Table of Contents
Class
Weapons
Rampage
Hitting at least 3 enemies with an attack, increases your damage by 18% for 3.5 seconds.
Bladed Momentum
Hitting multiple enemies in one sweep gives +7% Melee Rending for 4 seconds. Stacks 4 times.
Headhunter
+20% Critical Chance on Weak Spot Hit until your next Critical Hit. Stacks 5 times.
Trickshooter
+6% Strength on Chained Weak Spot Hit (Any Target). Stacks 5 times.
Curios
+1 Wound(s)
+13-17% Toughness
+13-17% Toughness
Talent Tree
Description
Tested for Havoc 20 so far, planning on going to 40 obviously.
This build focuses around optimizing short burst usage of your Aimbot ability, Advanced Combat Doctrines (ACD), a pimped out Branx Mk CV Galvanic Rifle, and high Capacitance Regeneration for uptime whenever needed.
Why should you play this build?
Try it, go to Psykhanium on Auric and press ACD and click a Crushers head 2-3 times.
Crushers in 2-3 shots, Bosses in 1-2 mags
Why these blessings?
Cleave on your Branx Mk CV Galvanic Rifle makes both Headhunter and Trickshooter trigger twice on any headshot, even on Crushers.
Meaning 1 shot that doesn't crit? You have 2 stacks of Headhunter, next crit (counting ACD +30%) is now 78% crit chance.
Effective crit rate: 56.93% (ACD)
Chance to crit by 2nd shot: 86.36%
Chance to crit by 3rd shot? Basically 100%
Trickshooter is 30% damage/cleave/stagger at 5 stacks, you reach 4 stacks in 2 shots.
This guide isn't going to get into depth about how to play this build because I plan on making a video on it.
In broad strokes:
Melee Blessings are tailored for hordes, use Melee as much as possible to conserve ammo. You can kind of use any good anti-horde melee weapon you prefer. I like the Transonic Blades, they go woosh woosh very fast :)
90% of the time you'll only use your gun as part of Advanced Combat Doctrines or counter sniping a cheeky sniper. Essentially treat your Gun like an ultimate ability and only use it while Aimbotting. You can't stand still to aim in Auric+, always be moving brotha.
See a horde of Scab Maulers, Ogryns/Crushers? ACD and click heads for 10 seconds, then swap back to melee. (Don't need to reload due to Gunsmith )
This build is marked "Anti-Boss, Anti-Elite, Anti-Special" because you are Anti-Everything. You see ANY problematic elites? You click ACD and you click heads and you delete every problem in front of you.
Some general questions you might have:
"Why Power Overload instead of other Keystones?"
- Because it's low maintenance, stacks up insanely fast on higher difficulty due to giant hordes, providing great uptime of +DMG and +Defensive bonuses not just for yourself but for your team.
Flensing Protocols is good for defensive options but if it goes down you're shit out of luck. It's good for optimizing crit on melee builds I guess? I haven't tested it for that. Redline Capacitors is good on paper but the way you use ACD in this build is in short controlled bursts (usually 1-2 mags of your rifle depending on what you're dealing with) so you rarely end up sitting at the desired 3+ stacks unless you do a lot of micro management. (You can kinda cheese the stacks with Noospheric Command by cycling it at a Charge breakpoint but too much micromanagement for me)
"Why only Medicae Servo-Skull and no Purgator Servo-Skull?"
- Because I find that the flamer skull is rarely ever useful on high difficulty missions, on Auric and Havoc I can count the number of times I've used the flamer skull on 2 hands. You'd much rather save every single grenade for a clutch ress.
"In extension of the above, why no Noospheric Command?"
- Honestly I just don't like the micromanagement. This build optimizes ease of use above all else and literally avoid as much micromanagement as possible. It costs the same Capacitance to activate ACD. You can do that and fire a mag to deal with whatever needs dealing with and be on your way. You can use it if you want.
"In extension to the extension of the above, why not any of the other Blitzes?"
- Arc Grenades does what you can already do with your rifle. Not worth it in my opinion. Plus you want to leave grenades for your allies to use on better options. In most good missions my initial 4 uses of Medicae Servo-Skull is all I need. I don't pick up grenades unless everyone else pass them by. As for Integrated Refraction Emitter, it's nice, for personal survivability but by doing that you shift away from team utility and into personal protection territory, and as above, I like having the team ress for oh-shit moments and being able to leave grenades for ogryns, vets or hive scum.
Bonus Point: Bypass hacking puzzles even in very intense moments.
"Why invest so many points into getting to Foe-Render Creed when Ammunition Deposit is right there?
- +10% Ammo is kinda doodoo compared to 15% cleave and 7.5% damage for everyone. Plus we want Sureshot Cogitator Sync anyways, and should still invest a few skills into melee to be able to deal with hordes. Flux Conduit Build-Up is a nice bonus we can pick up on the way.
"Why the Wound Curio, don't they suck???"
- Eh, personal preference, run whatever curios you find comfortable my friend.
"Can I take X instead of X?"
- Sure buddy, you do you, this build is very flexible, it's intended to be, so do whatever you want.
"PS, what do I do about Bulwarks???"
- Pray your team staggers them