Getting Destroyed as Recon

[Sir Fed Dump]

I suck as Recon, & I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Constantly use PUPS & Support Drone, but always near death or down, even on Standard. Here's my Grid:
Blood Hound
Threat Detected
Distracting Howl
Red is Dead
The Long Haul
Down Range
Doc Rifle Training
Gunner Rifle Mastery
Chain Reaction
Hit & Run Tactics
Hazard Seals
Adrenaline Rush
Painkillers

[|<TJ>| Randy]

A good start would be to check out Drunkbunny94's guide. It should help push you in the right direction. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3046186845

[Wet Water]

Honestly, you can probably drop Hazard and Adrenaline Rush and replace those with weapon buffs. Adrenaline Rush is worthless. Really only adds an extra point or 5 of health from kills. You can probably drop Downrange too since most things are a stone throw away.

[Sir Fed Dump]

From searching Google, I'm going to try swapping my Rifle perks for CQW. I suck with sniper rifles, anyway. I only use Hazard because Spitters always target me for some reason.

[[FR] Crimson]

You already got great answers but I thought I'd give my two cents. About your build :

Painkillers and Adrenaline Rush are worthless.
Hit n Run Tactics, Hazard Seals and Down Range aren't bad, but they aren't necessary/other perks take priority over it.

You've already understood that CQW perks take priority over Rifle perks. Generally speaking Rifles are the worst weapon type in the game, even on Doc you want to buff your Pistol instead of your Rifle if you want to deal good damage. This isn't mandatory but in my opinion 1 Weapon Training + 3 Weapon Masteries/Expertises is the sweet spot when you're investing in your main DPS weapon (Except Demo and sometimes Tech cause they can perform extremely well regardless due to their abilities and perks). So in Recon's case Id recommend 1 CQW Training + 3 CQW Masteries/Expertises.

You're also missing Threat Neutralized, Got Your Back and Back In The Fight which are "essential" perks that any Recon build should be running. The other essential Recon perks are Threat Detected, Distracting Howl, Red Is Dead and Chain Reaction. You were already running those, so thats a good thing.

Now Bloodhound is only ever worth it if you don't have a Gunner or Lancer on your team. Even then, Standard PUPS is never a bad pick; the global reveal, slow and debuff is just too good. Any good player knows that hordes of runners and specials are the biggest threat, not elites; and Standard PUPS helps a lot more with that than Bloodhound. Any competant team will also dispose of elites efficiently even without a Gunner, Lancer or Recon with Bloodhound on the team. I'm not saying that Bloodhound is bad, it has its uses, but only works really well in certain scenarios while Standard PUPS is always great regardless of your team comp. That is if you can spam it, which is why you need to use weapons that have access to a revealing scope in order to proc Threat Neutralized (15% ability cooldown reduction when landing a headshot on a revealed target). 4 headshots with a weapon that can reveal targets and your PUPS will be available again.

With that in mind the best CQWs for Recon are the Zadak and Type21 Tactical Shotgun. Pump Shotgun is also good, but not as much as the other two cause it can't reveal targets, so you can't get your ability cooldown reduction from Threat Neutralized when using it.

Now that you know where to start, I'll also throw the best Recon build I could ever come up with after 2k hours of playtime, in case you don't want to bother making your own or if you want to give it a try :

• Distracting Howl + Threat Detected + Extended Duration 2 on PUPS
• Got Your Back + Back In The Fight
• Threat Neutralized
• Red Is Dead
• Chain Reaction
• Down And Out
• Tech CQW Training + Tech CQW Mastery + Gunner CQW Mastery + Phalanx CQW Mastery

• Zadak Plasma Shotgun : Tanker Muzzle, Flared Breach, Laser Sight
• Twilight (for xenos) / Ballista Flechette (for synths) : Tanker Muzzle, Assault Mag, Digital Scope
• If you really suck at using DMRs/Precision rifles, any assault rifle will do the trick against xenos as long as they have access to a revealing scope (Zvezda, Pulse Rifle, Halberd etc). You'll actually proc your cooldown reductions even faster but will take longer to kill a single enemy (which isn't great for proccing Got Your Back and Back In The Fight) and you'll be greatly handicapped against synths.

In any case remember your Zadak is your big damage dealer, can stun, and becomes stupidely accurate as long as your PUPS is up. And you'll get ability cooldown reduction just for landing headshots with it. So outside of very long range engagements and when you're out of ammo, you should be spamming the Zadak.

Hope that helps

[[FR] Crimson]

I know you might not have unlocked all the stuff I mentioned above yet so here's a spreadsheet that compiles all the unlockables in the game and how to get them :
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ADUYI66mOHLasdauJOArL4lv7XMEw96IcFS6_XBhsgA/edit?usp=sharing

If you're still struggling on Standard/Intense even after making adjustments to your build I'd recommend watching these videos :

https://youtu.be/CEXm8m9f5pY?si=Cs29uewfsx6ueZcc

https://youtu.be/XqjZk07vqlU?si=eTxGxSTZG6_kQ-F3

https://youtu.be/aCSliCPc-p4?si=W_BKbK3SS38qKSgP

https://youtu.be/2rPdnJDBn_8?si=tcZnwAxkkj7ne_FX
(There's an entire playlist of these "hold locations" videos)

Happy hunting

[DrunkBunny94]

I will add that Recon is just hard to play.
You have no ability damage, little CC, the drones main use is ammo and some light healing, your passive has huge potential but is way harder to get that potential compared to other classes, so you are entirely reliant on your weapons, awareness and mechanics to fight everything and if any of those are lacking you are going to feel it.

But man if you are consistently landing headshots and getting kills with those headshots things like the unbreakable and got your back and threat neutralised are all constantly proc'ing and you can do some crazy damage.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3082315260

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3341400196

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3054087573

But you arent going to be doing that out the gate, its going to take some practice and even when you have it figured out because it is so mechanically dependant its not super consistent
In pubs its pretty easy to get shut down by techs or demos (if they place a super agro flame turret to kill everything before you can even see it, same with rocket spam+ smartgun).
Hell even the bots are kinda insane and melt runners with such ease now on higher diffs that it can make things tricky.

[Sir Fed Dump]

Originally posted by FR Crimson:

You already got great answers but I thought I'd give my two cents. About your build :

Painkillers and Adrenaline Rush are worthless.
Hit n Run Tactics, Hazard Seals and Down Range aren't bad, but they aren't necessary/other perks take priority over it.

You've already understood that CQW perks take priority over Rifle perks. Generally speaking Rifles are the worst weapon type in the game, even on Doc you want to buff your Pistol instead of your Rifle if you want to deal good damage. This isn't mandatory but in my opinion 1 Weapon Training + 3 Weapon Masteries/Expertises is the sweet spot when you're investing in your main DPS weapon (Except Demo and sometimes Tech cause they can perform extremely well regardless due to their abilities and perks). So in Recon's case Id recommend 1 CQW Training + 3 CQW Masteries/Expertises.

You're also missing Threat Neutralized, Got Your Back and Back In The Fight which are "essential" perks that any Recon build should be running. The other essential Recon perks are Threat Detected, Distracting Howl, Red Is Dead and Chain Reaction. You were already running those, so thats a good thing.

Now Bloodhound is only ever worth it if you don't have a Gunner or Lancer on your team. Even then, Standard PUPS is never a bad pick; the global reveal, slow and debuff is just too good. Any good player knows that hordes of runners and specials are the biggest threat, not elites; and Standard PUPS helps a lot more with that than Bloodhound. Any competant team will also dispose of elites efficiently even without a Gunner, Lancer or Recon with Bloodhound on the team. I'm not saying that Bloodhound is bad, it has its uses, but only works really well in certain scenarios while Standard PUPS is always great regardless of your team comp. That is if you can spam it, which is why you need to use weapons that have access to a revealing scope in order to proc Threat Neutralized (15% ability cooldown reduction when landing a headshot on a revealed target). 4 headshots with a weapon that can reveal targets and your PUPS will be available again.

With that in mind the best CQWs for Recon are the Zadak and Type21 Tactical Shotgun. Pump Shotgun is also good, but not as much as the other two cause it can't reveal targets, so you can't get your ability cooldown reduction from Threat Neutralized when using it.

Now that you know where to start, I'll also throw the best Recon build I could ever come up with after 2k hours of playtime, in case you don't want to bother making your own or if you want to give it a try :

• Distracting Howl + Threat Detected + Extended Duration 2 on PUPS
• Got Your Back + Back In The Fight
• Threat Neutralized
• Red Is Dead
• Chain Reaction
• Down And Out
• Tech CQW Training + Tech CQW Mastery + Gunner CQW Mastery + Phalanx CQW Mastery

• Zadak Plasma Shotgun : Tanker Muzzle, Flared Breach, Laser Sight
• Twilight (for xenos) / Ballista Flechette (for synths) : Tanker Muzzle, Assault Mag, Digital Scope
• If you really suck at using DMRs/Precision rifles, any assault rifle will do the trick against xenos as long as they have access to a revealing scope (Zvezda, Pulse Rifle, Halberd etc). You'll actually proc your cooldown reductions even faster but will take longer to kill a single enemy (which isn't great for proccing Got Your Back and Back In The Fight) and you'll be greatly handicapped against synths.

In any case remember your Zadak is your big damage dealer, can stun, and becomes stupidely accurate as long as your PUPS is up. And you'll get ability cooldown reduction just for landing headshots with it. So outside of very long range engagements and when you're out of ammo, you should be spamming the Zadak.

Hope that helps

Great advice. I'm going to try these out asap.

[[FR] Crimson]

Originally posted by Sir Fed Dump:

Originally posted by FR Crimson:

You already got great answers but I thought I'd give my two cents. About your build :

Painkillers and Adrenaline Rush are worthless.
Hit n Run Tactics, Hazard Seals and Down Range aren't bad, but they aren't necessary/other perks take priority over it.

You've already understood that CQW perks take priority over Rifle perks. Generally speaking Rifles are the worst weapon type in the game, even on Doc you want to buff your Pistol instead of your Rifle if you want to deal good damage. This isn't mandatory but in my opinion 1 Weapon Training + 3 Weapon Masteries/Expertises is the sweet spot when you're investing in your main DPS weapon (Except Demo and sometimes Tech cause they can perform extremely well regardless due to their abilities and perks). So in Recon's case Id recommend 1 CQW Training + 3 CQW Masteries/Expertises.

You're also missing Threat Neutralized, Got Your Back and Back In The Fight which are "essential" perks that any Recon build should be running. The other essential Recon perks are Threat Detected, Distracting Howl, Red Is Dead and Chain Reaction. You were already running those, so thats a good thing.

Now Bloodhound is only ever worth it if you don't have a Gunner or Lancer on your team. Even then, Standard PUPS is never a bad pick; the global reveal, slow and debuff is just too good. Any good player knows that hordes of runners and specials are the biggest threat, not elites; and Standard PUPS helps a lot more with that than Bloodhound. Any competant team will also dispose of elites efficiently even without a Gunner, Lancer or Recon with Bloodhound on the team. I'm not saying that Bloodhound is bad, it has its uses, but only works really well in certain scenarios while Standard PUPS is always great regardless of your team comp. That is if you can spam it, which is why you need to use weapons that have access to a revealing scope in order to proc Threat Neutralized (15% ability cooldown reduction when landing a headshot on a revealed target). 4 headshots with a weapon that can reveal targets and your PUPS will be available again.

With that in mind the best CQWs for Recon are the Zadak and Type21 Tactical Shotgun. Pump Shotgun is also good, but not as much as the other two cause it can't reveal targets, so you can't get your ability cooldown reduction from Threat Neutralized when using it.

Now that you know where to start, I'll also throw the best Recon build I could ever come up with after 2k hours of playtime, in case you don't want to bother making your own or if you want to give it a try :

• Distracting Howl + Threat Detected + Extended Duration 2 on PUPS
• Got Your Back + Back In The Fight
• Threat Neutralized
• Red Is Dead
• Chain Reaction
• Down And Out
• Tech CQW Training + Tech CQW Mastery + Gunner CQW Mastery + Phalanx CQW Mastery

• Zadak Plasma Shotgun : Tanker Muzzle, Flared Breach, Laser Sight
• Twilight (for xenos) / Ballista Flechette (for synths) : Tanker Muzzle, Assault Mag, Digital Scope
• If you really suck at using DMRs/Precision rifles, any assault rifle will do the trick against xenos as long as they have access to a revealing scope (Zvezda, Pulse Rifle, Halberd etc). You'll actually proc your cooldown reductions even faster but will take longer to kill a single enemy (which isn't great for proccing Got Your Back and Back In The Fight) and you'll be greatly handicapped against synths.

In any case remember your Zadak is your big damage dealer, can stun, and becomes stupidely accurate as long as your PUPS is up. And you'll get ability cooldown reduction just for landing headshots with it. So outside of very long range engagements and when you're out of ammo, you should be spamming the Zadak.

Hope that helps

Great advice. I'm going to try these out asap.

Let me know how it goes

[Sir Fed Dump]

Originally posted by FR Crimson:

Originally posted by Sir Fed Dump:

Great advice. I'm going to try these out asap.

Let me know how it goes

I've been playing this (mostly) on Standard difficulty. Changed "Down & Out" for "Keep 'em Pinned." Great so far. I haven't died once. Did take me a while to get Extended Duration 2 & the Zadak shotgun, though.