The Skullbreaker isn’t great at killing elites unless from afar with the Grenadier Gauntlet or Rumbler, but under most circumstances, it’s more than able to quickly and efficiently clear out waves of enemies without taking too much damage to their health pool.
Bull Rush, the Skullbreaker’s active ability, allows the class to charge forward and knock down enemies in its path. Many of its Feats affect Bull Rush in one way or another, further emphasizing its importance. However, many feats also grant survivability, as well, so you’ve got to be aware of what’s available and what it does for an effective build.
These are what I consider the best Feats for Skullbreaker, based on the over 100 hours of playtime I’ve racked up playing as Darktide’s resident big boys.
Best Ogryn Skullbreaker Feats in Darktide
Level 5 Feats
The Feat you should choose for the Level 5 tier will depend on your melee weapon’s moveset. If the first portions (or entirety) of your melee weapon’s heavy combo is single-target, go with Smash ‘Em Good!. Multi-hit instead? Go with Best Form of Defense.
Smash ‘Em Good! — Replenish 20% Toughness on single enemy heavy melee hit. Best Form of Defense — Replenish 20% Toughness on hitting multiple enemies with a single heavy melee attack.
These Feats do not affect your quick click light attacks.
Level 10 Feats
Heavyweight is most useful if you’re tired of getting torn up by Reapers on Heresy. That’s pretty much it.
Blood & Thunder is the big winner on this tier, because of its synergy with Bloodthirst at level 20. Note again, this is for a heavy (charged) hit.
Blood & Thunder — +1 Bleed stack on heavy melee hit.
Level 15 Feats
Lead the Charge might sound nice, but the sheer usefulness of Bullfighter usurps it completely. This is especially the case on higher difficulties, as elites come in overwhelming numbers.
Bullfighter — -10% Bull Rush cooldown when you or an ally in coherency kill an elite enemy.
Level 20 Feats
This is the tier where Blood & Thunder starts to be really effective, because of Bloodthirst’s synergy with it. Hard as Nails can actually be useful on Heresy and Damnation, but relies on the other members of your strike team to fall before you do in order to be effective. Obviously this is not ideal.
Bloodthirst is just an all-around great Feat as long as you are running Blood & Thunder.
Bloodthirst — +10% damage resistance per bleeding enemy in melee range. Stacks 5 times.
Level 25 Feats
All three of these Feats are pretty good, and I’d probably recommend any one of them depending on your preferred melee weapon and playstyle. But among the three, Payback Time and Raging Bull are the more conventionally effective.
Payback Time is more useful for a more ranged playstyle as it enables you to do more damage to ranged specials if they hit you, while Raging Bull is more effective for a melee playstyle.
Payback Time — When an enemy damages you, gain +20% damage against enemies of the same type for 5 seconds. Raging Bull — +5 damage (next melee hit) on melee hit for each enemy hit with the initial attack.
Level 30 Feats
It can be tough to decide between these Feats because their effectiveness isn’t readily apparent, and I’m not sure which to say is the best in action.
Bull Gore gets those bleed stacks up for Bloodthirst, but it can’t always be relied upon to boost your stacks regularly because you will not necessarily be in melee range of enemies hit with Bull Rush to receive the damage reduction on bleed stack.
Unstoppable is very useful at high difficulties where you run into hallways stuffed with Crushers. It also enables you to rush more easily to the side of allies that need to be revived or otherwise aided, but it does require a change in playstyle to make the most of. It can also do more harm than good if you find yourself too deep in swathes of enemies.
Non-Stop Violence is the purely defensive option, making Bull Rush best used after you’ve taken a lot of Toughness damage. This is something you probably end up doing anyway, making Non-Stop Violence the most obvious safe option.
Bull Gore — +2 Bleed stacks on enemies hit by Bull Rush. Unstoppable — Increases the distance you travel with Bull Rush by 100% and you cannot be blocked by enemies except Monstrosities. Non-Stop Violence — Replenish 10% Toughness per Bull Rush hit.
Your mileage may vary with this advice, and your playstyle may lead you to different Feats. However, these are all things to bear in mind when choosing your Feat loadout before hopping into a mission and hopefully this has given you some insight into the Skullbreaker playstyle in Darktide. If you found this guide helpful, take a look at our full Ogryn tips guide or one of our many other Darktide guides.
