Let's talk builds

[jmotivator]

So I finished the first play through after 14 hours and I really like by current team build. I'm always warned I have "Low support" but I never seemed to have a problem (all gear is highest level and dps available... except one):

1) Vanguard w/2H and Assault Frame and heavy armor (STR/STAM)
2) Vanguard w/Flamethrower and radiation damage shield and heavy (STR/STAM/INT)
3) Engineer w/Rockets and Drones and heavy armor (AGI/INT)
4) Marine w/Rockets and Haste Field and Heavy Armor (AGI/STAM)
5) Medic w/Special Assaut Rifle and Resurrect and Heavy (AGI/INT)
6) Medic w/Best Ranged DPS and team heal and Heavy armor (SPD/AGI)
7) Scout w/Best Ranged DPS and Bullet Amplify and Light (AGI/INT)
8) Sgout w/Best Ranged DPS and +Hit/Crit and Heavy (AGI/INT)

A few notes:
* The Medic in the #5 slot is decked out in the best heavy armor I have with a huge +STAM bonus. The goal hear is max survivability since he is resurrecting fallen team members
* I use the Rocket/Spider tech because you never shouldn't.
* The second Vanguard with automattically stop and start firing somewhere in between my main group and the #1 Vangaurd. He plays a sort of CC role
* I also run the medic constant heal skill which did most of the healing
* +Stam Happy pills because you never shouldn't
* I pumped enough STR into every player so that they could use heavy armor. I didn't end up using heavy armor on all of them by the end, but the whole team lived in heavy armor for most of the game until awesome light armore started showing up.
* Medics run the DPS debuff reduction
* The Special AR is a legendary that heals the user per hit. This medic is nearly unkillable so the chances that my team ever loses due to wipe is very small.
* Resurrect Tech runs stasis bubble to keep resurrects from dying too quickly

The way this team plays out is essentially they naturally fall into propper formation due to the ranges on their weapons, with healers and rockets and scouts bunched in the back with the CC screen and the tank drawing aggro and spiders cleaning up.

By the final fight I think I had to pop one special ability, and redirect fire off of the boss twice. It was just a straight, quick burn down.

I think if you want to run this squad situational member swaps then the marine and CC vanguard would be likely targets, though the DPS boost and CC are almost universally handy.

[Squirting Elephant]

I also use 2x vanguard, 2x medic, 2x scout, 1x marine (just for haste aura), 1x engineer (just for smokebomb & turret).

I'm not sure but I think that Scouts have the best damage, you simply need 2 medics at some point in NG+ to keep up with healing (especially since I'm fighting lvl60+ enemies while I'm 25-30...) and Vanguards are totally optional before NG+ if you invest into stamina in every character so that everybody deals damage/heal AND can tank (bruisers).

I'm considering kicking the marine and going 3x scout.

[Big Boinka]

I've been running:

2 Vanguards with MVP-5's or Spraycasters and assault frames
2 Healers, 1 with regen and 1 with revive
2 Assault with Partypaw's or similar range weapon and grenades
1 Engineer with Assault Rifle and heal toolkit
1 Sniper with Assault rifle and bio.

I've been liking it, mostly because my tanks aren't melee.

Question... does the Vanguard radiation field act as a vanguard attack and taunt? If so, I'd like to give that a try.

Edit: tested it myself. No, the rad shield doesn't taunt.

[FroBodine]

Originally posted by jmotivator:

* I also run the medic constant heal skill which did most of the healing

I'm just learning this game, and have a question about this. You mention that you keep the medic auto heal skill on all the time. I have noticed that many classes (perhaps all of them?) have an auto skill. Why wouldn't you want to just always keep this on?

Is there a reason why you would want to turn off your auto skills?

[Squirting Elephant]

I think it's best to take every class + 2 medics and 2 vanguards the first time you play. This ensures that you can heal and tank enough. Battles may last longer but you are unlikely to wipe.

After that you realise that there are a few totally op builds/combo's but they require a bit of game knowledge. Like running without medics and such to maximimze dps.

Yes somtimes you must turn off autoskills. Like the engineers may have that disarm ability. But they usually try to cast it all together at the same time. And in the meantime there is 0 dps output and it makes no sense to cast it 6-7x at the same time at the same enemy. But this is also because the crew-AI needs to be smarter. Or you just gotta use another tool but early game that is not always possible in the first few missions. Most of the time you want it on autocast though.

[Devrailis]

Oh yeah, some loadouts are pretty broken at the moment. This isn't necessarily because of the classes you are bringing to the table but what they are equipped with.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=875741861
Launcher Spam is still borked beyond belief.

Some people are saying that it is not viable late game, but it is, it most definitely is. You can clear Tribulating runs with little to no effort like this.

The setup I was using in that run was:

1 Vanguard
1 Marine
3 Scouts
1 Engineer
2 Medics

The Marine is mainly there for Overload Shot AoE Burst, and buffing my Scouts with Frenzy and Fire Rate boosters.

The Scouts just keep slamming everything with crtical stacking rockets until they unleash triple assassination spikes against any tanky target.

1 Engineer just for Engineer utility, locked doors, EMP grenade, smoke, etc...

And 2 defib medics because my armour is fairly low and this is on Hardcore Tribulating so sometimes your guys can still get one/two-shot if you are not stacking -xx% damage gear.

[FroBodine]

Holy criminy! I just started watching your video of the Katyusha Crew, Devrailis. I had no idea that you could reposition your dudes in the formation by dragging their icons in the upper left.

Just another thing that this game DOESN'T EXPLAIN!! I think you should have created the tutorial, or written the manual, so newbies can understand everything this game has to offer.

[MIYUKI]

1 vanguard, 2 healers (one direct, 1 aoe), 1 engineer, 4 soldiers.

iirc I got to level 58 when i eventually got bored with the item grinding at went to finish the story. everything was on +6 max difficulty. this setup made it quite easy, just equipping dual high clip count pistols for soldiers and can spam the dual gun skill they have 4 times for impressive dps. The dps meter consistantly showed the 4 soldiers doing 95% of party dps. the final boss took about 15 seconds to drop at max difficulty.

looking forward to seeing the game progress with new stuff and balancing!

edit: the video posted above, yeah... loading out all high clip rocket launchers.... no skill involved and will ruin your experience. pretty lame too.

[Squirting Elephant]

@frobodine The game did explain it somewhere in some tooltip or loading tip or something. That is where I learned it from.
But the game could use more info in general as there are some techs, stackings and item mods that nobody knows how they work exactly.

Again I personally thinkt it's okay for some builds to become op in LATEGAME but not at lvl 20-30. I never tried dual wielding but I read a while ago that those are also insanely op with the right mods.

[Devrailis]

Originally posted by MIYUKI:

looking forward to seeing the game progress with new stuff and balancing!

edit: the video posted above, yeah... loading out all high clip rocket launchers.... no skill involved and will ruin your experience. pretty lame too.

It's actually not high clip rocket launchers you are seeing in that video I posted. I've been refining the build and have removed the +clip size bonuses on nearly all of my Privateers now. It's even more broken now that I have done so.

This is important because focusing only on the clip size of the rocket build is going to miss just what is so broken about the rocket launcher. I can make another post in more detail about exactly what it is about the rocket launcher that needs tuning, but +clip size isn't it.

Most of my privateers run with clip size 1 rocket launchers now. As you can see, it is still utterly broken.

[jmotivator]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

Originally posted by jmotivator:

* I also run the medic constant heal skill which did most of the healing

I'm just learning this game, and have a question about this. You mention that you keep the medic auto heal skill on all the time. I have noticed that many classes (perhaps all of them?) have an auto skill. Why wouldn't you want to just always keep this on?

Is there a reason why you would want to turn off your auto skills?

I think I was less than clear. There is the the auto heal that the medic does with the right tool, and then there is a skill that does a constant tick small heal on top of any other healing. Their group heal plus this tick meant we were rarely in danger of losing a member.

[Astasia]

Rez seems useless. Any healing done in the few seconds after they are downed will bring them back. If you have a few healing drones it's basically impossible for a character to die, the drones move around quickly and have a nearly instant heal even if it's only a small amount.

[Alex Poysky]

I almost always run with 2 medics, one in the back, one in the front, one with an aoe heal and one with a direct heal. Then I have a vanguard with heavy armor and a shield/mshield and marine/engie/scout with the last two being fillable as per the planet's needs!

[BigHitomiMan]

1) Medic
2) Heist field Marine - sniper rifle
3~) Dual wielding ranged Marine - dual pistol
No need for vanguard since you can get '- all damage taken' items and one tanky aoe healing medic.
I thought rocket luancher was good one, and it was but..
Crit damage doesn't applied to launcher, so other crit weapons can fairly overwhelm launcher.

[cobunder2]

im agree with alex, im using 2 medic, one for vanguard and one for team heal. my medic build for team is speed stam int 2-1-2 stat . using 2 marine for aoe damage (with skill research) and using 2 engi (but i dont have healer bot yet)

[Pavel]

Power level : 154 (Normal) NG+7 .. running 2x vanguards 1xmedic 5x engineers ( best dps with drones ) had no trouble so far ... and i guess i won´t have any :) .. points all specct into INT,AGI&SPEED , leads into +100% crit and 0 reloadtime .. which is pretty balanced combined with +1.000% Clip Size on the armour and +3.800% Crit dmg on the helmet :)