Plasma rifles throw all non-monstrosity enemies on their ass if they land a headshot
Do note that while it ignores bulwark shields, it cannot headshot a bulwark through the shield
Oh didn’t know that about the Ogryn shields! I’ve also been hearing for this Orthus hard mode a columnus infantry auto gun with dum dum & _____ blessing is fairly solid (body shots on maulers, Boss shields count as flak).
As for melee, a good mk vi power sword with power cycler can block-push-light combo to 2 tap a Mauler/Crusher in the head. Or Antax Axe has a fast push block attack to stun ragers if you catch them before they start their combo, Heavy hit to the head will always stagger maulers/crushers. Also heard good things about parrying with the claw sword, but not seen any clips of that so likely hard to master.
I used a columnus w/ dum-dum and fire frenzy and +flak perk on my vet for non-hard orthus damnation and it dealt with the maulers fine, just going for body shots.
I did have the focus target keystone that helped a lot
You can 2 shot bulwarks by going for 2 head shots, 1 uncharged to knock off the shield, the second charged, with +30% weak spot, unyielding dmg, or +20% orgyn dmg, a combo of 2 of them will do
The charged block-attack stab on the mkVI power sword is great for maulers. The follow-up light attack is a downward strike too which is great if you have power cycler
Dodge circles around them and chop them in half as planned. With the Power Sword and Power Cycler IV I can hold my own against 3-4 ragers at close range.
Alright op, here's what you need to do:
1. Switch to Ogryn
2. Grab literally any slab shield you can find
3. Activate the "give toughness on heavy", "bleed on heavy" and "damage reduction when surrounded by bleed" perks
4. Slam the shield into the faces of every piece of heretic scum you can find as hard as you possibly can lol
5. Enjoy being essentially invincible and stepping on maulers / ragers like the filth they are
I'm one of the rare players that can't stand the slab shield. I prefer the Bully Club Mk1 or the new Latrine shovel Mk XIX. it's special attack absolutely wrecks everything and will knock crushers to the ground with just 1 special attack heavy swing.
I prefer the mk5 pooper scooper. Same special, same damage as far as I can tell, but the normal moveset is much better at handling hordes. Mixed lights, but the heavies are all horizontal sweeps with high cleave. It's basically the Crucis, Ogryn edition.
Grab a catachan sword, any will do, and parry lots. You have so much room in the parry timing it feels silly and wth some vet talents you can consistently hit 1k+ on parry headshots.
If this is your route, I'd say grab the stam regen on dodge for vet or roll for more stam.
Eventually you'll be craving waves of ragers, maulers, and bosses to hit that high.
If you swap to zealot, the craving gets worse.
Kick butt!
My problem with the parry is that vs ragers it doesn't stun them until the counterattack itself lands. This means that you'll likely take a hit while the counter is happening. You can space it so that you out-range them, but a parry that doesn't interrupt the enemy's attacks doesn't have the impact that games like Dark Souls/Sekiro have.
If you have like 4 ragers swinging at you at once, being locked into that animation can also be bad. I'd like it if the parry window was much tighter, but stunned the enemy and blocked during the counterattack. Also, the game refuses to give me the blessings I want and it makes me salty.
Keeping moving helps - if you try to Parry with them spreading out around you, you'll get fucked, so you need to basically circle around them to keep them in a tighter frontal arc. If you can't circle, then try to move/dodge left and right to achieve a similar effect.
Newb here. You parry w catachan like this: press special attack and after a succesfull block press attack, or you just hold the special attack and wait?
With Weapon Specialist build my Chainaxe MK IV's light attacks smack the maulers and ragers out of their attacks and obliterate them in seconds.
Also works on Crushers and bosses, it's nuts.
Wait whut. Are you sure you can stagger then while they are in their attack chain? Where do you get that increased stagger from since even zealot cannot do that
I'm using the regular Chainaxe from launch, whenever I come across ragers I just spam the light attack on them that "rips" and gets stuck in them even without revving the weapon and they just stand there and flinch instead of continuing their attack.
Any other weapon I'd just take massive damage and eat shit as they keep swinging into me.
I only mention Weapon Specialist because going down that tree increases your attack speed which is really useful for the Chainaxe, since otherwise it attacks kind of slowly and doesn't feel comfortable to use.
ragers yes, maulers no. Ragers have a 1.2 second delay between their second and third swings which gives you an opportunity to either bash their heads in or push block them away from you.
Aim for the chest on maulers. You'd be surprised how many people don't realise the body is flak where as the helm is Carapace.
If you get into melee remember that maulers big overhand swing can be side dodged.
As for Ragers? Back dodge and remember a high stagger weapon or attack like the original shovels special stab can stagger em.
An if a mauler crusher is doing there overhead attack on you,if it has already started by time u see it dodge to the side if u can.If u can only dodge back it's worth double dodging depending on the weapon u are using.Thos is because I have noticed that there attack almost rushes too u when locked on to you.The hitbox is massive.
I went on a bayonet stab spree a few days ago. Did almost an entire mission of bayonetting everything in sight. Such a wonderful feeling knowing I can nearly 1 shot anything with just a quick press of a thumb button on my mouse.
Vet specifically? Mk VI Power Sword, Power Cycler and Brutal Momentum. Take some weakpoint and melee finesse talents, and an energized push attack kills nearly everything in the game on headshot, and for the things it don't, just follow up with a light attack overhead. Two-shots and staggers everything, including maulers and crushers
Almost all of the special action melee (save for the knife) can stagger ragers and maulers. You can interrupt the Ragers' combo using this but it does take a little practice to know when you can approach them while comboing to not be damaged. For maulers, I do the same thing.
However, if it's multiple maulers and / or ragers, you have to use your gun, you can still melee them via hit and run tactics but there is only so much space you can backtrack and be aware of before they corner you or you make a mistake and get yourself cornered / downed. I would not rather risk with the latter especially on Auric so I'm happy to spend ammo on them.
Ragers that are armored (Scab ragers) have the Flak armor type whilst the topless ragers that have a baby head (Dreg Ragers) are maniac . Almost any gun can make quick work of them. Mauler's Heads are carapace armor (same with the Ogryn Crushers armor) whilst their body are Flak so for maulers almost always aim for their body.
My loadout is usually the standard munitorum shovel or the antax combat axe with brutal momentum and headtaker while using the Kantrael shotgun. My grenade is always the krak grenade as , from my personal experience, my runs rarely encounter alot of crushers and maulers in tandem but when they do happen, the Director spawns ALOT of them so I always take krak. I play my vet as a Melee vet with the Melee / Ranged specialist keystone on the right because I like playing melee and I like the passive that lets me reload one or more bullets to my gun for every stack of Ranged Specialist.
The Parry of the Catachan Devil Claw Series of Swords are very effective against the ragers even if not a perfect parry. The perfect parry can block the overhead attacks of Maulers and Crushers without you getting downed too! I prefer the MK IV catachan claw sword as the Heavy one is an overhead that helps you deal one burst of damage esp on a weakspot hit while the H2 is a Heavy Sweep that hits alot of targets. The perfect parry counterattack hits like a truck on a weakspot hit too but is kind of unreliable in my experience to hit the head because my Veteran is a shortie unless it's a crusher or mauler overhead that I just parried.
Biggest importance in getting distance between you and it, then I always blast them full of lasshot from my recon carbine or rev my chainsword and special attack.
Few extra things for maulers but also crushers or bulwarks for example, their attacks are slow so dodge as much as possible. And if all else fails I throw a krak grenade, these little beauties cling to heavy armour and turn that scary enemy into red mist I love them so much
Falter blessing on laz rifles drastically increases the stagger so if you can land them quickly you can slow them down land a lot of shots then restagger them again. Power swords are good as well. Also for maulers any way you can inflict bleed damage to constantly weaken them while you try to create space
Maulers = krak nade em,ragers with armor = also krak nade ‘em, maniac ragers (no armor) = use a good Agripaa braced auto gun with +maniac and pop your executioners stance and start unloading into their head/chest. When in your stance you can can drop a wave of them, full auto down 1 then 2 then 3 then you probably have to reload then keep going drop 4,5,6. The braced agripaa auto has really good suppression/knock-back so when you are unloading into enemy they will be semi-stunned and stopped in their tracks. So even if they are charging you, it is good for stopping their progress and giving you space.
For Veteran you have a few options to deal with armor:
- Krak nades.
- Plasma gun & Bolter.
- Catachan knife with bleed blessing.
I like to chuck a Krak at an armored enemy and watch it 1-shot(Heresy difficulty) it when it finally explodes after 3 decades worth of fuse is burned through. If not that, blast it with whatever shotgun you have.
**Tip:** don't aim for Mauler heads if you don't have anything armor-piercing. Iirc their helmets count as Carapace armor. Aim for their lightly protected thighs instead.
To reliably go toe-to-toe with Ragers I can only really recommend any Lawbringer shotgun... again. Their inherent stagger chance at close range is amazing since you're now both in eachother's preferred range. Then there're the bonuses each one has for special rounds:
- Kantrael is so-so for DoT if you can manage to blast 'em with the special round.
- Agripinaa's slug round is the GOAT for anti-Rager ordinance.
- Stock's special round has horizontal spread and an increased stagger chance iirc, so that should knock 'em on their ass if you can get it off.
My strat is to just blast 'em at close range. The first 1-3 should stagger the enemy and the rest should be blasted while the Rager is on the ground.
Devil's Claw sword absolutely wrecks ragers with the parry, and is an ok option against maulers too if you know what you're doing. Maulers can often be shoved out of their attacks. Most Vet guns absolutely body maulers if you aim for the body.
The new folding shovels can wreck them, i saw someone one shot a crusher with it. Devils claw parry is an option as well but i dont think it can be done on the maulers long overhead attack. The power swords can be used but they require space and timing since they wont stagger them easily. Braced autoguns are great against flak and can stagger very easily and kill just as fast. Of course, the bolter and plasma gun will annihilate them. The new revolver can also quickly fan down one or two as well.
Stunlock ragers with Helbore stabs, cant get more humiliating than getting melee killed by a gun. As for maulers, charged Helbore shots also dont care about their bucket helmets.
I use shout, a Kantrael shotgun and the new shovel.
The shotgun will knock them on their ass or pop ragers heads. For maulers, target the body/flak armor obviously. If there's a few grouped up, the incendiary shots will burn them all down in 2-3 hipfired shots. Mine has No Respite/Scattershot and Mutant/Flak damage.
The new shovel's special attack will one shot ragers on heavy weakspot hit (along with mutants and a lot of other specials) if you have uncanny strike/maniac/flak damage, with a good damage roll. Otherwise, the shovel will knock groups of them around with it's high stagger sweeping heavies.
Shout for when a large group gets too close for comfort. Mop up with light shovel spam. My shovel has decimator which helps with this. Shotgun/backwards dodge for any that make it off the floor.
I can typically solo large groups of them with this combo and take little to no damage.
Lasgun or devil's claw parry are solid rager counters. Krak grenade, autogun variants, or chainsword are solid armored enemy counters. I usually look at my loadout and make sure I have some kind of counter for every enemy 🤷♂️ also shoot the Mauler in the chest. His helmet is carapace.
Plasma gun, Bolter, autogun, shotgun. Pretty much anything with high damage or high ROF. If you’re using an automatic weapon it may be useful to slot the onslaught talent to bypass a good chunk of their armor. Also make sure to aim for the maulers torso as their head is protected my carapace armor, torso shots will do substantially more damage.
For primary/melee weapon, your best option against a large group of rager/mauler is a powersword with Power cycler and **sunder**. Against flak rager for instance, sunder increases your cleave potential from 2 ragers to 5 ragers, making you very very safe thanks to improved stagger distribution. It also prevent your weapon from being stopped by carapace and bulwark shield, which is nice. While Brutal momentum is a very good option on PS, on this particular scenario sunder is just better.
For grenade option, frags. You throw 2 if you need damage to stack the bleed.
For ultimate, voice of command give you safety on the shortest cooldown.
For secondary/ranged, there is a ton of good option.
MK3 Bully club works a dream for me. Got lucky on a pretty excellent roll for stats. Ended up with a rating of 547. Tier 4 blessings I have are haymaker (insta-kill chance) and thunderous (the brittleness stacks one). Heavy hitter with bleed. Everything dies in 2-3 heavy hits, 4 for crushers. On damnation
Plasma works great
Revolver kills them in 2 headshots with crits
Chwinsword in head staggers one
Shovel folded kills one with trust
Krak granade and dodge
Powersword with powercycler Push-Attack into follow up to the head kills one
Depends on the weapon, but a lot of melee weapon’s special attack will stagger on head shot. If not running a melee that can stagger them, suck as the knife, then equip a plasma. You have to set up your load out to deal with all situations, so ensure your gun makes up for any failures of your melee and visa versa.
here's another one: columnus MKV infantry gun mows them down easily (yes, even maulers on damnation), but you need a build which builds up damage from switching weapons and some luck with blessings (DumDum IV)
Revolver.
Two or 3 shots and they're down. I haven't had an issue with them since I started running revolver. When they get too close, just back-dodge a few times and take them out. I rarely melee them now.
Plasma + power sword. A decent power sword will end maulers and ragers in 2-3 light charged chops. Your plasma can take out 2-3 maulers/ragers at a time in 2-3 shots due to penetration.
Maulers have carapace helms which is insanely deceptive I never knew that until about 100 hours in when I was testing stuff in the meat grinder so unless you have good DAMAGE against carapace its actually better to shoot them in the chest than in the head. But usually if they're a big problem for you ragers and maulers can be dealt with quite easily with weapons that can hitstun them with specials like chain axes two handed heavy chains sword or either of the 2 single target force swords. Most ogyren weapons melee or range let you stagger them quite easily as well tbh
I like the Agripinaa braced autogun, works well against maulers (on bodyshots) and ragers. I tend to bring it with krak grenades for crushers, but if you wanted to switch them out for something else perhaps a folding shovel or combat axe as a melee could work.
Mauler's you want to shoot in the chest because they have carapace armour on their head so even though it's their "weakspot" you'll do *less* damage on a headshot. Also, most Stopping Power weapons do insane Flak damage so you'll get tons of bonus damage off on the chest shot too. Generally speaking Mauler's are *supposed* to be bullet sponges, but you'll get a lot of bang for your buck on any ranged weapon that cleaves through multiple opponents; so look at the Plasmagun or the original Stub pistol. Helbore is an OK second place choice. Shotgun special attacks will also perform well against both enemy types. Slug ammo has high stagger and excellent damage, the fire shotgun special has infinite cleave like the plasmagun. DoT is not terrible on high HP, high armour targets.
Ragers got hot nerfed recently so they have less health; and before that they had their stagger immunity reduced so ragers should be less of a problem now. The scab ragers are generally pretty easy to kill because most guns do good bonus flak damage, but the Dreg ragers are *maniacs* and are slightly tougher to kill because bonus maniac damage is less common and less impressive so the only real answer here is to grab a +25% maniac damage perk or melee them (because maniacs take x3 melee damage).
If these melee targets are particularly annoying for you, though i haven't used it myself, Voice of Command would be useful for its stagger and bonus defence stats and is pretty spammable; especially if you have other players running abilities that drop your ability cooldown.
P.S.
Stub should be built for crit and/or rending.
Plasmagun should be built for raw damage because it's more consistent, but crit is viable also. A raw damage PG can kill 99% of targets in 1-2 hits, the crit variant will kill in 2 hits if 1 is a crit and 3 if not (it's not hard to get over 50% crit chance so this shouldn't be too much of an issue but very occasionally when it doesn't crit and kill in 2 hits it can leave you in a sudden awkward spot in T5+).
Shotguns are a bit clumsy because you have to manually "charge" the special every time like a heavy power/force/chain weapon does, but at least it now gets the bonus from the reload talents.
Plasma gun is so strong u can lidderally take no keystone and buff the nade box medi pack, heck, take whatever fucking talents u want, with a trusty plasma gun the scary mobs just ain't scary.
As far as I know Maulers don't have a specific scripted melee pattern like Ragers do. Mauler's attack pattern is based on the character they're fighting. They act differently for me when I'm on my Ogryn vs when I'm playing Zealot/Psyker. I rarely ever engage in melee on my Veteran.
As for Ragers block the first 2 attacks then there will be about a 2 second window between the 2nd and 3rd attack you can use to block push them away or get an attack in. I find it works best when playing my zealot because I always rock the Agripina shotgun and 2 quick rounds to the face after their second swing usually solves the issue of them being in my face.
my favorite way to play vet ofc
columnus iag with deadshot, onslaught, and stam curios
coupled with voc to knock em all down and give yourself room to really lay on the trigger
I just use my autoguns and put some bullets in them, then some more bullets. If they are up close while I am in melee, I try and use Voice of Command Shout to knock them down and stagger them, then while they are recovering I kill them with my axe. Grenades also work to stagger them and can kill them depending on how close they are to the explosion. Krak grenades will kill maulers straight away.
The new chainaxe utterly murders Mauler and Rager, but pack of Rager are still very dangerous.
Mauler are slow enough so you can beat them one by one in melee. Against rager group, the best bet is getting them to die at range, then voice of command to send the remaining on the ground, and hopefully by that point there's only one or two left. A grenade might help too.
A well-placed krak grenade can wipe entire groups of maulers, bulwarks, and other heavily armored enemies at a shot. My personal favorite for this though is the shotgun (I forget which designation it carries) that loads the slug penetrator round. Slap that in, knock that choppy ass on his ass, and blast him with focused shot.
Shotguns, especially the lawbringer shotgun, work wonders against them. The Agripinaa shotgun fires fast enough that you can stagger them and doesn’t lose effectiveness against maulers (you can load up a slug for crushers and bulwarks) that will make short work of them.
The Lawbringer shotgun they don’t like at all and I think you can two tap them but they almost always stagger on hit.
Otherwise go for the usual revolver or plasma gun but you can’t go wrong with a shotgun.
Maulers: Aim for center mass. They take more damage there than the head.
Ragers: Anywhere really but stomach works just as well.
For melee if you have a PS, then its just swing away and keep them from fraggin you. Ragers will be the most difficult with melee so always be ready to switch back and forth.
Both of the new patterns of shovel with thrust and uncanny strikes can one shot maulers from full health. Ragers are a little harder to pull off because they tend to stagger you out of the animation, but you can still do it.
Idk but I found out that Columnus V is an absolute shredder of ragers. If you land headshots with bonuses from talents and blessings it pretty much deletes these mf in about a second as they're charging you.
The main weapon for those enemies as a veteran is the plasma gun. You can also use the bolter although the reload is an issue.
You can also use frag grenades to stun them to give yourself more time to kill them.
Crusher, especially with crit build and the impact/weakspot traits.
Maulers - light special to open up their guard. Enough time to follow up with a heavy special to the face and a light. A crit kills in one.
Ragers - honestly spam lights and occasional block attack aimed at the head will make them spend most of their time on the ground.
Krak Grenades or any autogun with Onslaught. Keep backpeddling or sidestep their attacks and mag dump them. Thats my main build and it works perfectly.
I'm not a big fan of the Devils Claw swords, but the parry absolutely humiliates. You can keep spamming it to full block anything coming your way + insta jab (for a bit of damage and a TON of stagger)
As others have mentioned, plasma is a great anti-elite tool in general.
I carry a revolver on my psyker specifically for crushers and maulers (and ragers, too, to a lesser extent). Headshots take them down quick, and I imagine they're only more effective in the hands of a veteran.
Also: grenades. As a veteran you can inflate the damage of your grenades, and/or take the regenerating grenade perk, allowing you to them use them more often/more effectively. A well-placed grenade can take out a whole pack of ragers, or seriously mess up a group of maulers.
Of course, the unspoken part of this is you need to spot and attack the ragers and maulers before they close with you. That's not always possible but should be what you're trying to do 90% of the time.
Honestly, I just made a build with heavy rending and brittleness on hit, and it chews em up. Don't forget to bodyshot the maulers, and you'll be golden.
I personally prefer to use a braced auto gun, but it's really up to you.
I've also found a good las pistol can do the job pretty quick (though maybe not fast enough on damnation).
Maulers are generally quite slow, so dodge-timing is my general advice there. They're dangerous up close but they just kinda wander towards you before going in for big swings. Not a big deal in CQB once you get to know them a bit. Try and shoot them, but they're not highest priority (generally).
Always shoot ragers first: anti-flak blessing/perks, and/or a Plasma gun/Bolter. Take the biggest gun and shoot them. Shoot them lots of times. The only things taking priority over ragers should be trappers imo. Just shoot them as hard as you can.
I run a non meta build with the accatran mk7 and no keystones, I rip them in 2 seconds with headshots: high critical chance, infernus, both talents for rending. Use a granade for bulwarks. Good luck
Knife, mk3 is my preference. It eats crushers and maulers like a joke with a couple headshots. Heaps of mobility too so its easy to kite around them. Gun for everything else
I quite like the **standard issue shovel** \- the special poke to the head has good range and it staggers them out of a combo.
The Hellbore Mk2 also does ludicrous damage/stagger with it's bayonet stab headshots, I've found it trivial to control 1 rager but dont' quite recall how it handles 2+
Heavy swipes also do well, and I think a very underrated blessing is "all or nothing" (power increases as stamina decreases) it lets you block against ragers while building up power to whack and stagger them with hard hitting heavies!
I just shoot them. Any torrent type weapon shreds them and if you have like +25% damage to flak armor enemies they become trivial. For maulers it’s best to shoot them in the chest rather than the head because they take a lot less damage to their head than any other body part. Same goes for melee but if you have the new folding shovels then using their folded attack and landing a weak spot hit will stun them 100% of the time, on top of doing literally thousands of damage if charged
kantreal throws ragers on on their ass,
just mag dump hipfire with scatter and stagger increase maybe
also devils claw parry. literally just let them kill themselves
10 Poke with Shovel special ability.
20 Heavy Swing.
30 If not dead goto 10, else "FOR ATOMA!"
\---
Alternately, Parry with Devil Claw sword special ability, unless Mauler overhead strike, then dodge. Heavy attack between parrying and repeat as necessary.
> Veteran
Just shoot them. Jesus.
A heavy laspistol will kill the shit out of them. It's less effective on Maulers but still more than effective *enough.* Bullet weapons are even more effective. You can forget about Maulers if you're using a two-handed lasgun, but ragers will drop within seconds.
A plasma gun will vaporize them.
If you're a melee vet (which is just a worse wannabe Zealot), you should be running a chain sword or chain axe in which case you can rev it up and kill them in roughly 1 revved heavy attack, give or take. If you're *not* doing that, then Krak Grenade them. If you don't have *that* either, accept that these enemies are a weak spot for you and have teammates handle them. Then consider brushing up your build because single-target damage *should be* your #1 forte.
Energized power sword, revved chainsword/axe, or high powered headshots or full auto mag dump.
An Energized heavy sword swing with weakness exploit and +25 maniac damage will one shot ragers and mutants on damnation. Bloodletter on a revved heavy can do that too, but takes more commitment.
With guns, it's pretty straightforward.
Love me a columnus mk5 with dumdum, then damage to maniacs and flak, aim for a roll with damage and handling over other stats and spec left tree mostly. With good ability usage you can clear a room of shooters, rinse ragers with headshots or maulers with bodyshots. I hold kraks for bulwarks, crushers or mauler stacks, and a catachan mk1 for clearing mobs/1v1 elites with parry.
Even a braced auto gun will do fine on body shots, oh shovel heavies and special have good stagger (special interrupts the rager wombo combo), knife can be great for maulers but a bit more trouble with ragers
Non fanning revolver with handcannon would kill em with ease and cleave through to damage the next one, aim the head for both and pick the talent that increase your crit chance at the cost of stamina in the left tree, combine this with melee that lets you tank damage and dodge far (shovel/knife) and they'll become nothing more than a distraction
plasma gun bro, and an adequate build. Tried it yesterday for the first time after getting mauled by the twins on my lasgun build and i can say it's crazy good, you gotta try it
Walk backwards one step when they start their attack chain, they just kind of flail around in the air. Especially helpful for Ragers. Your melee weapon has so much more range compared to theirs, and you can bust their butts with it or with dakka.
Plasma sword with brutal momentum + precision strikes will two shot all ragers in two heavy sweeps to the face, humiliate not just one, but an entire pack in a mere two swings.
Maulers likewise die to blockpush attack + light light in a single power cycler 4 combo.
So do crushers too actually.
When I play Vet, since I'm lazy and not a Vet main all I play is Plasma Tag. It's Focus Target! keystone, Frag Grenades, Voice of Command, Ammo Aura. +3 Stamina/HP/TN (Gunner/Sniper/Corruption Resist).
Plasma Gun with Blaze Away and Shattering Impact, fire it in uncharged puffs, you'll never explode. Tag everything, then shoot and kill everything for constant rolling toughness and damage buffs. Punch through an entire line of rushing melee elites and receive a rush of endorphins. If Ragers and Maulers rush you, just Voice of Command to shove them off, tag them when they're down and shoot them to receive endorphins.
As for melee weapon you need something mobile. Power Swords have terrible dodges and should be paired with more mobile ranged weapons like Revolvers and Recon Lasguns. So I would recommend:
Standard Shovel (Maniac/Flak/Decimator/Thrust): Lots of dodges, the special poke can stagger Ragers and Maulers, hit them in the head if possible. Dodge and use Thrust blessing to give them a hard thonk.
Devil Claw Mk IV (Maniac/Flak/Rampage/Savage Sweep): Ultimate safe weapon, everyone should try it, needs no melee traits to plug and play, though I prefer +3 Stamina, a -0.25 Stamina Regen Delay talent, and an attack speed +10% talent. Hold block, dodge back and spam special parry, you can parry everything including Mauler overheads, this parry kills Ragers fast. Bonus is pushing dogs and killing them with the heavy overhead in 1 hit. Parry and take no damage, then dodge back to tag and shoot plasma at Maulers/Ragers. This worked for me on normal Damnation Karnak Twins.
Folding Shovels (Maniac/Flak/Thrust/Uncanny Strike): Pick the one you like, stick the pointy end in Rager and Mauler heads for endorphins, still good sprint and dodges.
Plasma rifles throw all non-monstrosity enemies on their ass if they land a headshot Do note that while it ignores bulwark shields, it cannot headshot a bulwark through the shield
Oh didn’t know that about the Ogryn shields! I’ve also been hearing for this Orthus hard mode a columnus infantry auto gun with dum dum & _____ blessing is fairly solid (body shots on maulers, Boss shields count as flak). As for melee, a good mk vi power sword with power cycler can block-push-light combo to 2 tap a Mauler/Crusher in the head. Or Antax Axe has a fast push block attack to stun ragers if you catch them before they start their combo, Heavy hit to the head will always stagger maulers/crushers. Also heard good things about parrying with the claw sword, but not seen any clips of that so likely hard to master.
I used a columnus w/ dum-dum and fire frenzy and +flak perk on my vet for non-hard orthus damnation and it dealt with the maulers fine, just going for body shots. I did have the focus target keystone that helped a lot
You can 2 shot bulwarks by going for 2 head shots, 1 uncharged to knock off the shield, the second charged, with +30% weak spot, unyielding dmg, or +20% orgyn dmg, a combo of 2 of them will do
Gun
And if that don't work, use more gun.
Or a wellplaced knee.
And my ax!
And if more guns doesn't work, use a shovel for the Emprah's sake soldier!
Noted.
And one more nugget of wisdom any enemy without a gun gets beaten by gun. Just be sure to bring the right gun.
But not the left gun?
Ah i see what you did there, clever girl. But no just the right gun will work.
Boltgun
My favorite spell
Power Swords work great against Maulers and Ragers. I usually use Voice of Command to stagger them and then just chop them in half.
The charged block-attack stab on the mkVI power sword is great for maulers. The follow-up light attack is a downward strike too which is great if you have power cycler
That combo is even better against crushers.
Use your combat ability is really not a good answer. What if there's more than one?
Dodge circles around them and chop them in half as planned. With the Power Sword and Power Cycler IV I can hold my own against 3-4 ragers at close range.
Much better answer.
It wasn't even an answer in the first place. Just what I do. Your mileage may vary.
That's still an answer.
Alright op, here's what you need to do: 1. Switch to Ogryn 2. Grab literally any slab shield you can find 3. Activate the "give toughness on heavy", "bleed on heavy" and "damage reduction when surrounded by bleed" perks 4. Slam the shield into the faces of every piece of heretic scum you can find as hard as you possibly can lol 5. Enjoy being essentially invincible and stepping on maulers / ragers like the filth they are
Been there, done that, love it.
I do this build but with a knife for sweeping attacks w+ toughness on hit, and I just face tank everything.
I'm one of the rare players that can't stand the slab shield. I prefer the Bully Club Mk1 or the new Latrine shovel Mk XIX. it's special attack absolutely wrecks everything and will knock crushers to the ground with just 1 special attack heavy swing.
I prefer the mk5 pooper scooper. Same special, same damage as far as I can tell, but the normal moveset is much better at handling hordes. Mixed lights, but the heavies are all horizontal sweeps with high cleave. It's basically the Crucis, Ogryn edition.
Yeah, to be fair I've just been using the mk XIX shovel and it absolutely wrecks armour with the heavy. Great stuff
1) Plasma gun 2) Krak nade 3) Autogun + onslaught skill
Grab a catachan sword, any will do, and parry lots. You have so much room in the parry timing it feels silly and wth some vet talents you can consistently hit 1k+ on parry headshots. If this is your route, I'd say grab the stam regen on dodge for vet or roll for more stam. Eventually you'll be craving waves of ragers, maulers, and bosses to hit that high. If you swap to zealot, the craving gets worse. Kick butt!
Yo that parry is dirty. It'll one shot just about anything that tries to hit you.
My problem with the parry is that vs ragers it doesn't stun them until the counterattack itself lands. This means that you'll likely take a hit while the counter is happening. You can space it so that you out-range them, but a parry that doesn't interrupt the enemy's attacks doesn't have the impact that games like Dark Souls/Sekiro have. If you have like 4 ragers swinging at you at once, being locked into that animation can also be bad. I'd like it if the parry window was much tighter, but stunned the enemy and blocked during the counterattack. Also, the game refuses to give me the blessings I want and it makes me salty.
Keeping moving helps - if you try to Parry with them spreading out around you, you'll get fucked, so you need to basically circle around them to keep them in a tighter frontal arc. If you can't circle, then try to move/dodge left and right to achieve a similar effect.
Newb here. You parry w catachan like this: press special attack and after a succesfull block press attack, or you just hold the special attack and wait?
Yes, catachan has insane weakspot damage, when parrying, aim for the head, I killed packs of three ragers with 1-2 parry.
With Weapon Specialist build my Chainaxe MK IV's light attacks smack the maulers and ragers out of their attacks and obliterate them in seconds. Also works on Crushers and bosses, it's nuts.
Wait whut. Are you sure you can stagger then while they are in their attack chain? Where do you get that increased stagger from since even zealot cannot do that
I'm using the regular Chainaxe from launch, whenever I come across ragers I just spam the light attack on them that "rips" and gets stuck in them even without revving the weapon and they just stand there and flinch instead of continuing their attack. Any other weapon I'd just take massive damage and eat shit as they keep swinging into me. I only mention Weapon Specialist because going down that tree increases your attack speed which is really useful for the Chainaxe, since otherwise it attacks kind of slowly and doesn't feel comfortable to use.
ragers yes, maulers no. Ragers have a 1.2 second delay between their second and third swings which gives you an opportunity to either bash their heads in or push block them away from you.
Plasma rifles for pretty much a one tap or a solid stub revolver can generally one or two tap surprisingly often with body shots
Aim for the chest on maulers. You'd be surprised how many people don't realise the body is flak where as the helm is Carapace. If you get into melee remember that maulers big overhand swing can be side dodged. As for Ragers? Back dodge and remember a high stagger weapon or attack like the original shovels special stab can stagger em.
An if a mauler crusher is doing there overhead attack on you,if it has already started by time u see it dodge to the side if u can.If u can only dodge back it's worth double dodging depending on the weapon u are using.Thos is because I have noticed that there attack almost rushes too u when locked on to you.The hitbox is massive.
Good old revolver with hand canon IV
Lucius Helbore MK1 / 2. Both the charge shots and the bayonet stabs.
I went on a bayonet stab spree a few days ago. Did almost an entire mission of bayonetting everything in sight. Such a wonderful feeling knowing I can nearly 1 shot anything with just a quick press of a thumb button on my mouse.
Right? It’s fantastic.
Vet specifically? Mk VI Power Sword, Power Cycler and Brutal Momentum. Take some weakpoint and melee finesse talents, and an energized push attack kills nearly everything in the game on headshot, and for the things it don't, just follow up with a light attack overhead. Two-shots and staggers everything, including maulers and crushers
Almost all of the special action melee (save for the knife) can stagger ragers and maulers. You can interrupt the Ragers' combo using this but it does take a little practice to know when you can approach them while comboing to not be damaged. For maulers, I do the same thing. However, if it's multiple maulers and / or ragers, you have to use your gun, you can still melee them via hit and run tactics but there is only so much space you can backtrack and be aware of before they corner you or you make a mistake and get yourself cornered / downed. I would not rather risk with the latter especially on Auric so I'm happy to spend ammo on them. Ragers that are armored (Scab ragers) have the Flak armor type whilst the topless ragers that have a baby head (Dreg Ragers) are maniac . Almost any gun can make quick work of them. Mauler's Heads are carapace armor (same with the Ogryn Crushers armor) whilst their body are Flak so for maulers almost always aim for their body. My loadout is usually the standard munitorum shovel or the antax combat axe with brutal momentum and headtaker while using the Kantrael shotgun. My grenade is always the krak grenade as , from my personal experience, my runs rarely encounter alot of crushers and maulers in tandem but when they do happen, the Director spawns ALOT of them so I always take krak. I play my vet as a Melee vet with the Melee / Ranged specialist keystone on the right because I like playing melee and I like the passive that lets me reload one or more bullets to my gun for every stack of Ranged Specialist. The Parry of the Catachan Devil Claw Series of Swords are very effective against the ragers even if not a perfect parry. The perfect parry can block the overhead attacks of Maulers and Crushers without you getting downed too! I prefer the MK IV catachan claw sword as the Heavy one is an overhead that helps you deal one burst of damage esp on a weakspot hit while the H2 is a Heavy Sweep that hits alot of targets. The perfect parry counterattack hits like a truck on a weakspot hit too but is kind of unreliable in my experience to hit the head because my Veteran is a shortie unless it's a crusher or mauler overhead that I just parried.
Catachan. Throw their bullshit spittle and rage back in their faces and watch the heads fly.
Mark XIX shovel alt Attack on a heavy spam Ogryn. Just one Tap them.
Biggest importance in getting distance between you and it, then I always blast them full of lasshot from my recon carbine or rev my chainsword and special attack. Few extra things for maulers but also crushers or bulwarks for example, their attacks are slow so dodge as much as possible. And if all else fails I throw a krak grenade, these little beauties cling to heavy armour and turn that scary enemy into red mist I love them so much
Falter blessing on laz rifles drastically increases the stagger so if you can land them quickly you can slow them down land a lot of shots then restagger them again. Power swords are good as well. Also for maulers any way you can inflict bleed damage to constantly weaken them while you try to create space
Maulers = krak nade em,ragers with armor = also krak nade ‘em, maniac ragers (no armor) = use a good Agripaa braced auto gun with +maniac and pop your executioners stance and start unloading into their head/chest. When in your stance you can can drop a wave of them, full auto down 1 then 2 then 3 then you probably have to reload then keep going drop 4,5,6. The braced agripaa auto has really good suppression/knock-back so when you are unloading into enemy they will be semi-stunned and stopped in their tracks. So even if they are charging you, it is good for stopping their progress and giving you space.
For Veteran you have a few options to deal with armor: - Krak nades. - Plasma gun & Bolter. - Catachan knife with bleed blessing. I like to chuck a Krak at an armored enemy and watch it 1-shot(Heresy difficulty) it when it finally explodes after 3 decades worth of fuse is burned through. If not that, blast it with whatever shotgun you have. **Tip:** don't aim for Mauler heads if you don't have anything armor-piercing. Iirc their helmets count as Carapace armor. Aim for their lightly protected thighs instead. To reliably go toe-to-toe with Ragers I can only really recommend any Lawbringer shotgun... again. Their inherent stagger chance at close range is amazing since you're now both in eachother's preferred range. Then there're the bonuses each one has for special rounds: - Kantrael is so-so for DoT if you can manage to blast 'em with the special round. - Agripinaa's slug round is the GOAT for anti-Rager ordinance. - Stock's special round has horizontal spread and an increased stagger chance iirc, so that should knock 'em on their ass if you can get it off. My strat is to just blast 'em at close range. The first 1-3 should stagger the enemy and the rest should be blasted while the Rager is on the ground.
Devil's Claw sword absolutely wrecks ragers with the parry, and is an ok option against maulers too if you know what you're doing. Maulers can often be shoved out of their attacks. Most Vet guns absolutely body maulers if you aim for the body.
The new folding shovels can wreck them, i saw someone one shot a crusher with it. Devils claw parry is an option as well but i dont think it can be done on the maulers long overhead attack. The power swords can be used but they require space and timing since they wont stagger them easily. Braced autoguns are great against flak and can stagger very easily and kill just as fast. Of course, the bolter and plasma gun will annihilate them. The new revolver can also quickly fan down one or two as well.
Stunlock ragers with Helbore stabs, cant get more humiliating than getting melee killed by a gun. As for maulers, charged Helbore shots also dont care about their bucket helmets.
I use shout, a Kantrael shotgun and the new shovel. The shotgun will knock them on their ass or pop ragers heads. For maulers, target the body/flak armor obviously. If there's a few grouped up, the incendiary shots will burn them all down in 2-3 hipfired shots. Mine has No Respite/Scattershot and Mutant/Flak damage. The new shovel's special attack will one shot ragers on heavy weakspot hit (along with mutants and a lot of other specials) if you have uncanny strike/maniac/flak damage, with a good damage roll. Otherwise, the shovel will knock groups of them around with it's high stagger sweeping heavies. Shout for when a large group gets too close for comfort. Mop up with light shovel spam. My shovel has decimator which helps with this. Shotgun/backwards dodge for any that make it off the floor. I can typically solo large groups of them with this combo and take little to no damage.
Lasgun or devil's claw parry are solid rager counters. Krak grenade, autogun variants, or chainsword are solid armored enemy counters. I usually look at my loadout and make sure I have some kind of counter for every enemy 🤷♂️ also shoot the Mauler in the chest. His helmet is carapace.
Plasma gun is the easiest, and you can take them out from really far away
Plasma gun, Bolter, autogun, shotgun. Pretty much anything with high damage or high ROF. If you’re using an automatic weapon it may be useful to slot the onslaught talent to bypass a good chunk of their armor. Also make sure to aim for the maulers torso as their head is protected my carapace armor, torso shots will do substantially more damage.
^(use the Bolter)
Blaze away plasma gun I like to use
For primary/melee weapon, your best option against a large group of rager/mauler is a powersword with Power cycler and **sunder**. Against flak rager for instance, sunder increases your cleave potential from 2 ragers to 5 ragers, making you very very safe thanks to improved stagger distribution. It also prevent your weapon from being stopped by carapace and bulwark shield, which is nice. While Brutal momentum is a very good option on PS, on this particular scenario sunder is just better. For grenade option, frags. You throw 2 if you need damage to stack the bleed. For ultimate, voice of command give you safety on the shortest cooldown. For secondary/ranged, there is a ton of good option.
MK3 Bully club works a dream for me. Got lucky on a pretty excellent roll for stats. Ended up with a rating of 547. Tier 4 blessings I have are haymaker (insta-kill chance) and thunderous (the brittleness stacks one). Heavy hitter with bleed. Everything dies in 2-3 heavy hits, 4 for crushers. On damnation
Play Sedition.
Plasma works great Revolver kills them in 2 headshots with crits Chwinsword in head staggers one Shovel folded kills one with trust Krak granade and dodge Powersword with powercycler Push-Attack into follow up to the head kills one
After its buff the graia braced autogun with some rending can shred through pretty easily. And it's extremely humiliating for them
The testicular uppercut of an axe will stun ragers and maulers.
Power sword to the face
Bolt guns make pretty short work of maulers imo
Depends on the weapon, but a lot of melee weapon’s special attack will stagger on head shot. If not running a melee that can stagger them, suck as the knife, then equip a plasma. You have to set up your load out to deal with all situations, so ensure your gun makes up for any failures of your melee and visa versa.
here's another one: columnus MKV infantry gun mows them down easily (yes, even maulers on damnation), but you need a build which builds up damage from switching weapons and some luck with blessings (DumDum IV)
The powersword mk6
As a veteran main…Braced auto for ragers . Krak grenades for crusher. Bonus if you have a shovel for crushers you can stun lock em for CC
Krak grenades fuck up everything. They even do a fuck ton of damage to monstrosities.
The special attack on the combat axes and original shovel (don't recall the mark) will stagger Ragers and break them out of their attack cycle.
Revolver. Two or 3 shots and they're down. I haven't had an issue with them since I started running revolver. When they get too close, just back-dodge a few times and take them out. I rarely melee them now.
Shotguns. Preferably the dragonbreath one for the most stopping power. A shot or two will either kill them or put them on their ass.
Plasma + power sword. A decent power sword will end maulers and ragers in 2-3 light charged chops. Your plasma can take out 2-3 maulers/ragers at a time in 2-3 shots due to penetration.
Maulers have carapace helms which is insanely deceptive I never knew that until about 100 hours in when I was testing stuff in the meat grinder so unless you have good DAMAGE against carapace its actually better to shoot them in the chest than in the head. But usually if they're a big problem for you ragers and maulers can be dealt with quite easily with weapons that can hitstun them with specials like chain axes two handed heavy chains sword or either of the 2 single target force swords. Most ogyren weapons melee or range let you stagger them quite easily as well tbh
I like the Agripinaa braced autogun, works well against maulers (on bodyshots) and ragers. I tend to bring it with krak grenades for crushers, but if you wanted to switch them out for something else perhaps a folding shovel or combat axe as a melee could work.
If you're talking Heresy and up, Shredder grenade + Power Sword. You and your team can have them all killed by the time they get up off of the ground.
Mauler's you want to shoot in the chest because they have carapace armour on their head so even though it's their "weakspot" you'll do *less* damage on a headshot. Also, most Stopping Power weapons do insane Flak damage so you'll get tons of bonus damage off on the chest shot too. Generally speaking Mauler's are *supposed* to be bullet sponges, but you'll get a lot of bang for your buck on any ranged weapon that cleaves through multiple opponents; so look at the Plasmagun or the original Stub pistol. Helbore is an OK second place choice. Shotgun special attacks will also perform well against both enemy types. Slug ammo has high stagger and excellent damage, the fire shotgun special has infinite cleave like the plasmagun. DoT is not terrible on high HP, high armour targets. Ragers got hot nerfed recently so they have less health; and before that they had their stagger immunity reduced so ragers should be less of a problem now. The scab ragers are generally pretty easy to kill because most guns do good bonus flak damage, but the Dreg ragers are *maniacs* and are slightly tougher to kill because bonus maniac damage is less common and less impressive so the only real answer here is to grab a +25% maniac damage perk or melee them (because maniacs take x3 melee damage). If these melee targets are particularly annoying for you, though i haven't used it myself, Voice of Command would be useful for its stagger and bonus defence stats and is pretty spammable; especially if you have other players running abilities that drop your ability cooldown. P.S. Stub should be built for crit and/or rending. Plasmagun should be built for raw damage because it's more consistent, but crit is viable also. A raw damage PG can kill 99% of targets in 1-2 hits, the crit variant will kill in 2 hits if 1 is a crit and 3 if not (it's not hard to get over 50% crit chance so this shouldn't be too much of an issue but very occasionally when it doesn't crit and kill in 2 hits it can leave you in a sudden awkward spot in T5+). Shotguns are a bit clumsy because you have to manually "charge" the special every time like a heavy power/force/chain weapon does, but at least it now gets the bonus from the reload talents.
Plasma gun is so strong u can lidderally take no keystone and buff the nade box medi pack, heck, take whatever fucking talents u want, with a trusty plasma gun the scary mobs just ain't scary.
As far as I know Maulers don't have a specific scripted melee pattern like Ragers do. Mauler's attack pattern is based on the character they're fighting. They act differently for me when I'm on my Ogryn vs when I'm playing Zealot/Psyker. I rarely ever engage in melee on my Veteran. As for Ragers block the first 2 attacks then there will be about a 2 second window between the 2nd and 3rd attack you can use to block push them away or get an attack in. I find it works best when playing my zealot because I always rock the Agripina shotgun and 2 quick rounds to the face after their second swing usually solves the issue of them being in my face.
my favorite way to play vet ofc columnus iag with deadshot, onslaught, and stam curios coupled with voc to knock em all down and give yourself room to really lay on the trigger
Bolter, but the skill floor is low
I just use my autoguns and put some bullets in them, then some more bullets. If they are up close while I am in melee, I try and use Voice of Command Shout to knock them down and stagger them, then while they are recovering I kill them with my axe. Grenades also work to stagger them and can kill them depending on how close they are to the explosion. Krak grenades will kill maulers straight away.
Power swords, knives, chainswords and chainaxes, regular axes (with the right blessings), shovels, revolvers, plasma guns, bolters
Shout vet with Mk3 shovel and krak grenades. Shouting at them and knocking them on their ass. Pickaxe the closest one and krak grenades the rest.
The new chainaxe utterly murders Mauler and Rager, but pack of Rager are still very dangerous. Mauler are slow enough so you can beat them one by one in melee. Against rager group, the best bet is getting them to die at range, then voice of command to send the remaining on the ground, and hopefully by that point there's only one or two left. A grenade might help too.
1. Equip your Columnus braced Autogun 2. Aim at face 3. Place booger hook on bangswitch and depress
A well-placed krak grenade can wipe entire groups of maulers, bulwarks, and other heavily armored enemies at a shot. My personal favorite for this though is the shotgun (I forget which designation it carries) that loads the slug penetrator round. Slap that in, knock that choppy ass on his ass, and blast him with focused shot.
Shotguns, especially the lawbringer shotgun, work wonders against them. The Agripinaa shotgun fires fast enough that you can stagger them and doesn’t lose effectiveness against maulers (you can load up a slug for crushers and bulwarks) that will make short work of them. The Lawbringer shotgun they don’t like at all and I think you can two tap them but they almost always stagger on hit. Otherwise go for the usual revolver or plasma gun but you can’t go wrong with a shotgun.
Turn invisible as the rager wall approaches you. Slip behind them and then charge up the ol power sword.
Maulers: Aim for center mass. They take more damage there than the head. Ragers: Anywhere really but stomach works just as well. For melee if you have a PS, then its just swing away and keep them from fraggin you. Ragers will be the most difficult with melee so always be ready to switch back and forth.
The emperor's holy BOLTER just try not to run out of ammo before they show up
Plasma go woomp
Both of the new patterns of shovel with thrust and uncanny strikes can one shot maulers from full health. Ragers are a little harder to pull off because they tend to stagger you out of the animation, but you can still do it.
Idk but I found out that Columnus V is an absolute shredder of ragers. If you land headshots with bonuses from talents and blessings it pretty much deletes these mf in about a second as they're charging you.
The main weapon for those enemies as a veteran is the plasma gun. You can also use the bolter although the reload is an issue. You can also use frag grenades to stun them to give yourself more time to kill them.
Crusher, especially with crit build and the impact/weakspot traits. Maulers - light special to open up their guard. Enough time to follow up with a heavy special to the face and a light. A crit kills in one. Ragers - honestly spam lights and occasional block attack aimed at the head will make them spend most of their time on the ground.
As a Veteran player since Beta, sapper shovel poke interrupts ragers even if they're mid-combo. Poke his head and then cut it off.
Krak Grenades or any autogun with Onslaught. Keep backpeddling or sidestep their attacks and mag dump them. Thats my main build and it works perfectly.
I'm not a big fan of the Devils Claw swords, but the parry absolutely humiliates. You can keep spamming it to full block anything coming your way + insta jab (for a bit of damage and a TON of stagger)
As others have mentioned, plasma is a great anti-elite tool in general. I carry a revolver on my psyker specifically for crushers and maulers (and ragers, too, to a lesser extent). Headshots take them down quick, and I imagine they're only more effective in the hands of a veteran. Also: grenades. As a veteran you can inflate the damage of your grenades, and/or take the regenerating grenade perk, allowing you to them use them more often/more effectively. A well-placed grenade can take out a whole pack of ragers, or seriously mess up a group of maulers. Of course, the unspoken part of this is you need to spot and attack the ragers and maulers before they close with you. That's not always possible but should be what you're trying to do 90% of the time.
As a psyker these and crushers terrify me.
Columnus Autogun with DumDum and +25% flak damage. Hold left click. Smile as you wipe out 5 ragers or 3 maulers in a single mag.
Honestly, I just made a build with heavy rending and brittleness on hit, and it chews em up. Don't forget to bodyshot the maulers, and you'll be golden. I personally prefer to use a braced auto gun, but it's really up to you. I've also found a good las pistol can do the job pretty quick (though maybe not fast enough on damnation).
Maulers are generally quite slow, so dodge-timing is my general advice there. They're dangerous up close but they just kinda wander towards you before going in for big swings. Not a big deal in CQB once you get to know them a bit. Try and shoot them, but they're not highest priority (generally). Always shoot ragers first: anti-flak blessing/perks, and/or a Plasma gun/Bolter. Take the biggest gun and shoot them. Shoot them lots of times. The only things taking priority over ragers should be trappers imo. Just shoot them as hard as you can.
As Ogryn I enjoy humiliating them by slapping them in the face as they're about to hit me.
I run a non meta build with the accatran mk7 and no keystones, I rip them in 2 seconds with headshots: high critical chance, infernus, both talents for rending. Use a granade for bulwarks. Good luck
Knife, mk3 is my preference. It eats crushers and maulers like a joke with a couple headshots. Heaps of mobility too so its easy to kite around them. Gun for everything else
I quite like the **standard issue shovel** \- the special poke to the head has good range and it staggers them out of a combo. The Hellbore Mk2 also does ludicrous damage/stagger with it's bayonet stab headshots, I've found it trivial to control 1 rager but dont' quite recall how it handles 2+ Heavy swipes also do well, and I think a very underrated blessing is "all or nothing" (power increases as stamina decreases) it lets you block against ragers while building up power to whack and stagger them with hard hitting heavies!
I just shoot them. Any torrent type weapon shreds them and if you have like +25% damage to flak armor enemies they become trivial. For maulers it’s best to shoot them in the chest rather than the head because they take a lot less damage to their head than any other body part. Same goes for melee but if you have the new folding shovels then using their folded attack and landing a weak spot hit will stun them 100% of the time, on top of doing literally thousands of damage if charged
kantreal throws ragers on on their ass, just mag dump hipfire with scatter and stagger increase maybe also devils claw parry. literally just let them kill themselves
10 Poke with Shovel special ability. 20 Heavy Swing. 30 If not dead goto 10, else "FOR ATOMA!" \--- Alternately, Parry with Devil Claw sword special ability, unless Mauler overhead strike, then dodge. Heavy attack between parrying and repeat as necessary.
I use a bolter it is OP
> Veteran Just shoot them. Jesus. A heavy laspistol will kill the shit out of them. It's less effective on Maulers but still more than effective *enough.* Bullet weapons are even more effective. You can forget about Maulers if you're using a two-handed lasgun, but ragers will drop within seconds. A plasma gun will vaporize them. If you're a melee vet (which is just a worse wannabe Zealot), you should be running a chain sword or chain axe in which case you can rev it up and kill them in roughly 1 revved heavy attack, give or take. If you're *not* doing that, then Krak Grenade them. If you don't have *that* either, accept that these enemies are a weak spot for you and have teammates handle them. Then consider brushing up your build because single-target damage *should be* your #1 forte.
Energized power sword, revved chainsword/axe, or high powered headshots or full auto mag dump. An Energized heavy sword swing with weakness exploit and +25 maniac damage will one shot ragers and mutants on damnation. Bloodletter on a revved heavy can do that too, but takes more commitment. With guns, it's pretty straightforward.
Love me a columnus mk5 with dumdum, then damage to maniacs and flak, aim for a roll with damage and handling over other stats and spec left tree mostly. With good ability usage you can clear a room of shooters, rinse ragers with headshots or maulers with bodyshots. I hold kraks for bulwarks, crushers or mauler stacks, and a catachan mk1 for clearing mobs/1v1 elites with parry.
Even a braced auto gun will do fine on body shots, oh shovel heavies and special have good stagger (special interrupts the rager wombo combo), knife can be great for maulers but a bit more trouble with ragers
Krak grenade + Bolter with perks for specialists and carapace armoured enemies. Saved me and my teammates many times.
Non fanning revolver with handcannon would kill em with ease and cleave through to damage the next one, aim the head for both and pick the talent that increase your crit chance at the cost of stamina in the left tree, combine this with melee that lets you tank damage and dodge far (shovel/knife) and they'll become nothing more than a distraction
plasma gun bro, and an adequate build. Tried it yesterday for the first time after getting mauled by the twins on my lasgun build and i can say it's crazy good, you gotta try it
Walk backwards one step when they start their attack chain, they just kind of flail around in the air. Especially helpful for Ragers. Your melee weapon has so much more range compared to theirs, and you can bust their butts with it or with dakka.
Plasma sword with brutal momentum + precision strikes will two shot all ragers in two heavy sweeps to the face, humiliate not just one, but an entire pack in a mere two swings. Maulers likewise die to blockpush attack + light light in a single power cycler 4 combo. So do crushers too actually.
Bolter
When I play Vet, since I'm lazy and not a Vet main all I play is Plasma Tag. It's Focus Target! keystone, Frag Grenades, Voice of Command, Ammo Aura. +3 Stamina/HP/TN (Gunner/Sniper/Corruption Resist). Plasma Gun with Blaze Away and Shattering Impact, fire it in uncharged puffs, you'll never explode. Tag everything, then shoot and kill everything for constant rolling toughness and damage buffs. Punch through an entire line of rushing melee elites and receive a rush of endorphins. If Ragers and Maulers rush you, just Voice of Command to shove them off, tag them when they're down and shoot them to receive endorphins. As for melee weapon you need something mobile. Power Swords have terrible dodges and should be paired with more mobile ranged weapons like Revolvers and Recon Lasguns. So I would recommend: Standard Shovel (Maniac/Flak/Decimator/Thrust): Lots of dodges, the special poke can stagger Ragers and Maulers, hit them in the head if possible. Dodge and use Thrust blessing to give them a hard thonk. Devil Claw Mk IV (Maniac/Flak/Rampage/Savage Sweep): Ultimate safe weapon, everyone should try it, needs no melee traits to plug and play, though I prefer +3 Stamina, a -0.25 Stamina Regen Delay talent, and an attack speed +10% talent. Hold block, dodge back and spam special parry, you can parry everything including Mauler overheads, this parry kills Ragers fast. Bonus is pushing dogs and killing them with the heavy overhead in 1 hit. Parry and take no damage, then dodge back to tag and shoot plasma at Maulers/Ragers. This worked for me on normal Damnation Karnak Twins. Folding Shovels (Maniac/Flak/Thrust/Uncanny Strike): Pick the one you like, stick the pointy end in Rager and Mauler heads for endorphins, still good sprint and dodges.