A Guide to the Indignatus Crusher - Updated for Patch 18

A general guide to the Indignatus Crusher. Includes a moveset overview, the use-cases for different activated moves, (some) breakpoints, noteworthy talents, and a few build recommendations.

0. Introduction

What is the Crusher?

The Crusher is a combo-oriented crowd control weapon. One of the main benefits of the Crusher is its very strong crowd control capabilities, capable of staggering even Ragers out of their attacks. It isn't going to reach the same DPS as a Rashad Combat Axe or Heavy Sword, but it provides a great amount of safety while dealing very solid amounts of damage versus any enemy type in the game.

Why Should I Use It?

The strong crowd-control of the Crusher allows you to deal damage while also providing utility to both yourself and teammates. Proper use of its combos and knowing when to activate (and what type of activation to use) will allow you to lock down elites and keep them off both you and your allies. In particular, it shuts down Bulwarks and Ragers - two of the most threatening and annoying melee elites in the game - and allows for you to engage them aggressively in melee, whereas other weapons will have to wait to bait Bulwark swings or play more passively versus Ragers.
Beyond that, the weapon has no glaring weakness - it deals good damage versus every type, is safe in mixed hordes and dense elite patrols, opens bulwarks with an activated hit, and isn't struggling for boss damage.

1. Combos and Why to Use them

The Basics

Light one (L1) is a horizontal sweep starting from the right, light two (L2) is a low-cleave strikedown from the left. The next two lights are a diagonal (L3) and a horizontal sweep (L4) that loops back into the L1.
Heavy one (H1) is a high-damage strikedown, and heavy two (H2) is a horizontal sweep from the left with the highest impact value out of any move (It will stagger a rager out of their combo/a crusher out of its swing on a headshot with no impact stacks up).
The push attack (PA) is a diagonal strike-up starting from the bottom right of the screen with a high finesse (critical/weakspot damage) modifier. It chains into both the H2 and L2, making it able to rotate into both crowd and single target combos. Two characteristics of the Push Attack is that it has the fastest chain-time to the Heavy 2, beating out the L1, which means if you want quick-access to the H2 you should always push attack if possible, and it has the highest headshot damage vs Carapace.

Crusher is a Finesse Weapon

Crusher has good crit/weakspot (grouped together under the term "Finesse") damage modifiers. If you want to deal damage effectively, you should aim to hit weakspots (headshots) as much as possible. It also gets good value out of crits, however, weakspots are most consistent and the finesse damage boost curve has diminishing returns for crit/weakspot hits.

Before we go any further, you'll need to know how to read the Darktide Breakpoint Calculator[dt.wartide.net]. Rows are successive enemies hit by cleave, so the first guy in the swing takes top row damage, second guy hit second row, and so on until you hit the minimum cleave damage - which for the Crusher happens on the Fifth target for all its relentless attacks, on other weapons it will be different.
This is a grey Crusher with 80s in all stats. Critting or headshotting adds 291 damage, and from there adding the other finesse damage buff adds 194 damage. It's a respectable increase - and a crit on a bodyshot does significantly boost damage, but I find myself hitting weakspots often enough in melee that I'm not overly benefiting from crits as a source of damage.
TL;DR: Headshots are good and you should always aim to hit heads on Crusher (headshots and crits increases stagger too!), but crits are a little more unreliable and provide diminishing returns on crit/headshot, so if you're doing something like a Blazing Piety Crusher you're more so doing it for ult CDR from Invocation of Death).

Spamming Lights

I quite often see people solely using light attacks for horde clear on Crusher. There's a couple reasons I don't particularly recommend this:

• L2 is a low-cleave strikedown, in practical terms it's a wasted move if you want to CC/kill a horde of enemies.
  
• The stagger and cleave on the H2 is higher - I go into more detail in this in the Combos and Enemies section, but generally hitting more enemies is better.
  
• This is a bit more technical, but the H2 also has significantly better cleave damage distribution on every target hit in the swing on top of its increased cleave. This information is ripped from the Darktide Breakpoint Calculator[dt.wartide.net].

This is the damage profile of a relentless light on the Crusher. All 3 (L1, L3, L4) have identical damage profiles. Unarmored is unarmored, armored is Flak, disgustingly_resilient is infested, which are the three armor types that horde enemies consist of (to varying degrees).

This is the damage profile of the relentless heavy (H2) on the Crusher. It deals a significant amount more damage to every target hit by the swing, which is the most important reason to use combos that include the H2 for horde clear rather than spamming lights. You can get away with it, but I would never do it.

Combos

Hordes/Crowd Control

L1 -> H2 -> L3 -> H2[streamable.com] (Heavy -> Light alternating) is the simplest and most straightforward combo. If you wish to optimize this, the L1 has a longer chain-time to the Heavy 2[streamable.com], whereas the Push Attack chains much faster and applies Skullcrusher to horde mobs on the push, getting the full Skullcrusher stacks for the H2.
This makes PA -> H2 -> L3 -> H2 [streamable.com](Push Attack, Heavy, Light, Heavy, Repeat L/H) better for getting to the H2, which is the single strongest move vs Hordes/Crowds.

Single Target

H1 -> L2[streamable.com] (repeat) is the most straightforward and consists of two overhead strikedowns, which are fairly easy to aim for bonking elites in a horde. The push attack fits into any part of the single-target combo, but if you begin with it you chain it as PA -> L2 -> H1,[streamable.com] since it chains into the light strikedown.

Heavy Two: Specific Use Cases

The H2 on the Crusher has a lot of stagger, and higher cleave than any other move. It can hit two Scab Ragers (the lights only hit one) and two Maulers on a body-shot. For initiating fights without impact stacks, the only move that staggers a Rager is the H2 on a headshot.[streamable.com] Likewise for Crushers[streamable.com]

Push Attack: Stagger Breakpoints

The Push Attack will stagger a Mauler on headshot consistently and will stagger on a bodyshot with 1 stack of an impact blessing. Hitting a headshot to stagger a Mauler is a nice combo opener, as the H1 will not stagger a Mauler with no impact stacks.

1.5 Enemies and Activations

Activations

The Crusher’s special activation has different properties depending on the attack. It is worth noting that enemies hit by both the explosion on charged attack and the cleave of the strike will receive two instances of Skullcrusher[streamable.com].

Activated Heavy One

The primary characteristic of an activated H1 is the explosion centered on the first target hit in the swing. If you are flanked on multiple sides or completely surrounded by enemies - particularly elites - an activated H1 is a strong safety tool [streamable.com] (panic button, really) that can buy time for you to get out of a situation. Effectively, you can treat it as a pause button for enemies that get right in your face. It's also a strong fight opener for blanketing an area with Skullcrusher and giving you a window to get uncontested hits in.

Activated Light One

An infinite cleave with a much smaller AoE suppression upon contact,[streamable.com] mostly used when fighting elites that have taken up space in front of you. If you have 4 lined up Maulers and you want all of them staggered, an activated L1 will cleave all of them.

Activated Push Attack

Has the same infinite cleave and second+ target damage profile as the activated light. What the activated push attack does differ at is single-hit carapace damage. If you can land one at the start of the combo, you can pretty significantly increase your DPS vs Crushers (Less so for Maulers). My +Carapace Crusher goes from ~1300 to ~1700 when I start a fight with an activated push attack.

Handling Certain Types of Density

Bulwarks

In prior patches, special lights would open all bulwarks hit by the cleave. Patch 18's buffs to Bulwark stagger resist has removed this interaction, and now generally an activated light or heavy staggers a single Bulwark. You'll want to focus down a single Bulwark at a time (preferably you would have Purge the Unclean or Unyielding, so that you can do H1 -> BC -> H1, assuming weakspot hits), which shouldn't be too hard as the shields no longer count as overlapping force-fields. Bulwarks are your top priority in a mixed horde.

Maulers/Crushers

Maulers and Crushers are generally handled the same way; you're in-between going for single target damage and CCing enemies out of their overhead swings. You can't stop every single overhead - stagger resist lasts too long - but you can deny a significant portion of them between fully-stacked Hammerblow (or Trauma) swings and activated attacks. On Crushers I prefer activated heavies for the AoE blast, while on Maulers I lean more towards activated lights or push attacks.

Ragers

Your main priority is always crowd control. Keep them on the ground by throwing H2s and activated attacks often, and sneak in some single target hits when most of the enemies in front of you are on the ground. Ragers often find their way to the front of a mixed horde - when they do, focus them first. They're often the most disruptive melee enemy, and if I had to choose between focusing down a Bulwark I already opened or killing a Rager that just popped up, I would prioritize the Rager.

Bruisers

This is an odd one, but you'll run out of cleave on Bruisers (particularly Scabs) fairly often. Activated lights have infinite cleave, and thus, ignore Bruisers' increased hitmass and let you put a whole screen of them on the ground. Not always necessary, but nice in certain situations.

Miscellaneous

If you hit any of the one-shot breakpoints on Gunners or Shotgunners, it's best to repeatedly block cancel the H1, as doing the PA or L2 is effectively "wasted DPS" since it isn't dealing meaningful damage.

2. Building a Crusher - Stats, Perks, Blessings, and Talents

Stats

Damage, Penetration, and Power Output are the three most important stats. Damage governs, well, your damage, and Penetration governs the ADM (Armor Damage Modifier) values for Flak/Carapace. Power Output governs the extra damage on charging the weapon, and the blast/suppression radius. The difference between 80% and 50% for the blast radius is .5 meters, and .7 meters for suppression radius, which is significant enough to warrant prioritizing it. I generally would shoot for 65%+ Power Output, and 70+ Damage/Penetration. Beyond that, you can dump Defences and Crowd Control. It's more ideal to have a Defences dumpstat, but a low CC doesn't change much.

• Crowd Control: Increases stagger and attack speed, but to a relatively marginal degree - None of the stagger breakpoints mentioned in this guide change between 33% and 80% Crowd Control, and the difference in Attack Speed is +11.6% at 80%, and 0 at 0%. With a 60% Crowd Control Crusher, you get 9% Attack speed, so a total of 2.6% "lost" attack speed (basically nothing.) It also dictates cleave somewhat - it's about 2 points of cleave different between 0 and 80 for the sweeping attacks. At 24% and below you cannot cleave two Scab Ragers or Maulers (on a bodyshot) with a H2, and at 47% and below you cannot cleave 4 Scab Bruisers with the H2. Generally, shoot for at least 50%
  
• Defences: Sprint cost, push cost, minor dodge speed/distance bonus. Generally speaking, irrelevant.

Perks

Generally, any combination of Elites/Flak/Maniac/Carapace/Unyielding will work, depending on what you want to kill faster. The crusher is not as breakpoint-intensive as other weapons, because it focuses more on being safe through crowd-control while dealing damage.

This is my preferred Crusher, although I've made many with different perk combinations. Maniac is another strong choice in place of either carapace or unyielding, but I prefer dealing with ogryns/bosses faster. Defences is the obvious dumpstat as it has the least impact on weapon performance, only governing minor dodge stats and push/sprint cost.

Blessings

Skullcrusher is the must-have blessing on Crusher. It significantly boosts your damage output on any enemy that isn't a boss or a Mutant. With an Impact blessing, you have a much easier time staggering enemies and keeping them staggered for longer, which synergizes with Skullcrusher. The damage from Skullcrusher only applies while an enemy is in a stagger animation (such as being knocked off-balance, or put on the floor), but the stacks persist for the listed duration. This same condition applies to Thunderstrike, which is why it's the only blessing you must avoid on the Crusher, as the other two provide much more consistent buffs.

Hammerblow vs Trauma

Generally speaking, Hammerblow is better. It stacks on first hit and enemies cleaved in a swing, which means an L1 or H2 into a horde will get you stacked to full instantly. As an example of why this is beneficial, only a Hammerblow Crusher can stagger a rager out of their combo without setup using a push attack.[streamable.com] Trauma requires repeated hits, which means the first time you swing you don't get any impact stacks. However, strangely enough, Trauma will actually stack to full if you push, activate Fury of the Faithful, or use an activated attack on a sufficiently dense horde. [streamable.com]
Overall, both stack very quickly in real play - the differences are minute, and the difference between Hammerblow and Trauma isn't going to make or break your Crusher gameplay. The weapon is defined by how well you're able to utilize its moveset and activations.

Noteworthy Talents

• Duellist: Crusher is a weapon with good Finesse (Headshot/Critical damage multipliers), so Duellist is a good boost to its damage output while active.
  
• Desperation: The Push Attack is a versatile move you should be using often on the Crusher, and you should be sprinting into most engagements, which means it’s +20% damage with near-constant uptime.
  
• Faithful Frenzy: Swinging faster is always good. I personally run this talent on every build.
  
• Sustained Assault: Another “Must-have” in my builds, Sustained Assault is free melee damage with good up-time.
  
• Thy Wrath Be Swift: It makes you immune to all stagger, from both ranged and melee, which allows you to get into melee range much more effectively, since it provides such huge freedom of movement when fighting ranged enemies.
  
• Inebriate’s Poise (Inexorable Judgement Upgrade): This node allows you to keep your Momentum stacks sustained in combat, and dramatically increases the effectiveness of the Inexorable Judgement Keystone. I wouldn’t run the Keystone without this upgrade node.
  
• Second Wind: It's 15% toughness on successful dodge with an unlisted 0.5s cooldown. It's one of the most versatile toughness replenishment talents in the game, and allows you to regenerate toughness while fighting ranged enemies or bosses when you otherwise wouldn't.
  
• Immolation Grenades:The Crusher's strong crowd control allows you to keep enemies within the fire circle very easily. I prefer Throwing Knives on my zealot builds, but Immolation Grenades undoubtedly destroy dense elite packs better than most other weapons in the game.

3. Breakpoint Analysis

Relevance (or Lack Thereof)

Breakpoint Analysis will primary center around enemies where building to reach specific breakpoints is reasonable. For Ragers, Maulers, Crushers, etc, you're more focused on keeping them crowd-controlled while dealing damage, rather than killing them as quickly as possible.
+Carapace helps on Crushers and Maulers (since you should be headshotting), Flak/Maniac will help with their respective Rager types, etc. Flamers are always one-shot with a H1 to the Head (even without setup or +Maniac) due to their 3x damage taken, and hounds are one-shot with a H1 or H2 to the head. +Maniac helps with Mutants, but often enough you will be shooting them or someone else will have damaged them enough that worrying about individual breakpoints isn't a huge concern. Likewise, Crusher isn't top-tier for horde clear speeds, but it does it safely enough that worrying about trash BPs is pointless.

Disclaimer

All breakpoints are calculated with two implicit 5% melee damage nodes, one above Until Death/Duellist (and below Stun Grenades), and one above Sustained Assault (below Stealth). There is also a 1-4% variation in the Damage (79-75) and Penetration (80-76) stats of the different Crushers used to test these breakpoints, so if a BP has an odd number of Momentum stacks you may have slightly different breakpoints with an otherwise identical build. Duellist is the single highest damage-boosting talent on Crusher (excluding Martyrdom), so you can substitute it for any non-Duellist talent if it isn't listed (and probably a few Momentum stacks). I try to avoid listing it because it's annoying to test in the Psykhanium and there's too much variability in the talent tree to account for everything.

Scab Shotgunner H1 One-Shot Headshot

No Perk	+Elites	+T4 Flak
Desperation 10 Momentum Stacks 5 Sustained Assault Stacks	15 Momentum Stacks 5 Sustained Assault Stacks	5 Sustained Assault Stackst

Dreg Shotgunner H1 One-Shot-Headshot

No Perk	+Elites/Unarmored
2 Sustained Assault Stacks	No Setup

Scab Gunner H1 One-Shot-Headshot

No Perk	+Elites	+Flak
15 Momentum Stacks Duellist (or a crit) 5 Sustained Assault Stacks Desperation	15 Momentum Stacks Duellist (or a crit) 5 Sustained Assault Stacks	15 Momentum Stacks 5 Sustained Assault stacks Desperation

Dreg Gunner H1 One-Shot-Headshot

No Perk	+Elites	+Unarmored
15 Momentum Stacks 5 Sustained Assault Stacks Desperation	5 Momentum Stacks 5 Sustained Assault Stacks Desperation	5 Sustained Asault Stacks 5 Momentum Stacks

Bulwark Activated Shieldbreak -> H1 -> BC-> H1

No Perk	+Elites	+Unyielding
Martyrdom/Purge*	Sustained Assault** Desperation 10 Momentum Stacks.	Sustained Assault**

*Probably doable with a few Martyrdom stacks if you really don't want to spec into other talents. Purge the Unclean provides an identical bonus to T3 Unyielding, so you can substitute that if you'd rather pay a talent tax than use a perk slot.
**Assuming you have Sustained Assault as a talent and are stacking it while hitting the Bulwark

Trapper H1 One Shot Headshot

No Perk	T3 Maniac	T4 Maniac
5 Sustained Assault stacks Desperation 20 Momentum stacks OR Duellist	15 Momentum Stacks, 5 Sustained Assault Stacks, Desperation OR Duellist + 2 Sustained Assault Stacks	5 Sustained Assault stacks Desperation, Duellist, OR ~10 Momentum stacks

Trapper One Shot Headshot Push Attack

No Perk	T3 Maniac	T4 Maniac
15 Momentum Stacks Desperation 2 Sustained Assault Stacks	2 Sustained Assault Stacks	No Setup

4. Keystones, Blitzes, and Builds

Keystone Breakdown

Blazing Piety

Since Patch 14, Crusher is a headshot-focused finesse weapon. Blazing piety can add a decent bit of damage on crits, though Crusher does not get extra base crit chance or a blessing like Shred to further boost it, which means you should pick up Scourge to further (somewhat conditionally) boost your crit rate. Of course, Blazing Piety's main function is still tied to using Invocation of Death (1.5s ult cooldown reduction per enemy hit by critical swing) to spam your Combat Ability, but it does provide a decent bonus to the Crusher's damage output.

Martyrdom

Martyrdom is good with any melee weapon. I don't personally use it, nor like it really (just because I don't find it interesting), but it's solid and can get you some decent damage output. If you're grabbing Bleed for the Emperor (40% hp DR on attacks bringing you to the next wound), I would still path through Immolation Grenades, as stuns do absolutely nothing useful for the Crusher.

Inexorable Judgement (Momentum)

My favorite keystone by far, Inexorable Judgement is a solid damage/attack speed buff to both your melee and ranged. it also actually buffs Crusher’s otherwise mediocre dodge stats. Each stack of Momentum increases dodge speed and distance by 0.5% and dodge reset time by 1% per stack. With Crusher being hard-limited to an effective dodge limit of 3, the buffs to dodges from Momentum helps mitigate its poor mobility and allow you to maneuver in a fight more effectively.

Blitzes

Stunstorm Grenades

The utility of Stun Grenades is that they function as a pause button if you get caught in a bad situation and need to reposition or to get a quick revive/rescue off. Unfortunately, the Crusher makes this space just as effectively while also killing enemies. It only really has utility if you need to revive someone in the middle of an elite swarm while losing most of its effectiveness if there is a bomber at range pelting the downed teammate with grenades (or a sniper watching that sight line, etc). Do not recommend pairing with Crusher.

Immolation Grenades

Pairs extremely well with Crusher. The strong crowd control of the weapon allows you to keep enemies in the fire circle as they burn, and can absolutely destroy an elite patrol/wave when it comes down to it. Crusher handles mixed hordes very safely, and Immolation grenades can deal a lot of damage.

Throwing Knives

Fun. Throwing knives are not replacements for a gun in any way, but they are a nice compliment that have decent range and functionally infinite ammo economy. I like them for IAGs or braced autos, not so much for shotguns or revolvers. Requires getting used to the throwing arc and a bit of aim, but you can get value out of them. Part of the appeal is also the pathing talents above it - Scourge and Enduring Faith are good for crit builds and Second Wind is one of the strongest toughness regen talents in the game.

Example Blazing Piety/Inexorable Judgement Builds

Blazing Piety Crusher

You can swap Enduring Faith (50% Toughness DR on crit for 4s) for Second Wind (15% toughness on Successful Dodge), although with Invocation of Death you have chastise off cooldown so often I don't think you'd need the extra toughness regen. This build is mostly about spamming ults and using the crit cooldown reduction to have another one back near instantly.

Momentum Crusher (Throwing Knives)

My personal build, focusing on ranged/melee damage output with good mobility. All of the talents that proc on dodge provide decent buffs, and the aesthetic of being a nimble monk guy with a quarterstaff is cool.

Momentum Crusher (Immo Nades)

This is a 26-point build, leaving you four to spend. I'd personally put those towards Second Wind and just deal with the loss to melee DPS, but if you're fine with bad toughness regeneration, you can put it towards Duellist/Desperation etc.

5. Ranged Options

Crusher is an extremely versatile weapon. It does not have any enemies that it finds particularly problematic, so pairing a ranged weapon is a matter of personal preference.

Braced Autoguns

I quite enjoy the Columnus Brauto - particularly since my build runs throwing knives, giving it a more consistent ranged special-sniper and a way to deal ranged damage between reloads. You can also run an Agri Brauto with the same perks/blessings.

Columnus Infantry Autogun

The Columnus Infantry Autogun is one of the strongest ranged weapons in the game, and it pairs particularly with with Blazing Piety due to it having crit strings of 4 shots (one critical hit proc will make the next 4 bullets critical hits) and good finesse damage multiplers. You mainly want Flak + Dumdum, second perk can be Elites, Maniac, or Unyielding. Second blessing can be Fire Frenzy, Deathspitter, Hit and Run, or Stripped Down, though I prefer damage blessings generally.

Kantrael Shotgun

The Kant shotgun is another strong generalist pick, with good close-range elite/special deletion and respectable long-range sniping capabilities. The flame shot is nice for hordes and dense elite packs, but the primary fire is solid enough to carry the weapon on its own. Generally I shoot for No Respite + Flak, ideally +Maniac as the second perk but Elites/Unyielding both aren't bad. Second blessing can be Deathspitter, Fire Frenzy, or Full Bore depending on preference.

Zarona Revolver

The Revolver is another one of the strongest guns in the current meta. Dumpsters any type of special, can one-shot two ragers with a crit hand cannon headshot, guaranteed crits from Surgical, etc. For perks you can do Maniac + Flak or + Carapace, I would prefer flak but I got stuck with Carapace. For Blessings, Surgical/Hand Cannon is the undisputed king (at least for the Zarona).

Accatran/Kantrael Laspistol

The Laspistol is a good option if you want a weapon with better mobility than the Crusher with decent all-around (except for Carapace) damage. Has good Finesse damage, so pairing it with a Blazing Piety build is going to make it shine. For, Flak, Maniac, Unyielding, and Crit Chance are all good options - Unyielding pairs well with Infernus for boss damage. On the Kantrael I sometimes run Unarmored, as it gives you a consistent two-shot headshot breakpoint on Dreg Gunners. For Blessings, I take Dumdum + Ghost, Raking Fire, or Infernus (on the Accatran, really not good on the Kantrael).

[Josho]

Arcotash is a known goose. Do not listen to him.

[Shlorp.]

There's a blank part under "No Perk" for the Trapper One Shot Headshot Push Attack. Thank me later.

[Josho]

@<3 With a non-Thunderstrike stagger blessing your attacks have as much stagger as you can realistically get, i.e even normal lights start throwing human-sized elites around. Punishment is just overkill, which is kind of unfortunate since it's a wasted point if you're going Blazing Piety. Wouldn't pick it up for the sake of it.

[<3]

Hi! Thanks for the guide. What are your thoughts on taking the "Punishment" talent passive? Is the extra impact (+150%) not worth it since you're already getting stacks from Hammerblow/Trauma and you don't need the extra stagger power?

[Josho]

Updated for Patch 18. Updated the section on handling enemies to more reflect priorities in a real game, redid some breakpoint testing to account for the nerf to Judgement, and changed the Bulwark Breakpoint section to reflect the buff. Analysis on the Crowd Control stat has some additional commentary as I discovered it has some minor scaling on cleave (I don't know how this got past me).

[Mankar Camoran]

this guy reeks of 4 day old breast milk

[Shoryn]

Thank you for your amazing guide.

[Josho]

@Billy "Omega Male" Kid Infinite cleave, similar blast radius to the H1. It's not listed in the guide because you can't chain to it without deliberately missing an attack, which makes it too awkward for me to do in a live game.

[Billy "Omega Male" Kid]

Great guide. I'm wondering if you know what the properties of charged H2 are?

[Josho]

@Dymaxion Good catch, thanks.