Table of Contents
Class
Weapons
Curios
Talent Tree
Description
Flex Talents
Can't Hit Me... Again, Keep Shooting, and Unbreakable are flex points that can be moved around to better suit your playstyle or taste, especially with a different ranged weapon. Here's the pool of talents I would recommend shuffling around for different purposes:
The Binary: One of these two are required to get other talents that are also required, so pick your poison.
Unbreakable - This is really a choice between Unbreakable and Dedicated Practice. I chose Unbreakable because block unblockable is pretty valuable and historically the kickback has had fantastic swap times, but it's possible the Cruncher has poor enough stow and draw times that Dedicated Practice becomes much more valuable.
Dedicated Practice - Swap speed is great, especially on slower weapons. I didn't go that route because I don't think it's needed, but playing with it might prove otherwise. Always keep it in mind.
The Rest: These can be freely mixed and matched to suit your playstyle
Can't Hit Me... Again - Fantastic defensive talent, but not strictly necessary if you're good with positioning and/or movement
Keep Shooting - This is always active for the Thugshot and so has tons of value. Other ranged weapons with actual magazines make it much worse though.
Get Stuck In - Fantastic mobility tool, especially for the whole team. It can't be dropped without taking Dedicated Practice however.
Beat Them Back - Great damage buff that's bound to be up basically always with the Cruncher.
No Pushover - Excellent control on a short cooldown, adds a lot of stagger. It does require you to take Dedicated Practice over Unbreakable or free up a second point though.
Hard Knocks - Absolutely excellent talent, but requires No Pushover, and thus by extension Dedicated Practice, however, and that investment may not be worth it.
Ammo Stash - More ammo is always great
Reloaded and Ready - This is a nice boost to the Thugshot if you're gonna keep firing it, pairs well with putting Blaze Away on the gun, as well as the Keep Shooting talent.
Dominate - Rending is always great. This would be a big boost to bleed damage in hordes especially, even if the effect on the actual attacks likely isn't going to be too great.
Spray and Slay - This talent makes for a nice quickdraw, shoot, and swap back to melee loop with the thugshot. I don't think I'd run this without Dedicated Practice though, especially if Cruncher is as slow to draw as I fear.
For the Lil'Uns - Revive Speed is always amazing, and this can enable some super clutch revives. It's not high on my list of recs, but if you want those big damn hero moments, this thing can work wonders.
Recommended Alternative builds:
- Take Dedicated Practice over Unbreakable, then trade Keep Shooting and Can't Hit Me... Again for No Pushover and Hard Knocks
- This makes your ranged gameplay a little weaker, you're less able to deal with gunners and shooters and the like, but you gain a substantial amount of control and damage into melee enemies.
- Take Dedicated Practice over Unbreakable, then trade Get Stuck In for Beat Them Back
- This makes for a bit more damage, but you trade some mobility for it.
- Take Dedicated Practice over Unbreakable, then trade Get Stuck In and Can't Hit Me... Again to pick up Dominate and Spray and Slay
- You lose some mobility and survivability, but in return your horde clear times should be noticeably improved and mixing shots into melee fighting should give you a pretty nice damage bump.
Blessings
Cruncher Blessings are unclear at this time. Unstoppable Force I think is a must-have, because cleaving shields and Crushers and whatnot. But the second slot could be any of Hammerblow, Limbsplitter, Execution, or even Shock & Awe. Hammerblow is the obvious pick for the control, but Execution should be pretty noticeable damage, and Limbsplitter would be even more damage but demand a very slow, full-charge heavy playstyle. And Shock & Awe just doubles the cleave.
All of them have good arguments in their favor, experiment and find the one that best works for your playstyle.