[Ogryn] Ideal Melee Build OUTDATED

I've played enough Ogryn to max all penances, and reached higher than TrueLevel 300. After experimenting on many builds, I'd like to help share with people what I think is the best an Ogryn can do. Like my last build, I find this build easy, with a low skill floor, and still with a high skill ceiling that can carry games, and clutch with the best of them.

The Role

Ogryn's have some of the most powerful melee talents. Differently from zealots, their builds less reward perfect, grace-like avoidance of damage, and instead allow you to take toughness loss, provided you close the gap between you and your target, and Heavy-attack kill them to regain your toughness back. You can think of this like a 'lifesteal' class. You get in the thick of it, and keep killing to stay alive and healthy. An ounce of prevention at this point will keep you from losing much health at all, and at worst, minor chip health damage. Most of their weaknesses revolve around shooters. A room full of aggro'ed shooters will keep you in cover if you don't have the ability to bridge the gap between you and their group. At worst you will have to gamble with if your Indomitable bull rush will reach the firing line, and you can make enough space for your teammates to support you as you manfight the back-lines. Over time, you will learn what fights you can take, and as you gain in skill, you will find out that the answer is, every fight.

Remember that as an Ogryn, unlike other classes, consider your HP a resource that is spendable. You have more than other classes, and you can choose to enter situations that you know aren't safe, but if you are the one that does it, you will save the other classes from having to do it. If there is a pod of enemy Ogryns and shooters, you can be the one to charge in and create breathing room for your team. If you get a choice to save a teammate, but you know your toughness might break and take minor health damage, you can be the one to do it, because the benefit outweighs the loss. Your talents benefit from being in the thick of the fight, if you are playing too safe, you probably aren't doing as much as you could be.

The Build

This build gives us great natural synergies, and takes some of Ogryn's best nodes.

Going through the talents:
• For our choice of grenade, we can choose between Frag Bomb, or the Box of grenades (Bombs Away!). I apologise if you are a rock lover, but unfortunately, taking rock locks us out of one of Ogryn's best talents, as we couldn't reach it if we took it. Personally, I choose the Frag Bomb. They both serve the same purpose with different effectiveness. If you turn a corner and see a room full of 15 Elites, all turning to notice you, while you might see this as still a fight you can win, sometimes you have to worry about the little-uns. A box can create good breathing room by doming someone in front, stunning everyone from approaching, but a Frag Bomb will light up the kill feed, and seriously cripple their attack, leaving things like Crushers and Bulwarks alive, but still easily handle-able now that they are isolated.
  
• The powerful Talent under the grenade is Soften Them Up. While Ogryn can handily one-hit kill many small classes, this talent will mean incredible dividends within the tree, as well as when we get to the weapon choices later. Soften them up only applies to people hit by your melee, so charging through people with Indomitable won't apply it, neither will gunfire. However, the 15% damage does apply to your Bleed stacks. On large targets, bosses, and monstrosities, this will provide incredible value. Additionally, since it is an enemy debuff, other teammates can take advantage of this too.
  
• Indomitable has the shortest cooldown, gives you a ton of attack speed and movement speed. When charging the back lines, during this ability you will almost certainly be shot at. With the additional nodes, you can keep your toughness up as you go by clipping people, and since they now bleed, this can seriously wound all horde enemies as you go, and anyone at your destination will provide you damage reduction through Delight in Destruction. Additionally with our other talents Get Stuck In and Bruiser, on using our ability, we gain an additional 20% movement speed for the party, and become stun and suppression immune, encouraging your team to follow your charge. We also will get our ability back extremely fast due to Elite kills, so we can use this ability many times over the course of a game, and provide that much more benefits to the group.
  
• Heavy Hitter might seem too conditional for new players, but seasoned players recognise its power. Maintaining the buff, you get a 25% global damage boost, so if you swap to a grenade, or your gun, you keep the buff. This damage might be the make or break when it comes to maintaining Brutal Momentum (not to be confused with Brutish Momentum). The short version is, while Ogryn wants to be in the fight, this will assist you while you are at your best, and keep you healthy through killing. Some points about this though: Just Getting Started!'s benefits are very slight, and are sometimes reported to maybe work against you. I am unsure if this was eventually fixed, but with our other sources of attack speed, I choose to keep this. Brutish Momentum gives a very small benefit. For the most part, you will not often be light attacking as Ogryn. The use case for this node is really only if your buff is about to run out, and you only have time to light attack, because if you take too much time using a heavy, you risk losing your stacks. Therefore these two points are optional, and can be redistributed as you want.
  
• Why not use Crunch!? This ability is instrumental in your ability to one-hit kill Crushers with the right weapon. However this only activates when you fully charge your heavy attack, meaning it releases on its own. This is so much time that the benefit of the one-hit kill is outweighed by the safety you lose, and you benefit way more from just hitting twice.

As an Alternate Build, you can also experiment with this.

I use this with the Karsolas, and is gradually become a build just as good as the other. Instead of charging in, you AoE Stagger, which can help interrupt bosses, or stop Crusher overhead attacks. The Taunt portion of this ability is less important, you should mostly care about the stagger. We also have dropped one less point in the ability, and for dropping Brutish Momentum, we can reach for Hard Knocks.

The Weapons

For our Melee, we have some options. I'll provide them in the order of their usefulness.
The Mk V Shovel is a swiss army knife. Not only can it handily kill hordes, it keeps up its use in mixed hordes, and it also does the best job with its activated heavy attack to either one hit kill, or devastate any target. Its attack animations are simple, chaining heavies are left to right sweeps. On activation, the heavy becomes a strikedown, aim for the head. If you have used other Ogryn weapons, you might notice this has an oddly slow heavy attack, as well as reduced range. If you cope with that, you get the best ogryn melee. Remember that an activated heavy will almost always one-hit kill a Mutant, and you will feel great doing it.

First, we need to talk about Brutal Momentum. This is our anchor blessing, regardless of our 2nd blessing, we want this. This will help us in the low and high end. Because our sweeps are horizontal, we can easily make as many as 10 headshots per swing in a horde. For those who don't know, Ignoring Enemy Hit Mass means that on a headshot kill, the enemy will be ignored in cleave calculation, and it will treat the next enemy in line as the first target hit for damage calculations. This means that you can very easily point the shovel at head level, swing, and decapitate everyone in a horde. This ability does have a enemy limit cap, however you will still be massively increasing your damage output. Even on an activated strikedown, you can keep yourself safer by hitting extra people beyond killing the threat.

For the 2nd blessing, we have three good options. In my personal order, the best option is Thrust, in hordes you will usually at least get one stack, improving your damage output. In HVT Strikedowns, this will provide you a benefit regardless of the amount of pressure you are under, giving you the best of both worlds.
Skullcrusher synergizes with your bleed stacks, as well as Soften Them Up. After you heavy attack someone, they will be hit by a 15% damage amp debuff, as well as 4 stacks of 10% damage amp debuff. This debuff is conditional however, as the amp only applies if they are in the middle of a stagger. So you will find the amplified bleed damage inconsistent as they regain their posture.
Thunderous will help you at the high end. Because your bleed is a consistent hit, one heavy attack easily maxes out Brittleness stacks on an enemy. With this, you can easily two shot Crushers with uncharged attacks, and will cripple all bosses you fight.
These two blessings amplify your bleed damage, however kills from bleed will not help your Toughness, so it is better to use Thrust.

We use Flak so more dreg units in hordes can be one-hit killed and maintain Brutal Momentum, as well as making our powerful strikedowns kill more elite units. Our 2nd perk is personal preference. Elites gives you a wide enough benefit, and is sometimes important for hitting crucial breakpoints on Crushers, however you can also use Weak Spot Damage, or anything else that speaks to you.

After a lot of testing, I fully endorse the Karsolas. Of the three, it is the easiest to use, and therefore the most reliable. Its light combo is reasonable diagonals, ending with a slightly awkward strikedown, and its heavy attacks are good cleaves, however watch out for the 2nd swing being slightly upward. After using the special attack it can be chained into a heavy strikedown, and then the light strikedown for best effect. You cant go wrong with Flak + Elite, and in my opinion, Thrust and Headtaker offer the best benefit, however there are a lot of good blessings such as Slaughterer or Thunderous. I like using this one with the Alternate Build posted above.

The Slab Shield is oddly useful as a damaging tool. It seems to, instead of cleaving across many targets, hit everyone at once. The true strength of this is, because of a past update about melee weapon headshot priority, this thing is a weak spot hitting machine. It excels in hordes as much as the MKV Shovel, and does it even safer, as even powerful Elites cannot cope with the stagger. We still use Brutal Momentum, but as we don't have access to other blessings, we use Skullcrusher for the previously listed reasons. There is also less of a reason to use Elite damage, as it will take many hits for large units, more damage will be coming from our bleed. Elite damage is still useful, but less important to hitting crucial break points. Blocking protects you from gunfire, so helps you move from place to place, just don't plant the shield. Don't be that guy.

The MK IIIb Bully Club is a weird one. Barely making the cut for this list, truthfully. Its heavy attacks are diagonal, and because it doesn't have access to Brutal Momentum, its horde killing power is limited. What this weapon excels at, is bosses. This weapon's innate Unyielding damage is extremely high. Ogryns and bosses will be crippled while you fight them. With both Skullcrusher and Thunderous, any enemy staggered will now have their damage amplified 3 times, while under the effect of the bleed. Flak is still important, but the 2nd perk is still personal preference if you want to use it to make it more powerful against Unyielding, or use something to help you with Hordes such as Infested. Also, honorable mention to Haymaker, as it will give you the fastest clear times against hordes for the MK IIIb, however it is based on RNG.

The newly buffed Power Maul. In brief, easy, but with some drawbacks. What the power maul desperately needs is access to Thrust, but it doesn't have it. The Power maul is often knocking on the door of just enough damage. You'll notice this when you are unable to chain Brutal Momentum headshots like the shovel can. For this weapon I recommend swapping Pulverise (Bleed on Bull Rush) for Trample (Base Damage per Bull Rush hit). This, combined with holding high stacks of Heavy Hitter will help you hit the breakpoint for more consistent cleaving kills. I go Flak + Elite, but a case could be made for Weak Spot, or possibly Unyielding. This is also better paired with a Ripper listed below as it vs Crushers is reasonable control, but lacking damage.

The Guns

For our ranged option, I use a Kickback. It does a lot of things very well. It will either outright kill specialists, or at least stun them for a follow up shot. Due to its minimum pellet count, don't be afraid of firing at Snipers. This will also help with hordes as you approach, and will also aid in staggering units like Reapers as you close the distance. Try and reload before you switch to melee however, you might need the shot again in an emergency.
We use Expansive as it will almost always activate, and the power will help you start off before Heavy Hitter kicks in. We also use Surgical because you can prep for fights by aiming down sights to start off with as powerful a shot as you can. One thing not mentioned before in this build, crit sucks with Ogryn. Avoid getting crit chance on any weapons other than a Stubber. Ogryn has low crit chance, and across all of his weapons, crit damage is also abysmally low. While we use Surgical, its just a tiny bit more oomph. We don't use Full Bore, as even from extremely short ranges, you are unlikely to hit all pellets on the same target.
Maniac for specialist killing, and the 2nd perk is user preference. I like Unyielding for Bulwarks and Reapers.

With the new patch the density and difficulty of shooters has risen sharply. In the new map, wide open areas often give little cover, or opportunity to close the distance to far targets if your team drew their attention too early. In these cases it can benefit you to have a gun with more staying power. the Ripper V is also an excellent choice. This one provides the highest minimum pellet count, allowing you to stagger isolated snipers if necessary. This gun operates better un-braced so learn how to hipfire it. With the rippers it will benefit you to learn how to cancel your 3-round bursts. A timed sprint will let you fire one round at a time, excellent for just needing the stagger. Another tip: If your ammo count on the weapons stat is low, you get more benefit from Blaze Away. The less ammo in the magazine you have, the faster you reach max stacks, sometimes letting you reach a stack with every round fired due to the rounding. We also use Can Opener to quickly deal with Crushers and apply brittleness to monstrosities. Your Stab counts as a heavy attack so will apply bleed, on Crushers, you can easily kill them exclusively stabbing them if you choose to. Flak and Maniac damage to help with sniping specialists as soon as they appear.

The Curios

For Curios, I go max Toughness, as all of our toughness regeneration is percentage based, we get lots of benefits for making the bar huge. This also helps us resist shooters, and bridge the gap as we close in on melee victims. While Toughness Regeneration Speed has fallen out of favor with high tier players, our Ogryn has Lynchpin, which will help our regen's effectiveness, and will help us with chip damage. We take both 2x Stamina Regen, and Sprint Efficiency to help us across the board of things an Ogryn might need. One Sniper Resist and Gunner resist. We will be shot a lot by gunners, and Snipers have a habit for targeting us in a fight, and often we are low on our dodge count. Sadly Ogryn's combat abilities are good, but not game-changing enough that they should be spammed cooldown to cooldown like other classes are, else we would use Combat Ability Regen. On a Gunlugger however, you will want this. This leaves 1 Curio slot left, I choose to use an extra 5% Toughness to make our toughness bar just a little bit bigger.

Gameplay Tips

While you benefit from being in the frontline, and first into the fray. Be slightly mindful of Veteran shooters. Sometimes, sticking to a wall as you advance will help them make shots. You don't have to fully care, but half-a-care is nice.

While you are learning, be aware of your limits. It is super cringe to Bull rush into the backlines, and then die there where no one can save you.

Try to never, ever, aggro units that you do not need to. An example is if you enter a gigantic area, do not Kickback units across the room if there are units closer to you. The time you have to sprint to the line of shooters as they notice you is crucial. Don't ruin it unnecessarily by shooting.

Learn when to activate the shovel, and when best to keep spamming heavies. This really will have to be something you learn in the field as it depends on many factors of pressure you are under. However, really really try to not miss an activated swing. This will lock up your attack animation for a very long time. Also note that due to certain external reasons, the model of the shovel might not reflect what state your shovel is in. Things like the genesis chambers in Carnival are meleeable, but not technically enemies, they will cause the shovel to act weirdly.

The Shield has a very useful pushattack strikedown. While this is a light attack, it does very good damage and is useful in your kit, sometimes.

The IIIb Bully slap has huge stagger on weak spot hits, and can sometimes halt monstrosities.

A Frag Bomb in your pocket has tons of utility, but having zero gives you none. Hold onto it for only emergencies.

Remember to press down during Indomitable to stop it early so you don't run off a cliff, or past your intended target.

Other Guides

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158661162
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3289392945

[Malchezzar]

There's a lot of good versions of a Gunlugger build, none that I will claim to have created. Im not big on Glugger builds however because they make you inherently ammo hungry, which you can get away with but still have to be somewhat of an annoyance to your team. I'd wait for the Ogryn rework at this point

[=Axton=]

What about those of us who want the gunner tree down the right side?

[waste lander147]

Finally a build guide that I found that’s not garbage. Nice work, I’m a level 1k ogryn and I approve of This guide and builds

[LaggyLagg]

@Felix very much this, my gungryn build even sacrificed some nodes for that heavy melee toughness regen. although my only gripe is that the hit is simply weak, great when I needed to replenish but otherwise I'd be there swanging for longer than I woulda wanted.

[Felix]

Why do all guides forget to Mention that the Special Attacks from the Kickback/Rumbler/Ripper Gun are counted as Heavy attacks and therefor apply bleed and get you the Toughness Regeneration of the top 2 Perks in the Tree. It is absolutely ridicoulus how you can walk into gunners with this even on damnation.

[Malchezzar]

Right on, I dont push all that much unless im setting up a push attack, which usually means whatever im pushing isnt long for this world anyway

[J.P.]

I use this same exact build with one minor change, I take taunt on push instead of that +15 toughness node below bruiser

it works with pick, shield, pretty much anything

I <3 expansive on kickback, expansive and surgical :D

I

[Malchezzar]

I sort of disagree about Blaze Away, getting a quick stagger in before the melee fight is great, but to dedicate extra time to firing it is more a waste of the Ogryns time hed rather spend in a scrap. The only time you are earning the value of Blaze Away is effectively when you are excessively wasting ammo. But you can do you.

[Malchezzar]

I wouldnt say the Borovian and Karsolas have the same moveset. To simplify, the Karsolas has 3 sweeps and a strikedown as a light combo, and heavys do diagonal sweeps. The Borovian has 1 sweep, a strikeup and strikedown as a light combo, and heavys do a diagonal sweep into a strikedown. The Borovian absolutely has more damage, but its at a cost of AoE control. For some people it isn't an issue, and can enjoy the Heavy Light chain of the Borovian. For me though, I dont like dedicating x amount of brain power to remembering how to get in and out of the chain, in case I have to interrupt with an immediate strikedown, and I would rather a weapon have an easy combo like the Kars, so I can think of other things.

[DamageInside]

[COMMENT 2]
On the kick back, I'd also take a look at swapping expansive for blaze away. Pack of angry crushers coming to take your homie's lunch money and you're too far away to get there in time cause your charge is just sort of comin off cooldown? No worries. Put a kickback round on the crushers and most of them will fall over (as long as they aren't swinging an overhead already) then take that blaze away stack you just got, 1 shot the rager comin at ya to speed up your trample CD and then go club crushers while they're still picking themselves up off the floor. Congrats. You just saved a tiny homie from the crusher gangbang. Staggers everything in the game outside of Monstrosities, mutants or turtled bulwarks and if you've rolled up a good one (Dam, Stopping power and reload speed are your stats.) you hit 1 shot BP on 75% of the enemies in the game with too. Rager's just need a stack or two of blaze away, which you can also stack up with the melee special.