Gunship Build: Decimator Platform (Easy 4000 Rifts)

Or how I stopped worrying about doing difficult content and you can, too.

Build Summary

The idea is simple: we take hardest-hitting ship out there, equip it with most overpowered weapon we can find (which is still usable), cram as much overpowered stuff as possible on top of it, then we shoot things dead.
Blunt as brick, I know, but it works - 3 pillar incursions are a joke, 8 step altar bosses melt in 15 seconds, 2000 lunacy is walk in the park and 4000 is simple as long as you won't go too crazy with mutators and won't get too unlucky with enemy spawns.

This build is completely viable without Wrath of the Ancients DLC. Some things are nice to have though.

Note that I constantly update small things across the guide, as I farm and test which is better.

Perks and Ship Passives

Perks:

5: Exit Strategy. Close Call will kind of work too, but it is less valuable.
10: Downtime Warrior. Energy will be huge concern for this build, so less you use the better.
15: Relentless. Once again, energy is a problem.
20: Unyielding Assault. Alternatively you can use Critical Faculty or Ulterior Motive for more offensive ULT use (and latter works better in my experience), but you will lose the way to use it defensively which may save you some runs.
25: Exploitation. There is nothing else worth taking in this tier anyway.
30: Symphony of Destruction. It's OP.

Additionally, make sure you've fully leveled Delia's Energy Orbs perks. It will be critical for this build viability.

Ship Passives:

Overall they are not too important, but some are better than the others. Below are ones that I use.

- "20% increased armor repair per kill." Always useful.
- "15% increased boost speed." Same, also you will get hit less.
- "Coil Gun Turret." It seem to be the most accurate, so good for extra damage.
- "When hull is 50% or lower, gain 40% hull damage reduction." Will probably save your run someday.

Devices and consumables

1. Teleporter because sometimes you need that mobility. Basic mode because alternative ones are... questionable and Scurry will be actually bad for this build.
2. Temporal Nano Recompensator with Resurgence. Just as "oh sh*t" button if you go too low on your armor.
3. Nano Transmitter with Carefree Package. Try to use it on cooldown.
4. Missile Defense System with Retention. Same, use on cooldown.

Consumables - Damage Booster and Energy Injector. First is self-explanatory, second is here to never let you stop firing if something goes wrong.
You can switch Energy Injector for Armor Repair Kit if you are pretty comfortable without it.

Weapons and Modules

I'll cover non-weapon modifiers in "Necessary stats and priorities" section later.
Remember that there are two types of catalysts - first change item name, like "Tuned", second do not. On items with prefix, installing catalyst of first type will remove prefix effect to replace it with catalyst, while installing catalyst of second type will add effect without removing old one. That's why I recommend finding item with specific prefix in the first place.

Advice on re-rolling attributes: Some attributes are way more rare than the others, for example "+damage on Ancients". Start by getting them first, then lock them and re-roll the rest of the way.

Primary weapon:

Your main (and essentially the only) gun is Bloodstar Decimator. I recommend finding Starforged or Ascended with Rapid (or at least Powerful) prefix from the box, then adding Evolution catalyst on it.
Modifiers it should have, in order of priority:
- "Damage is increased by 5% every second fire is held up to a maximum of 100%." That's why we are here mostly.
- "20% increased damage against Ancients and Ancient-controlled units". Everything is Ancient in endgame, so it is great.
- "20% more damage when exposed to sunlight". Actually I doubt that this modifier exist in game or work on autocannons, because I never saw it. Or maybe it is this rare. Anyway, it is good.
- "Critical hits have a 40% chance to recharge weapon energy by 2%". Decimator chew through energy rapidly, so every way to keep it flowing is important.
- "1% chance to slow target by 50% with each hit for 3 seconds." It is only 1% for autocannons, but still good.

If you still have space (due to Evolution catalyst and Ascended item), those are alright:
- "10% of kinetic damage bypasses the shield." 75% of Decimator damage is kinetic, that completely disappear when you shoot shield. With this modifier, 7.5% of your DPS will be applied to enemy hull directly, which is decent chunk of damage. And you will shoot shielded enemies a lot.
- "Non-critical hits increase the chance of a critical hit by 2% until a critical hit is made." Actual increase is about 4% critchance, which is not much, but it's what we have left.
- "Killing an enemy temporarily increases this weapon's damage by 1% up to 25% for 8 seconds". Can't say no to more damage, but 1%... yeah.

Other primary weapons:

You should have Bloodstar Repeater and Vigilante Executioner, both Starforged. Everything else on them is not important, they are here for set bonuses.

Secondary weapon:

High-Capacity Destabilizer Missiles, Starforged or Ascended. Put Dual Detonator catalyst on Ascended version for extra destabilization.
Modifiers it should have, in order of priority:
- "On primary weapon critical hit: 20% chance to fire a free missile at the locked target. 1.5s cooldown. 60% reduced damage / effect."
- "Lock duration decreased by 80%."
- "Cannot be intercepted."
- "20% chance to refund ammo when firing."

Other secondary weapon:

Vigilante Jury, Starforged. Again, everything else about it is not important, outside of one thing: it should not have a "On primary weapon critical hit: 20% chance to fire a free missile..." modifier, so you could switch to these missiles when fighting Ancient Wardens. They will blink rapidly all over the battlefield away from chasing missiles, so you shouldn't shoot one on them, even accidentally.

Energy Core:

Bloodstar FFT Core, Starforged. Both for set bonus and extra output on Bloodstar weapons, as well as okay boost output. Optimized prefix is best, install Attribute Amplification catalyst on top. If you go for Ascended item - Ambient Collector catalyst will be good, because usually non-shielded enemies instantly disappear and shieded enemies just instantly restore your energy.

Shield:

SH-8495, Radiant with Chaos catalyst. This thing is broken. Let me show it step by step:
1. Normal SH-8495 give 10% chance to ignore incoming enemy per enemy close, up to 6 stacks. That's total of 60%.
2. Radiant SH-8495 give 12% chance to ignore incoming enemy per enemy close, up to 6 stacks. That's total of 72%.
3. Chaos catalyst shuffle all item attributes, and SH-8495 have exactly three: effect range, chance and amount of stacks. It means that range can go up to 1200m, chance can go up to 14%, and amount of stacks can go up to 7. That's total of 98%. Oops, we broke the game.
Unfortunately, you are not guaranteed lucky or even decent rolls with Chaos, re-rerolling or upgrading items to Ascended (which give them extra prefix). Most I've got was 91% total, which is already broken enough. So put on your luckiest shoes and prepare to waste lots of resources on getting this right, because it is your most important defensive item.
As far as I've figured out, there is no real randomness in that - you can savescum all you want, but every time modifiers on each particular reroll attempt with be exactly the same. So you have to either invest resources, or find yourself another item (even if it looks exactly the same and have same prefixes, it will produce it's own reroll results).
IMPORTANT NOTE: Installing Hexaspatial catalyst on current game version will remove Chaos catalyst effects on item, forcing you to redo the roulette again. So I suggest either installing Hexaspatial first; or finishing the storyline with some other shield and ditching the Hexaspatial completely, which actually won't hurt you much. Things die too fast.

Plating:

Opulence Ornate Plating, Starfoged, Optimized prefix with Attribute Amplification catalyst. It will give you 100% extra armor if you have at least one million credits in your pocket, giving you hillarious amount of armor, above 100k. And it is important for item set.
If you go Ascended, you can try Nanoweave catalyst which will cut your armor by half but will make it regenerate by itself.
Also, I tried Resonant Integrity Field but it felt like it didn't play well with SH-8495, essentially overriding the effect. I was taking way more damage than I was supposed to, so probably better not use it.

Sensor:

Redemption Dogmatic Scanner, Starforged, Optimized prefix with Attribute Amplification catalyst. It is here for slowing targets on critical hits, which is still very powerful.

Booster:

Opulence Deluxe Booster, Starforged, Optimized prefix with Attribute Amplification catalyst. Mostly here for set bonus.
You can go for Ascended with PCM Heat Sink catalyst, but only if you need it for set bonus. It is not that useful by itself.

Cargo Unit:

Opulence Treasury Unit, Starforged, Optimized prefix with Attribute Amplification catalyst. You can also go with Auto-Dismantler - Rare catalyst until you start doing very high level rifts, to save yourself few minutes of dismantling trash.

Necessary stats and priorities

Stat priority is as follows:

Firepower=Precision>Expertise>Structure>Resistance>Utility.

Your sensor must have "Autocannons do 20% increased damage" modifier.

I recommend not going above 4000 in any particular stat (4300ish in Precision for that 2.0x critical hit damage, I believe that it is not rounded so works as a threshold), because diminishing returns make it not worth it. Once you hit those numbers, I suggest going for other stats.

It might be useful to have +handling on cargo unit or booster to make dogfighting slightly easier.

"4% increased primary weapon damage" is always useful. "10% increased destabilized damage" is very strong, probably should use it everywhere. "5% reduced weapon energy consumption" may help with energy consumption problem, if it's bad for you.

Using Ascended stuff will make you lose part of Opulence bonus, but will let you get more modifiers to make up for it. I'm still not sure if it's worthy trade-off, but at the very least you can leave Starforged Repeater, Executioner and Jury in your build to keep 6% bonus.

As a side note, 4 piece Ascended set bonus do not seem to be worth chasing. While your insane armor will give insane kinetic damage to orbs, you have no shield so orbs will do exactly nothing to shielded enemies.

But if you go for it, I suggest making all your primary weapons Ascended and putting both available ascended catalysts on them to get the set bonus. It will be also worth it to ditch the Oplulence set then; I suggest using Munition Motor as thruster and Coulomb Collector as cargo unit, to further reduce your chances of runnnig out of energy and utilizing that thruster bonus to indirectly improve your damage.

Cosmetics

Gunship is bigboi and takes a lot of screenspace, which is not good for your situational awareness and performance. It is kind of not a big deal of course, but I suggest making your ship as small as possible and painting it unobtrusive color.

For modules I use Type-2 cockpit, Type-F front, Liberator I wings and Type-4 Rear. Eerie Black, Stardust, Stardust paint.

Combat tactic

You break in, use teleporter to close distance, and start killing things dead. Rinse, repeat until done.

Never stop boosting to make use of Bloodstar raid set, your defensive perk and moving to dodge incoming fire. Try not to EVER stop firing to make use of your Decimator modifier. If you run low on weapon energy, use Energy Booster. Fly through enemy wrecks to get energy orbs to restore your energy. Use Damage Booster whenever you feel like it, save one for boss.

Prioritize enemies, try to go for slow armored ones first. Decimator is bad at hitting shielded targets; besides, large tough enemies make better Symphony of Destruction explosions.

If enemy got slowed down, then it's already dead due to getting all the critical hits. And his friends are also dead due to Symphony of Destruction.

Always lock target you fire upon to make the Vigilante set work, and to fire Destabilizer missiles on them.

Fire your missiles manually, but not all of them. Missile Defence System will replenish them, so use accordingly, save some for later.

Use Missile Defense System and Nano Transmitter on cooldown. Use Temporal Nano Recompensator if you get hit badly (which might be a single hit in high level rifts despite your armor).

Either use your ULT on cooldown for extra damage, or if you feel like it's getting hot - activate it for few seconds to restore 50% of armor, then turn off so it could recharge faster.

If you see boss, just unload your Decimator and missiles all at once until it's dead. Should take about 15 seconds for Altar boss (including invulnerability phase, do keep mind of it), because infinite stacking of destabilization bring your damage from "insane" levels all the way up to celestial planes of "WTF?".

Mutators that may break your run in Ancient Rifts:

- "Highly unstable Burst Bulbs will spawn in the area, and grow and explode in a 3000m radius if not destroyed in time". You will probably have other things to worry about other than some tiny bubbles that's outside of your range and will kill you if left unattended. Those other things being enemies trying to kill you and which you have to shoot in order to not get flushed.
- "Enemies deal area damage on death.". Modifier itself is generally beneficial to you, but getting caught in chain explosion will send you home.
- "Enemies cannot be target-locked". Here goes most of your damage. Really shouldn't try it in 4000 rifts, even if you should be able to gun things down in lower rifts anyway.
- "A random system is overheated for 10s, every 10s" AFAIK it will impact the efficiency of SH-8495, getting you killed in a blink. Also it will force your weapons to stop firing every 10 seconds, and we don't want that.

Conclusion

I will not say that it is the best build out there, feel free to experiment. I also hold no responsibility of devs hitting parts of it (or all of it) with nerfbat, but let's hope for the best.

As a side note, this build should work on Interceptor, too. You will be somewhat more prone to sudden oneshots, but damage you do might be even more crazy. Since it might work better with different weapons and perks, I might do a separate guide for it, if I ever will get to playing with it. Feel free to make one yourself.

Please leave feedback in comments.