually does something on crits and weakspot hits.
Just for Auric, I don’t take Ripper into Havoc 40 because I feel like that’s rude… although since Survivalist is working like pre-nerf right now, I’ll consider taking it next time I get the chance.
What happened to the old flechette + PBB build? Nobody use that anymore?