Last Stand Wargear and Build Guide - Hive Tyrant

This is a wargear guide to the Last Stand mode for DOW2 Retribution, covering all the wargear for every character, and some suggested builds for each of them. In this part, the Tyranid Hive Tyrant will be covered.

Introduction

Welcome to the Wargear and Build guide for the Hive Tyrant.

The tank of Last Stand, this hulking monster of flesh and claws is one of the most straight up powerful heroes you can play. Whether he stays back and shoots the crap out of anything that moves, or wades right into the thick of the fighting and tears up everything that moves, he is quite a beast.

And of course, he has all his lovely minions that he can summon at any time, which run around and cause trouble for anything that hasn't quite got into range of you yet, or that your heavily armoured ass isn't fast enough to catch.

Finally, these are my own opinions of the Tyrant and what I think works best. I am quite happy to adjust and change this guide to include other builds and ideas, so if you think you have a gosu/ninja/juggernaut build that i have ignored, please let me know and I may add it.

And before we move on, I would like to thank Chibi Assassin for giving me the idea for these guides, and the snazzy looking layout that comes with it.

So without further ado, here is his wargear, what it does and if/how it should be used:

Wargear of the Nid (Pt1)

Enlarged Scything Talons

Starting Equipment - Two-handed melee weapon, 16.0 dps
Grants Minion Traits: Armor Piercing (All minion creature attacks ignore up to 100 armor value), Combat Expert (+30% melee and ranged damage)
A pretty decent melee weapon, it does a fair amount of damage and gives your minions some very nice buffs that will drastically change how much damage they do.

Extended Carapace

Starting Equipment - Armor Rating: 144, -14% Movement Speed, +25 Health
Grants Ability: Bio-Plasma (10 energy: Hurl a blast of bio-plasma, doing area of effect damage. Effective against groups of infantry.) Grants Traits: Fearless (Immune to suppression), Unshakable (Makes the wearer immune to knockback)
A tricky piece of armour, it has a nice rating and the bonus health is always good. The bio-plasma ball does a lot of damage too, but the charge up and shooting time of it does take some getting used to.

Poison Cysts

Starting Equipment - Armor Rating: 160, -14% Movement Speed, +50 Health
Grants Ability: Toxic Miasma (25 energy: Emit a toxic cloud that poisons a large area. Enemies in the area suffer damage over time equal to half of the Hive Tyrant’s maximum health over 20 seconds) Grants Traits: Fearless (Immune to suppression), Unshakable (Makes the wearer immune to knockback)
The best armour for the Tyrant, and you get it at the very beginning! Not only does it have the second highest armour rating, it gives you the Nid's AOE (area of effect) ability, Toxic Miasma. This ability lets you kill almost anything very quickly, and even eats through the armour of big enemies.

Seismic Roar

Starting Equipment - Grants Ability: Seismic Roar (15 energy: Emit a roar which stuns nearby enemies)
While sounding pretty good, this ability is let down by its very short range. While stunning enemies is very useful in any situation, they have to be right next to you to be effected, and it only lasts for 4 seconds. So good for you to start with, but there are better items.

Genestealer Nest

Starting Equipment - Grants Ability: Call Genestealer (10 energy: Call Genestealer minion creatures whose rending claws reduce the effectiveness of enemy armor) Can only have one active Genestealer squad at a time
Your first minons, these guys are better at dying than doing damage to your enemies. However, you get 3 of them, and their claws do really help in reducing any armour. Also, for only 10 energy, you can spam them pretty often.

Toxin Sacs

Unlocked Level 2 - +20 Minion Creature Health
Grants Trait: Searing (The Hive Tyrant’s Melee and Ranged attacks deal additional damage over time. Damage scales with the Hive Tyrant’s maximum health. Multiple searing attacks stack) Grants Minion Trait: Searing (All minion creatures’ Melee and Ranged attacks deal additional damage over time. Damage scales with the attacker’s maximum Health. Multiple searing attacks stack)
A great accessory, this beauty enables you and your minion to burn through any big enemies with ease, as the effect not only ignores armour but stacks as well, meaning you can continue to add more damage with every hit.

Tyrant Guard

Unlocked Level 3 - Grants Ability: Call Tyrant Guard (20 energy: Call a Tyrant Guard minion creature. Highly resilient, the Tyrant Guard can also taunt enemies) Can only have one active Tyrant Guard at a time
Your next minion, this guy is tougher than the genestealers, and also the toughest minon you can get. While having decent amout of health and armour, it can also taunt enemies, taking some of the heat off you and your allies.

Venom Cannon

Unlocked Level 4 - Two-handed ranged weapon, 13.0 dps
Grants Trait: Armor Piercing (Melee or Ranged attacks ignore up to 240 armor value)
Your first ranged weapon, and your best one. This will basically ignore any armour it hits, and with it's high dps, it will tear through all enemies with ease. The only disadvantage is that sometimes it fires slower than it can, but still fast enough to dish out serious damage.

Thornback

Unlocked Level 5 - Commander Item. Grants Ability: Charge (10 energy: Charge at targeted location, knocking over everything in the charge path)
The Tyrant's only 'escape' ability, it unfortunately isn't that good. It hasn't got that large of a distance, and sometimes it stuffs up and doesn't work. Use it while you have nothing else to use, but the other commander items are way better.

Bonded Exoskeleton

Unlocked Level 6 - Armor Rating: 134, -14% Movement Speed, +75 Health, +50 Minion Creature Health, +2 Minion Creature Health Regeneration
Grants Traits: Fearless (Immune to suppression), Unshakable (Makes the wearer immune to knockback)
Another great armour, this one focuses on buffing your minions, rather than yourself. The extra health and regen for your minions makes a surprising difference, and no matter what minions you take, they will not die as much, and hence to more damage to your enemies.

Warrior Nest

Unlocked Level 7 - Grants Ability: Call Warrior (15 energy: Call a Tyranid Warrior minion creature armed with powerful Scything Talons and able to knock back enemy infantry) Can only have one active Warrior at a time
Another minion for you to throw into the fray, the warrior is a fast and agile creature that is a great disruptor. It will quite regularly jump and knockback enemies, and is a useful asset in the early levels.

Warp Field

Unlocked Level 8 - +50 Energy. Grants Ability: Warp Field (Raise a protective shield which halves incoming damage and causes it to reduce Energy instead of Health)
A handy shield for your Tyrant, not only does it protect your precious health, it also reduces all damage by half. It also gives you a nice boost to your energy so you can still tank a bit of damage and have enough left over to use your abilities.

Implant Attacks

Unlocked Level 9 - +20 Minion Creature Health. Grants Trait: Combat Master (+30% Melee and Ranged damage) Grants Minion Trait: Combat Master (+30% Melee and Ranged damage)
Very simple, gives you some extra damage and your minions extra health as well as damage. Not too much to say about this, except that Toxin Sacs is almost always better.

Heavy Talons

Unlocked Level 10 - Two-handed melee weapon, 16.0 dps
Grants Trait: Knockdown (Standard attacks knock down and knock back enemy infantry) Grants Minion Trait: Unshakable (Unit is immune to knockback)
A useless weapon, its only redemming feature is granting unshakable to your minions. (which the tyrant guard already has and the warrior getting knocked down gives it an excuse to return the favour) Unfortunately, like the Captian's Thunder Hammer, having knockback only means you will chase your enemies across the map, not really doing that much damage very quickly.

Wargear of the Nid (Pt2)

Psychic Scream

Unlocked Level 11 - Grants Ability: Psychic Scream (10 energy: Reduce damage output and defenses of all enemy units within the area of effect of the ability)
A great ability, this basically allows you to both reduce all incoming damage by half, and doubling your damage vs enemies. It has a good range on it, and is pretty useful in any situation.

Bio-Feedback

Unlocked Level 12 - +25 Health. Grants Trait: Feedback Invulnerability (The death of any minion creature briefly makes the Hive Tyrant invulnerable)
Another handy ability, this enables you to become invincible for a short time. With the right build, you can stay in this state almost permanently, which as you can imagine, is very useful.

Articulated Carapace

Unlocked Level 13 - Armor Rating: 112
Grants Ability: The Horror (Force the targeted enemy squad to fall back in terror) Grants Traits: Swift (+15% Movement Speed), Fearless (Unit is immune to suppression), Unshakable (Makes the wearer immune to knockback). Grants Minion Traits: Swift (+25% Movement Speed), Fearless (Unit is immune to suppression)
An armour that trades protection for speed, and gives you an ability to 'scare' enemies away. While it looks good on paper, the Tyrant is still really slow even with the speed boost, and the armour has too low a rating to protect you from dying horribly.

Crushing Talons

Unlocked Level 14 - Two-handed melee weapon, 14.6 dps. +1 Minion Creature Health Regeneration
Grants Trait: Feedback Zeal (The Hive Tyrant regains 3 Health every time one of his minion creatures attacks)
A great weapon for you and your minions, this gives them a bit more regen, while at the same time healing you every time they attack. Works great with fast attacking minions like genestealers or the ravener.

Synapse

Unlocked Level 15 - Commander Item. -50% Ability Energy Costs.
So simple, but so good. Having everything cost 50% less energy is great, means you can summon minions faster, spam maisma quicker, and scream at your enemies more often than ever before!

Explosive Decomposition

Unlocked Level 16 - +20 Minion Creature Health, +50 Health
Grants Minion Trait: Death Throes (A toxic cloud erupts upon death of any minion creature, damaging enemies in a large area. The higher the minion creature’s maximum Health, the greater the damage done)
A nice health bonus for you and your minion, the ability doesn't really come into play that much, as apart from your Genestealers, your minions don't die that often. And Genestealers don't have that much health anyway.

Reinforced Chitin

Unlocked Level 17 - Armor Rating: 98, -14% Movement Speed, +80 Minion Creature Armor, +25 Health
Grants Traits: Fearless (Immune to suppression), Unshakable (Makes the wearer immune to knockback), Reactive Armor (Hive Tyrant temporarily gains +10 Armor each time he is attacked, up to a maximum of +300 Armor)
Again, on paper, this armour looks pretty good, but you won't survive long enough to really get the benifit of the armour rating. With rapid firing enemies it works well, but the big enemies, they do massive damage with slow shots, so your armour doesn't get up in time.

Ravener Nest

Unlocked Level 18 - Grants Ability: Call Ravener
Your most powerful minion, this wonderous creature will happily sit back and absolutely destroy anything and everything it attacks. Even without any buffs, it is still quite powerful, but with Toxin Sacs and armour piercing, it will be able to destroy even the Superheavy units on Anvil with ease.

High-Toxin Venom Cannon

Unlocked Level 19 - Two-handed ranged weapon, 5.7 dps
Grants traits: Zealous Leadership (Attacks with the Hive Tyrant’s venom cannon heal all his minions for 5% of their maximum Health), Area of Effect (Attacks from this weapon deal damage over a small area)
Your other default ranged weapon, this is a weaker version of the Venom Cannon, made up for the small amount of aoe damage it does instead. It also heals your minions every time it attacks, however it doesn't shoot fast enough to really benefit from it. Take this if you really need some aoe damage, otherwise just stick with the Venom Cannon.

Evolution

Unlocked level 20 - Commander Item. +2.0 Health Regeneration
Grants minion traits: Resilient (+50 Health and +2 Health Regeneration), Swift (+25% Movement Speed), Combat Expert (+25% melee and ranged damage)
And for your final item, you get this buff that makes your minions more powerful in almost every way possible. A great item when you are using any of your minions, this will just make them cause even more mayham on the battlefield.

Achievement Wargear

So now we come to the achievements for the Tyrant, and the new toys he gets to play with.

Rending Stranglethorn

Unlocked by achievement “Megakill” (Kill 20 enemies within one second as the Tyranid Hive Tyrant) - Two-handed ranged weapon, 16.0 dps
Grants Trait: Suppression
The only piece of wargear the Tyrant has that can suppress enemies, this fires slow moving balls of acid that expolde on contact. While the trait is nice, it fires very slowly and does hardly anything against armoured units, so I would only suggest this if you need crowd control.

Behemoth Claw

Unlocked by achievement “Heavy Hitter” (Kill 25 superheavy units as the Tyranid Hive Tyrant) - Two-handed melee weapon, 30.0 dps, +50 Armor Rating
Grants Trait: Armor Piercing
A massive claw for the Tyrant, this not only does massive damage, it also gives you more armour, so you can tank even more! Unless you want to help out your minions, this is the best melee weapon you can use.

DLC Wargear

The Tyrant also has some lovely pieces of DLC Wargear, that make killing your enemies even eaiser.

Devourer Cannon

Two-handed ranged weapon, 7.4 dps
Grants Trait: Gestate (Units hit by the devourer take 30 damage over 6 seconds)
The only other good ranged weapon the Tyrant has, this is larger version of the Ravener's attack. While it has a low dps, the damage is done by Gestate, and it fires fast enough to really make use of it.

Thornback Carapace

Armor Rating: 190. Grants Traits: Barbed Armor (Enemies that attack the Hive Tyrant in melee take 20 damage for every attack), Fearless (Immune to suppression), Unshakable (Makes the wearer immune to knockback)
The heaviest armour for the Tyrant, this also damages any melee enemies that dare attack you. So not only can you shrug off lightly armoured swarms with ease, you have enough armour to go toe-to-toe with the bigger enemies.

So after browsing the collection of deadly weapons and abilities that the Tyrant has, now we can see how they work in sync to devour your enemies.

Tyrant Builds

So, now to find out how all those pieces of Wargear fit together to make your Tyrant into an unstoppable force that will domainte the battlefield.

The Shield Tyrant

• Behmoth Claw OR Crushing Talons
  
• Thornback Carapace OR Poison Cysts
  
• Warpfield
  
• Pyschic Scream
  
• Anything
  
• Synapse

This is the tankiest build for the Tyrant, as you can effectively take barely any damage for most of the game. The trick is keep your shield on at all times, having the damage dealt to you, and then use Pyschic Scream to further weaken your enemies, meaning nothing will have the capacity to do any real damage to you. Played right, you can eaisly survive right up to wave 20 on both maps.

The Cystrant

• Anything
  
• Poison Cysts
  
• Genestealers
  
• Bio-Feedback
  
• Anything
  
• Synapse

A really fun build, this focuses on spamming masima all the time, and also becoming invincible for most of the game. Since Maisma stacks, you can keep poisoning the ground until anything that comes into melee range of you dies within seconds. Also, with Genestealers and Bio-Feedback, you can just keep resummoning them as fast as the cooldown allows, meaning you can almost have constant invincibility.

The Minionsitter

• Crushing Talons OR any ranged weapon
  
• Bonded Exoskeleton
  
• Any Minion
  
• Any Minion
  
• Anything
  
• Evolution

This build focuses totally on your minions, and trying to ensure their surivial while they wreak everything in sight. In my opinion, a Ravener with Tyrant Guard support works really well together, as the Ravener can shoot anything it wants while the Guard tanks. But really, any combination will work, just ensure you keep out of trouble, as you aren't that strong compared to your minions.

The Rapener

• Enlarged Scything Talons
  
• Anything
  
• Ravener
  
• Toxin Sacs
  
• Implant Attacks
  
• Evolution

This build will absoluty destory everything on the map with ease, and you dont even have to do anything. Simply find a spot to hide, summon your Ravener, and watch as it proceeds to one-shot almost anything it can see. Just like before though, you are relatively weak, so keep out of trouble.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a complete guide to the Hive Tyrant. As I said before, these are the builds I have found effective during my playtime, and I'm sure there are many others I haven't tried.

Quench your everlasting Hunger, by consuming every living thing that stands against you. And it doesn't matter if you die, the Hive Mind has many, many, many more just like you.

[Dridore]

for lower levels, the Extended Carapace works best (bio plasma only costs 10 energy and provides good aoe damage, the toxin sacs also applies on it, making it very strong)

[Dridore]

favorite ability is psychic scream since it reduces damage by 75% of regular attacks (damage reduction doesnt apply on heavy ones) and you also get a bonus +25%.
one thing to note is that for some reason, Gabriel Angelos is immune to the scream :p
genestealers are great since they reduce armor, allowing builds without the use of toxin sacs so that clone wave isnt a problem since clones have more hp and damage (toxin sacs does 10% of max hp)

my build:
-Behemoth Claw
-Articulated Carapace
-Genestealer Nest
-Psychic Scream
-Explosive Decomposition
-Evolution

[SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE]

when using the full melee tank build. You should always keep your shield off and turn it on after you are lower on health. Your energy doesn't regenerate while the shield is active but your health does.

Turn it on when you're half health
You continue to block hits and regenerate health
Turn it off when you're full health to regenerate your energy.

[biggiejv]

first time I used the Minion version me and 2 others beat the Anvil

[Castedras]

If anyone is still using this guide or comes across it, crushing talons with ravener is a life saver, its rapid fire will heal you tremendously, as well as crushing claws giving you a 30% chance to do a special attack, id seriously recommend using the shield tyrant build listed above:

Crushing talons

Thornback carapace

Ravener Nest
Psychic Scream
Warp Field

Synapse

used correctly, you have a "medic" of sorts keeping your health up to save energy for your shield, psychic scream of course lowers the attack and defense of enemies in a large radius.

[Sergeant Adhemar]

hive tyrant go brrr

[=M.D= Lion]

very nice, love the cystrant.

Any chance of a Necron guide?

[#Toast]

Take Tyrant Guard with Bonded Exo and Evolution for tanking and damage, Ravener with Toxin Sacs for DPS, paired with the Devourer Cannon on yourself and it'll be easy, only if you have teammates that can back you up of course. What I do is respawn the Guard when I think Im going to aggro an enemy. Most of the time the Guard will use his Taunt ability on whatever attacks you, which is nice too.

[John190_homicidal_maniac]

Hi there. I was thinking if you can make Necron Overlord and Lord General guide?
Sincerely John.

[Manperor of Mankind]

When playing the Tank-Tyrant, pick Thornback Carapace, Behemoth Claws + the 30% extra damage.
Do NOT pick the poison cysts, the miasma damage is nothing compared to the damage enemies will be dealing to themselves as soon as they attack you. You can literally walk through smaller hordes and instakill them. Absolutely broken. :D