Turn Hive Scum Into A Ranged Monster
The new Hive Scum class in Warhammer 40,000 Darktide might look like yet another melee bruiser, but its most exciting playstyle is all about guns. While you can absolutely build Hive Scum into a close range brawler with toxic melee weapons, the real fun comes from turning him into a dual pistol gunslinger who lives on dodges and infinite ammo windows.
This build focuses on Enhanced Desperado, a combat ability that gives you infinite bullets, immunity to ranged attacks, and a big sprint speed boost for a short time. Combined with the class ability to dual wield pistols, you end up with a John Wick style character that tears through close range enemies while staying incredibly mobile and hard to hit.
If you want a Hive Scum build that feels fast, flashy, and different from the usual melee meta, this is the one to try.
Weapons, Relics, and Stimm Setup
Even though this build is all about ranged damage, you still want a reliable melee weapon for emergencies. Most of your power comes from your pistols and talents, but the right gear choices make everything smoother.
Melee weapon: Crowbar
- Blessing 1: Limbsplitter gives bonus strength on your first attack every few seconds, making opening hits hit much harder.
- Blessing 2: Unstoppable Force lets fully charged heavy attacks ignore enemy mass and deal extra damage.
- Perks: melee critical chance and critical damage are ideal.
The Bone Saw is strong for applying toxin damage, but the Crowbar is more reliable overall. It swings fast like a shock maul and handles hordes well. The key trick is its special weapon action which flips it into a focused single target mode. A fully charged heavy to the head in this stance, boosted by Limbsplitter, Unstoppable Force, and weak spot bonuses, will delete most priority targets when you are forced into melee.
Ranged weapon: Dual Stub Pistols
- Blessing 1: Speedload boosts reload speed after close range kills and stacks multiple times, letting you pump out more bullets.
- Blessing 2: Sustained Fire increases damage on later shots in each burst, great for higher difficulties and tougher enemies.
- Perks: bonus damage versus Carapace Armoured enemies and ranged critical hit chance.
The Dual Stub Pistols are the star of this build. They look stylish, chew through hordes, and scale well into higher difficulties. Speedload keeps your DPS high while constantly reloading and Sustained Fire helps you melt elites once you get your rhythm going.
The main weakness of these pistols is heavy armor like Crushers and Maulers. That is why damage versus Carapace is so important. When you combine that perk with Weakpoints in the Armor and Sustained Fire, repeatedly hitting weak spots during Enhanced Desperado lets you actually chunk down these tankier enemies.
Critical chance is also very valuable. This build has several effects that trigger when you crit with ranged attacks, including temporary immunity to all damage. More crits means more bursts of safety and more room to play aggressively.
Relic priorities
Beyond the usual health, toughness and extra wounds, your key stat is combat ability regeneration. Take cooldown generation on all three relics so you can use Enhanced Desperado as often as possible. Sprint efficiency is also helpful, since this build lives on movement and fast repositioning.
Stimm Lab: Kalma V path
For stims, go straight down the Kalma line to Kalma V. Each step boosts cooldown regeneration while the stim is active, reaching a 50 percent boost at the end. Combined with your relic bonuses, you can reach over 60 percent increased combat ability regeneration, which means you will spend a lot more time in Enhanced Desperado with infinite ammo and ranged immunity.
Talents, Keystones, and Core Playstyle
The talent path for this build is all about three things: close range gun damage, dodge based survivability, and feeding Enhanced Desperado.
Key offensive talents
- In Your Face gives a large damage boost to enemies within close range which is exactly where you want to be with dual pistols.
- Gang Tough boosts both ranged damage and damage reduction, giving you more killing power and survivability.
- Weakpoints in the Armor adds rending while Enhanced Desperado is active and stacks ranged damage bonuses as you kill highlighted targets.
- Punching Above One's Weight increases your damage against elites and monsters, helping you cut through priority threats.
- Unload rewards you for reloading by stacking ranged damage based on how much of the magazine you spent.
- Vulture themed talents like Vulture's Mark, Vulture's Dodge, and Patient Hunter stack ranged damage, crit chance, movement speed, and provide toughness sustain on elite and special kills.
Survivability and mobility talents
- Nimble extends dodges and the time you are considered dodging, making movement your main form of defense.
- Moving Target gives you an extra dodge while holding your ranged weapon.
- Slippery Customer makes you immune to melee attacks while sliding.
- Vulture's Dodge gives one second of immunity to all attacks when you land a ranged critical hit.
These talents push you away from blocking and into a highly mobile, parkour style of play. You weave between enemies, slide through danger, and rely on dodge windows and crit triggered invulnerability to stay alive rather than just standing and trading hits.
Enhanced Desperado: the heart of the build
Enhanced Desperado is what makes the whole setup shine. When you activate it, you automatically swap to and reload your ranged weapon, gain immunity to ranged attacks, get faster sprint with no stamina cost, and your shots get stronger against armor. Nearby enemies are highlighted and killing those highlighted targets with your guns extends the duration.
Used correctly, this turns you into a clutch monster. You can sprint through gunfire to revive allies, carve a path through ranged elites, or quickly dump damage into high priority enemies while being effectively untouchable from a distance. Combined with stims and cooldown talents, you will get this ability back very often, especially if you keep killing enemies steadily.
Practical Tips For Playing The Build
1. Stay aggressive but keep moving
This is not a bunker style ranged build. You want to be in close range where your damage bonuses are highest. Constantly dodge, slide, and reposition so that melee enemies struggle to pin you down while you shred them at short range.
2. Save your Crowbar for emergencies
Your melee weapon is a backup, but it is a powerful one. When a dangerous enemy makes it through your firing line, use the Crowbar special action and charged headshots to finish them. For regular fodder enemies, a few fast swings are plenty.
3. Use pistol special action for long range threats
The Dual Stub Pistols have a special action that spins the guns and tightens the crosshair. Time your shots when the crosshair is smallest to reliably hit long range targets like snipers and other problem enemies that are normally hard to reach with pistols.
4. Manage ammo with Pickpocket and Enhanced Desperado
You burn through bullets extremely fast. Enhanced Desperado prevents your reserve from going down while it is active, which helps a lot, and the Pickpocket talent will refill your ammo up to a baseline if you are running low and kill an elite or special. Rotate these tools and you will rarely be dry.
Put all of this together and Hive Scum becomes one of the most stylish and satisfying ways to play Darktide. If you enjoy fast paced, high skill gunplay with a strong emphasis on movement, this build is absolutely worth trying in your next run.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/warhammer-40k-darktide-hive-scum-build-best/
